Workshop In An Alternate Homepower Environment

[Morris Dovey]

| On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:19:28 -0500, "Morris Dovey" | wrote: | ||| None of that would give any hint of what actually failed in the ||| field and flooded out the end customer or anything similar. ||| For that you'd need to know what went wrong, not just ||| how to make it cheaper. || || Of course. Did the paragraphs following the one you quoted make it || to your server? If not: | | They made it but did not seem to be on that issue. | Perhaps you had to be there?

Oops. Sorry, I may have assumed too much. Customer service call center operators take calls from customers (and sometimes from dealers) when there's either a problem or a how-to issue. Maytag's call center had several hundred people and these operators seemed to have been more knowledgable than I'd expected, given the number of products and models supported.

Cost seemed to be a secondary consideration to these people. Their mission (/their/ mission if not the corporation's) was to resolve any issues to the satisfaction of the customer. If/when they thought the issue was a consequence of design, even if the use was unusual, they weren't bashful about letting the R&D group know about it. I think part of their motivation was "Golden Rule" and part of it was workload reduction (fewer future service calls for the same problem). Although I didn't have a lot of contact with CS, I'm aware that even when the problem was something the customer had done wrong (there actually /are/ people who'll put a half box of detergent in with a single load of clothes!) they tried to make a follow-up call sometime /after/ problem resolution to verify satisfaction.

CS isn't a cost reducing function. More usually it adds cost - since they provide the information leading to engineering changes for released products. I'm not aware of any instance where their input ever led to making the product cheaper. I suppose it could happen, but I didn't see it.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Robert Bonomi]

depends on how you qualify it. biggest town in the state. pop. circa 250K

*snicker*

It was _unexpected_. I hadn't asked for it.

It wasn't big bucks either. 30+ years ago, now, so I don't have any precise recollection of amount -- but I'm pretty sure it was under $20. An apartment, in summertime -- without A/C -- and with a gas stove, doesn't use a lot of power.

[Robert Bonomi]

Are you familiar with "Ohm's Law"?

If the _resistance_ is a fixed value, guess what happens to the current (amps) when the voltage goes up.

[Robert Bonomi]

[[.. munch ..]]

I was there. You weren't. Your claim is bullsh*t.

Note: I didn't even _ask_ for that credit. They did it all by themselves.

Note: this was more than 30 years ago. And in a territory with a strong and active regulatory agency. And a state Attorney General that *really* hated that particular utility company -- they had previously *sued* him, requesting that the court grant order him to 'cease and desist harassment', no less.

[John P Bengi]

Motor based appliances are not fixed resistances. As the voltage goes down the current goes up to achieve the same horsepower and the same RPM

[Too_Many_Tools]

"The subject is 'workshop in an alternate homepower environment', but it has degenerated to YAWVGM (yet-another-wayne-versus-geor=ADge-match). ..."

I am glad that someone remembers....thanks to all those who contributed positively to this thread so far.

If you have more to contribute on subject, please feel free to offer it.

Thanks in advance,

TMT

[wmbjk]

Here's a sample day's work (yesterday's) in an off-grid workshop. The project was building the last 2 of 5 scissor trusses for a friend's aircraft hangar. All material was scrap - chords of 2" and 1.5" schedule 40 pipe. Long braces from T posts, shorter ones from 5/8" sucker rod. Most of the material was cut a few days ago. I wore out 3 chop saw blades (medium quality ones) which should give you an idea of run time. The trusses are 40' wide, but built in halves. Each half took about 30 minutes to lay out and prep, including about 15 minutes use of a 4" side grinder. Then 26 welds per side, flip, another 26 welds. Layout, prep, and welding - about one hour total per half, with a long break between each one to cool off. I built 4 halves, about 100 minutes welding for the day. I didn't check the current draw, but the machine was set at 280 inches per second, 18 Volts, with .035" solid wire. Perhaps 5kW input. Charging rate was medium, there was good sun, but almost no wind, which was nice because I could leave the shop doors open. When I quit for the day, my wife commented that battery state of charge had dropped 6 Amp hours, and that she'd used the AC in the office for a couple of hours. On this project, like most others here, there wasn't any penalty for being off-grid, which is way cool IMO.

Wayne

[Arnold Walker]

They don't always have a IC engine on board for the compressor... Some recompress themselves with exhaust air,then heat the air recovered in the boiler.

Many mine trains also run on air since sparks can be deadly in the right environment. They usually are either diesel air or stored air trains.

[George Ghio]

Ah Wayne, it looks like your saying 5kW for 1.6 hours and claiming that it equates to 6 amp hours.

Would you like to refrase that amd perhaps look at the maths.

You use of units may be suspect. And your numbers would suggest that you can only work when the sun is out.

5Kw input for 1.6 hours at 24V looks suspiciously like 333Ah.

[wmbjk]

I started at about 8AM, and I finished up at about 4PM. During that time, 2000 Watts of tracked PV was doing its job, along with a tiny bit of help from 1300 Watts of wind generator in the AM. Duh!

Even after all your pathetic nonsense, I'm still astonished that with your claimed 20 years of experience, that you need such simple concepts explained to you. Haven't you learned *anything*? How the hell can you function? As usual, whatever you do, don't admit that you just wrote perhaps *the* biggest blunder of your Usenet career, or apologise for it. But if you had one iota of shame, you'd go stand in the corner for the next 20 years.

BTW, in your haste to act the fool, you failed to notice an actual mistake - that I wrote "inches per second" wire speed when I should have written inches per *minute*. Can't you do *anything* right?

Wayne

[George Ghio]

We now know that you have 2000 watts of PV and 1300 Watts of wind.

Actual PV & wind production numbers, Watt hours will do.

Do you even know what was produced and used during that day?

If, and it is a big if, you in fact were producing energy at the rated output for say 6 hours of the day which would be on the order of 19.7kWh and you drew another 144Wh from the batteries, well you can see the problem. You say 5kW input. Your numbers are vague at best.

Please, just once in your life try to bring some truth to your numbers.

Well lets see. All you had to do was account for the numbers you used.

5kW input wonderful. Yes I made a mistake, I used 100 minutes when in fact you meant 8 hours. Sorry. So this would be 5kW for 8 hours which is of course 40kWh which is 1666.66 Amp hours. Is this your wonderful two days autonomy at work.

Now Wayne would you like to account for the energy you used in a coherent manner? 5kW or 5kWh? Do you know the difference?

The biggest blunder - YOURS.

Who cares about inches per minute or seconds. What does the welder draw in watts? How many amps, what material thickness, how much penetration?

Or are we still talking about your hot melt glue gun.

It is easy to tell when you are out of your depth. The deeper you are the more you foam at the mouth.

Your numbers do not add up. You now have another chance to explain your numbers. So wipe your nose and the foam off your chin, get out your calculator, and make some sense of your numbers.

George

[Me]