Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Batteries not included of course...

Robert Reich debunks some lies while making some sense, an interesting method to learn a language, and some seriously scary shit... when was the last time you inspected your rig?

Not too long ago I was discussing backup power scenarios with a boat friend who was trying to sort out a method to have a fail-safe system that in case his battery bank died, generator failed, solar cells blew off and his wind generator lost its blades, he'd still be able to keep his important 12-volt systems ticking over...

As I recall, many various and (mostly) expensive plans were floated from a spare genset to a completely separate and autonomous system.

Of course, the fear of being powerless is somewhat primal and I can certainly understand that having some sort of backup system makes sense and even allows one to sleep a bit better which is no bad thing.

My answer to the power backup system may not be for everyone but I'm pretty sure it will work for me. So, just in case you're interested, here's the key...

It's a battery holder for eight AA batteries which provides 12 volts...



Yowza!

It's not as cheap as I'd like (but nothing is, is it?) at $2.95, but for under $30 you can buy ten of them which, used with some thought, could run the needful stuff on most boats so you could get where you needed to. Adafruit has them if you feel like picking up a few...

Admittedly there is some cobbling that will need to be done to make it all work. I'll need to add Anderson Power Poles to the battery holders and the key systems I need to keep running but as I had been planning on using Power Poles on all instruments and important systems, this is no biggie. You'd also need some batteries and a AA charger (I'm thinking solar for this) but that is grist for another post...

Listening to the Isley Brothers

So it goes...