Living Off Grid Self Sustainable Living

Saving on voltage; We moved from a 5th wheel camper into the garage converted into a studio. The garage was wired for 12volt and 110. To save on energy we use as many low voltage items as we can. For entertainment a portable car DVD player. Plug in the car adapter and you are set. As we researched for more 12 volt items we found TV’s with inverters from 110 to 12. With no reception on the mountain our only entertainment could be DVD’s. As our luck holds out I had friends that record TV shows and loaned them to us. The handy RED BOX in town gave us access to new release movies. I jointed Block Busters to get movies in the mail. It is amazing what you can rent on line from TV shows, documentaries and of course movies. There are so many choices out there you just have to research every thing. If you have a good internet connection you can stream movies. Access to the internet is a great asset for research and to down load entertainment. From music, TV, documentaries and much more. There are many places you can go to access the internet, the library or coffee shops. We download on an external hard drive, plug it into a Western Digital (converts into a TV single) into our 12 volt TV. Amazingly the WD also runs on 12 volts. Look on the plug-in to see if there is a converter. It should read AC/DC adapter, MODEL , INPUT 100-240V 12A 50.60Hz, OUTPUT 19V == 2.15A 50.60 Hz. Learning to read the plug-ins for your devices is a good way to manage how much power you are using for each item. You would be amazed to see how much power it takes just to make toast. Un plug or shut off every thing in your house. Turn on your toaster and go out side and look at your pg&e meter. It can really make you think about how much power is being used that you don’t even notice. Many appliances even when not in use are burning electricity. We bought a small inverter connected it to the battery bank. The inverter has two plug ins and a usb plug. Charging cell phones, ipods and running small devices. Before we got the inverter we made a 12v plug-in for the 12v outlet in the house. One end plugs into the house wall and the other end is a cigarette lighter plug in just like in your car. This is how we charged the mini DVD player and cell phones before. We also made plug-ins for the low amp devices to run directly on our 12v system, bypassing the 110v converter on the original plug for the tv. So, we did not have to run 110v power to run a 12v item saving power.

Electric calculations

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-ohm.htm

This is a great WEB site for electric calculations. Electric Current

Electricity and Electric Charge ● Formulas and Calculations ●

You are going to need to calculate your power usage to estimate how many batteries you will need.