Solar panels, batteries, offgrid living and my brain

 OK this is a post to help me consolidate my thoughts.  I have many different competing priorities and guidelines and many different directions to go.

Goals

• Spend least amount of money possible
• acquire hardware that is reliable and won't cause issues or need replacing
• Provide power while camping off grid to charge phones, batteries for lights, and run CPAP at night
• Provide power to the house without the need for a generator in the occurrence of power outage at my house.
• This includes necessities like
• Freezer
• Fridge
• Network Equipment
• CPAP
• Lights
• heating or cooling
• And nice to haves like
• Computer
• TV
• Cable Box

The pieces of the puzzle I'm currently evaluating

• Battery for power storage
• Solar panels for power generation
• Charge controller to optimize power genration and power storage
• Inverter to turn DC power into AC power so things that can't run on DC can function
• Primarily appliances like 
• stove
• fridge
• freezer

Things already in place

• A solar array consisting of 17 panels combined with an inverter to power my house, it is configured with a grid interconnect allowing me to supplement my household usage with solar power meaning most of my "electricity bill" is in the form of a lease fee to Sunnova
• A 2nd solar array consisting of 13 panels each with a micro-inverter to supplement the first system
• A slightly damaged Group 27 lead-acid deep cycle RV battery bought at Costco a few years ago
• A super cheap (but still over $100) pure sine wave inverter purchased from amazon a few years ago       
• A roadside emergency jumper/inflate pump with some sized battery in it that is several years old
• A lithium ion 18650 array of batteries with battery balance board that provides in the ballpark of 14AH at 12V
• 3 Separate UPS units providing short term power for my computer, my sons' computers and one of the printers that complains the most about losing power.
• A UPS unit in the networking cabinet that provides power to the core switch and router as well as a couple of switches in the house powered via POE, it provides about 15 minutes of power.
• A plug in hybrid car that has a 17KWH battery pack in it accessible at 12V through the engine battery
• A very loud generator that will run for around 9 hours on a gallon-ish of unleaded fuel, but needs to be outside because of noise and pollution and is not wired into the house at all.

The PV system on the house does not include any sort of batteries so it is of no help in this scenario. The car only helps if I get a good enough inverter.  The current inverter won't run the fridge, but will run my computer, or a fan as long as the battery has power in it of course.

Other considerations

• CPAP uses about 1 amp hour ever hour so I need an amp hour of battery for every hour of sleep I want, and since most batteries can't actually be drained to empty I really need 2 amp hours so as to only ever use 50%.
• other things that aren't coming to the right now

We are scheduled to go camping this weekend so I need a solution by Wed. night.

If I change nothing what will happen is likely this

    I'll take all the existing batteries and the group 27 battery will last a night, hopefully and the Lithium Ion battery will last a night, perhaps 2.  I will have no way to charge those batteries without solar, and the generator would be noisy and stinky.  We will also use the battery to inflate our air mattress which shouldn't be a lot of power but is at least 1 more thing to be aware of.  If I end up working on a project up there I will need power for power tools like saw, drill and maybe vacuum cleaner?

But projects done during the day could be adequately provided for by the generator and any cordless tools could be charged on that.

I could potentially buy a bigger battery but it is still a finite resource.  I really like the idea of a solar panel set keeping it topped off day by day, but that gets super complicated, with multiple choices around wattage, company, portability, how much do you allow for future expansion and I'm done struggling with it, I'm ready to just say "the heck with it, it'll be what it'll be and we'll deal"

*heavy sigh*

Cleanliness and laziness

 So the house is empty of people except myself.  This is the new norm, M,W,F my boys go to the YMCA summer camp and my wife works from the office.  There is still no word on when I need to start working in the office again.  To be fully transparent, this doesn't bother me.

So I walk through the house devoid of any human life but my own and I see all the things that are "out of place".  This gets me thinking.  Well actually I'm always thinking, this starts me down a particular path of thought.

What's /your/ threshold?  At what point do you pick up the roll of tape on the garage floor that fell there a week ago? At what point do you wipe all the stuff off your desk top and try and find a home for all the things that have collected there over the last few months?  Is it when you have time? Is it when your mother-in-law is coming over?  Is it when the carpet cleaner is coming over?

In the last year I've studied (meaning I've read some articles or blog posts and watched some TedX talks) ADHD and procrastination.  I see some of those traits in myself and I'm striving for balance.  The part of me that wants everything to have a place and everything to be in that place, the part of me that wants complete and total order, struggles with the part of me that doesn't wish to devote every waking minute to the task of creating and maintaining that order. My father once admitted to me that he wished my mother was a more aggressive (my words not his) house keeper. At whatever stage of my life this was, it caught me off-guard I had always assumed, based on nothing at all, that it was my mother who defined the level of cleanliness at which the house was kept. Maybe because my mother was tasked with caring for my brother and me during the day. ("Brother and me" feels wrong but it wouldn't' make sense for mom to be raising I)

I was talking with a friend about a camping trip my family recently enjoyed.  We discussed how it was so much better than a stay-cation because we didn't have the constant reminders of things that needed doing, or might be a good idea to do, or would be nice if it got done.

So back to walking thought my house.  On my desk, the desk at which I work, Play, Research, and otherwise use my computer, there are toys, wires, battery chargers, Amiibos, papers, tools, speakers, parts of projects, stuffed animals and plushies, some cleaners, and a whole variety of writing implements. On the floor of my Den/Office there are various children's toys, papers, boxes, some more tools, and some clothes I swear I've asked my children to pick up at least 10 times.  In the Hallway there is almost nothing amazingly enough, but the living room floor has Legos, Nerf blasters, packaging from birthday presents, and a cat or 2.  

When I was a boy I struggled with the task of putting away left over food into storage containers. I had great anxiety over choosing the wrong sized container and having it be either too big and thus take up too much space in the fridge, or too small and thus create more dishes. I look back on that time of my life with longing, a time when the biggest problem I had was taking up too much space in the fridge or making more dishes, seriously that would be so nice right now.

My sons both HATE putting away dishes, but for different reasons.  One son doesn't wont to do it because it takes time away from whatever impulse he wants to follow at that moment.  The other is anxious about in which drawer to put the various utensils.

Does this mean I need to define more clear structure for at least one of them?  Does he not do what he's told because he is unsure the best way to do it and therefore is afraid to do it at all? I can certainly identify with that problem.

I have, for a few years now, identified myself as someone who has a low threshold for discomfort. I spent a significant amount of time and money trying to solve problems that aren't problems, that most people would just keep on handling in their current state. But then I get stuck in analysis-paralysis where I try and figure out the very best way to do something and I can't ever abort and accept "good-enough" so I end up making things worse, at least for a little while.

I have a nearly permanent sense that there is something else I should be doing, some way I should be doing things better, some activity that would be a better use of my time, that something I'm forgetting will come back to haunt me. This has happened, not nearly as much as I'm afraid it would but enough to reinforce this state.  One year I didn't pay for the car registration until I got the 2nd notification that I had failed to pay it and I would be charged a late fee. I have this belief that I used to be better than this, I have vivid memories of paying bills immediately and filing them in a filing cabinet in hanging folders. I haven't done that for a few years now. And I'm not sleeping enough, so where is all my time going? Obviously I'm doing /something/ so what?

Why is the den a mess? Why doesn't the Teensy Grove breakout board not have a completed case? Why is the hot water line still flopping around on the wall in the garage? Why can't I use my workbench to work on? Why is the Softtub sitting empty in the back-yard with an unidentified leak? Why does the Winter Soldier, Wandavision, Season 3 of Castlevania, and Every other show I've been told I /must/ watch remain unwatched? Why does Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy XII remain un played? Why do the Molex pint remain uncrimped to test the function of the DC power supply I received? (this list goes on quite a ways but I think you get the point)

Why indeed. I know that an amazing amount of my time lately has been sunk into playing Minecraft.  Also there's the whole working 9 hours a day thing. Plus helping the church do its livestream on Sunday and Practice on Wed.  But that does not account for everything does it? Well, no, there's also parenting the children, spending time with my wife, cleaning up some, if not all, of the messes, laundry, dishes, shopping, swimming with the boys in the backyard, spending time with friends. Do I have too much to do in the time I have? Do I not balance my time properly?(well obviously not 100% or else there would be much less Minecraft) So who out there has this figured out? Who can tell me the way to live my life? God that's who, but I'm selfish, I still WANT to do the Minecraft and the TV watching, and the video game playing, I don't want to give up, apparently not even a little bit.

So am I being lazy leaving my house as it is? The house isn't dirty, it's just cluttered, I can find most of the things I need when I need them, and it's not MUCH of an obstacle course.

Time to take a step back and re-evaluate priorities.  Make a plan and stick with it. Isn't that what they say is the key to success?

That and prayer, lots and lots of prayer, would you pray for me? I'm feeling that I'm out of my depth here.

My weekend 6/13/2021

 Formatting takes time and I'm more of a stream of consciousness kind of person.  So this is going to be messy just a bunch of words typed out.

This weekend marked 12 years of marriage for me.  I've never done any thing for 12 years straight except maybe school.  I once told a friend congratulations on their anniversary and we ended up talking about how we celebrate birthdays far more than anniversaries.

We as human beings, animals in some ways, are programmed for survival, the number of folks who fail at suicide is staggering and it stems from our core belief that we should continue to survive.  So a birthday is the celebration of your birth, the congratulations that you've survived another year, that we're happy you're here for another trip around the sun.

But wedding anniversaries, those celebrate work, collaboration, to continue to continue to want to be married to someone and put in the effort to maintain that relationship.  That's an achievement worth celebrating.  So for 12 years now my wife and I have continued to make the effort to respect and love each other. It's pretty darn cool.

After a weekend at a B&B with just the 2 of us, wherein we celebrated by just being near each other in silence among other things.  We went and retrieved our children from Auntie's. We are blessed to have family that is willing to take our goblins for more than a few hours at a time. 

Then we got home and life came crashing back in.  The things that need to do, the things we want to do, chores, bills, and unexpected events.

So given the noise in my head, and the constant barrage of things requiring my attention, I have learned to cope by making lists.  Things that need doing, things that would be nice to get done but aren't a real priority.

With a weekend worth of time to disconnect from the constant barrage of stimuli I remembered many things that needed doing that I had forgotten, that hadn't made it onto a list.

Upon return to our house we discovered that Cayson's computer solid state drive had died.  Unlike a spindle drive which can slowly die and make clicking noises so you know it's going, a SSD apparently just dies, no warning, no indication just poof computer no longer recognizes that the drive is connected.  All his Minecraft worlds are gone with no way to get them back.  

So we took out the trash, we did laundry, we tidied the garage, we moved the hot tub back into the backyard and filled it back up

VMIX Compatible record light

• Disclaimer: I'm not an electric engineer, nor am I a technical writer I share my experiences in order to help others but while what I've done works I don't know if I've managed to miss a detail I don't know about.

Not only is this my first attempt at making a circuit board, it's also my first attempt at writing a how-to document.  I apologize if it is hard to follow, I am open to feedback on how to improve my presentation of information.

Goal: Create a light that turns on automatically when the record button is pressed in VMIX

Method: Using the Teensy 4.0 board to create a midi receiver a MOSFET power board handles providing power to an LED light.

The Parts:

• Teensy 4.0 Board Teensy 4.0 with pins from Amazon.com
• MOSFET capable of handling 12V switchable with 3.3 Example MOSFET Board from Amazon.com
• Power supply to power the light Example Power Supply
• LED Light Example Light
• PCB To tie it all together Through Hole PCB

The Tools:

• Soldering Iron
• Solder
• Tape

The Supplies:

• Some wires
• power connectors   
• Micro USB cable for the Teensy

The Theory:

The Teensy can act as a midi interface which allows one to capture the midi command from VMIX.  It works like an Arduino which means it can put a logic signal to its pins.  The MOSFET allows one to switch on a circuit at a higher voltage than the 3.3V the teensy provides. (In my case this was a 12V LED Light).  To make it all work together the power supply needs to be connected to the Input pins on the MOSFET board, the LED needs to be connected to the Output pins on the MOSFET board and the MOSFET board needs to be connected to the signal or gate pin on the Teensy.

Part 1: Assemble the parts

This was the part that was scariest for me because I am a novice at soldering at the board level.  Wires don't bother me, but through hole soldering was new to me.

I took my Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and clamped them in the set of helping hands my wife got me for Christmas. QuadHands I've seen videos of people using board vises or clamps and those seem better but I used what I had.

Step 1: was mounting the Teensy to the board.  I had bought the teensy that was factory mounted to some pins so this part was just a matter of taping the Teensy to the PCB and then touching my soldering iron to each pin, and waiting for the solder to flow into the hole.

Step 2: was mounting a 4 pin header that worked with the MOSFET board I had, again taped the header in place and applied heat and solder

Step 3: Attach the MOSFET board to the header, this didn't work with tape because the header ended up pushing the MOSFET board away from the PCB, I ended up using sticky tack to hold it in place  and again solder the MOSFET board to the header.

Step 4: Attach wires to convey electricity from the Teensy to the MOSFET

    This one was tricky because I needed the wires to stay in the holes while I applied solder, but I also needed the wires to be small enough to go into the holes. After many false starts I ended up bending the wire into place on the back of my PCB and taping it in place so that it stayed while I applied solder.  I picked pin 6 as my signal pin so I ran a wire from Pin 6 on the teensy to the gate pin on the MOSFET board, and another from the ground pin on the Teensy to the ground pin on the MOSFET board.

Optional: I tried to make my life easier by soldering a 2.1X5.5 Barrel jack to board(this is the type of connector on the sample power supply I linked).  Then I ran a wire from the board to the screw terminals on the MOSFET board.  This is not necessary but I thought it would be a nice touch.

Given full control of the components I would have a board made with the MOSFET board incorporated onto the main board without it being a shield connected via header.  And I'd have the Power jacks at each end for connecting power in and out.

Final: Attached a pigtail 2.1X5.5 Barrel Male connector to plug into the LED light.

Part 2: Set up the Teensy

This part gets hard.  Before I took on this project I played with Arduino and the Arduino IDE so I already had that installed on my computer.  I had to install some drivers on my windows 10 computer to get it to work properly.  Sadly that part was long ago so I don't have the step by step for that, but I'll provide some links that got me going.

• Teensy Getting Start First Use
• Teensy Boot Loader Loader
• Troubleshooting Guide TroubleShooting

Assuming I get notified I will be happy to offer what help I can in the comments but I mostly just used a search engine and forums to solve my problems until I could load my code onto my teensy board.

I used the "blink" sample sketch to test if all my connections were working.  and they were.  The only change I made was to change the pin from 13 to 6.

To Make it respond to VMIX I used the following code adapter from one of the samples provided by Teensy.

/* Receive Incoming USB MIDI by reading data.  This approach
   gives you access to incoming MIDI message data, but requires
   more work to use that data.  For the simpler function-based
   approach, see InputFunctionsBasic and InputFunctionsComplete.

   Use the Arduino Serial Monitor to view the messages
   as Teensy receives them by USB MIDI

   You must select MIDI from the "Tools > USB Type" menu

   This example code is in the public domain.
*/
int ledPin=6;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
  delay(400);                 // Blink LED once at startup
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}

void loop() {
  // usbMIDI.read() needs to be called rapidly from loop().  When
  // each MIDI messages arrives, it return true.  The message must
  // be fully processed before usbMIDI.read() is called again.
  if (usbMIDI.read()) {
    processMIDI();
  }
}

void processMIDI(void) {
  byte type, channel, data1, data2, cable;

  // fetch the MIDI message, defined by these 5 numbers (except SysEX)
  //
  type = usbMIDI.getType();       // which MIDI message, 128-255
  channel = usbMIDI.getChannel(); // which MIDI channel, 1-16
  data1 = usbMIDI.getData1();     // first data byte of message, 0-127
  data2 = usbMIDI.getData2();     // second data byte of message, 0-127
  cable = usbMIDI.getCable();     // which virtual cable with MIDIx8, 0-7

  // uncomment if using multiple virtual cables
  //Serial.print("cable ");
  //Serial.print(cable, DEC);
  //Serial.print(": ");

  // print info about the message
  //
  switch (type) {
    case usbMIDI.NoteOff: // 0x80
    if (data1==0x3C){
       digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);  // turns off LED
    }
      break;

    case usbMIDI.NoteOn: // 0x90
    if (data1==0x3C){
    digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // turns on LED
    }
      break;

    case usbMIDI.AfterTouchPoly: // 0xA0
      Serial.print("AfterTouch Change, ch=");
      Serial.print(channel, DEC);
      Serial.print(", note=");
      Serial.print(data1, DEC);
      Serial.print(", velocity=");
      Serial.println(data2, DEC);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.ControlChange: // 0xB0
      Serial.print("Control Change, ch=");
      Serial.print(channel, DEC);
      Serial.print(", control=");
      Serial.print(data1, DEC);
      Serial.print(", value=");
      Serial.println(data2, DEC);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.ProgramChange: // 0xC0
      Serial.print("Program Change, ch=");
      Serial.print(channel, DEC);
      Serial.print(", program=");
      Serial.println(data1, DEC);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.AfterTouchChannel: // 0xD0
      Serial.print("After Touch, ch=");
      Serial.print(channel, DEC);
      Serial.print(", pressure=");
      Serial.println(data1, DEC);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.PitchBend: // 0xE0
      Serial.print("Pitch Change, ch=");
      Serial.print(channel, DEC);
      Serial.print(", pitch=");
      Serial.println(data1 + data2 * 128, DEC);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.SystemExclusive: // 0xF0
      // Messages larger than usbMIDI's internal buffer are truncated.
      // To receive large messages, you *must* use the 3-input function
      // handler.  See InputFunctionsComplete for details.
      Serial.print("SysEx Message: ");
      printBytes(usbMIDI.getSysExArray(), data1 + data2 * 256);
      Serial.println();
      break;

    case usbMIDI.TimeCodeQuarterFrame: // 0xF1
      Serial.print("TimeCode, index=");
      Serial.print(data1 >> 4, DEC);
      Serial.print(", digit=");
      Serial.println(data1 & 15, DEC);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.SongPosition: // 0xF2
      Serial.print("Song Position, beat=");
      Serial.println(data1 + data2 * 128);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.SongSelect: // 0xF3
      Serial.print("Sond Select, song=");
      Serial.println(data1, DEC);
      break;

    case usbMIDI.TuneRequest: // 0xF6
      Serial.println("Tune Request");
      break;

    case usbMIDI.Clock: // 0xF8
      Serial.println("Clock");
      break;

    case usbMIDI.Start: // 0xFA
      Serial.println("Start");
      break;

    case usbMIDI.Continue: // 0xFB
      Serial.println("Continue");
      break;

    case usbMIDI.Stop: // 0xFC
      Serial.println("Stop");
      break;

    case usbMIDI.ActiveSensing: // 0xFE
      Serial.println("Actvice Sensing");
      break;

    case usbMIDI.SystemReset: // 0xFF
      Serial.println("System Reset");
      break;

    default:
      Serial.println("Opps, an unknown MIDI message type!");
  }
}


void printBytes(const byte *data, unsigned int size) {
  while (size > 0) {
    byte b = *data++;
    if (b < 16) Serial.print('0');
    Serial.print(b, HEX);
    if (size > 1) Serial.print(' ');
    size = size - 1;
  }
}

The Final Step is to set up VMIX to send a signal when record is hit.

This  uses the Activators section of VMIX.  

Open VMIX and click on the settings button for the application.

Then Click down onto Activators

Make sure Teensy is enabled by clicking on the Enable Devices button

 

Then on the activators page hit "Add"

On this screen a Note number needs to be provided that matches what was programmed into the Teensy.

Then under event set it to recording.

The trick that caught me offguard is that I needed to represent the pin in the code with hex, so while I typed 60 in the note field in VMIX I needed to type in 0x3C in the arduino code.

Connect the power supply to the proper screw terminals on the MOSFET and then connect the proper cables from your LED light to the out terminals and then when you hit record the light should come on.

ColorSwatches

Pen Color Web Approximations	Pen ID	Pen Swatch	Web Swatch	Closest Web Color	Color Family
IceBlue by David's Bridal				Maya	Blue
Ice Blue by Marker Supply				Baby Blue	Blue
Ice Green byColourLovers				Mint	Green
Ice Green				Jade	Green
Light Emerald				Mint	Green
Heliotrope				French Rose	Pink
Purple				Burgundy	Red
Prussian Blue				Space	Blue
Lemon Yellow				Yellow	Yellow
Light Flesh Tone				Pumpkin	Orange
Pink				Flamingo	Pink
Pale Vermilion				Orange	Orange
Pale Vermilion From Stabilo.com				Apricot	Orange
Light Blue				Olympic	Blue
Ultramarine				Egyptian	Blue
Ultramarine from stabilo.com				Yale	Blue
Light Green				Lime	Green
Light Green from Stabilo.com				Kelly	Green
Green from Stabilo.com				Sea	Green
Green				Forest	Green
Sanguine				Chili	Red
Sanguine from Stabilo.com				US Flag	Red
Light Red				Candy Apple	Red
Dark Blue				Sapphire	Blue
Leaf Green				Kelly	Green
Yellow				Tuscany	Yellow
Yellow from Stabilo.com				Tuscany	Yellow
Brown				Caramel	Brown
Brown from Stabilo.com				Cinnamon	Brown
Black				Charcoal	Grey
Black from Stabilo.com				Charcoal	Grey
Carmine				Red	Red
Carmine from Stabilo.com				Persian	Red
Dark Red				Fire Brick	Red
Turquoise Blue				Pine	Green
Turquoise Blue from Stabilo.com				Turkish	Blue
Turquoise Green				Forest	Green
Orange				Apricot	Orange
Violet				Grape	Violet
Rose				Magenta	Pink
Azure				Baby Blue	Blue
Lilac				Lollipop	Violet
Earth Green				Hunter	Green
Umber				Caramel	Brown
Sienna				Amber_2	Orange
Light Ochre				Apricot	Orange
Dark Ochre				Cider	Orange
Light Cold Gray				Pewter	Grey
Med Cold Gray				Seal	Grey
Dark Gray				Iron	Grey
Deep Cold Gray				Shadow	Grey
Payne's Gray				Anchor	Grey