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Building an off grid Maker Shop - The idea, the dream

KalebTheMaker

Hello and welcome to this new blog topic where I will post my journey through building an off-grid maker shop! There are several projects that need to be completed before I can build the shop, and that is what much of this blog series will be about. Here is a preliminary list of all the projects that will happen (with more added as time goes on, and not in order)

  • Large Solar Array (Probably in the range of 8-10kw, with 600Ah @ 48v of battery storage)
  • 1000' of large AWG wire run from power generation to shop/house
  • Micro Hydro power generation (There is a year-round creek through the property, and a seasonal creek with a waterfall)
  • Low power monitoring dashboard (Bank of LED's and switches rather than LCD screens to monitor valves, tanks, solar etc.)
  • Solar Monitoring Stations (Solar powered Arduino/Pi's for running sensors on different applications)
  • Mesh Network and or back-haul point to point network for above monitoring stations
  • Water Tank Level Sensors (These will be designed and fabricated. Total of 8 2500g tanks to monitor)
  • Local Voice Assistant (Possibly MyCroft - another interface to all available data from sensors)
  • Smart Home hub (Homeassistant?)
  • Water pumping Station & Automation (Need to pump from spring tanks to seasonal well tanks when they are low. solar, batteries, pump & automation)
  • Voltage and Current Sensors (For solar input, battery input/output)
  • Gate opener interface (Commercial gate opener, but possible LoRA remote, notifications at the house/shop of proximity/open. Motor Controller, web interface)
  • State of Charge Sensors (Battery Banks)
  • The Shop (40x80 steel building)

The Dream

This has been my dream for more than 10 years. To move away from the city and get back to my home county where I could build a home and dream shop to work and live. I grew up in a rural community and worked there for much of my adult life. I moved to a larger city for about 12 years for work and had some fun, made friends, and did quite a few really cool projects, but as time went on I realized I wanted to be in a smaller community with some property and my own shop. Living in the city, I had a decent home which was quite expensive, and had to rent shop space which was also expensive. The house just didn't have room for everything. That got to be too much, my kid was raised and out of the house and then COVID hit and I knew I wanted to get out of the city. I sold that home, packed up my shop, and rented a shop in a small town in my home county for less than I was paying for just my house. I lived in a 20x20 room with no insulation and a bathroom that was outside 200' away from the apartment. I have been living there for about 18 months while looking for a property where I could build this dream.

The Property

Over those 18ish months, I probably looked at 30-35 different properties. My requirements were some flat land for development, grid power, water and septic. From there I would develop what I need. I could find plenty of those properties, but almost none of them had much flat land for development. They were 10-40 acres with maybe .25ac of flat land to develop total. Nothing was meeting my requirements and the search was beginning to be a drag. 

One day a property came up in my search and I almost dismissed it because it was off-grid - No power, water, or septic from utility, no phone lines, no cable - nothing. But... It was only 15 minutes from town, only 2 miles of dirt road, and more water developed on the property than I could know what to do with. On top of that, it had a nice bathroom, a septic system, and a small cabin. I fell in love with it, negotiated like crazy, and got a really good deal on it. 

Its mine now and its called "Bonesnapper Ridge" (Named after my favorite cat Bonesnapper). Take a look at this map that I made so you can see where everything is, and where the new projects are proposed.

image

The Projects

Above is a preliminary list of projects that need to be done. I want to build as many of these as possible with as much open hardware and open-source software as I can manage. It may make sense to go commercial where the application is critical, such as solar power. But I will definitely take into consideration the company and its use of open-source in its solution.

In addition to the projects above, there are several more mundane projects that need to be done:

  • Quick remodel on the cabin so I have a place to live (Nearly done at the time of this post)
  • Install two shipping containers & build a roof over them so I have a place to move my shop tools. (Containers are there, and need to be leveled)
  • Move a mountain (clear trees and flatten out some space for the shop building pad) (90% complete at the time of this post)
  • Build a small temporary solar solution for minimal power. (Complete. Needs more panels, and relocation of panels.)
  • Build a large custom desk in the house so I have a place to sit and write these blogs and work on projects. (Computer, electronics, and fabrication stations)
  • Fireplace install (It's going to get cold!)

I won't bore you with these mundane projects (unless you want me to, let me know!), but I will be posting regularly on the main projects at the top of this post, and hopefully, make detailed videos of some of them.

The projects that have the highest priority right now are completing the mundane tasks so I can finish moving up there, Gate Opener/Closer, Large Solar Array, Micro Hydro, LED Monitoring Station, Tank Monitoring, and Automation.

Current Status

I've been at the property for almost two months now. I hired a guy to do a bunch of dirt work to clear space for the shop pad, and installed a small 200w solar power system so I can work up there. Starlink is installed, so I have really great (better than I have had at the rental) internet. I have done a remodel of the cabin so it is *mostly* livable, walls, floor, and ceiling remodeled. There is still no kitchen, plumbing, or electrical wiring in the house. But I am just pretending like I am camping up there. I am living up there full-time now and so far its been amazing!

That's it for now, I'll post thoughts and ideas, projects as they are being worked on, and most likely posts asking for assistance from all of you. I know there are some things on my list that I don't quite know how to do. So let me know what you think of all of this and stay tuned! LOTS more to come!

This is just the intro to this series. Be sure to check out all of the blogs and projects in the series on the Main Off-Grid MakerShop page. 

-Kaleb

Parents

  • "...So let me know what you think of all of this ..."

    Now this sounds awesome! Slight smile

    I notice that wind power and solar hot water didn't make it onto the preliminary list. I would have thought they would be fairly quick to set up in the short term to supplement solar?

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Hi Dave,

    I've only been there for about two months, mostly working during the days, and have only been sleeping up there for about a week. I have thought about wind power, but I have not been able to monitor the wind much yet to see if it will be viable. I may not need it, by my best guess I will get 6-7 hours of sunlight during the summer months, and 3.5-4 hours in the winter months. Adding in the hydropower from the year-round stream during the winter when that stream is really cooking, I should be able to generate somewhere between 350-1000w of power 24 hours a day. This is mostly speculation from seeing what other people have done with hydro on a small scale like this, but I am hopeful!

    But I will consider wind, I want as much power as I can generate! Just in the last week of staying up there with 200w of solar, it's not enough to run lights, charge a laptop, power Starlink, and have a small 12v ice chest. I think I am going to add another 200w of panels, and move them down the hill a bit to see if I can generate a bit more. I will make a post about that upgrade when I do it.

    For solar hot water, that is definitely an option, but the house is on a north-facing slope and I don't get much sun there, that's why one of the projects is a 1000' run of power from the solar farm to the house/shop. The solar farm is much further down the hill with a good south-facing view.

    -Kaleb

  • in reply to KalebTheMaker

    "...For solar hot water, that is definitely an option, but the house is on a north-facing slope..."

    I'm guessing that 1000' is probably pushing it a bit for a thermo syphon setup.

    Perhaps easier to build a wash hut down at the solar site Slight smile

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Exactly! I have already found the 2" motorized ball valves I will need to turn it off and on remotely. One of the issues I have not completely figured out with hydro is dumping excess power. When batteries are fully charged in some systems, people dump the load to heaters or incandescent lights, and some don't. But since the system will be fully monitored and controlled centrally, when I see the State of Charge at 100% (or whatever % makes sense), I can have the system shut off the ball valve turning off the flow to the turbine. 

    One of the filtering tricks I have seen is to top load a barrel from the stream via multiple pipes (after preliminary filtering), about midway up the barrel, have the 2" outlet that feeds the turbine downstream. At the bottom of the barrel, excess water and heavy debris can be drained, or somehow come up with a more clever cleanout. This system also gets all the air out of the line.

    Maybe I should start the blog on the Hydro system for discussion there. I am really pumped about hydro!

    I am not exactly sure how much snow I will get here. I am at 2200' elevation which is 200' higher than the local "highest point of the highway" at 2000', and sometimes that gets shut down due to snow. So maybe a few days out of the year? Extreme lows here are probably going to be around 15F, and average lows are in the low 30s. I highly doubt I will have to deal with frozen streams. And no massive demand for heat. I have a woodstove and 50ac of oak that needs to be thinned out (I am in peak fire country). Basically unlimited firewood.

    -Kaleb

  • in reply to KalebTheMaker

    You could perhaps divert the excess power into an insulated hot water tank and use that to preheat your hot water supply. Or use it to pump water to where you actually need it. Or just use it to do something fun with.

    Barrel idea sounds good. If you are lucky, you find a gold nugget or two in the bottom one day Slight smile 

    Hydro sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

  • in reply to KalebTheMaker

    "...I have already found the 2" motorized ball valves I will need to turn it off and on remotely..."

    I've seen some of Pelton / Turgo micro turbines with multiple nozzles controlled by individual valves to adjust the speed depending upon the incoming flow rate. Being able to control these whilst monitoring the rpm might be interesting as well. It would also allow you to increase flow to other nozzles should one get blocked with debris.

    May be an idea to have some form of vibration monitoring as I suspect an impeller out of balance from a damaged blade could quickly lead to damaged bearings.

    Looks like quite a bit could be monitored and controlled here. Sounds like a 'micro turbine control unit' type project.

  • in reply to KalebTheMaker

    "...One of the issues I have not completely figured out with hydro is dumping excess power. When batteries are fully charged in some systems, people dump the load to heaters or incandescent lights, and some don't..."

    Perhaps invest in more batteries to store it.Slight smile

    Other ideas in addition to heating or pumping water might be sort of an ongoing backburner type task that just runs and does something useful whenever there is surplus power available. Ideally this is a task that is continuous in nature but can start and stop whenever.

    Grinding, milling, tumbling, polishing, type operations are perhaps suited to this as perhaps are electroplating or electrolysis type processes.

    Combined with a UPS then perhaps you could do other stuff which isn't start-stop tolerant like overnight 3D printing. As long as the UPS stores enough energy to complete the full task before it starts then it doesn't really matter if the excess power stops halfway through as it will run to completion, then recharge sufficiently before starting the next print.

    Overnight grow lamps for home produce / sterilisation of stored water.

    Bitcoin mining might be an entertaining use for it.

    Build your own hydro pump storage system where you use the excess power to pump water up the hill into a storage area and then use it to generate more power when you need it.

    Donate it to 'citizen science' type projects, either number crunching or remote environmental type monitoring activities.

Comment
  • in reply to KalebTheMaker

    "...One of the issues I have not completely figured out with hydro is dumping excess power. When batteries are fully charged in some systems, people dump the load to heaters or incandescent lights, and some don't..."

    Perhaps invest in more batteries to store it.Slight smile

    Other ideas in addition to heating or pumping water might be sort of an ongoing backburner type task that just runs and does something useful whenever there is surplus power available. Ideally this is a task that is continuous in nature but can start and stop whenever.

    Grinding, milling, tumbling, polishing, type operations are perhaps suited to this as perhaps are electroplating or electrolysis type processes.

    Combined with a UPS then perhaps you could do other stuff which isn't start-stop tolerant like overnight 3D printing. As long as the UPS stores enough energy to complete the full task before it starts then it doesn't really matter if the excess power stops halfway through as it will run to completion, then recharge sufficiently before starting the next print.

    Overnight grow lamps for home produce / sterilisation of stored water.

    Bitcoin mining might be an entertaining use for it.

    Build your own hydro pump storage system where you use the excess power to pump water up the hill into a storage area and then use it to generate more power when you need it.

    Donate it to 'citizen science' type projects, either number crunching or remote environmental type monitoring activities.

Children
  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Oh man, I love these ideas!

    My current plan in the budget for batteries is 6 100Ah 48v Lifepo4 rack-mounted batteries. That was determined by how much my highest consumption tools (CNC router) use for a 5-hour runtime. One of the charge controller/inverters I am looking at has an output that is specific to these applications. It will dump any excess power to that output when the batteries are at full capacity. 

    All of those ideas are awesome! I especially like overnight 3d printing and the 'citizen science" ideas. In the late 90's I had a spare/backup IBM RS/6000 in a data center running SETI. Crypto mining could be quite interesting since the cost of power to operate a miner is one of the biggest challenges. 

    I have a friend who lives off-grid and has a hydro pump system. During the day he has a dedicated solar panel running a pump that pumps water from a lower tank up to the top tank. He has a switch in the house that he can flip to open the valve and let the water flow back down to the lower tank through a hydro generator for on-demand nighttime power. Great idea for a backup-to-the-backup! haha

    I also love the idea of controlling each nozzle on the turbine. I've seen some setups where people walk down to their system and adjust those when needed. I want to do this from my control center!

    And yes to the control unit. I want to monitor every aspect of every system on the property. I'll have to design a backend for all of this data coming in! There will be all sorts of monitoring voltages and currents at each applicable spot, water tank levels, states of valves, flow rates, etc. 

    I am working on getting a "Discussion and Design" area set up for individual projects. Such good info!

    Thanks,

    -Kaleb

  • in reply to KalebTheMaker

    If you are planning on working your own timber, then perhaps some of that excess energy overnight could be used to kiln dry it before CNC. If I recall correctly the slower kilning is done the better, so a few weeks of low heat and dehumidifying might work here?

    What's the geology like in the area? Any interesting stones that could be rock tumbled with excess energy overnight?

    I suspect that you may have a good view of the night sky there in which case astronomy type projects might be an option.

    Pump storage could be useful for direct drive type applications as you can design it to provide what peak power you want by adjusting the size of the storage, the head of water and the flow rate to the turbine. e.g. water powered sawmill for cutting up your trees into usable timber.

    The big question is though, when is the zip line going in between the shop site and the solar site?   Slight smileYou can get 1000' adventure park zip line kits at a reasonable sort of price. It will also double up as a camera fly line.

    Aerial cable ways open up all sorts of other fun to use up that surplus energy.

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    There are probably going to be a few battery-powered hand tools lying around that will need recharging and probably at some point even a 'motorised toolbox' like a quad bike or ATV to help get around the site.