The garden shed semi-shack, garden beds and perspective.

A while ago it dawned on me that I really needed to push on with getting some house stuff done. I've been too distracted by radios for a while. 

Of course, I like to integrate things.

I've sold some stuff off, so now I've been able to fund a new 3x3m garden shed. It'll be about a 60/40 split of workshop plus storage. Mostly, I want to get my "workshop" out of the garage because I'd like to put cars in there. 

Given the access issues, we're building a pretty solid timber floor (the framing alone is worth more than the shed). It'll be raised up a little so it can breathe and avoid rotting out. 

This all lead me to some new thoughts - mostly power. 

I'm not interested in running mains down there. The kids' cubby house that has become my "smoker shed" (which needs to be returned to them) has been using a small solar panel with a battery to handle some LED lights. I just need this.. only bigger. I also don't need another thing drawing more mains power. Our usage is already ludicrous, and technically this change should actually reduce it slightly.

So, me being me, I need a bit of a project around waiting to get this shed built (I need my engineer father to come assist, and that'll be over a month away), so doing the solar power distribution board seems like a start:

350w panel - I doubt it's going to be that great. If it does half that, that'll be OK. I'm expecting to add a second one of these panels in series. 

Epever Tracer 3210AN MPPT controller - this cost about the same as the panel, but it's highly regarded as a good budget MPPT controller. Much more efficient than the PWM controller that will come with the panel.

Wifi box for the controller - a little overkill, but at least I'll be able to monitor the power generation and make sure this system works. 

1000w inverter - I don't plan on using a lot of mains powered gear in the shed, but I do want to be able to charge the drill batteries and maybe throw on some of the lower current mains devices like my soldering iron. This one will peak around 2000w.

WARS Powerpole distribution box - for the lower draw 12v stuff like a radio that I might want to plug in. 

65A Battery protector - this is a gizmo to cut the load from the battery if it gets too low. The MPPT controller's doco indicates that any heavy loads should be powered directly from the battery rather than from the controllers load connectors.

105AH deep cycle battery - I already have it, though it's probably near its end of life. I'll probably replace at some point, and possibly replace with more than one in series.  

LED lighting - I'll run a couple of LED strips for lighting hanging off the roof wired back to a power point inside the door. 2 circuits for roof lighting as I'll normally have the storage side off. There will be an additional 2 circuits - one for the side of the shed, of which will wind up with a covered structure for the smoker, and one for the front. I'll have a separate feed for whatever I do with the workbench lighting, and that'll have its own switch at the bench. I'll decide on that after its built. All of this will be fed directly from the MPPT controller's own ouput given it's fairly low draw.

Distribution box - 8 pole box containing:

5 x 65A circuit breakers. These are high current because a) they're doing the DC work and b) I only really need them to work as basic isolation switches. They don't take up much space, which is why I decided to cheat this way. They'll isolate the PV feed in, charge to battery, feed from battery to the battery protector, inverter and powerpole box. A little excessive, but the breakers are cheap.

1 x 240v RCD. The 240v output from the inverter will be fed straight to the RCD to give me some basic protection on that circuit. Apparently not the greatest way of doing it, but it should work. 

240v power meter. This will just monitor the 240v load. Possibly excessive, but I just want to get an idea of the load vs what the inverter actually tells me. I can also get some basic history out of it.  A little excessive, but low cost and easier to do it now than retro fit it later.

I'm hoping this monstrosity should give me enough power to support leaving the drill batteries charging, run the lights as required, and potentially keep a wireless camera running (really aimed at watching the smoker). Having the ability to run the soldering iron occasionally, and being able to take a radio down there to make use of the reduced noise (both QRM and harmonic generated) is all on the lists of expectations. If it can drive my 500w drill press (kinda gutless), even better. 

I'm likely to setup a mount behind the shed for the old vertical to prop up on and use that. I do have a D150 discone floating around too that might find itself sitting on a mount behind it. Maybe.

At some point I'll worry about buying a second hand radio to keep down there. I've got a laptop that could go down there too, which would work as long as I keep its power supply off when I use the radio. 

Currently awaiting deliveries of timber for the shed floor, a separate delivery for the shed itself and some materials to start forming some garden beds. 

We've been here for over 4 years and not much has ever changed in the backyard beyond me levelling out 9m of soil and throwing some grass seed around.. just in time to wind up with a dog who dug a lot of it up when he was a puppy. 

Our lifestyle has made achieving much difficult - there's often only one adult home most weekends and having the kids to deal with, the weather and so on, we've never achieved much. The past 2 years have done little either as we've largely spent around keeping ourselves occupied rather than actually achieving anything. 

It's finally dawned on me that it's time to start trying to make some progress on some "little" things. There is a "big" thing we want - a veranda, which we literally painted on the lawn recently. Given what we want, that's going to be a bit of a commitment that will take quite some time to fund. 

In the mean time, it seems that things like garden beds can be setup with negligible financial investment, but might be something that the kids can be directed to come and be involved with. 

The shed starts us on an interesting journey - cleaning out the garage has been a long term pursuit that hasn't gotten far. We've always anticipated this shed going up. Now that we can see that happening, and have literally painted it on the ground, we've been able to plan around it. The covered area beside it for the smoker. From there, garden beds either side. 

Beyond that are a number of beds that will go around the yet to be built veranda. At least we can start to sort out the back fence, where we will inevitably find ourselves dealing with neighbours on higher ground looking into our yard. If we put in gardens, we can start to put in plants and get some growth. My mother-in-law loves to attempt to do gardening here, so it'll give her something to do. It also means that I'll need to put in a watering system - as my XYL points out, the only plant she really wants are succulents because she can't kill them (the idea of her watering plants is ludicrous). I want far more variety of plant, in doing so creating a new problem for myself, so some automation will be appropriate. 

Taking a can of paint to the yard was a real perspective changer; we could really start to see things - where they would go, how they would fit and how much yard we would still have left over. It's quite motivating. Possibly it's just motivating to start reducing the amount of lawn I have to mow. 

Freeing up the garage also means that we start getting some space. And that'll probably get taken up by deliveries of the pavers that we want to put down in various places and other materials as we work towards getting this veranda sorted out.

We do also have a smaller garden shed that is in clear view outside of our lounge room window that needs to move. That'll wind up being home to the lawn mower and garden tools. At the moment it's full of boxes of stuff that was being stored - but we've recently had a rat plague (up from last years mouse plague) due to the ongoing earth works around us and I suspect a lot of the contents will just need to be thrown out. 

The frequency over the past couple of days has reduced - in no small part due to the sheer numbers of bait stations and traps I've got floating around. Once it looks to be under control, I'll need to start assessing that shed and culling its content. Ultimately, that shed will be uprooted, and moved near the new shed, somewhat out of the way. It'll be getting a floor made of concrete pavers and gravel instead of the bare floor with bricks holding up a tarp that it has right now. 

Moving that allows us to start on yet another yard task - a paved area outside of the kids cubby for a table and chairs next to the existing sandpit. I also need to do something to block access behind the kids cubby once the shed is removed. I need to cover the whole area with shade cloth. Given the cubby really isn't structurally up to holding a shade sail, there might be some options there with a well placed post with some lattice behind it. The gap is only about a foot wide.

So.. a lot of potential little projects coming up as weather permits. 

Right now though, I've been coughing my guts out. I've been getting negative test results, so its probably just a cold that I'm hoping will move on quickly. 

I'm awaiting calls for deliveries, and hoping the gear for the solar stuff will start to arrive next week. so I can start getting my electrical board set up. I don't feel right if I haven't wired something for a while.. and I haven't as I've been trying to behave over the past couple of weeks to get my debt load down so I can facilitate some of the other things I need - new glasses and tyres. 

Pretty keen to try the solar setup outside and see how it goes charging up my battery so I can work out if I'm going to need to fund a few extra bits once it's all built and in place. I'm hoping this setup will scale up OK if needed. At the end of the day though, it's a setup that won't have much running off it often. The drill chargers will likely live "on" just because I put them on charge and didn't walk back in there for a week. I think having adequate battery will be a bigger issue than than panels given the limited use it'll have.