Airport Power

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 11:19:49 GMT, wrote:

David Lesher wrote:
"Kyle Boatright" writes:
I need a trickle of electrical power about a dozen times a year in my
hangar. I need it for my 125 watt preheater if I'm taking an early-
morning flight in the winter, and will use it for a .25A trickle charger
if I've let the aircraft sit for more than a week or two.

Well, you can handle the trickle with a solar array of some kind.

I agree. If you can mount the solar panel so that it has about the same
angle from horizontal as your latitude, and so that you can get to it
occasionally to wipe the dirt off of it, it will work a little better.

If he is going to use it to run his heater, then he'd be better off
mounting it steeper -- say latitude + 15° -- since most of his power needs
would be during the winter months.




Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
. ..

Any suggestions other than either buying a small generator or paying the
$15/month?

This 45 watt solar panel kit:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=90599
Plus a GOOD charge controller (not the one that comes with the kit) plus two
T105 golf cart batteries, plus an inverter will turn the trick. You would only
use the inverter for preheat, charging your battery directly. The kit even
includes 12V. lights for your hanger. Of course, for that money you could pay
the "electricity guy" for two or three years.

Vaughn

Kyle Boatright wrote:

Any suggestions other than either buying a small generator or paying the
$15/month?

Solar?

A deep cycle lead acid battery (typically used in marine applications) could
probably provide 125 W (10 amps from a 12 V battery) for 6 hours or so. Use
a 12 V heater or a 125 VAC heater through an inverter. You would charge the
battery at home between uses.

As other have suggested, a solar panel might work for trickle charging.


-Elliott Drucker

The $15/mo is cheap compared to all these battery
solutons--which require implementations using your time
at $0.05/ hour.

I'd guess your heater draws 125 watts when cold, too.

For the next level, figure out a way to turn it on remotely!

Bill Hale who does it with X-10 but is looking for a cell
phone solution!

I'd be surprised if
Kyle Boatright wrote:
I need a trickle of electrical power about a dozen times a year in my
hangar. I need it for my 125 watt preheater if I'm taking an early-morning
flight in the winter, and will use it for a .25A trickle charger if I've let
the aircraft sit for more than a week or two.

The problem is that my T-hangar doesn't have power. One of the other hangar
renters had electrical service pulled to his hangar, and sublets 15A
breakers for $15/month = $180/year, which is a bit much for me, considering
my needs are for a dollar or so of electricity a year.

Any suggestions other than either buying a small generator or paying the
$15/month?

I'm asking because the "power guy" complained last week when I ran a
dropcord to a neighboring hangar for an hour last week to run the trickle
charger...

KB

" wrote in message
ups.com...
The $15/mo is cheap compared to all these battery
solutons--which require implementations using your time
at $0.05/ hour.

I'd guess your heater draws 125 watts when cold, too.

Could be. The point is that I need a little bit 'o power once every once in
a while. As everyone has mentioned, batteries and an inverter are a
solution, but are capital intensive.

The real deal would be to pay the "power guy" a the airport a one time fee
of, say, $50 for my occasional use via drop cord. I inquired about that
once, but he was a pretty big a-hole about it.


For the next level, figure out a way to turn it on remotely!


There is a way to do it remotely (a pager works), but I have two timers in
series so IF I know I'll be flying on a particular day, I can turn set the
heater to come on once (and for whatever duration I need) during a 14 day
period. Since I work 15 minutes from the airfield, it isn't a huge problem.

Bill Hale who does it with X-10 but is looking for a cell
phone solution!


KB

"Kyle Boatright" writes:

The real deal would be to pay the "power guy" a the airport a one time fee
of, say, $50 for my occasional use via drop cord.

You'd attend while using the drop cord, right? And you drive a car to
the airport? 'seems like it'd be a whole lot easier (and less expensive)
to buy a cheapo inverter (because waveforms and noise won't matter to
your heating element) to use from your car.

If you really only need 125W something like this should do the trick.
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html...sin=B000157TNA
Even a 400W unit costs less than two years at $50.
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html...sin=B000157TNK

I suspect that once you have one of these you'll find a lot of other
uses for it.

If using your car for power is problematic and you're considering a
generator then consider getting a tug with an electrical system (lawn
tractor) instead. Plug an inverter into that and you'd have a handy
dual-use device. Heck, if you rig it with a nice 12/24V battery
charger, inverter, lights and an air pump you could probably rent it
to others on the field.

--kyler

"Kyler Laird" wrote in message
...
"Kyle Boatright" writes:

The real deal would be to pay the "power guy" a the airport a one time fee
of, say, $50 for my occasional use via drop cord.

You'd attend while using the drop cord, right? And you drive a car to
the airport? 'seems like it'd be a whole lot easier (and less expensive)
to buy a cheapo inverter (because waveforms and noise won't matter to
your heating element) to use from your car.


Again, the problem is that a pre-heater and/or a trickle charger need hours
to do their thing. Trying to run either from a car ain't gonna cut it.

snip
..

--kyler

I think you will have a hard time beating the $15 a month deal. A
generator would do it, but it's expensive and needs gas and
maintenance. The only other thing that makes sense is to run your own
power hookup to the power company. But find out what THEIR minimum is
first. If it were me, I'd pay the $15, or do without. Solar, battery
etc is all in the hobby area. Fine if you want to mess with it, but not
a cost effective solution.

"Kyle Boatright" writes:

Again, the problem is that a pre-heater and/or a trickle charger need hours
to do their thing. Trying to run either from a car ain't gonna cut it.

Yup, I sure did miss that. Let's find the "ain't gonna cut it" part.

125 watt heating element
inverter with 90% efficiency
Much better are available.
roughly 44 amp-hours available from regular 12V starter battery
A dual-purpose deep-cycle/starter battery would be much better.

125W / 90% = 139W = 12V * 11.6A
50 amp-hours / 11.6A = 3.5 hours to "discharge"

Hmmm...I'm still missing it. How many hours do you need to leave it
without starting the car? What are you doing at the airport all this
time?

And why would you run a trickle charger when you have a car available?

--kyler