Got back to the cabin yesterday for a quick overnighter and had to 4 wheel through a washout.  This morning I couldn't make it through and had to backtrack to another road which took me a few miles out of the way but allowed me to get out.  Need to get my tractor working again!

The heater logger has been working and showed a high temp of 101F and a low of something like 32F.  It's been very overcast and the angle will reduce efficiency this time of year but I think when the sun comes out I should see some good results.  It's sunny today but I'm gone now until next week sometime so hopefully can get some good readings.

it does seem to be helping though as the porch was about 10 degrees warming than the outside and since the windows no longer collect solar heat (covered by the deck roof now) I think that's a good sign.

Of course it won't do much good on cloudy days but those aren't as often up there usually and certainly not on the coldest days.

Can't wait for spring!  It is warming and melting off the snow but it's still pretty cold at night

I looked at that data logger. Very cool. Might get one to just log the temps in the cabin. So I have some sort of idea of the fluctuations.
Can you tel me more about the fan you have hooked up? AC/DC ?  Cost ?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BMATFK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That's the fan I bought.  It's a DC fan and somewhat loud but that's what you would expect from something that forces that much air right?

The logger is supposed to be improved in a new release that will make it a little more user friendly but now that I understand it's idiosyncrasy's I'm ok with using it and price wise I am not sure it can be beat.

I looked at the reviews on the fan and you are right. Moves a lot of air but noisy. I'm going to need something quieter I think. Thanks.

I was out turning logs into lumber all weekend


But once I set the mill up I headed off to the cabin and was hoping to find my solar heater temp logger had worked....


First successful test of the solar pop can heater! Once I worked with the manufacturer on the temp logger I bought to get it to work I placed it at the cabin and turned it on...two weeks later I picked it up and can see clearly what the heater is doing.

You can see where the temp rose to 110F and the fan came on causing a small drop in temp which was expected, then what appears to be clouds causing a short duration drop then the climb to an amazing 185.2F before some clouds drop the temp a bit again and finally the end of the day when I suspect the sun dips behind the trees to the south west of the cabin.

All in all a success! Now I just need to seal in the porch nice and tight to keep all that heat in! Then I need to make a second and stick it on the south wall of the cabin.

I'm really finding this whole solar heater build very interesting( well your whole build actually). Will you use a data logger to measure the cabin temps? Once you have your south side one built?

What type of logs were you milling?

As soon as I get the porch insulated I'll use the logger in there to see how it does, then, yes, I'll do the same in the cabin once I have a heater on it too

With luck I can keep the cabin warm during the day when I'm away without having the stove running all day (which it won't anyway)....that is the hope anyway

OH and I was milling Fir for barns and shops   Milled over 10,000 board feet this weekend.

That's a lot of board feet. Yikes!  [cool]g

It was the most I've milled in 3 days!  ALL big logs

Did around 6000bf this weekend (2 days)....


The bulk of my weekends production


Hard at it


Making sawdust

Still have to do the math on the weekend.  Day one was 2370bf I believe and about 1/3rd of that pile.....

No wonder I'm not getting much cabin time

Truth is I'm having my new (to me) F350 fitted with Timbren's and Torklift camper tie downs right now and hope to find a nice camper to slide into the box soon so I don't have to drive so much or stay in hotels.  As it is now I set up the mill, drive to the cabin (up to 70 miles away), spend the night and head back in the early AM to start work...repeat as many days as necessary!  My hope is to stop all that driving and get some more relaxing time in as well as more milling time since I won't be driving so much.

I'm looking for an 8 foot or 8'6" camper that weighs around 2000lbs (no need for a 4000lb behemoth and besides my trucks only rated at 3370 total payload anyway)....with luck I'll still get 8mpg with the camper and I know a guy who knows a guy who does complete ERG deletes (exhaust, intake, programming and removal of said ERG) for $2500....claims they are getting 800flbs of torque out of 6.4s with the delete (and I've read that elsewhere too)....makes them darn near as powerful as the 6.7's and everyone I've spoken with claims to get 2-3mpg better when towing.....of course, that's on a race truck as no one would want to do it to a LEGAL road truck  

I've been wondering, did you consider building your own temp logger with an Arduino setup? I've been playing around with a few Arduino boards for some projects I have brewing and one of the projects in the online course I'm taking was basically a temp logger.

Nah...I figured out the one I bought and it did the job

My trees should arrive today and since it's quite a bit warmer here then at the cabin I'm going to have to head north RIGHT away to stick them in the colder ground...hoping these will survive the shock and gophers!

Forgot to post that I made it up to the cabin (just barely) with my 4 new trees and got them planted


Seems like the gophers may have killed the plum (I'm getting tired of them) and we've ordered some of those solar repellers to add to the bait I put down.  Maybe that will work.

Meanwhile we've had so much water that I practically had to 'mud bog' to get in!

This was taken after I did some work with the tractor in an attempt to reduce my chances of getting stuck


Notice the left turn right after the gate?  Yup, I made a new driveway section around the deepest mud!  This are is not normally like this and in 8 years I've not seen it like this even remotely......and I'm told snowfall and rainfall is closer to normal up there this year! lol


That's the bottom of my driveway -- this was a week or two ago (can't even remember now....) so who knows if the driveway is even passable now!


There is a culvert under the driveway here...it's just too small to handle all of this water!


The road in isn't looking much better


I've been milling a lot so haven't had much time at the cabin this year but hopefully will soon.  I plan to order my solar panel mounts (to mount to the roof) and get up there to install them in the next few weeks providing I'm not still milling every weekend.  Gotta make hay when the sun shines though!

Ya... finally made it up to my place today but not without DRAMA... we've had the trailer loaded up and ready to go for a week and pulled out of the shed and noticed a destroyed tire missing 12" of tread. We Bought 2 new tires from the sudden service team but only had one rim. Only made it 20 miles before 1 new tire blew... leaky stem that we were charged for a replacement and clearly wasn't . About 230am  the local semi truck tire guy finally shows up and gets us on our way... Mad props to my boy Pete for makin shit happen... thx GoodYear.

Got here about 730 and actually did some work... got a lot of supplies unloaded for my next trip up and got a crude kitchen rigged up with a gas cooktop and sink, fancy. Tomorrow ill finish installing the cooktop and sink and then move on to the deck... game changer there. I'll take pics and pkst asap. Can't wait to get back up in a few weeks.

Got back to the cabin yesterday and worked on my road for a few hours (pics later) and when I got the cabin the fan in the porch was roaring from the heater and the temp was above 85F in there!  I opened the door to the cabin which was at 63F and let the solar heater bring the temp up a few degrees while the sun was out.  It was 55F outside and I haven't finished the insulation etc in the porch.  In fact, most of the heat was going outside!  I will definitely need to install ducting into the cabin so the heater can heat both the porch and the cabin.

Amazing how well this thing works and I will definitely make a second for the cabin itself.

https://youtu.be/Broq0IAOI-c
Yes this fan is LOUD!  This is how I found it when I got to the cabin.  Pumping out the heat!

Came up to the cabin Friday and got settled in like I usually do   It was late and cool so I had a small fire in the stove to warm the cabin a bit and crashed for the night after a nice Elijah Craig Small Batch in front of the wood stove.

Saturday I awoke after a very decent sleep (thanks to the still cool cabin) and after my morning coffee and relaxing set out to work on the road up.  It's three miles of pretty rough sections after the winter and spring damage.  After a few hours cleaning up a section I visited a neighbor and soon we were both down there working on the road.  Two tractors are definitely better than one!

After that I spent the late afternoon reading in the cabin contemplating what I may or may not do the next day (today)...in the end I settled on very little as I have bursitus in my right shoulder and some milling to do so I decided I'd try to do the milling today and relax at home tomorrow -- which means I need to get some clean up done and moving.

Maybe I'll get some pics for ya later

Didn't get much done but road work and relaxing as I have bursitis in my right shoulder and really needed to not work it too hard

My driveway is much better now as well as the road up to my place which I graded in several spots.


The fruit trees appear to be waking up finally!  They are a good month behind up here.


This blue berry has really taken off since the two big trees by it were removed a few years ago!  If I can get them before the bears do (and it's RIGHT behind the cabin) then maybe I'll make some jam with them


So much to do and so little time.  But I'll get there!

I have driveway envy!

One thing I need to figure out is how to shut off the solar heater this time of year.  My thought is to make a white cover of some kind to clamp over it with some space to allow heat to rise up on the outside of the heater -- I may also have to make a diverter to allow any heat in the heater to escape via outside air.  At this point I've just left a window open a bit to allow the warm air to leave the porch and keep the porch cooler.

Got up to my place last weekend finally, and the melt/runoff was not finished.  Still had water running down the road in - made it really bad.  I did get up to my site on the drive I had put in last fall - so happy about that.

Your place looks great!  I wish I had a few fruit trees, but you'll have blueberries for sure.

Quote from: OlJarhead on May 31, 2017, 01:54:19 PM
One thing I need to figure out is how to shut off the solar heater this time of year.  My thought is to make a white cover of some kind to clamp over it with some space to allow heat to rise up on the outside of the heater -- I may also have to make a diverter to allow any heat in the heater to escape via outside air.  At this point I've just left a window open a bit to allow the warm air to leave the porch and keep the porch cooler.

It should soon (eventually) be possible to convert that extra heat into cooling the home.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423466/using-heat-to-cool-buildings/

If you were to cover it, say with a white sheet or tarp, I imagine that would significantly lower the temps.  You can also unplug the fan... so the heat at least does not get blown into the cabin.

https://woodmizer.com/Store/Home/PersonalBestDetails?id=1364
For those who liked my solar heater you can vote on it on the above link for Woodmizers Personal Best contest

I voted for you but you've got some stiff competition there.