Let there be light and mosquito screens!
First in no way am I comparing this weeks work of lighting up the medical clinic to God creating the Sun-just thought I should clarify that.
I am currently back in Singida in the comfort of my hotel room and real shower enjoying a few days in which I hope this old back of mine will straighten back out. Nothing like being curled up in the outer edges of the attic space where there is normally only about 2 feet between ceiling and roof. Especially since it got hot this week finally. Normally back home I would relax in a tub of hot water to loosen the muscles back up especially where I had the back surgery. While I am blessed to have more here than most I am still not quite so blessed as I was at home and a week like this reminds of some of that.
But onto the week at hand. When I got to site I was informed the power had quite a day or so after I left the site last weekend. A quick check and I found out several of the wires had come loose on recharging the batteries. Unfortunately I have learned one of the luxuries I had at home were switches and light sockets that used good terminal ends for connecting wires and unfortunately here that is not the case. I have had to go through and re-tighten and reconnect around 50% of the splices and terminal ends as I work.
This allowed me to check some of the components of the old system while recharging the new system. I have found that the old solar panel that was slightly undersized for the load is now operating at about 80% of the expected value when it is at peak temperature and exposure. In addition the old battery can recharge and hold that charge but drains rather quickly when a heavy load is placed on it like running the AC inverter and recharging as many cell phones as they can possibly find places to plug in. In fact I am positive they are mating because there seem to be more and more phones every time I show up. So you ask, old solar newbie what does that mean? I believe we can power a building that has no AC just DC lights and no major electrical loads using those existing parts-yeah a cost savings.
So while conducting numerous tests on the old system, I also installed wire, switches and lights. I managed to get the front exterior lights, waiting room, reception office, lab, lab waiting area, doctor's office, one exam room and the pharmacy working. One small hiccup I noticed that every time I cut the exterior light switch off it cut off the lights in the entire building. Since that light was a midway in the direct current distribution grid I knew it had to be one of two issues (see I am learning). The first I really hoped it would not be-I accidentally miswired the feed to the lights and the switch in such a way that the feed line was being cut off. However after testing lights before and after that switch and finding all were affected I realized that could not be it. So start taking things apart. Yep one of the two negative wires had come loose inside the switch terminal end. This effectively cut the power to the entire building in a DC circuit. So went back to check all the others after fixing that one.
The main reason I stopped where I did was that I ran out of wire. Did I mention I was not an electrical contractor or even an electrical engineer before? So yes I seriously underestimated the amount of wire needed because you have to run to the switch and back then to the lights and I am used to AC wiring where you only have to run one line to the switch instead of two.
The other work going on this week was to start installing mosquito screen on all the windows on our buildings. For this I hired some folks locally. A couple of things about this process to help those who are not used to the Tanzania way of doing things. So the two carpenters show up to do this project. I have bought all the material and fortunately all the tools we did not already have to do the job (originally I planned to do it with helpers only). They show up with an extremely rust and dull hand saw and hammer. That is the extent of the carpenter's tool bag here.
The next big surprise is that when you want small strips of wood like we are using to attach and hold the screen on to the window frame you actually buy a bigger piece and have it cut to size. Of course all wood available is rough cut and needs to be planed down to size while you are still in town and then "ripped" into the strips on a table saw. So we pick out some nice boards 1" x 8" x 18' long. There are eight of them needed for the project after we cut them into 1 1/2" strips (the smallest they could handle). Now in the USA when you buy normal 1" wood it is actually closer to 3/4" thick unless you are buying project boards (i.e. a 2x4 is like 3 1/2 x 1 3/4 if I remember correctly). Here a 1" board planed down turns out to really be 1 1/4" thick. So my 1 1/4" screws did not work. We got someone in town to purchase us some 2" screws and put them on a bus headed out to town-yes that process was relatively expensive (not what you pay at hardware store back home but here it was a lot). So the guy we get to hunt down the screws bought two boxes of 2" brass door hardware screws which come about 10 per box and are much larger in diameter than normal wood screws. So we need 160 screws-slight problems still.
So between my back, the need for more wire and screws (the kind we really want) I decided to cut the valley visit short a day to go get more materials and put them on a bus to the local Balboa tree stop. I was able to find some nice boxes of wood screws with 50 per box and the right diameter. However the prices of wire had jumped in two weeks by 40%. Welcome to Tanzania where prices reflect a daily value that is impossible to estimate.
While on site I got some fantastic sunset and sunrise pictures to add to my collection. Here are some of my favorites.
The Bridge work continues at a good pace with the concrete on the large bridge basically completed and they are about 25% on the concrete on the smaller bridge.
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| Lights on in the building at early dusk |
I am currently back in Singida in the comfort of my hotel room and real shower enjoying a few days in which I hope this old back of mine will straighten back out. Nothing like being curled up in the outer edges of the attic space where there is normally only about 2 feet between ceiling and roof. Especially since it got hot this week finally. Normally back home I would relax in a tub of hot water to loosen the muscles back up especially where I had the back surgery. While I am blessed to have more here than most I am still not quite so blessed as I was at home and a week like this reminds of some of that.
But onto the week at hand. When I got to site I was informed the power had quite a day or so after I left the site last weekend. A quick check and I found out several of the wires had come loose on recharging the batteries. Unfortunately I have learned one of the luxuries I had at home were switches and light sockets that used good terminal ends for connecting wires and unfortunately here that is not the case. I have had to go through and re-tighten and reconnect around 50% of the splices and terminal ends as I work.
 |
| Lights installed on the front porch shining back at the building. |
This allowed me to check some of the components of the old system while recharging the new system. I have found that the old solar panel that was slightly undersized for the load is now operating at about 80% of the expected value when it is at peak temperature and exposure. In addition the old battery can recharge and hold that charge but drains rather quickly when a heavy load is placed on it like running the AC inverter and recharging as many cell phones as they can possibly find places to plug in. In fact I am positive they are mating because there seem to be more and more phones every time I show up. So you ask, old solar newbie what does that mean? I believe we can power a building that has no AC just DC lights and no major electrical loads using those existing parts-yeah a cost savings.
So while conducting numerous tests on the old system, I also installed wire, switches and lights. I managed to get the front exterior lights, waiting room, reception office, lab, lab waiting area, doctor's office, one exam room and the pharmacy working. One small hiccup I noticed that every time I cut the exterior light switch off it cut off the lights in the entire building. Since that light was a midway in the direct current distribution grid I knew it had to be one of two issues (see I am learning). The first I really hoped it would not be-I accidentally miswired the feed to the lights and the switch in such a way that the feed line was being cut off. However after testing lights before and after that switch and finding all were affected I realized that could not be it. So start taking things apart. Yep one of the two negative wires had come loose inside the switch terminal end. This effectively cut the power to the entire building in a DC circuit. So went back to check all the others after fixing that one.
The main reason I stopped where I did was that I ran out of wire. Did I mention I was not an electrical contractor or even an electrical engineer before? So yes I seriously underestimated the amount of wire needed because you have to run to the switch and back then to the lights and I am used to AC wiring where you only have to run one line to the switch instead of two.
 |
| Barnabas inspecting the woodwork |
The other work going on this week was to start installing mosquito screen on all the windows on our buildings. For this I hired some folks locally. A couple of things about this process to help those who are not used to the Tanzania way of doing things. So the two carpenters show up to do this project. I have bought all the material and fortunately all the tools we did not already have to do the job (originally I planned to do it with helpers only). They show up with an extremely rust and dull hand saw and hammer. That is the extent of the carpenter's tool bag here.
 |
| Using the hand drill I purchased to pre-drill holes for the screws |
The next big surprise is that when you want small strips of wood like we are using to attach and hold the screen on to the window frame you actually buy a bigger piece and have it cut to size. Of course all wood available is rough cut and needs to be planed down to size while you are still in town and then "ripped" into the strips on a table saw. So we pick out some nice boards 1" x 8" x 18' long. There are eight of them needed for the project after we cut them into 1 1/2" strips (the smallest they could handle). Now in the USA when you buy normal 1" wood it is actually closer to 3/4" thick unless you are buying project boards (i.e. a 2x4 is like 3 1/2 x 1 3/4 if I remember correctly). Here a 1" board planed down turns out to really be 1 1/4" thick. So my 1 1/4" screws did not work. We got someone in town to purchase us some 2" screws and put them on a bus headed out to town-yes that process was relatively expensive (not what you pay at hardware store back home but here it was a lot). So the guy we get to hunt down the screws bought two boxes of 2" brass door hardware screws which come about 10 per box and are much larger in diameter than normal wood screws. So we need 160 screws-slight problems still.
 |
| A finished project |
So between my back, the need for more wire and screws (the kind we really want) I decided to cut the valley visit short a day to go get more materials and put them on a bus to the local Balboa tree stop. I was able to find some nice boxes of wood screws with 50 per box and the right diameter. However the prices of wire had jumped in two weeks by 40%. Welcome to Tanzania where prices reflect a daily value that is impossible to estimate.
While on site I got some fantastic sunset and sunrise pictures to add to my collection. Here are some of my favorites.
The Bridge work continues at a good pace with the concrete on the large bridge basically completed and they are about 25% on the concrete on the smaller bridge.
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