Adding automation to the high tunnel and I thought of needing a good earth ground which means a ground rod. I have three of them spaced 10 foot apart right nearby for the electric fence. I can’t tie into those permanently though because the fence would mess with the sensors. That means a separate ground rod which is no big deal except that fence ground rods are supposed to be something like 150 foot away from any others including the one at the electric pole, else you’ll get electrical interference from the high voltage of a fence.
So now I need to put three rods out by the road for the fence, far away from electric pole and high tunnel, and then I can use one of the original three fence rods for the tunnel. Gonna try and pull 2 of the 3 out and reuse out by the road. I’m not using the fence right now so I can use that ground for the tunnel for some time.
I figured out a trick for pounding them in with a fence post pounder that keeps the rod from just bowing when driving it in. Slide a hunk of steel conduit or water pipe over the ground rod leaving 1-2 foot sticking out. Pound as far as you can go and replace the conduit/pipe with a shorter piece and pound some more. Repeat until it’s short enough to not need pipe over it. I swap to a sledge hammer when it becomes too short for fence pounder and by then, it doesn’t need the pipe.
IF you don’t hit rock, it’s really fast.
We used to have cordless phones fry a few times a year. We got phone before electric and they usually tie into the electric ground rod. Instead, they tossed one laying down in the 2 foot deep trench they had dug up against the house with the backhoe. That’s where they get started with their trencher cable layer. That rod stayed dry so it wasn’t a good ground. I finally pounded on one in the full 8 foot depth right next to the phone box and used that. Haven’t lost a phone since.
I may not be well grounded but this place is.
I may not be well grounded but this place is.
I'm fortunate here with regard to hitting, or rather not hitting, rock.
My property is just outside the northern boundary of the Ozark Plateau. The only near-surface rock on my property is the occasional small boulder left behind by the retreat of the last ice age glacier (I found several while cleaning out my pond a few years back), or what I've had hauled in. A few miles to the southwest the karst topology begins. My Grandparents' place sat on that kind of ground. Grandpap used to say that his farm was always ten days from a drought due to the thin soils there.
Sliding a pipe over a ground rod while driving it is the only way I know of to get one in straight unless it's mud season. They're just too doggone flimsy without some support. If you have a tractor with a front loader and a helper you can press them in without difficulty if there's a decent amount of moisture in the soil, but you still want the pipe on to keep from turning the rod into a pretzel.
I've never tried to pull one out, but I think the front loader would be the right tool for that job too.
Got an hour and 20 minutes of weeding done yesterday morning before the sun started baking my head. I did a mix of pulling well rooted long lived grass/weeds and maintaining the hay mulched areas that have baby grass growing out of the hay itself or barely rooted in soil. Both are easy to pull roots and all but there's a whole bunch of them.
I didn't prep the tunnel area before putting the frame up because I didn't want to be stomping on bare dirt. I also thought I'd try the living pathway thing but most of the grass and weeds I have spread sideways via runners or shoots, putting down new roots along the way. They're trying to take over the beds quickly so they gotta go. Between pulling and tarping with black plastic/rubber, I'll have it all cleaned up next year sometime.
Fertilized the new seedlings yesterday afternoon. Need to get more liquid fertilizer and will look to see what else they have besides the fish emulsion which at 5-1-1, is pretty weak. I think Ace has Espoma brand products which seem to be decent.
Finally measured a tiny bit of rain. I had been tilting the tipping bucket back and forth for connection and testing, then got it all put together and we had a good rain day before yesterday but I had reconnected my pump relay after having swapped to the big controller and didn't plug the system back in. Plugged it back in after most of the rain but caught 0.020 inches at least overnight.
I also keep stealing the extension cord to blow a fan on me when I'm out there to at least keep the skeeters off of one side of me. Need to bring the solar panels and battery back down there and hook them up to run pump and controller and free up the cord.
To save a walk to the shed when I want to fertilize 1-2 beds or use the water hose for a minute, I'm going to add the little basic timer I started with. Turn it on, punch in some minutes and hit start. If it already has power, just hit start to run the same amount of time as last time. Want a new time, turn it off and back on and punch in some minutes. I'm leery about running two power wires from two controllers to the pump though but I figured out a fix using a SPDT relay. Tech time.
This is the old V120 I programmed to be a really simple timer. Supposed to be a pump icon in lower left corner. IIRC it's animated too - ooh aah.
Here's the system at rest with Relay 1 Off. V120 OFF - X-332 Controller can power pump.
12 vdc+ is applied to the relay when V120 is supplying 12 vdc+ to pump which prevents 12 vdc+ coming from Controller. Spent over an hour trying to figure out how to do it with two relays then figured out I need to KISS and just use one and had it figured out in a minute then. You would think I should run the pump from the NO contact for the V120 but then I'd be feeding 12 vdc+ back into the X-332 controller. I'll have to check amperage but it may be that I'll need a SPST relay in between the V120 and pump. I think the V120 has 2 amp relays built in but pump is over 3 amp.
Instead of a relay, I could use a DPDT switch to act as sort of a transfer switch but then I have the old problem of oops, I forgot to switch it back. With the relay running from the V120 which is set for some minutes I punched in and then shuts off, the system returns to a state of rest once the run cycle is done. Foolproof Forgetful professor type proof
Wellhell, 6am and light out. Need to do some running around but tax man doesn't open until 8am so I guess I'll go run a ground wire from ground rod to old fridge where my automation stuff is going. Then I can put a ground lug on the stand off panel inside the fridge to connect everything to. Need to bolt stand off panel in first. Need to toss the solar panels in the truck and bring them down. RV battery is already in the bed. Thought about more weeding but this is much more interesting.:)