Tower Of Power
It was all my fault for not properly tightening the coolant cap in my van. Some evaporated coolant later, and the excess heat resulted in a warped head. It didn't make much sense to spend a lot of money to fix the issue when the van was worth maybe a grand. So the van was donated to a non-profit.
Prior to saying goodbye to the van, the secondary power system was removed. Since I didn't want to let the hardware collect dust, I decided to set up the hardware as a solar charged system that could run power tools in my shop. Although the system originally had a 400 watt inverter, by the time it was removed from the van, the inverter had been updated to a 1000 watt model.
After the sweet joy of the dog house, making another pyramid thingy was certainly on my mind, and I had a spare insulation panel sitting in the shop.
And thus was born the Tower of Power
4'x8' panel of rigid insulation
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211031_141247.jpg)
chop chop chop some pieces
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211031_144722.jpg)
The tower assembled
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211031_154725.jpg)
Mounting bracket for the inverter
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211114_161506.jpg)
hole for the mounting bracket and inverter
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211115_181044.jpg)
Mounting bracket in place
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211115_182819.jpg)
Inverter mounted to the bracket
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211204_160908.jpg)
The charging and storage
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211204_161105.jpg)
Tower in place, and powered up
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211204_162721.jpg)
Tower of power can run the shop lights
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211204_173002.jpg)
Soldering a lamp for the 12 volt port
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211226_151818.jpg)
Yup, that's bright
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211226_152959.jpg)
Sadly, Tower of Power can not run my little coffee maker :(
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211227_104732.jpg)
... but it can run the band saw
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211227_121414.jpg)
Paint it green-ish
![](2022-08-04_tower_of_power/IMG_20211230_162223.jpg)
If it is green, the sheep will nibble on it
It has been some time since these pics were taken. In that time, the solar panel has been replaced with a 100 watt panel… and the tower has been removed. As much as I loved the Tower of Power, there was a problem with portability. There were simply too many pieces to disassemble and reassemble when I wanted to move the power location to somewhere more convenient.
cheers,
jezra