The Charge Path

The one that fails loudly is the last one.

Every link in a home-built power system fails quietly: a wire a size too small, a splice that was fine when it was made, a fuse that was never there. The one that fails loudly is the last one, and it is the one most builders never wire at all.

Part One builds the run: judging salvaged wire with no gauge, sizing it so it loses no more than three percent, building it overhead or buried, splicing and terminating it with or without a crimper, fusing and disconnecting it, and grounding it against lightning.

The bridge is the dump load: why a full bank is the most dangerous moment in the life of a wind or water machine, and how to build the load that takes the power instead, from salvaged heater elements, wired so that it fails on. Part Two governs the machine: furling tails, brakes, headgates, overspeed stops, and a worked twenty-four-volt system with every number shown.