Maser planner at work

Posted by Michael Skinner of the June II-B SonLight Power team to Honduras.

Backdrop:

Our panels and key materials had been hung-up in customs from before the June II-B trip. Allen and I talked on the phone the day before I left California for Honduras...Allen was in Honduras concerned about the equipment being hung-up in customs. So several folks in the states began gathering equipment to bring as back-up. There were not enough inverters and charge controllers in Allen's garage, and no time to have more shipped, so I offered to purchase some from the CA suppliers Allen uses, which were within driving distance of my home in Northern CA (thank you God!) the afternoon before my departure. The supplier was expecting some to be delivered that day, so I drove about the 60 miles hoping the right supplies would come in. They did (thank you God!)....the salesman asked what we were doing and was interested to hear about SonLight Power, looked at our web-site while I was there, and offered to give us the dealers price for the inverter and charge controller (thank you God!)...since he dropped the price about 40%, I got two charge controllers.

My bags were at their weight limit, so I carried the inverter and charge controller in my carry-on - got stopped at security - wouldn't let me on, as I already had two bags checked, I couldn't check a 3rd, unless I was first class - running out of time before departure, I went back to the counter and got the cheapest upgrade to first class I have ever imagined (thank you God!) - I took it, checked bag no. 3 with the photovoltaic equip and relaxed for the trip (thank you God!)..

We (met with team memeber, Terri McGregor on this plane in Houston) were circling Tegucigalpa on a beautiful sunny dry day, other than a seemingly small cloud pouring rain over the airport - they closed the airport 5 minutes from landing, and diverted us across county to San Pedro Sula. The airline had two options - get off there and we're on our own, or go back to US....so we de-planed into this foreign place without the ability to speak the language, and almost too discouraged. But we had a purpose and a mission. Mei's cousin's family happended to live near the airport, and she got a hold of them (our cell phones worked - thank you God!) to meet us there and take us to the last bus to Teguc (thank you God!) - about a 5 or 6 hour bus ride, including diversions from damaged roadways and a collapsed bridge from the recent earthquake....another set of obstacles that was thrown in front of us, but there was a greater purpose that prevailed (thank you God!) - we even got upgraded to first class on this bus, with a meal and comfortable reclining seats waiting for us - and it was the last departure that night and we arrived on the bus with less than 5 minutes to spare (thank you God!).

Fast forward: after arrival in Teguc and meeting up with our SLP comrades, we spent the next few days gathering and assembling equipment and planning for the three school installs. The problem was with the equipment still hung up in customs and difficulty finding enough solar panels to purchase locally, we didn't yet have eveything we needed for school number three. Proceeding forward in faith, we set out for San Marcos, where we were going to be home-based for the week for the three schools. After the first two installs in the first two days went extrememly smoothly and in record time, we had settled into the hotel to relax the following day on the extra day in the schedule - since we didn't have the panels we needed for the third school by then, we decided to take that next day off.

In the meantime that evening after the ssecond school, I arrived in the dining hall that night a little ealry, finding that a few other Americans arriving to the same room for what appeared to be a double-booking - our dinner and their Spanish class....we got to talking -they were from Mission Lazarus - they were student interns for the summer, and Liddy was a nursing student - she and a medical student (Trevor) were there for the summer interning at a remote medical clinic three days a week. When they heard about SonLight Power, they mentioned the clinic they worked at once had working solar electric panels, but they had been out of service for a long time, and could we send a team to look at it..

We had no extra equipment (other than that second charge controller I picked up in CA), but did have a team of willing and able SLP team members excited to take the day we had off and see what we could do at the clinic (Allen, Terri, Juancho, Luis, Gigi, and me).

It was remote, and on a beautiful hilltop, overlooking lush valleys on at least three sides. In the distance you could make out Nicaragua. The clinic building had some old solar panels on the roof, covered by an old rusty iron grating. First order of business, Allen observed, was to remove the permanent shading that grating provided. There were two teams, Allen and Terri went into the clinic to diagnose and trouble shoot the control panel and guts of the equipment that had been there. The other team (Juancho, Luis, Gigi, me) was removing the grating on the roof and discovered all five panels had been disconnected. We connected them all and checked the amps and voltage and found that the panels were in good shape.

In the meantime, on the inside, Allen and Terri found that this was very old (probably German) solar equipment that had apparently broken down after the batteries had exploded. The clinic doctor and local pastor had known enough that they had purchased new batteries that we could install if we could get the system working, and in a way to avoid another battery explosion. Turns out that this old system had been using old manual regulators to control the charge on the batteries. These regulars had manual switches which had apparently stuck in the constant humidity of the climate there, so that caused the charge on the batteries to continue unabbated and resulted in the original explosion. What this system needed was .... a charge controller!! Just like the one we happened to have as an extra! (thank you God!). Different charge controllers come in different shapes and sizes...and the particular shape and size of the charge controller we had just happened to fit perfectly into the available ara on the control board! (thank you God!).

After hooking everything back-up, and firing up the system, it hummed like it was new....the very cool thing about this was that the primary purpose of this system was to power a refrigerator for medicines requiring cold storage temperatures (pun intended!)...the refrigerator began cooling down right away! (Thank you God!).

How amazing, the way our Lord works...even the equipment being held up in customs...if that hadn't occurred, we would not have bought the extra charge controller or had it to use to repair the medical clinic - now they have access to medicines they hadn't had before. How many other lives are now being impacted because of this? Thank you Lord!

So time and time again, with what seemed like obstacles or failures, our Lord worked out for good....Glory to God!!

posted by SolarAl @ 1:45 PM