Berkeley Park is an Atlanta neighborhood near Howell Mill and I-75. A Walmart with a parking garage is near that intersection, and other notable venues include the Chattahoochie Industrial corridor and Elsworth Industrial, a short road with several discount clothing and retail outlets. Pappy Red’s Barbecue is on Chattahoochie Industrial and the Atlanta Ballet has built a beautiful new building on Marietta Blvd north of Ellsworth Industrial.
The Boneyard is an eclectic Mexican Restaurant near Huff Road which cuts through between Marietta Blvd and Howell Mill, and at Howell Mill is the west Midtown location of Taco del Sol.
Mark the Mover is our favorite Berkeley Park moving company, across from Atlanta Fire Station number 8 and also offering long term household goods storage.
Archives for March 2014
Solar power deep cycle batteries
When using photo-voltaic cells to capture solar power, it might be best to use deep cycle batteries for storage. The sun don’t shine at night, so stored energy is a key to the successful implementation of solar power capture.
Energy calculations – solar power
Deep cycle batteries are designed less for automobiles and more for complete discharge and recharge. Automobile batteries are lead acid batteries and capable of many years of service when stationary. In a car, they are subjected to rain, snow, bouncing and swaying, and this is less than ideal. Also, a car battery is designed to provide a high current for a short time to start the engine, and not for the continuous discharge that might occur when batteries that store solar power are required to supply power for an extended length of time.
A lead acid battery will have the longest life when complete discharge is avoided. Chemically, the acid and water mixture is less stable at discharge, and most stable when close to fully charged. Overcharge also de-stabilizes the lead acid mixture. Another ill effect of overcharge and discharge is damage to the plates.
Plates in a deep discharge battery are larger and heavier, with greater separation and more resistance to corrosion. A deep discharge battery kept between 50% and 99% charge level can last for decades. Deep cycle batteries will also use a more viscous acid solution that is less prone to separation when a deep discharge occurs.
Cahokia Mounds
Indian mounds near St. Louis Missouri include the Cahokia Mounds in Cahokia Illinois. St. Louis used to be referred to as ‘Mound City’ because of the earthen mounds that dotted the city. But, except for Sugarloaf Mound, they are all gone. Sugarloaf Mound was bought in 2009 by the Osage Nation and will be preserved.
Cahokia is on the other side of the Mississippi River, and preserved in Illinois’ Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. The largest mound at the Cahokia site is Monks Mound, around 100 feet tall at its peak and between 235 and 290 meters across. The Cahokia civilization probably peaked around 1200 AD, 900 years ago, just prior to the last global cooling cycle. The size of the settlements in the Cahokia area would not be surpassed by an American city for 500 years, with a population the reached more than 40,000 people. New York City reached that size in 1800.
Excavations in the Cahokia complex of more than 100 mounds include evidence of human sacrifice including layers of 20 year old women and men buried alive. Also evidence has been found of copper smelting and forging. Artifacts thought to be related to the Cahokia culture have been discovered as far north as St. Paul, Minnesota, also on the Mississippi River.