Welcome to the blog for my 2014 Travels

My trip to Nigeria which I had hoped to start in January of 2014 has been delayed until around February 25th. My Granddaughter Sydney is being baptized on February 16th. The Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria National Convention starts a few days later. This is a poor time to travel as most people will be at the convention and my arrival would pull them away from the convention. I will travel after the convention.

Sydney at 8 months.

 This year I will assist with the implementation of water pump repair project in the "priority" areas. I also hope to work on planning of the future church for the Deaf, sanitation projects planning, and a couple possible economic development projects.

During January I will be working on some  solar lighting using 12 volt DC Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) prototypes for the Deaf Church and some molds for casting VIP Latrine Floors. I have ordered a 5 meter long LED light strip roll that has 300 LEDs on it and another style of LED lights that has 80 LEDs. The reason I am looking a the LED lights are that for the Deaf "No light means no talk.". There is an Danish organization that is willing to pay for a Solar Panel for the Deaf Church. In the past the Solar lighting systems have been a panel, a lead acid battery, and 12 volt incandescent car lights. The system I am looking at will be similar except I will include a modern charger controller that prevents the battery from over charging and a battery protection circuit to prevent the battery from discharging too far. The modern LEDs provide the same Lumens of light as incandescent lamps but only use 10 percent of the power. I bought them off of Ebay. The vendor from China estimated delivery between January 2nd & 10th.

As I get closer to the trip I will update you on what is happening.

January 1st Update: I received the LED's in the mail yesterday. My power supply that I currently have is only 2 amps (24 watts at 12VDC). The string of 80 lights uses less than 1 amp. The string of 300 uses 72 watts around 6 amps. I found my old battery for our self starting lawnmower and charged it up. It is 6 1/2 years old and has been out of the mower for years.

300 LEDs  5 meters long taken with Flash

80 LEDs on 20 Boards taken with flash.