Metr0Land

Oh dear, are you on the naughty step?

OK, I'm not exporting anything yet. Only been on Octopus Go since 09Sep, Tesla Powerwall switched on 18Oct, and Intelligent Go since 23Dec - so still building up my understanding. As Hobby's noticed there's a lot to get your head around! Bill for Nov/early Dec which was all on Octopus Go (which was the only month I have so far where nothing changed): Total £55 of which standing charge £15 (grrrr) Car ~£18 House ~£22 So the next full month on Intelligent Go (assumes like for like home and car usage and no change in solar) would be £15/standing, Car/£15, House/£19, total £49)

As I entered my teens it was being postulated that model railways were being killed off by Scalextric and Wrenn 152 but here we are...... a couple of decades later along came computers but here we are.....

Actually it's a lot more complicated if you have a storage unit (Hobby hasn't so can look away now). Both myself and a friend have been caught out by the sudden daytime bursts of 7.5p - in both cases car apps were turned off and zappi chargers set up for night-time use 11:30-5:30 (and indeed have had 'extras' just before 11:30 and after 05:30). Now here's the difficulty, Intelligent Octopus is telling the Intelligent Charger to fill its boots in these daytime extras, but the Intelligent Charger using it's own intelligence thinks it has to drain the Tesla Powerwall first and only then use mains electricity.... I lost 3kWh this way and my friend lost 6kWh this way meaning in both cases we were nervously watching our Teslas almost drain dry before bed-time and switching to mains electric at 30p Because Dec was so dire in terms of sunlight there was no opportnity during the day to backfill the storage unit with solar. We decided the way to combat it was to leave car unplugged during the day if it wasn't full. We've had no events since, so don't know if by doing this Octopus will backfill the Tesla storage or the Tesla storage won't recognise the daytime extras as they're set up for night-time tariff periods the same as the chargers. Since Sunday we've had a lot more solar though that seems to be decreasing day by day, but for both of us we've decided the daytme extras are better avoided as we'll be getting sufficient 7.5p electricity the next night and don't want to risk the daytime extras pushing us into needing full price electric before we reach the next night. Oh what a tangled web we weave...... Edit: forgot to add, we've both told the Octopus app we want the car by 5:30am in case it's looking 12 hours ahead and thinks it can charge us at say 9am which would replicate the problem above.

Hobby: Agree most of your assumptions though Intelligent Octopus is 7.5p not 7p - not a big diff. From those VW figures you wouldn't get a 10-80% charge in 7 hours but...... If you're down to 10pct and at home and as you don't do a huge mileage simply set the car up to charge to say 50pct on night 1 and then 80pct on night 2. When there's the incentive of such a cheap rate it's surprising how amenable we are to changing mindset! Your car and your wall charger will both have apps to let you decide just what pct you want to charge the car tonight.

Another thing is you might need your house fuse changing but this should be FOC and no great hassle. Because I had the Zappi and Tesla powerwall installed together it meant I was potentially drawing 7kW off the mains for several hours at a go to 'fill' them both in the night period. My house had a 60A fuse coming in via the meter cupboard. The installers got approval from Western Power (who represent National Grid around here) to use the new setup temporarily. Whoever installs your charger should be able to advise if an upgrade is needed, though with everyone doing more and more solar/stoarge/car-charging I think the Grid will just want to do it anyway once they know you're adding the charger. In due course a man from Western Power came and changed to house supply to 80A and some kind of device that was 100A on the supply side. No hassle - 30min job.

It depends on 2 things, a/ the rate at which your house and charger can deliver b/ the rate your car can accept. My house and zappi charger will deliver 7kWh but my car can only accept 3.8kW (most newer cars will be higher) So for 6 hours at 3.8kWh it's 6 x 3.8 x 7.5p = £1.71 for 22.8kWh delivered 6 hours at 7kw x 7.5p = £3.15 for 42kWh delivered. There's a vast difference between the miles/kWh you get in summer and winter. My Kuga has 2.5L petrol engine and 11kWh battery. In summer I get 3.5 electric miles per kWh in winter 2.2..... It's miles/kWh which allows you to compare with ICE cars. If you know how many miles/kWh you're getting and price per kWh you get cost per mile. And of course with ICE you know the price of petrol/diesel and use mpg to get pence per mile. My petrol cost would be ~11.5p/mile. Even with poor performance in winter, electric is ~3.5p/mile. In summer I'm expecting it to drop to just over 2p/mile if I'm paying 7.5p/unit. btw the Octopus prices I quoted include vat. As 30801 stated you need to check daytime rate as well as night rate as some suppliers claw back the good rate by screwing you in the daytime. If funds permit it's worth considering storage devices but as with a lot of green stuff it's quite an upfront payment to get longer term gains. If it helps, it's taken me since 2021 to get my head round this. I knew a BEV wouldn't meet my needs so went mild-hybrid. It was only after several months I realised PHEV would be best for my circumstances and fortunately could afford to change after 18 months.

I have solar panels, and in October installed a 13kWh Tesla storage unit and a myenergi/zappi car charger. My car is a Ford Kuga PHEV. So my experience won't be directly comparable but this is what I've been doing lately. I was on Octopus Go! which had a 4 hour overnight window - overnight rate 9p/kWh, daytime ~30.5p, standing charge ~52.5p I've now managed to get on Octopus Intelligent Go! which has a 6 hours window (typically 11:30pm-5:30am), overnight 7.5p others the the same. So you won't get 7 hours and may need to spread over a couple of nights. Apparently they can give you more hours and a lower rate as they take control of your charger and car and juggle the charge period/s to balance demand over 000's of users. When I plug the car in after a drive, within a few mins the Octopus app tells me when it will be charging (though if it's really sunny I might go onto direct charge for a while). I don't really care exactly when they charge as my car will charge in ~3 hours as it's only ~11kWh battery - but a 16pct reduction in the rpice of all my electricity was very welcome. I never charge away from home as there's no infrastructure in Wales... and the price of course would be way higher than petrol.

Kernow have EFE green Hymek £99.99 am sorely tempted to get another to with my Heljan one https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/43588/E84001-WSL-EFE-Rail-Hymek-Diesel-Locomotive-D7005-BR-Green

There seem to be more and more layouts with an industrial theme these days. Why not have a visit from the Industrial Railway Society? (Corby steel works)

75048 Arnside 2-8-68 (T Ermel-2078cS) by Trevor Ermel, on Flickr 45046 at Flitwick by Bingley Hall, on Flickr Flitwick freight by Bingley Hall, on Flickr - Flitwick Derby moment by Bingley Hall, on Flickr -Derby

I was on Octopus Go tariff (9p a unit - 4 hour overnight window) and a bit miffed I couldn't get onto Octopus Intelligent Go (7.5p a unit and six hour overnight window). My car's a Ford Kuga PHEV and it wasn't listed as suitable. About 10 days ago a friend alerted me to the fact that Intelligent Go is now available with the myenergy zappi charger which I have. Strangely(?) you have to download the app as it's still not available via the desktop. After downloading the app you now get an option to connect to a selection of chargers rather than cars in the first instance, and after selecting the charger then get a much longer list of cars than you could via the desktop. Happy bunny here, I've had no notification of any rise in January. The drop from 9p to 7.5p should save another £8-£9 pcm.

Thanks - it'still beyond range in Sky planner.

You're right, sorry folks. It was in an email from TPTV but when I posted it was beyond range for putting in planner. Have just checked and I can't see it either. They've had several of the 'Ghost story for Christmas' 1 hour progs on, so dunno why this has dropped out.

One of the mags used the big station building in pic A and called it 'Huddersfield' or something of that ilk. The 2 corrugated buildings in pic C have been issued many times in many combinations. When I bought it it included another longer shed which I didn't use, and a 2 door shed which I did. It didn't have the tanks that time.

Talking Pictures are running a series of ghost stories which were broadcast on BBC at 11pm Christmas Eves in the 70's (remember when we only had 3 channels and the station closed during the night?) The Signalman starred Denholm Elliott and was filmed at the Severn Valley Railway in 1976. Don't try identifying the signal cabin - it was built for the production! Friday 29Dec 8:05pm Talking Pictures - Sky 328, Freeview 082

When I first posted here it came up as a pic like the videos above, which as you say shows the product. However on here you get the option to show the link only, rather than the pic so you can make it a tease

You'll never guess what this Thai advert is about - Eng subtitles. Reveal after 4m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJrj_mLlSo&ab_channel=ArrumpabojChannel

Not a photo but youtube video, a tight passage close to housing in US still in use Dec23

Looking for inspiration for a minimum space layout? Click on photo for location

Click on pic for poss explanation

Back on P4 of this thread I commented that the LT panniers had a mix of no feed/top feed and the same loco might have either during its LT life. I had been labouring under the (mis)apprehension they all had welded tanks. No so of course. L90 had both welded and rivetted tanks (though there were 2 L90's). L99 def had rivetted tanks at some stage, not sure if it had welded at all. A lot of pics are distant/dark or both, so it's not always possible to tell if the streaks in the grime along the side are along welds or rivets.

They've been available for some time from cdc models in 3D printed for. I have both teak and brown liveried sets. He makes them in small batches https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225864461336?hash=item3496922c18:g:3FQAAOSwcwplTTFO

Were the K22's still in use in mid-50's?