Recent content by ElectricIslander

Nor rapid shutdown - other than big manual: "son of a switch"!

Why negative grounding? Others have said that floating arrays are more common nowadays. Are you doing this with your own HVCC (High Voltage Charge Controller)? Interesting point about possibly using two spds ....

Present day mining world is moving to electric / autonomous quickly - much faster than construction industry for example. I keep reflecting on how much rechargeable tools have accelerated my carpentry projects. Granddad built his house out of lumber he salvaged from a collapsed exhibition hall...

The Youtube videos show you how to take the windings off the transformer in order to make a spot welder. The idea is to make it into a low voltage high current power supply which makes the transformer safe to use. Do be careful though!

It is relatively easy to make a spot welder from an old microwave magnetron transformer. There are several Youtube videos! You can also make a spot welder attachment for a conventional welder.

Yes - Electric battery locis! A bit bigger than the ones I worked on. I've driven old ore battery powered ore trains underground many moons ago - lotsa fun when they derail in the muck ...... Not much solar underground though. We were remediating the old abandoned Tulsequah mine in...

By the way, this is an off-grid, DC coupled system. So typically panel frames and charge controller chassis are grounded to the house ground, but PV array positive and array negative lines are left floating? I think that the 1 amp 600 V fuse shown in diagram is in the ground fault circuit...

Interesting and useful comments ...... I just found the diagram below in the Conext MPPT 100-600 Install Manual that shows switching of positive leads only. This is for a two string array. I'd think that fusing and switching both leads would be better though. This diagram brings up another...

Probably best bet is to find an EV battery repair shop that has the necessary spot welder and experience with larger battery packs. This battery would probably be quite easy for them to figure out. Must be some automotive EV shops in your area? You might reach out to Discover and request...

We have two strings of nine panels coming to make a total of 18 420WAA Pure R REC panels for a rooftop array that will be connected to a 100A 600V Schneider Charge controller. Each string operates at NOTC at almost 500 V and around 7 amps, so combined would make 14 amps. There will be four...

Separate dedicated small system would be best. You could fool around with stuff but you'd get unpredictable results.

Thanks for the HiMo 5 performance info. The HiMo 5 series of panels come in both 54 cell 400+ Watt variants and 72 cell 500+ Watt variants. As far as I know, the larger form factor 72 cell panels are only available in aluminum coloured frames, which is too bad as I'd get the larger if...

Best way to change generator oil is with one of those hand pumped vacuum oil changers they sell in marine stores for sucking oil out of boat engines through the dipstick. No fuss, no muss - takes about 10 seconds to suck oil out of our Honda. Best is that it stores up to 6L of used oil with...

Hi We are down to the wire on ordering panels for our roof top array. We are off-grid on an island next to the sea in the Pacific Northwest. The roof array needs to fit about 6000 W or more on a Schneider 600V controller. There is just room for sixteen 1.73 m by 1.11 m on the main roof. The...

Ahh, improving safety monitoring on the bridge of the Enterprise!