Recent content by hugemoth

Sitting by the diesel heater rather than the wood stove this morning, 23°F. My daughter next door is going to have 3 huge 100+ year old ponderosa pine trees cut down when she goes full solar PV this summer so that will be enough firewood for years.

If we're lucky. I've seen snow and low 20s in August although it's rare.

Hasn't snowed here in almost 48 hours! Oregon Cascades. A warm 32° F this morning where lately it has been in the 20s overnight. The last wood stove fire of the season should be coming up in early July.

eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/304712537845?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=MvbsRTEuTMK&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=OBNvB0WBQ6-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Longest service I've had from flooded lead acid batteries is 8 years from Trojan L16s. I did have a Walmart car battery last 9 years in my Toyota pickup.

Yes you are thinking about it in the right way.

Think of your battery as a bucket and your solar array as a garden hose. Think of your loads as a pipe with a valve on it coming out of the bottom of the bucket. When the sun shines water flows from the garden hose into the bucket. When the bucket is full it overflows onto the ground and is...

The PV array in my small system is shade challenged during the winter so I want maximum efficiency. My old 3kw inverter drew 36 watts with no load. The 4 watts my new 3.5 kw inverter draws at idle was a check in the plus column for that model.

If I had an extra $50 I'd buy one to disassemble but a fuse will work fine and be safe in my system.

I have a EPEVER Tracer 4215bn that came with the MT50 display. I found the MT50 difficult to work with, very poorly set up. I switched to the $20 Bluetooth dongle and Solar Guardian app which is much more logical and easy to use. Adjusting parameters, monitoring performance graphs, is easy and...

That one looks identical to the one that failed. It would be interesting to have a look inside to see if there is any difference in construction. A steel pivot for the plastic lever (rather than plastic) would likely prevent a similar failure.

If it has a brand name it must be on a sticker on the back side which is inaccessible right now. I think all of them that look alike and have the same specs are probably the same. I have taken it apart to examine the inner workings and it seems like a pretty simple and solid design.

Here's one for $10. https://www.ebay.com/itm/364836179527?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=z2lxpkrusjm&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=OBNvB0WBQ6-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Yes the failure would not have prevented the circuit breaker from opening in an over current situation, it just prevented it from closing the circuit once I manually opened it.

I drilled out the rivits and opened it up. It's basically a bimetallic plate and contact points like an old car. The contacts are not pitted and there is no sign of overheating. My best guess is the little plastic lever inside that opens the contact points was twisted out of place and partially...