Recent content by McKravitts

Caution. If the battery has been severly degraded a short may have developed in one or more cells. The result will be that the battery gets hot. Very hot. I had one get hot enough to crack the case and leak acid. To be safe it is best to current limit the power supply to 200 ma or less.

Most municipalities have a fire code for placement of panels. They usually require at least 18 inches from the ridge. I'm not sure if they would enforce that for a shed, but you might want to look it up.

Most installers use the date the equipment was first put into use, even if you paid for it in a previous year. IRS tax code for solar credits is about as vague as all other tax laws. You're probably safe if the equipment you purcahsed has never been used for a credit in the past. One possible...

If I'm reading your cost chart correctly, it looks like you are getting an 80 % tax credit on the panels. About 42 % on the AC300/B300.

Unfortunately it was too tempting to not joke about it. I did locate an ebike motor that was only 250 watts, which puts it slightly more in the "doable" category. 250 watts would only add an assist. That with the drag from a 250 watt panel would probably make it just as hard as no panel at all.

Maybe so, but what if it takes you two days because your dragging a solar array with you. Two days of lost wages can be pretty expensive.

I built my batteries myself out of 18650 batteries that I got cheap on ebay. I also got an inexpensive BMS. The case is just phenolic board and some high density foam then wrapped in PVC shrink wrap. Not sure if you can beat the price with a solar panel, a way to either mount it to a bike or...

Not too long ago I experimented with radiative cooling. The temperature of space is somewhere around -450 degrees F. The amount of heat radiated from the earth has to equal the amount of solar heating for the average temperature on the planet to remain reasonably constant. Most of the radiative...

I have an electric bike. I have three batteries for it. I rotate them so that one is fully charged at all times. One is on a solar charger and the other on the bike. The time to fully charge one is about 4 hours, so every morning I have at least two fully charged. On a long ride I can keep an...

Do me a favor and block me again.

I don't mind if you irratate me, just be careful to not make yourself look dumb.

Without net metering, most of the newer electric meters used by the power companies will spin forward whether you import or export. The amount you are exporting gets added to your bill, just as the amount you import. So you may be paying them to give them power. If you get net metering, you'll...

It would be helpful to know where exactly you are measuring the 11 volts. Is it at the battery terminals, the inverter input, or elsewhere.

My statement was "everything when determining fuse size or type for an inverter". That a far cry from everything. Ohms Law has a few centuries of success. It's been referred to as simply a definition of conductance which is the reciprocal of resistance. I've successfully designed several...

The 400 amp fuse better be able to handle 600 amps for a short duration of time.