David in nh
dreaming of 48 volts
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2019
- Messages
- 129
nopeDo you want to know more?
nopeDo you want to know more?
Buying lead-acid batteries, and severely oversizing the lead-acid bank; it lead to the system never being fully charged causing the batteries to fail in less than a year. Oh and this was 32x group 8D batteries.
but they looked so awesome in the videos when you had them set upBuying lead-acid batteries, and severely oversizing the lead-acid bank; it lead to the system never being fully charged causing the batteries to fail in less than a year. Oh and this was 32x group 8D batteries.
Signing up on some DIYSolar Forum... so much of my time wasted...
For the love of...Amateur!
2 things, one buying a pair of 6500EX's, the second was not installing a second conduit thru the cement foundation on my array. The latter will require having conduit on the outside of the cement where it can be hit by a lawnmower. The second conduit is for expansion and ability to run wires to a central point before running 420 feet to the charge controllers.In the process of DIY solar keeping everything right is not an easy task. Especially for those like myself that suffer from mental processing errors. What is a mental processing error you ask? For me this is looking right at something and allowing my mind to process it incorrectly. This led to one of my worse solar setup errors.
I was wiring up an inverter one afternoon. Fairly simple though it had a disconnect between battery and inverter. Black wire to Inverter negative, Red wire to inverter positive. From the disconnect the red wire should have been connected to battery positive and black to battery negative. Looking right at it I proceeded to wire it wrong. Still looking at things and not mentally recognizing that I had wired with the wrong polarity I turned on the disconnect. "Bzap!" The magic smoke proceeded out of the inverters guts.
How the heck could I be so blankety blank stupid I asked myself? It was right in front of me.
Not my only DIY solar error that was caused by my mental condition, or by moments of personal clumsiness, dropped wrench, bolts anyone? It however was worse in that it not only cost me a couple of hundred dollars but it made me feel dumb. Feeling dumb is no fun at all.
So, "What was one of your worse DIY solar errors?"
But you learned so much! and your two years ahead compared to starting off now!That I started with solar at the end of 2022 when prices were at all time high.
It takes half the cost to do the same thing now.
Yeah not much hookups happen on DIYSolar Forum.Signing up on some DIYSolar Forum... so much of my time wasted I could have been meeting girls...
For sure. I have no regrets in that regard, worth every cent spent.But you learned so much! and your two years ahead compared to starting off now!
I started big but it is a little demoralizing for every step to take so much money and time. Going on a year of serious effort now and I haven't generated a watt of solar power yet. 6.8kW inverter installed, 20kWh battery done, MPPT is in place, concrete footers for Brightmounts are done, trench is done and filled, 8x 480's are here on a pallet. Just gotta run the metal conduit under the crawlspace and it should all be able to finally happen this spring!I would have saved a lot of money by starting with a better system like the 6000xp with rigid panels.