Most reacted threads

OK, it might not really do anything solar related but I am pleased to announce the arrival of my new Baby Ex. It arrived yesterday afternoon after a short gestation period of less than a week. Weighing in a 2200#s (1000kg) and healthy from the look of things. I hope if I feed and care for it...

You know how it is. Your original intention was to see if this solar stuff actually works. So you pick up a solar panel or two and prop them in the sun. A voltage reading tells you they are doing something so you hook up a SCC and a battery and all of a sudden nothing happens. Oh yeah the...

Almost 2 years back I decided to try out these new fangled LiFePO4 batteries. Because I am cheap, and distrustful of things that are new to me, I bought the lowest cost liFePO4 battery I could find. No communication, no uploads to the 'Net, no fancy apps to monitor individual cells, no internal...

As I prepare to mount my last solar panels and hook them up it strikes me that I have reached the point where there is nothing left to do. The months spent investigating, researching, planning, building, wiring, tearing out, re-doing and just generally occupying my attention, are drawing to a...

Thought I would post up my inexpensive ground mount setup I just built for adding some more solar panels to my mix. This is a fixed angle arrangement. My other panels are on fully adjustable mounts but overtime I am finding it seems to work OK by simply keeping a yearly constant angle. The...

Been looking at all the new offerings for AIO's this year with all kind of impressive specs. Hopefully there will be many folks that rush out and put them in operation so the inevitable quirks, faults and operational gotchas will be exposed. Also hopefully these early adopters are eager to...

I am noticing that there seems to be a Solar Country Club type that tends to look down on us less well healed solar adopters. They spend $100k for mounting systems designed by the Engineering firm that built the Twin Towers. While those of us on the poor side of the solar divide mount our panels...

The time eventually comes that all those temporary and make do methods you used to test out this solar power stuff needs to be redone and prettied up some. The solar panels propped up on concrete blocks in the yard, with whatever wire you could find hooked to it by rather dubious connection...

I have been adding more loads to my AIO as I try to make use of additional PV generation. The latest has been my kitchen outlets that are used for my microwave, induction cooktop, pizza oven and a lot of other occasional use things. In doing so I found out that I had made a mistake in trusting...

I replaced my 5 year old phone yesterday with a new one that has a much better camera (never used my old phone for much photo work) so I decided to do some testing of it today and also how I could transfer it to my computer for later use. Bit of a gray day for doing this but it hit me that my...

The solar patrol is usually not out flying the County on Saturday mornings searching for illegal solar installations. So I had the camouflage netting down off my solar panels to maximize my solar production when I heard the ominous "Whup-whup" of helicopter blades coming up the Valley. It was...

Probably some of you already have seen these but I had not until now on Amazon while looking for a 30a din rail AC breaker. About twice the cost of the Chinese mini breakers but I would trust the Westinghouse name much more. They are rated for the 1 pole at 277vAC and 60vDC and the 2 pole...

Battery from scratch. This is my first ever attempt to build a workable, cheap as possible, LiFePO4 24vDC using 105ah battery cells. The cells and BMS were bought on Aliexpress with some items coming from Amazon (tape, battery separators, terminal connectors and 8 awg soft silicone wire) plus...

Had a cold front move in this morning with fog. Presently about 42F outdoors. Not much solar being generated all morning. However as it got beyond Noon the sun broke free for a few minutes. I was observing my panel input and was amazed to see the incoming watts march right up and over the 1200w...

If you post a problem you are having you really need to provide as much information as you can. People that might help are not there beside you to see what you are seeing or hear what you are hearing. Always give model and specifications. Always mention when and under what circumstances the...

It must be a difficult thing for companies that make components for DIY solar to provide Warranty service. Especially with all the folks out there with differing abilities to properly setup some rather complicated electrical systems. Did the product fail due to a fault in manufacturing of the...

Watching paint dry is a walk in the park compared to monitoring some of this solar equipment for when it will fail. Hard to establish an item's worth until you have some data on how long it lasts. Then there is the fact something new or better is out there but you can not justify ripping out a...

Just for fun I decided to see what I could come up today off Amazon for an Off grid starter system that could provide a decent amount of PV power for someone looking to setup a small system. What I came up with is the following. 1200w worth of PV. 6-200w Alrska panels at $158.98ea for a total...

It struck me this afternoon as I sit with full batteries (before noon!) and hardly any loads (cool weather has cut back any A/C needs and my hot water tank is up to heat) that it has been months since my AIO's have had to transfer to AC Bypass to power anything. AC in does not do anything...

Designing an off grid solar solution always seems to end up being a feast or famine situation. You either have more potential than you can use or you fall short of having enough due to battery capacity, Season, weather or unexpected loading. There is no question that the AIO's have helped with...

EAsun MLV 3KW-U Off grid Hybrid review. 3000W, 120vAC output at either 50 or 60hz. Maximum 100VDc input to 60a MPPT controller. 1400W total Solar. Max 80a AC charging. I bought this inverter off EAsun’s website under the USA tab at $449 with a 10% off plus free shipping. They did not charge...

Strictly off grid: Given a specific load in watt-hours per day. Size your inverter to handle double the running watts plus surge current. Size your battery capacity to handle the loads watt-hours per day and double it for Lithium based batteries and triple it for Lead acid. Size your solar...

Just happened to notice over on Ebay that Eco-worthy has their 200w RV panels on sale for the rest of today. Free shipping. Not as cheap as used panels but I have no access to used in my neck of the woods. Price about $175.99 I ordered 2 of the 200w for myself for a RASP (Redundant Array of...

Getting way too ambitious with my latest upgrade. I had decided I wanted to redo my sub panels setup that previously was wired from the Main panel and my off grid AIO through a manual transfer switch with AC in power tapped off from main in the switch box. I decided I wanted to keep main power...

Been using these din rail power meters on my AIO's AC out to keep track of things. With all the information it always displays I do not have to cycle through the AIO's screens, run an app, log on to a PC or anything more than a glance. I went with the type that has the coil sensor rather than...

It struck me that some folks new to the electrical world may not have been instructed in the proper use of electrical tape for insulating connectors. Yes there is a right way to use tape. In the Navy I learned it was called double layer distributed wrap. Others call it half wrap. Tips for...

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...

Why is it that every time I get in some new panels or I want to reconfigure an old array the weather turns bad for several days? It is darn hard to check operation when there is no or limited sun available. You would think that solar panels would give you more sunny weather but perhaps they...

The last few days the weather has been less than optimal. Add in the time of year with the low sun angle, increased shading from trees and short days and my batteries are at a low SOC. This means the AIO is operating in AC bypass. So like other "Fair weather friends" solar power has failed in...

Spent the last two days (July 11&12th) in replacing my original near 1 year old #1 EAsun 3kw-U AIO with a new similar (PowMR label but just another SRNE) rated one. It has a higher PV voltage range (up to 450vDC) and 80a charge versus the 60a charge. My original #1 EAsun unit is now a spare. I...