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4 dual axis trackers.

Like others here have done, I wanted to share my solar hot water heater I installed in 2007. There's 4 zones(domestic hot water Tank1, domestic hot water Tank2, House, Garage), each with a standard zone valve. And 2 pumps. One pump for the house, tank1 and tank2 and one pump for the garage. A...

What to do after solar? That's easy. diyfusionforum.com

There's a thread here on the forum where I got this link. https://github.com/aaronmelton/solark_monitor I pulled some of the python code, modified as needed, and now I can get data from the sol-ark 12k via rs-485. A script runs every minute to pull data and make charts. You could pull the data...

Forever....until an inverter or other piece of equipment fails.

OK So lets say you want to clamp the voltage to 500VDC and on the coldest day of the year Voc is 520V. For my array (example), Isc = 9.82, Imp = 9.41. (9.82-9.41)x1.25x500V = 256 Watts. You can get 100V 50W zeners stud mount. Mount 5 to an aluminum finned heat sink. I would think the zeners...

For years I ran my 40 gallon electric hot water heater off 120V and had a timer that turned it on for 2 hours in the morning and then 2 hours in the evening. It made plenty of hot water even at 120V. A friend lives in a small condo and he has a 20 gallon heater with a 1500 watt element.

I like this idea. Would you share more info on what you did? Circuit diagram? What load do you use? I don't like to reinvent the wheel if at all possible;)

Not just MC4 connectors... But over the years I have found that the name brand (and more expensive) connectors are made to the specifications for that connector, are better quality in general, and will work for years and years if installed correctly. Watertight connectors can fail and let water...

Our house uses the concrete slab in the basement as thermal storage. We built this over 25 years ago. The house is basically a well insulated box that is situated to collect sunlight during the winter. The active part of the system is a variable speed blower that pulls warm air from the vaulted...

I write my own software to make charts and automate things.

Clint - do you have batteries connected? In closed loop or open loop? When my batteries batteries are in closed loop is when I get the drops and spikes. In open loop all is well. Solar Guppy - In my case I asked Carlos at Sol-Ark about monitoring the AC power. That I could hook up a scope that...

the Dunning Kruger Curve. I'm trying to use my cognitive abilities to figure out if "I know everything and I'm always right" or "I'm completely incompetent and don't even know it".

Use one of the many heat loss calculators on the web to figure out how many btu per hour you need for your building. Then convert btu to watts. I think you will find you will need much more power than you think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapsology

in 2007 I installed a 110 tube evacuated glass tube system for domestic hot water. At the time it was the same cost per unit of energy produced as PV. Today I would not bother with thermal. I'd use PV since PV costs are way cheaper than thermal. However, the system has been trouble free all...

Last night I ran a test with the 12k Sol-Ark, Discover LynkII Comm gateway and (2)Discover 42-48-6650 batteries. Using the LynkII gateway, the batteries are in closed loop mode with the sol-ark. Each battery has it's own BMS and power to run the LynkII may becoming from both batteries. Sol-Ark...

Today I would use PV instead of the solar hot water. This is based on cost. PV is much cheaper than SHW today. When I put my system in long ago it was the same cost per kwh. With that said - my 110 tube SHW system has performed great. One of the tubes mysteriously broke a couple years ago. I had...

https://modernsurvivalblog.com/systemic-risk/9-meals-from-chaos/

I have a SunnyBoy 2500U 240VAC inverter here. The line connections are made like this: L1 -> L inverter L2 -> N label on inverter but manual says to connect L2 to N labeled connector Gnd -> Gnd on inverter. This inverter does not need a neutral.

We have 110 evacuated glass tube collector. It's just enough to heat 120 gallons of water for domestic hot water use in the winter. When the 120 gallons are up to max temp the hot water goes to a radiator in the air handler. This air handler sends the air into ducts in the 12" thick insulated...

My 12k Sol-Ark inverter has been determined by Sol-Ark to be replaced under warranty. The only problem is that the process has totally stopped now and I don't get any response from sol-ark. To get to this point has been a couple months. I have never seen such a slow process.

I crimp, pull on it to make sure it won't come apart and then solder it. In general (not just PV), I've seen way too many field made crimps that fail in time. Including my own if I don't pay attention to every detail... Soldering is the insurance policy for me.

I suggest those that live in NY to go to public meetings by whatever board regulates the utilities. Is that NYSERDA?

I use the same crimper. There are other brands that look the same and perhaps they are. Works great! Airtight connections are extremely important. It may take years but the copper in poorly crimped connections will corrode. Resistance will increase and now, years later, you are not looking at...

The Wattsun trackers are 20 years old. The panels are now over a year old.

All good advice - you need an SSD. And then you need to create backups of the SSD. Welcome to the world of long term data storage and recovery. I've used raspberry pi(s) for a long time on various projects and I can tell you that those little memory cards are guaranteed to fail. It's just a...

I use Perl on Linux OS. Data is kept in flat text files. Graphing software is ChartDirector https://www.advsofteng.com/

Yes, I agree with previous post - If the copper pipe is like in the USA, the copper will crack at the bends. If it does not crack at first it will crack the next time it gets bent - perhaps when you install the cable - or maybe years later during maintenance of the system. My advise is to not do...

Twice I've repaired things that were out of production for decades by buying broken ones on ebay. One was a car radio and the other a peice of test equipment. I was patient and waited until I found the exact items on ebay listed 'for parts only'. They were cheap. If you don't have exact...