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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    @Kruncher Yes I would say the roic was worth it. Coming up on 7 years since I started and its all paid for. Of course part of that was from mining and selling crypto to pay for the solar expansion as I grew. Yeah, the reason I went with the Ubiquiti inverters is that I have a "few" of their...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    I dumped the micros for the following reasons: High failure rates (1 or 2 per month on average out of about 140 micros) Ubiquiti no longer supports SunMax platform and software is outdated No shading to speak of on any of the arrays Voltage loss on long 240VAC runs #1 was the main reason as...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    That sounds like quite the project! So in trying to size what I would need, I took a look at how much I consume and what my peak loads are. Here's what the 22nd looked like: It wasn't that crazy cold on the 22nd, but this morning is very cold (4F), and as a result, my heat pumps are working...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    Just had a 4 hour outage today, which was not unexpected, given the rain/sleet/wind we have had over the last 48 hours. I haven't completed wiring in the Kubota yet, so I had to drag out the 10 kW military unit since temps were in the teens and dropping, so just waiting for the power to come...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    I'll know shortly as my next bill will be in the middle of Jan 2023.
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    I was looking at those in the first link above. Actually spoke to the guy and he was willing to sell to me directly, but we did not quite agree on a price for 4 of them. Was looking at these as well: Its not real clear to me if they allow back feeding to the grid like the SIs.
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    No annual true up as far as I know, at least that was the case back in 2016 when I went to a local meeting sponsored by the COOP. The question was asked and the answer was that if someone build up a significant balance, they would issue you a check (at retail pricing) so they did not have the...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    @Hedges Definitely looking forward to seeing what SMA comes up with next. There are starting to be a lot of high frequency options out there, but I think most would have trouble getting my 7.5 hp compressor going and my car lift. I would prefer a solution that does NOT have PV inputs since I...
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    Question about expanding grid tie system

    I always wondered if the poco ever "catch" folks with more solar than they are supposed to have. I know in VA where I live, residential systems supposedly max out of 20kW. I started out with 20kW and was inspected for 20kW when my net metering agreement was established back in 2016. I have...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    Got the SBs extended to land on the grid side of the ATS. Its the 2 wires you see running along the bottom of my "junction box" via the 2 large straight through Polaris connectors. I got quite a collection of those now. And here they come up into the 400A disconnect: (the right Blue/Red...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    I have taken the federal tax credit in all the years I have expanded my system, so 2017, 2018 and 2021 and will again in 2022. I don't see why you couldn't claim the credit more than once if you are staging your solar. But like Quattrohead said, you should not take the word of some stranger on...
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    How efficient is your generator?

    Rated load details are: Power Rating 5kW, 0.8 pf @ 4000ft/120°F; 110% Max Power; De-rate: 3.5%/1000 ft from 4000 to 8000 ft I'm testing into a 5kW dummy load (1.0 pf) at 760 ft and temps around 70F. So it makes sense that I'm doing a little bit better than 0.57 gph. I also have a...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    @Hedges I edited the post to detail the L1/L2 and N wiring gauges as well, just to make everything clear. @Bluedog225 Both the horizontal and vertical pipes are 3" from the local plumping supply store. The mounting is all Ironridge.
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    How efficient is your generator?

    I have a MEP-802A diesel generator. It burns 0.5 gallons of fuel per hour with a 5,000 watt load. I also have a Kubota 17 kW generator. It has a 4 cylinder turbo charged diesel. Next time I load test it, I'll see about collecting some fuel consumption data.
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    Just to be clear, just the ground wiring is 1/0 aluminum or less (except the 3/0 copper going to the house sub-panels). The L1/L2 wires are all 300 MCM copper except the last few feet going into the 200A sub-panels, where it it 3/0 copper. The 225A solar sub-panel has 300 MCM all the way to...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    @Hedges @Shimmy Below is the requirement the POCO gave me: The county required 2 8' ground rod spaced 4' apart, which I have at both the shop building and the house. Ground conductors are as follows: #4 bare copper looping through clamps on both rods to the new meter base #6 bare copper...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    Here are some better closeups of each enclosure going left to right. GND wires are all 1/0 Al. Everything else is 300 MCM Cu or 500 MCM Al, with the exception of the wires going through the wall in the junction box to the 200A shop sub-panels. Those are 3/0 Cu for L1, L2 and N. Oh, and the N...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    Yeah, it seems that industrial-grade inverters are all 3 phase unfortunately. The Sol-ARK 15k is about as big as they come for regular single phase residential. I'm happy with my SBs, although I sure wish they made some larger than 7.7k. Anyway, I got the disconnect and transfer switches...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    Good idea about landing the SBs on the grid side of the ATS. For me that will be easy and only involving extending a couple of 300 MCM cables about 4' as shown below: I already have dual lugs in the disconnect switch, so wiring up the SBs would be natural. I can't wire them directly to the...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    That all makes sense. So it looks like the multifunction relay can be used to turn the load on and off as follows: So I should be able to wire terminals 1 and 2 in parallel for all 8 inverters, and connect to the NO contacts of the transfer switch. Right?
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    I was hoping to fine tune things so that if I have a power outage during the day, the Sunny Boys would provide most of the power and the generator would have a very small load on it. But that might be too fine a balancing act to try to pull off for what it probably not a huge amount of fuel...
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    Tuning 20kW diesel generator to play nice with 8x directly coupled Sunny Boy Inverters

    I have a pretty big setup consisting of 8 Sunny Boys (1 is a US-40 the other 7 are US-41 models). Total AC capacity if about 55 kW. I just changed how the grid feeds into the whole system and it now looks like this: Before the grid fed into the House which is where my disconnect, transfer...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    @BradCagle Yep, Voskcoin came out and did a couple of YouTube videos with me. @z_zk_z Combination of lag bolts and structural brackets to attach the struts. I believe both horizontal and angled struts are 2x12s. I'll double check and also take some close up photos. Yes, the posts are 6x6s...
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    Sunny Boy Grid Tied Inverter in Island Mode 60hz

    Yeah I saw the frequency input and output would be compatible with the 60Hz, but didn't catch that the 8H series will not accept 120 VAC. Would definitely want series connected 120 VAC versions. Figured it was too good to be true...
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    Sunny Boy Grid Tied Inverter in Island Mode 60hz

    So it seems that the SI8.0 is being sold state side now at a very good price: I haven't purchased from ecrunch.com but they seem legit...
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    Small remote site (pole with small Ethernet switch, cameras and Access Point)

    So Unifi used to be 24V only, but that was proprietary and now they do regular PoE, which is 48V. I have an older 1st gen PoE switch that does both 24V and 48V, and the PSU in it died, so I picked up some cheap PSU's on eBay to get it going again. One adjusted for 24V and the other for 53V...
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    Small remote site (pole with small Ethernet switch, cameras and Access Point)

    Lol, tell me about it. I seem to perpetually be on their notify list for when they get stuff in stock. Been on the waiting list for their Camera AI360 and Bullet for what seems like an eternity already.
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    Small remote site (pole with small Ethernet switch, cameras and Access Point)

    Great suggestion about just getting a switch capable of being powered by DC directly! So I'm a bit of a UniFi fanboy already, lol: So I plan to stick with equipment from them. Long term, I plan to build a small cabin down in the field near the river. So with that in mind, I might just get...
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    Small remote site (pole with small Ethernet switch, cameras and Access Point)

    I have a about a 20 acre property with an open field about 1000ft from the house with a river bordering the open field. Location would be as follows: (red line) The pine trees visible above the red line towards the South will be felled, so there will be plenty of sun all year with little...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    Yeah, I know the EG4s won't communicate with the current gen Sunny Islands sold in the US. Hoping that the next gen ones can and/or that there will be other low frequency inverter options that can AND also regulate the output of Sunny Boys by regulating the frequency on the AC side.
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    Yeah, the ideal system I think would be to load up on the EG4 rack batteries and hope that the Sunny Island 8.0H will be able to communicate with it. Not in a great rush to run out and buy batteries and a charger, so I'll wait things out a bit longer to see what else comes to market. My...
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    Ubiquiti SunMax SM-MI-250 250 Watt Micro inverters for sale. $50 each with landscape cables. Have over 130. Afton, VA

    How about $2,000 for the lot? Here's what I paid: 137 Inverters @ $92 126 Landscape cables @ $21 9 Portrait cables @ $19 4 Gateways @$51 10 End run connectors @$20 6 AC extension cables @$16 So a grand total of about $16k. Pick up some decent used panels and you can have a 35 kW system on...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    I don't have any THHN exposed to the sun. That pic above was taken before the solar panel was placed over top of it. Here's a before pic when the 4 AC strings were going into it: That's a flexible rubber boot going down through the roof. Never had a single leak since the initial install in...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    Yeah, I agonized a while over how to wire the strings after removing all the micro-inverters. I did not want to pull all new wires through the conduits out to the various arrays, so I was limited by the wiring that was already in the conduits and I just reused the THHN wire already in the...
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    My DIY 60 kW 220 panel setup

    I just realized the 56A relay limitation in the SI is @ 120V per your comment above. So that means I would need 8 SIs to be able to backfeed 50kW plus back into the grid. And that's definitely more than I want to spend. So yeah, let me think about how to redo the diagram to only have some...
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