New array and tracker

and ive seen poles anchored in concrete heave well beyond 10 degrees
just givin yas the benefit of my experience on pole mounts
ya dont have to listen i guess

 

OK, after a little break for heart surgery, I finally got back to the solar project. Had a concrete pump guy here Friday to pump about 4 cuyds up to the pole, which had been sitting in a hole/form since mid July. Today, my helper and I got the Unistrut cross arms mounted to the "H" frame I'd welded up and mounted when we set the pole in the hole. Then got the 10 245w panels mounted to the Unistrut.

Using neighbor's Mini-Ex to set the pole with/H frame. Putting this array higher on the hill to get the morning sun about an hour earlier ( trees behind the house block the sun until about 9-9:30 on the other arrays )

Photo 1

We built a temporary wood scafold out from the hillside to be able to work the panels on a little easier. Was still a PITA. You can see the trees behind the garage that block the sun on the lower arrays for about 2 hrs after the sun tops that eastern ridge in the far background.

Photo 2

Looking from the driveway up the hill, nine panels mounted at this point.

Photo 3

Couple-three more days to run wire, hook up new charge controller, get the actuators mounted that will the tracking, and general stuff, and we'll have another 2450watts online. Got two more of the 175w panels to go on that lower array that only has 8 to even it up with the other on, so grand total to date will be (20x175w)=3500w + (10x245w)=2450w = 5950w ..... just shy of 6kw. Hoping to see 35kw/hrs/day on good days.....probably hit about 700kw/hrs on an average month.

 

Now I'm really getting jealous of your system ! Looks fantastic Andy.

 

Gonna have to post some pics of your setup Nadja.

Pic from this morning about 8:30am. The new array is definitely gonna get the sun quicker than the previous two. You can see it's in full sun already, whereas the other two have another hour to go before they come into production. Higher on the hill and a taller pole are gonna make a difference of a couple Kw/whrs/day difference.....hey....that's like 42 cents/day....ahahahaaa..



The difference in array angles is due to the fact the new array is "loose" right now.....it's just laying there against the temporary scafold at whatever point the back frame hit the scafold deck. I don't have either drive actuator mounted yet. Gotta haul the mig welder up there, and weld some mounting brackets now that I can see exactly where to do so, then get the actuators mounted.

 

Andy, just go to my personal site etc and I have posted an album there. Embarrasing compared to your 10 trillion dollar site LOL

 

Actuators now mounted, and getting near the end of the reading month....looks like we'll hit right at 600 kw/hrs for the month.....about a 50% improvement over the best month ever before, and not even a full month with the tracker running. Running 32 kw/hrs on good sunny days.

Passed another 'milestone' yesterday as well.....10,000 kw/hrs of production in just under 3 years.

 

So, this is what they call "outback" living huh? Looks very harsh to me...!(DROOLING)
Must be really tough, living with only them itty bitty solar panels and ALL that energy!
( save some sun for the rest of us POOR slobs!)
Now that's an awesome set up!
I'd never have the nerve to even show my paltry 2 el cheapo "amorphous panels"!

 

Mornin' Dragonfly. Andy loves to make us all feel bad with his "little" solar system. Must have won the powerball to be able to do all that !

 

Mornin' Nadja...!
I'd have to win the lotto and leave the country, or all my new found friends and relatives would drive me crazy!
Or, I could wait until all those yokels up north do themseleves and each other in and just collect what's left behind!
I'd have slew of wind generators and solar panels, BUT, most would be junk or worse! You'd crack up IF you ever saw what they call a "system"!
Those idiots make rednecks look GOOD! Seriously!

 

There is a guy on another site that really cracks me up. First of all , he is in Canada. Then with 2 or 3 "large" solar panels each being about 13 watts , he thinks he has a large system ! I can't imagine any panels that small doing much of anything really, especially up in Canada where you need at least 2 times the solar as we do here to accomplish the same things. But, to each their own. My system is tacky looking, but works pretty well. I just don't have the big bucks to build a system like TnAndy's or a lot of what other people have.

One of things I have learned over the years though, is that a lot of the people with large systems, NOT Andy, have no idea of how their solar works at all. If there is the slightest problem at all, they have to call the "tech's" to come out and change the toilet paper roll.

To me, it is like not having a system at all. Same as the people that drive across the street , only after turning on their gps systems. If it fails , they are lost , and I do mean lost.

 

Sounds like the people ( and I'm being GENEROUS with that description) of the "residents" up north! THEY Have no clue and yet they have the BEST, better than ANYONE in the whole wide world! They can't tell you a thing about amperages, wattages, or volts, etc.! I have resorted to callng them "ESSPERTS"!

 

I actually did have a problem recently. One of my two original arrays was reading low compared to the other one.....about one pair of panels low. So, with my wife down in the power room, I went up and started cutting off breakers in the combiner box to see if I could find one that was doing nothing. Found it. Put the volt meter on the panel side of the breaker with the breaker off, and still had the same voltage as the others....???.....but flipping it on or off had no effect on the watts IN reading on the charge controller in the power room.....????

So, I borrowed a multimeter that would read DC amps ( mine only does AC ), and clamped it around that lead with the breaker on, and sure enough, reading about .1 amp versus 14-15 on the other 4 leads ( 10 panels wired in sets of two )....Bad panel ?

Nope....bad MC3 connection....took them apart, and all were somewhat corroded ( after only 3 years in place ), but one was REALLY bad.

I don't know if the new MC4 connectors are any better, but if not, I suspect I'm gonna be cutting ALL the connectors off, soldering the leads directly together, and using a pc of heat shrink to waterproof it.

 

Andy, here is a quick and for sure way to check which panels are not putting out. Cut a piece of cardboard the size of the panels. Then, take it with a bungee cord and place it over one panel at a time, and check your charge controller for movement. In other words, if it is the same once youve covered the panel as it read before covering the panel, you have found a bad panel. If there is a reading that is less then before covering said panel , then move the cardboard to the next panel and so on. Simple , easy, and cheap, and believe it or not, overwhelms the "experts" who have never heard of anything so easy and precise !

 

Just remember Dragon, I AM up north of you. You would be surprised at how much some of these rednecks up here know and the flatlanders that have moved up here with there large amounts of money don't know about solar. LOL