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Today the power went off on our street. we didn't notice for hours until we saw the clock was off on the 220 electric range. It felt pretty good to realize we didn't notice. Whether you went through all the build your own hassle to save money, be independent, or just to have backup, when you...

Hi all. tall tree to the east of home blocks light until about 10 AM, this is our booster idea that followed some property maintainance. Surplus everything except the pvc box. The buried wire is #2 (in conduit) for about a 50 foot run to an unused PWM controller, which should be fine for this...

Admin pls check this I want to adhere to rules. BUT. Has anyone else realized how far we are away from running society on wind and solar? We are here in this group talking about how to squeeze out a few watts to add a refrigerator to a 5kw - 20kw home system, and we, as a nation (US), are being...

https://rumble.com/v1oed6y-oliver-explains-electrical-load-distribution-to-lisa.html

Thanks for your help guys with my upgrade questions, now on to the actual work. I thought I would document the process because there are likely other with 20 year old systems who are evolving as well.

On clear days we already produce more than we need in the daytime for just lights, fans, computers, and sump pump, so I am adding a relay to transfer the refrigerator circuit only when we are at float voltage. At night when we drop below float, the fridge stays shut mostly anyway, so it's a good...

Hi all. We have a pair of Southwest Windpower Air 403 turbines which were installed in 2001. A storm recently damaged them enough to warrant an insurance replacement. The pair are flown on a single 60' guyed tower with a "T" boom separating them. I believe they are max 425 watts each, 24V. I do...

HELLO! after some talks and lurks and tears and jerks, we've decided on this to replace our storm damaged good ol' trooper AIR 403'S here is the unboxing. The unit is very solidly built (at least what you can see). I was pleasantly surprised. The factory didn't tell me it came with a diversion...

Hi all. so this summer we did a storm damage replacement which ended with adding a new wind turbine and 4th charge controller. I extended the old wind tower from 52' height to 65'. Idea is for night time charging. We tried this 20 years ago with a pair of Air 403's and it didn't work so well...

Hi. I know that panels need to be somewhat matched or the weaker panels lower the overall performance. (i.e. capacity/average output of the entire bundled group). I have 4 on the roof and bought 4 a while back to add. I didn't catch that they were not the same until very recently. My existing...

how do you discharge an individual battery while manual balancing? I am charging some lifePo4's before grouping into a bank, and overshot quite a bit on one... I don't currently have a diversion load. Can I rig an AC toaster? I tried a jumper cable to each ear and that didn't help much.

So. Replacing two Air 403's with a single larger unit, looking seriously at iSTA BREEZE from Turkey, as Tumo from Japan. Does anyone have exp. with either? Goal is medium to low wind 200-600 watt supplemental charger, so prob 1500 watt unit is plenty....... thanks

Is there a good way to calculate optimal roof location for the litte wind guys like air 403’s? I think the blade circumference is about 40”. I have them on a tall pole but the forest has closed in. I am willing to design and weld up some noise isolating mounts if i can locate areas on the roof...

Is there a good way to calculate optimal roof location for the litte wind guys like air 403’s? I think the blade circumference is about 40”. I have them on a tall pole but the forest has closed in. I am willing to design and weld up some noise isolating mounts if i can locate areas on the roof...

Hi. So if two batteries in series get doubled voltage but keeps same amperage how are the watts factored in or related in the formula? (to the equation not a battery test) ALSO If two solar panels are wired in series to get doubled volts what happens to the watts and amps produced does one or...

hi. Looks like there are several vaugely defined less than great lithium presets.........Our old but good Xantrex inverter was made before lithium, so we just modify the lead acid settings to each correct parameter- works great!. is that doable on the 4210 series without the add on mts50?

Replacing a small wind turbine. Hi I have a 100' run from tower to battery room (160' total wire length) System is 24V. The wire run is mostly buried 2/0 aluminum. I was thinking of using a 48V turbine to help with the voltage drop my logic being that some panels get up above 48V and the MPPP...

Am in the middle of some upgrades which includes new batteries. I manually balanced eight new 12 V 100 amp hour lpo4 batteries to within .01, waited a day, re- checked, then put them on the inverter for their first bulk charge. At the end of the bulk the midpoint voltage, via victor bmv712, was...

What about having timer switches on panels facing various orientations (all routed to one charge controller) which switch turn off the ones that aren’t producing due to time of day, thereby taking them out of the mathematical/ electrical equations, and keeping the array always efficient by...

Hi all. in this wiring diagram for a 90 watt photowatt panel what are the "option" resistors for and why an option? This is not a dual voltage model. (sold as 12v)

What are snail trails and are they bad for used panel buyers? I am looking at some used panels which have them. A wholesaler in Arizona.

Hi all. New here but not new. Am changing out old lead acid to lithium iron phosphate. Spoke to Xantrex, read info online from links at this forum, my plan seems to look right, so now am here to ask the guys who use this stuff. My question is, based upon using an existing older Trace/Xantrex...

Hi Just added a second Epever for a different group of panels. Running two Epever units, one a seven month old 40 amp unit, and one a week old, 30 amp. They both connect to the same battery buss with the same length of wire (3' of #6), however the newer one reads battery voltage about a tenth of...

Hi. so we have been talking and laughing about the trick of tilting down small towers (50-100') for service. I must repair after storms so here is what i think i want to so -retrofit while I have the lift and am changing from two turbines on a "T "mast down to one larger unit YES THE TREES ARE...

Hi All! Last week during manual balance I discovered that one of our LifePo4 (?) will only charge to 12.9V. ( I’ll bet it’s a bad bms) The factory has been good enough to send a replacement (hats off to Power Queen for painless support). We all have been taught that batteries should be similar...

Hi All. Getting the occasional over current trip from the TRACE SW 4024 inverter. Manual for it claims 33A normal with 78A peak (output) I do not think we get a draw of over 40 AMPS even with surges. Especiall with a newer low surge sump pump. While I look for the culprit, WHICH is the 40...

Hi all. So We get too much energy during sunny days. After a night of modest loads, (25-50AH) we are at 100% by 9AM. I am very worried about the batteries always being full as I read (here) that LifePo4 does not like full charge forever. Options are set the charge controllers to a lower limit...

Hi I just bought some panels from San Tan. good experience, they are set up with Zep grooved edges, where there is a sort of 1/2" slot around the panel edge. For rail mounts I could just screw through the aluminum (avoiding the glass), but does anyone have a tip trick for this frame config?

Ok so now its time to commit my wiring harness to forever by soldering the crimps and split bolts. HOWEVER, while reading up about wire sizes on a few wire websites many point out that the current flows on the surface of the wire, and so of course the increase in wire size provides an increase...

can I run two 12v DC sump pumps in series on a good 24v system? may be simplest way.....? two pumps will fit in most crocks.