diy solar

diy solar

Recent content by retrodog

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    New Harbor Freight 100w Monocrystalline Panel

    One other thing to be said about the 100W panels over the bigger ones... They are a hell of a lot easier for an old guy to haul up to the roof and move around. The two used 225W panels that I bought last summer are huge and cumbersome to work with. Not sure what I will be doing with those. Might...
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    New Harbor Freight 100w Monocrystalline Panel

    I now have two four-panel series strings on the roof of my storage building. One is running through a Victron Smartsolar 150-35 and the other is on a Victron Smartsolar 100-20. The first string is elevated 2.5" from the surface of the roof. The second is on Z brackets and at 1" above the...
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    Cooling Charge Controller

    Yeah, it's on plywood now. I got a sheet of aluminum that I can mount the stuff on as a shield, but that's going to take a notable amount of rework.
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    Cooling Charge Controller

    Yes, mounted vertically with the fins vertical. Hot to the touch, but didn't think to zap it with the IR gun to get a reading. Thanks for mentioning that though. I'll leave one of them out there in the shed to take readings regularly. It was fairly hot to the touch, and that was the front...
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    Cooling Charge Controller

    I've got a Victron SmartSolar 150/35 charge controller, charging a 24V battery system. I've been running a single string of four 100W panels in series and it's doing pretty well with that. But I'd like to add a second string in parallel. Tried it yesterday and it was getting 805-825W. Ran for a...
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    Charging from multiple sources

    I'm using a couple of different sized Victron SmartSolar chargers. As soon as you put them on the network together, they select one as the master and it keeps the two in sync through the different charging modes. Pretty slick setup. They also both monitor the remote temperature/voltage sensor...
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    New Harbor Freight 100w Monocrystalline Panel

    I haven't investigated it at all... yet. I'm running a 24V system for now, with plans to upgrade it to 48V. So the parallel thing has been low priority thus far. If I put the second set in parallel with the first set and see power issues, then it might get prioritized.
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    Balcony mount on railings for 100W flexible panel

    What did you end up doing? And how well is it working? The ones in the last photo look like they'd be supported by the metal frames well. And they look nice like that. Just want to make sure they don't break free and fall on somebody's head. Not sure what kind of wind and storms you get there...
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    New Harbor Freight 100w Monocrystalline Panel

    Just bought four more of these to cover the complete SW side of my shed roof. I'm typically getting 360 watts from the four current ones. So this will get the system to just above 700W. I'll play around with mounting the used 220W panels to the patio cover, but it only get sun after about noon...
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    Raspberry Pi 3B+ (Victron Venus Replacement) Online and Operational

    I had an old Raspberry Pi from about 3-4 years ago that was just sitting around and collecting dust. So I re-purposed it. I watched this guy's video about how to do it: Many thanks to him for sharing this. Very complete. Everything went like a charm. He leaves off at the end, before showing...
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    WZRELB 3000W 48V 120V RBP-300048 Standby Current?

    I will go out and test the Giandel when this weather event clears off. Nothing but rain, rain, rain now... and still feel lucky that it's not ice and snow... yet.
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    Used Panels not Activating Controller (Edit, Low Power)

    Located in Houston TX area. We get pretty good sun year'round. I need to correct this data though. I think I was using bad cables or connectors for this initial test. I checked them again about a month or so later, in series, with good wire and connectors and was getting 175 per panel. I'm going...
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    WZRELB 3000W 48V 120V RBP-300048 Standby Current?

    I've been looking at this inverter: https://www.amazon.com/WZRELB-3000W-Inverter-Outlets-RBP-300048/dp/B082XSR8JH/ref=sr_1_7?crid=LLMG6LVD1IKB&keywords=48v+inverter&qid=1643731958&sprefix=48v+inverter%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-7 But while watching a YouTube video, the guy mentioned that it uses 40W...
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    Mounting Brackets for 230W Panels on Shed?

    Those look nice. I'll research them. Thanks.
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    Mounting Brackets for 230W Panels on Shed?

    I have a couple of 230W Solar World panels that I want to mount on the top of my storage shed. So I can just walk inside the shed and see all the plywood roof and trusses. It's just got the tar paper and shingles on the top of that. The little Z-brackets that I used for my 100W panels are not...
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