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I appreciate the posts trying to track down which/whose factory in China may be assembling these for Midnite and the other inverters. It is enlightening. But it is important to keep in mind how these factories work with/for these client companies. Not really that dis-similar to other Chinese...

I think it is important to understand what time frame is being used to make these decisions, on the part of the PoCos. As I have said before, I think many (if not most) of the PoCos are following in the footsteps of Ma Bell in the 70's and 80's. Monopolies which owned the entire vertical slice...

Actually anything under $2500 would be a great price. But with all those MS circuit breakers in it, I suspect it will be running more, may low 3000s. I'd be glad to be wrong though...

Most locales have laws about abandoned property. At least here you have to send a registered letter demanding they remove their abandoned property from your place. If they don't within some time period, the property is yours. Had to do this once with previous owners' rented propane tank they...

Just curious, why do you think that your solar electronics aren't at risk just because you don't sell back. If your inverter/solar has a grid connection, then it will see whatever the grid sends out. Even if they just share a ground there may be some risk.

We live in a culture which promotes buy the latest and greatest, whether you need it or not. I suppose it keeps consumption high, but really does not serve most consumers all that well (IMO)... My general rule is use something until it breaks or no longer will do what you want from it. Planning...

Just an anecdote that may be relevant to folks on an AE forum. Some years ago (maybe 15) our CO detector started to alarm. I spent a long time trying to find the source, turned off gas appliances, stopped using the wood stove, nothing seemed to help, the CO level reported and the alarm...

Designed and built our house back in '95. Well insulated (super insulated for that era) with SIP walls and extra insulation in the ceilings/floors. Lots of S facing windows with overhangs so that they don't gather sun in the summer months. I estimate that 60% of our heating comes from the solar...

Another consideration: looks like your SRNE AIO can pass AC thru to the connected loads too. Up to 63A if I am reading the label you posted correctly. So unless you have disabled that, or limited the amount of AC pass thru to the loads when there is no solar and the battery does not have enough...

There are cold galvanizing sprays one can use after welding. I'd use them there as well as on the cut ends of any galvanized pipe or steel members. And paint can be applied afterwards too. There may be some structural/longevity issues with using plain steel in concrete (or buried), ask your...

Looks like a great product, I expect Midnite will do quite well with it. In looking at the spec sheet which @Halfcrazy posted, it looks great, with one minor exception. It's rated altitude is 2000m, and I am at 2500m. While 2000m will cover 95% of the folks out there, there are a few of us...

Not sure if this is still true for their new modules, but when I checked on some older used Sunpowers, my installer friend told me they had issues with charge building up and reducing power, and for that reason they had to be installed with + grounded. If this is still true of their current...

As DThames said, quite a bit depends on the details of your setup, and what you want to plan for in the future. Are you running DC over these 125' or AC? Does your charge controller (or inverter) allow for higher voltages from the panels? Might you want to add more panels in the future...

Just a thought, if I got it right, you are looking for more or less the same usable capacity as your house FLA batts for your cabin. But since the cabin may go unoccupied and unheated some of the time, LFP could run into problems (and require heaters). I was wondering if you had considered...

Spoke with Emporia support, and wanted to relay what they told me (all of this in regards to the Vue 3): They are still working on making the 50A CTs bidirectional. They think it is close, like maybe a month or two (but no guarantees). It will be a FW update that they send out, so should work...

I would second the comment about not using an AC centrifugal pump, especially for low volume occasional pumping. Way too inefficient. There are quite a few DC submersible pumps systems out there. I have used RPS and generally had good luck with them. But there are others too. I would also agree...

Yes, it is hard to precisely predict all the effects (or lack thereof) which a CME hit on earth would cause. But it is important to keep in mind that at the time of the Carrington event, there were NO electronics with sensitive semiconductor junctions and really very little to nothing in terms...

Sounds good, unless that 200AH is for the pair of them together. In which case it is closer to the going rate...

Saw this thread, and just ran a quick calculation. On a typical sunny winter day here (today) my thermal solar panels (4 - 3'x8' flat panels) my panels raised the water temp in the storage tank (85gal) from ~60F at dawn to ~150F at 4pm when the sun went down. It would do better in the summer, of...

Many of the cheaper/smaller charge controllers are designed for both managing a battery and running a load at certain times, like night time lighting. Some are also in weather proof cases. It seems one of those would be well suited to this project. I can't really say which ones of these would be...

A thermostat is good insurance, just in case you forget to check on it for a while or something else happens. You probably don't want the drum boiling or boiling dry; unlikely I know but possible... A 240v element, running at 120v will burn itself out in <10sec if turned on dry, don't ask how I...

Tesla won back then because there was no electronics for DC conversion. Today we can convert DC to DC at different voltages or AC. (take a look at your inverter).

Interesting. In have a Midnite Classic 150 in service for ~4 years now and it has been perfect. No issues, does what it is supposed to do. As you said, you're expecting some posts like this in reply. But I am surprised that if there were several 250's failing in a short time, Midnite wasn't more...

Did not see it mentioned, but there are dedicated electric hot water timers made, specifically to turn your HW heater off over night or whenever. Many have a bypass switch, just in case you want to take a shower at 2AM or whatever. One of those may be easier to install, setup and use. As far as...

Unfortunately, I see over on CC's site, that the release date is now moved to May not April. Too bad, but not that far off...

Wouldn't it be simpler (and also perhaps cheaper) to just get a couple more propane tanks and keep them filled for the emergency. Propane stores for years and you would not have to mess around with hooking up the car as a charging source. Likely 4 or 5 of the BBQ sized tanks should roughly equal...

There are indeed two distinct issues here, although both are talked about under the label of "grounding": What is correct and proper from an NEC AC and DC electrical code and safety perspective. And what makes sense in protecting your wiring and electronics from lightning and electrical storm...

@45North I am at 40deg N lat, panels are at 33deg which was the max overall power angle for my location. So not the ideal summer angle but fairly close, maybe 8 deg off. Have to play with the spare panel some to see just how much power is lost from 8deg too high a tilt in the summer, but I...

Have not had to deal with the utilities in your neck of the woods, but out here the PoCo needs to approve all systems if they are grid tied. In speaking to several installers, it seems that it almost always takes 2 or 3 rounds with the PoCo to get approved; usually just reminding them of their...

While I would agree with the OP, that 3 phase AC pumps are a better solution than 120 or 240VAC single phase, I think that DC submersibles are an even better solution. There are a few out there but the worm pump mechanism ones with controller at the surface seem to offer much more efficiency...