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You are getting off topic Will. This post was about the dislike button. Please stay on topic.

The days of government being by the people and for the people have passed I'm afraid. Rome 2.0 baby! Prepare accordingly. I think solar can help.

Phase 1 was a Sol-Ark 15k, some batteries, and a small 2kW array. This will take quite some time yet, but I'm happy that phase 2 is started. I have a full pallet of REC Pure-R 420s that was delivered today seemingly without incident. Good job local FedEx freight and NAZ solar. Just submitted...

I took some pictures for those interested in a small array on a container. This is 2kW. Outputting 1930 watts right now.

Hello solar fans. Long time lurker, first time poster. I have been working on this solar plan for some time now. The whole thing is definitely a learning process. The whole project is split into two phases, mostly because I'm busy and want to do a good job. The picture below is phase 1...

Hi Midwest best. This is how I mounted mine. Crude drawing, but you can get the idea. The item mounted to the container does not contain the panels or rails in this picture. Just the mount that the Iron ridge rails attached to horizontally. The thinner plates mounted to the container are...

There are smarter people than myself on the forum, but here is what I came up with. I grabbed this image off of another forum post, but this is likely how you could maximize your panels. Two setups like this. One to each MPPT input. You would run two sets of 5 panels in series, then parallel...

Hmm. Complication is the friend of cheats and swindlers. Not honest people so much. A simple rate adjustment for high demand times would suffice, but be too simple apparently.

Not the best example to follow at the moment...

Pulled the trigger. They are on the way. I'm falling into the trap many of you have before. Buying by the pallet. Wish me luck. Could be a while before I get everything else on-hand and get these in use. Hopefully not more than a few months.

I agree the container is pretty stable. But when adding a 300-400sq ft sail to it, the dynamics change a lot!

Amazing view you have there.

Found these today. 8" schedule 80. MT solar mount, ordered. Picked up some rebar. Step by step...

Hi Goose, The off grid setup doesn't have a well yet, we truck water in, then transfer it to the cabin tote. Rhino, I believe one of the problems with farm runoff lately is that everyone is obsessed with drain tile. That can essentially mainline nitrates and such right into lowlands and...

What happened to Australia lately? I hope this is a joke.

Hi, I am running the pytes 48100R's with the 15k. Only had them a few months so far so can't vouch for longevity, but so far so good. They have coms, and the UL stuff I wanted for grid tie later on.

That's what I see as well Tulex. I'm guessing next time there is a large update/migration. Sol-Ark takes it a bit slower. This is what I would do after in-house testing, and moving employee systems. Move a small batch of real customers. Fix each manually if you have to. Move on to 2nd...

For now. I am in a similar situation at the moment...

Hi, Just a heads up. Along these lines. Watch out for issues with the neutrals as well. Especially if fed from two different meters. This seems complex. I would suggest: a: Keep it simple or b: Get a skilled electrician involved. Just one guy's opinion.

Hi Web, Interesting point, and also exactly what the robstrom (the OP) was making the point of. Solar enthusiasts are turning to things like letting the power co. or government control their usage and meters. So basically just reinforcing exactly what was stated. From stick it to the man...

IMO, we can address them by not tying everything together into one vulnerable basket. There always advantages and disadvantages to any system. The people that I see doing the most damage are focused on the advantages "for the good of the people" and ignore the disadvantages. It is possible...

Hi ksmithaz1, I am on year 13 on a closed loop setup. Happy with it. I'm guessing the open loop/steady stream of contaminates has something to do with your trouble.

I used a small custom welded aluminum mounting structure then ironridge rails on top of that. 5 panels though. I didn't want to push it for wind loading, etc. I think 10 would be doable. For the winds on my rather exposed location, 20 was not an option. If you 45 from the corner of the...

Hi TMariano, Are you sure you can run 2 of those in any configuration? Your charge controller says Max 15 amps and 60 volts. 2 panels in series will be over 60 volts. 2 panels in parallel will be way over 15 amps. Maybe Someone smarter with the small systems can determine if your controller...

Ok. Just bookmark this for yourself when it finally hits your area. :)

Sol-Ark is one of the top tier outfits from what I have seen. They should either fix it properly, or advertise as only being able to use 7 of 9 MPPT's or whatever the limit is before the odd behavior. Half-hearted efforts are for low tier equipment in my opinion. I'm not saying you are wrong...

This type of thing makes me mad. And I don't get mad easy. Over-charging. Requirements to be on grid. The manipulation of people that just want some energy independence is ridiculous. Say all you want about "good for the collective" or other political statements to get people to march to...

You are more concerned with being right than helping. Just putting that out there in case you can't see it.

I know of one. Greentech Renewables. I bought solar panels and racking equipment from them. I have seen some rumblings on this forum that they are not selling to DIY'ers but I think if you talk to someone in sales and don't expect them to handhold, they should sell to you.

Hi Goose. Thats funny. Good point on the batteries. Sometimes you work with what you have. This is in a nook in the attached garage. About an 8x8 space with the electrical and low volt panels for the whole house. Made sense to put everything there so it is close to the service panels. The...

Hi all. Best I have seen is 2304 watts on a 2000 watt array, but I have only had it set up a few months. Also in the frozen north! This is with REC 400 pure. Not bi-facial. That's why in this climate, I take the adjustments for VOC when paneling very seriously.

You may also want to check if your manual specifies what that amperage applies to. The battery amperage or the supply circuit amperage. Always good to read and re-read to be safe.

Can confirm that closer to panel rating is correct for a new panel. I have a small setup in a northern climate (low sun angle) and can get very near nameplate rating in November. Slightly past the rated wattage on cold days in short bursts. I also know that you should consider using the power...

I'm thinking it depends if your mounting system is designed for grounding. The inspector didn't have a problem with the ironridge mounts being the ground once I showed him the clamping screws and that it was designed for it. Then I tied the "actual" ground to the iron-ridge rails with the...

I know everyone's perfect way is different than another, but I am a fan of as simple as possible. Do any of you great minds on the forum think over-fusing/switching has it's pitfalls as well? That is what I have been thinking lately when I see each failure mode posted here. Each section...

Don't drink and post kids... I don't know if you didn't read it right, or are just having a bad day DIYrich, but #40Fan was posting about the OP's situation. If you don't like the info that's one thing, but coming off like this doesn't help either.

There is a lot of ways to say "weakest link in a chain" but this one is good, and makes you think. From a reliability of systems chapter in a book by Jaroslav Menčík A practical conclusion is that “the reliability of a series system is always lower than the reliability of any of its components”...

This is what I am seeing too. The inverter numbers show up correctly. The PV seems to be incorrectly calculated on my system as PV= Load + Import/Export That is how I see it on my setup anyhow. I let sol-ark support know about the correlation to those numbers in case it helps them. Seems...

Menards. If you know, you know.

We have a lot of rack mount battery backups at work and we just keep on putting the sealed lead acid batteries in them. They are meant to charge them, and the battery swaps are dirt cheap compared to a whole new unit. Cheap insurance to swap them every 2-3 years. If you let them go too long...

If it were me, I would step back and check the basics. A lot of assumptions tossed around already for just starting to troubleshoot. Please make sure you check some videos to make sure you don't do some damage (I get nervous giving people ideas...), but there are some screws by the MPPT inputs...

Hi Luk88, Instead of washers under panels, consider shimming up the rails that the panels mount to before you begin mounting. You can make it look really nice yet if you spend a bit of time on it now. You will have a nice array there.

I have 3 of these at an off-grid cabin. We set up the solar about 10 years ago, and ran 24v for "distribution" with these at a showerhouse, and two in the cabin to run 12v lighting and fans, etc. off of. We had an unexpected benefit of them always running the lights and fans at the same rate...

Hi Branch Ranch. The part you can't see on the picture is the top. It is similar to the side. We just made it wide enough to catch 2 ribs on top, and one on the side. If you made it a bit wider, two on the side, and one top might be better for rain. Then just some good sealant on the bolts...

Well. Economically feasible is a completely different ball game :) I would be interested in that as well.

Hi e trouble. It's just a matter of realizing what voltage the amps apply to. In this case it would be 40 amps at 12v, or 480 watts. Charging your 48v battery at 40 amps takes over 2000 watts, so cannot be done with a standard 15 amp outlet. 40x12=480 40x48=1920 Real world is higher...

Hi Midwest, We made the brackets out of aluminum. They are anchored down with through bolts. On the plate stock that you can see that goes around the corner, some is on top, and some on the side. Wide enough to catch ribs on the top and side since the ribs on the container don't line up...

Hi, Check out your charge controller manual. It seems you can use anything up to 100volts input. When you hook your battery up to your charge controller, it will sense and auto select your battery voltage. Your solar voltage does not have to match your battery (system) voltage.

Hi Rich, I can set the amp limit for charging, but it seems it will still default to pulling loads from the generator as well. That's why I started limiting gen charging time to low loads time. Chargeverter is a possible work-around for sure, and frees up the gen port for other input, or a...

I can also add, that the volt/amp calculations apply to your battery as well. For example, your 12v 200 amp hour battery has 1/2 the capacity of your 48v 100 amp hour battery. You just take the voltage, times the amp hours to come up with watt/hours.