diy solar

diy solar

What was your worse DIY solar mistake ever?

Yup ^^^.

I've done all the usual, shorting a couple of LiFePO4 cells with an uninsulated spanner (large roll of heat shrink acquired), getting hold of both ends of a panel string (panels come up to voltage very quickly with even small amounts of light) etc. etc.

I admit that just last week, I managed to cable a string and got +ve coming out of the black wire (luckily, I'm paranoid about checking polarity, again and again).
 
Supervstech said:
Yikes!

Yeah, solar panels dont have an off switch, and handling more than one wire at a time is VERY dangerous. Glad you are still with us!
I recommend wearing at LEAST one high voltage glove any time working with over 36V DC.
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I have built up an immunity over the last 58 years! :rolleyes:
It was probably the hardest hit I have taken,
even comparing to a Chevy HEI at 60,000V.
After testing each string I would normally break the string some ware before pulling wire.
 
Just started on this journey and have been pretty fortunate to not do anything really bad. But I guess so far it was using half inch conduit and trying to run three 10 gauge solid wire thru 50ft of it. Imagine taking clothes hanger wire times 3 and trying to run it thru a half inch pipe.

I did get it to work eventually, my remedy was to lay out the 3 50ft wires the length of the house and taping them together every 3ft as I pushed it down into the pipe. Ugh, my hands cramp when I think about it.
 
Subdood said:
Just started on this journey and have been pretty fortunate to not do anything really bad. But I guess so far it was using half inch conduit and trying to run three 10 gauge solid wire thru 50ft of it. Imagine taking clothes hanger wire times 3 and trying to run it thru a half inch pipe.

I did get it to work eventually, my remedy was to lay out the 3 50ft wires the length of the house and taping them together every 3ft as I pushed it down into the pipe. Ugh, my hands cramp when I think about it.
Click to expand...
Pushing? Not pulling?
 
Oh and getting zapped by ~150VAC by touching ungrounded solar panels wasn't too pleasant. But, I didn't know such a thing was possible, so it wasn't totally my fault. Only by researching the subject on here did I know it was possible. Luckily it wasn't that bad of a situation. Seems like we're just the guinea pigs for some of this stuff..
 
Pulling wasn't an option. I tried, no dice, got some lube, no worky either. I was almost about to switch to 12ga stranded, but thought I'd try pushing it thru while taping. It was my idiot fault for ordering solid instead of stranded wires.

On all my other wire runs I did the rabbit trick with a trash bag and vacuum, and pulled it thru. I also used stranded for those. It was my fault also for using 1/2" conduit instead of 3/4". But technically it's okay for 3 x 10awg to go thru 1/2", so being the tightwad I am, you know..
 
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Subdood said:
Oh and getting zapped by ~150VAC by touching ungrounded solar panels wasn't too pleasant. But, I didn't know such a thing was possible, so it wasn't totally my fault. Only by researching the subject on here did I know it was possible. Luckily it wasn't that bad of a situation. Seems like we're just the guinea pigs for some of this stuff..
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:) yeah I tend to simply write up such events as encountering the unexpected. Errors are when I should know better but I go ahead anyway.
 
Worst mistake I have made was that I did not have a good disconnect on the solar array.
The AIO I was using direct shorted inside and when I tried to flip the breakers I was using for
the disconnect I learned the hard way it was not sufficient. I have since installed better actual disconnects.
no more cool light show...
Second mistake which happened before the first one was that i also was married...
That mistake has been rectified...
Although i do have a girlfriend that has serious time management issues regarding 50 gal of hot water...
 
Skypower said:
Sounds like there’s more to it
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No it was a simple mistake of disconnecting the neutral which allowed the circuits on L1 or L2 to vary in voltage.
Yes, in the sense that I am still discovering those which were damaged, including one GFCI receptacle. I have not used all devices on every circuit so that is the reason for the delay in discovering the damage.
 
Ampster said:
No it was a simple mistake of disconnecting the neutral which allowed the circuits on L1 or L2 to vary in voltage.
Yes, in the sense that I am still discovering those which were damaged, including one GFCI receptacle. I have not used all devices on every circuit so that is the reason for the delay in discovering the damage.
Click to expand...
So you're saying without a neutral you had a brief 240V surge on your 120V circuits?
 
Subdood said:
So you're saying without a neutral you had a brief 240V surge on your 120V circuits?
Click to expand...
It was not brief. I do not know how high one leg got and how low the other leg got. That is what happens without a neutral, the voltages vary on the 120 legs with the total adding to 240. It all depends on the loads on each leg. The damage could have been from over voltage or under voltage, I will never know. It took me ten minutes to figure out what was happening before I shut down that breaker panel.
 
Ampster said:
It was not brief. I do not know how high one leg got and how low the other leg got. That is what happens without a neutral, the voltages vary on the 120 legs with the total adding to 240. It all depends on the loads on each leg. The damage could have been from over voltage or under voltage, I will never know. It took me ten minutes to figure out what was happening before I shut down that breaker panel
Click to expand...
Yikes that sounds bad. That's why I'm still on a single phase inverter, I'm afraid of not wiring the neutral right and frying my 120V circuits with a split phase inverter. Or I'm concerned the neutral in the inverter will 'go away' with similar bad results. I know I'm overly paranoid, and I'd be very careful about wiring stuff, but it does cross my mind more than once.
 
Subdood said:
So you're saying without a neutral you had a brief 240V surge on your 120V circuits?
Click to expand...
I've done the turn breaker off and then disconnected the neutral, or at least what I thought was the neutral for that circuit. Seems I was off by one wire, I had the multimeter there but didn't check for voltage before touching the end as I was removing the circuit from the panel. The nice tingle/burning sensation came and I knew right away. Luckily I think the only things powered was a clock and a cordless phone. Nothing fried.
 
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