diy solar

diy solar

What was your worse DIY solar mistake ever?

OM617YOTA said:
Tons of people buy a new car to save money on gasoline. Sure, great choice, take on a $600/mo car payment to save $40/mo in gasoline.
Click to expand...
Hah, back in 2008 I was at a gas station and some smug guy in his new Prius pulled up at the gas pump next to me. I was in college driving a 1998 Camaro V6 at the time.
He smirked at me and goes, "So what gas mileage do you get out of that?"
Me: "Well, I paid $3000 for the car and I am getting 28 mpg on the highway. What is your car payment?"
"...... oh." He turned back to the gas pump, a bit deflated.
 
Mattb4 said:
In the process of DIY solar keeping everything right is not an easy task. Especially for those like myself that suffer from mental processing errors. What is a mental processing error you ask? For me this is looking right at something and allowing my mind to process it incorrectly. This led to one of my worse solar setup errors.

I was wiring up an inverter one afternoon. Fairly simple though it had a disconnect between battery and inverter. Black wire to Inverter negative, Red wire to inverter positive. From the disconnect the red wire should have been connected to battery positive and black to battery negative. Looking right at it I proceeded to wire it wrong. Still looking at things and not mentally recognizing that I had wired with the wrong polarity I turned on the disconnect. "Bzap!" The magic smoke proceeded out of the inverters guts.

How the heck could I be so blankety blank stupid I asked myself? It was right in front of me.

Not my only DIY solar error that was caused by my mental condition, or by moments of personal clumsiness, dropped wrench, bolts anyone? It however was worse in that it not only cost me a couple of hundred dollars but it made me feel dumb. Feeling dumb is no fun at all.

So, "What was one of your worse DIY solar errors?"
Click to expand...
My worst mistake yet was over-paneling my Renogy 40 Amp cc. I connected 8 100 watt panels in 4s2p configuration. It overheated the dc output clamp. I ended up accidentally desoldering the dc output clamp from the circuit board. Controller still works, but I don't have the ability to repair it. Renogy sent me a new one, and told me that it should work the way that I had it hooked up, and that one did the same thing. This time, when I contacted them, they told me I was doing it wrong. I was under the impression that the cc would protect itself from such misuse, but it did not. Now I use an oversized Victron cc.
 
OM617YOTA said:
Tons of people buy a new car to save money on gasoline. Sure, great choice, take on a $600/mo car payment to save $40/mo in gasoline.
Click to expand...
I'm one of those people. But I went from an 11mpg Diesel Dually to a $600/mo Tesla and saved about $400/mo in fuel. I'm gladly paying that extra $200 to save my kidneys from that solid axle they call suspension... lol
 
1201 said:
That's the idea in theory but the reality is that we lose power during winter storms when the house is using the most energy ever and there is no solar production. The battery will be drained in half a day then it's on to the generator, which one could just have bought the generator and skipped the battery and be in the same boat
Click to expand...
You just need more solar and a bigger battery. 😄
 
SilverbackMP said:
Shit, I thought me welding and then vaporizing one fo the BMS wires was bad. I got more batteries to build. Honestly I hate the assembly part. Feel like I’m trying to diffuse a bomb.
Click to expand...
Isn’t that true.
So tedious..
 
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..
Click to expand...
oh wow. I was wondering what would happen if I didn't ground the solar panels and this tells me. thank you for learning this lesson for me. lol. now i just have to figure out how to ground them....

I have about a thousand questions i need to ask before i do my main system. lol
 
SSC00 said:
oh wow. I was wondering what would happen if I didn't ground the solar panels and this tells me. thank you for learning this lesson for me. lol. now i just have to figure out how to ground them....

I have about a thousand questions i need to ask before i do my main system. lol
Click to expand...
Yeah, I didn't know about this phenomenon until I read about it on here. There's several threads on the subject on this forum.

To avoid derailing this thread, I won't go into too much detail, but basically you need some kind of clamp to tie a ground wire to all your solar panel frames. Then that ground wire needs to be fed back to your inverter/home earth ground.

It wasn't too bad of a shock, more of a tingle, but it was a surprise to experience. Imagine my "shock" to measure ~150VAC between the frames and a rebar post I had driven in the ground by the array.
 
Last edited:
Subdood said:
Yeah, I didn't know about this phenomenon until I read about it on here. There's several threads on the subject on this forum.

To avoid detailing this thread, I won't go into too much detail, but basically you need some kind of clamp to tie a ground wire to all your solar panel frames. Then that ground wire needs to be fed back to your inverter/home earth ground.

It wasn't too bad of a shock, more of a tingle, but it was a surprise to experience. Imagine my "shock" to measure ~150VAC between the frames and a rebar post I had driven in the ground by the array.
Click to expand...
it has to tie back to the inverter? what if I just stick it in the actual ground?

Subdood said:
To avoid detailing this thread,
Click to expand...

oops. I just saw this part lol. maybe i should create another thread. there are so many posts here that it takes forever just to search if something has been discussed before
 
SSC00 said:
it has to tie back to the inverter? what if I just stick it in the actual ground?



oops. I just saw this part lol. maybe i should create another thread. there are so many posts here that it takes forever just to search if something has been discussed before
Click to expand...
No worries. Here's one thread that talks about the subject. There's others, just use the search function and put in "grounding arrays", "grounding PV", etc.

diysolarforum.com

Confused by array grounding

I am about to do the trenching to bury all my cables, so need to get this straight I read @FilterGuy white paper on grounding for arrays (pt3) and am still confused. my setup is as follows 2 ground mount offgrid arrays 6kw each using ironridge racks,weebs, on top of 3" metal piping, 2 strings...
diysolarforum.com diysolarforum.com
 
SSC00 said:
it has to tie back to the inverter? what if I just stick it in the actual ground?
Click to expand...

No auxillary ground rod at the array, run the ground wire back to your system ground.
SSC00 said:
oops. I just saw this part lol. maybe i should create another thread. there are so many posts here that it takes forever just to search if something has been discussed before
Click to expand...
 
Ecoflow Smart Home Panel, I started getting this out of phase error and I only had one 240v connection on Circuit 1 and circuit 2.
This had been working flawlessly for two years prior. So I checked all the wires in the SHP and replaced the breakers in the SHP. Did a lot of searching in this forum and other sites which led me to believe he contacts were too short. So I filed the breakers down on the short leg ones and replaced others. Still had the same error so I checked my well pump (this was the item on the 220v breaker), checked my starter box and found no problems. Still getting the error and about to pull m hair out. My wife was in the process of calling an electrician to replace our well pump.

I decided to pull the wires out of our house breaker box and noticed a dark blue color at the well breaker.
There it was the breaker had shorted and burned one of the two contacts off therefore single phasing the well.
Long story short, New breaker ordered and problem solved. Thank goodness I didn't need a new well pump and I found it before I paid an electrician $500.00
 
DBarr said:
Ecoflow Smart Home Panel, I started getting this out of phase error and I only had one 240v connection on Circuit 1 and circuit 2.
This had been working flawlessly for two years prior. So I checked all the wires in the SHP and replaced the breakers in the SHP. Did a lot of searching in this forum and other sites which led me to believe he contacts were too short. So I filed the breakers down on the short leg ones and replaced others. Still had the same error so I checked my well pump (this was the item on the 220v breaker), checked my starter box and found no problems. Still getting the error and about to pull m hair out. My wife was in the process of calling an electrician to replace our well pump.

I decided to pull the wires out of our house breaker box and noticed a dark blue color at the well breaker.
There it was the breaker had shorted and burned one of the two contacts off therefore single phasing the well.
Long story short, New breaker ordered and problem solved. Thank goodness I didn't need a new well pump and I found it before I paid an electrician $500.00
Click to expand...
Sounds like a success, not a mistake. Well done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

kolek
Deciding to DIY my solar battery was one of my worst mistakes ever
7 8 9
Replies
166
Views
6K
Daddy Tanuki
Daddy Tanuki
J
Convert Upgrade Mistake
Replies
8
Views
421
jpcjtrtj
J
J
What was your most interesting recent non solar project?
9 10 11
Replies
208
Views
7K
Q-Dog
Q-Dog
W
Easton, PA DIY Solar Project!
Replies
11
Views
289
42OhmsPA
4
millsan1
Beginner mistake, purchased solar, then applied for permits.
Replies
1
Views
349
sunshine_eggo
sunshine_eggo
Back
Top