Off Grid desert nest

Dug into the existing solar on the new nest. What a mess, 10 awg from cc minus goes to some kind of terminal I never seen before. 2 - 22 awg leave and go somewhere. CC was showing 7 amps to batteries but there was a good 2/10 volt drop. Disconnected panel input, corrected battery wiring and hooked up a Victron 100/20 along with a dirty used 240 watt panel. Hit 12.5 amps and peaked at 209 watts. Stayed in absorb about 4 hours. A little over 700 watts for the day.
Not bad for a quick and dirty.

The quick and dirty hit 910wH today.
Worked on mounting the Midnight Solar mini baby box and 2 Victron 100/20 mppt's. Mounted to a 1/4 inch thick sheet of aluminum. Since I haven't decided whether to mount the plate flush to wall I went ahead and counter sunk flat head screws. The mini baby box holds two 15 amp and two 30 amp Midnight Solar breakers.

Aluminum plate mounted, picked up a brace behind the wall to attach it to.
Ended up drilling and taping mounting holes for components.
Buss bars mounted and wired up. While retesting all connections I found out the midnite solar breakers didn't like 12 and 10 awg wire. It would pull out. Never had that problem on the motor home. ?????? All working now and tested the inverter by running the microwave.
Set up network between mppt's and shunt.

Hooked in the Go power pwm and 200 watt panel. Set the pwm to LiFePO4 and watch it real close. The mppt's produced 730 wH today.

A little clean up and run final 120 volt wiring to the distribution panel
Oh, and get a couple pictures to post.

About 1800 Wh generated today. Tested roof air on new nest for 2 hours. Inverter pulls 141 amps. This will be a balancing act as the weather gets warmer. Pulled the gopower pwm and replaced it with one of the Victron 100/20 mppt's.
Batteries were at 60% when we turned off the A/C. Normally we use about 6%.
Cell balance is now running under 10 mV and getting closer to 3.600 per cell now that we are cycling the batteries every day.
Tomorrow check all connections and a 2nd pair of 2/0 wires to the inverter. Volt drop over 3 feet was about 50 mV and almost 90 across the Blue Sea 6006 switch. May need something different there.
Cable at the fuse was a bit warm, after every thing cooled got about a tenth of a turn on the nut.

5.12 kWh generated. Outside air temp running around 95 degrees and all 4 batteries were reporting the same +/- 1/2 degree. Ran the roof air for 3 hours on the inverter before switching to the genset. PV brought batteries from 55% back to 94 %.
I have changed 2 things to help out the solar. The smart shunt current agreed with the Klein clamp and what the bms's were reporting. It isn't giving the correct SOC and was limiting CC output voltage. Took it out of the link, actually removed the 3 CC from the link and the 2 batteries that were running about 3% low on SOC got closer to 100 % .
Next step I over paneled 2 of the CC. 480 watts on one and 400 on the other.
Now those two CC are limiting at 20 amps each, showing 279 watts. Max input for 12 volt setting is 290 watts per victron.

Building another ground mount and looking at the panels I have may be able to set up another 400 watt area. Voc is within a volt between panels but Isc isn't even close. I can parallel them but that requires additional fuses and switching from 12awg to 10 awg because of higher currents.

FINALLY GOING TO BE VISITING HBR THIS WEEKEND!!! FIRST TIME SINCE 12/31/2023!!!!!

sunshine_eggo said:

FINALLY GOING TO BE VISITING HBR THIS WEEKEND!!! FIRST TIME SINCE 12/31/2023!!!!!

Click to expand...

You are just ducking out on triple digits in the valley.

scrubjaysnest said:

You are just ducking out on triple digits in the valley.

Click to expand...

Nope... the 13-15°F drop is nice, but it doesn't make a lot of difference to me.

I'm actually pissy that I haven't been up there. It re-tares my stress scale.

The tilting ground mount array is mostly done. It's currently configured for 400 watts. Tried to get a picture but it's a short video.
Remove the 2 round posts and it pivots down to winter position. Rocks are leftovers from the septic system install.
Edit I'll need to retry to get the picture.
Ok, here is the picture. In summer position

Worked on tilt array drilling posts and 4x4 for 5/8 bolts.
Picture is in winter position.