John Frum
Tell me your problems
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Have not seen it in a long time but it was supposed to be good for car-sick kids.
Bonding / Grounding, Will's 13kW System, and my Youtube Community Ban
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fat_old_sun
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Conductive cars tires from the horse's mouth - https://www.goodyear.com/en-US/learn/tire-basics/why-are-tires-black
Electrical grounding of railcars & trucks - https://www.saferack.com/truck-grounding-railcar-grounding-necessary/
Anytime you have a lot of metal that is not electrically connected to the earth, electrical charge can accumulate on them. Here's an explanation by Richard Feynman - https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html. A Google search will give a lot more references.
My comments on your Youtube videos were on topic but counter to the main message. There were no links in them.
I believe you fixed the 240V panel neutral / ground bond issue.
You've made it clear that between the AirCon ground and 110 plug ground, you are not going to install a separate grounding electrode - I can agree that that is safe even if it is not what is recommended.
Installing an equipment grounding conductor for the PV frames is the only remaining issue. We (you, me, mike holt, others) agree that touching the earth is not a substitute for an equipment grounding conductor. I can see the argument that if this were a temporary install - the risk is small if it isn't grounded for a short period of time. But your not saying here, nor in your videos, that it's a temporary setup or that the PV frames will be grounded in the future.
For those that want information on the equipment grounding conductor (EGC) from the panels, every illustration with solar panels in these grounding resource shows three conductors leaving the solar panels: +/-/EGC.
Grounding Made simpler - Part 2: Stationary Systems
To get the paper, click on the orange button at the top of the screen. The subject of grounding is a complex, multifaceted subject, that is often treated as an after-thought but needs to be considered from the beginning of the design and build...
diysolarforum.com
Grounding Made simpler - Part 3: Solar Panels
To get the paper, click on the orange button at the top of the screen. The subject of grounding is a complex, multifaceted subject, that is often treated as an after-thought but needs to be considered from the beginning of the design and build...
diysolarforum.com
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BMcL
Solar Enthusiast
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You really don't want to be known as "that guy" who can't lose an argument ?
Metal chains are no longer used, There are grounding straps that hang from the chassis but they cannot emit sparks and do very well ground the tankers. This is standard in the industry. I had the expereince of being front and center at tanker and crop duster helicopter refueling incident that threw a huge spark while refueling with Jet-A, investigators found that there was no bonding strap between the tanker and the helicopter. all that was left was a smoking heap and charred ground.
Have you ever seen passenger turbofan aircraft (some people call them jets, they are not) being refueled.....the bonding cable comes first....before anything else
Yes pumping fuels does generate enough electricity to throw a big fat spark several inches.
I do like excitement but one of those was quite enough, thank you...
Have you ever seen passenger turbofan aircraft (some people call them jets, they are not) being refueled.....the bonding cable comes first....before anything else
Yes pumping fuels does generate enough electricity to throw a big fat spark several inches.
I do like excitement but one of those was quite enough, thank you...
That is what I suggested at the start of the thread. If the panels are ever mounted they can be grounded too.
In several of my larger grid tie systems I am using frameless all glass panels with transformerless SMA Sunny Boy inverters. I am not required to ground this type of solar panel array, but for anything else the inspectors require a ground at the array which is bonded to the main ground rod at the POCO feed. I do not do the physical mounting of the panels but am the person who the inspectors deal with, I design the system, and supervise every facet of the installations. I do all the wiring hookups and will not allow others to be involved in that .
I didn't see a dedicated post regarding your GPU miners. Your 2 GPUs should be pulling 350w at most plus another 20w for the mobo (plus PSU inefficiencies -- run it on 240v for ~5% better efficiency). The reason there's a lot of videos on mining rigs is because most people aren't that electronics or computer literate. Some people just get it; most don't. Also, there's countless settings for the GPUs to maximize hashrate while optimizing power settings. Every GPU model is unique. Not all 3070s are the same, though there are similarities between part numbers, but yet different performance from 2 identical cards.
Img 1 is my primary machine w/ 3080 and 3070. Both cards are driving displays, the 3070 has a lot on screen which eats into hash rate. Miners display a pretty accurate wattage number, but doesn't take into account PSU efficiency which it can't know. It says it's pulling 353w from the PSU which is accurate. Other items like ram / cpu / mobo / disk drives are also not accounted for.
Img 2 is one of my rigs that has 3 3070s in it, the 2 HP units are identical, yet 1 is over 10% more efficient. These are tuned for long life and low power. The kH/W number is efficiency, kilohash / wattage, higher is better. I can tune for another 5% efficiency, but it'd require running on the edge of stability which is unacceptable IMO.
Those of us with only a handful of rigs will tune for efficiency whereas those with loads of rigs just shoot for goodnuff. If your 3080 won't perform, it's likely due to the memory getting too hot -- you can only see memory temps if mining in windows.
As for mining coins, that's considered income as you mine it and is subject to self employment tax like any other. So long as you're a US citizen no matter where you reside globally, you have tax liability for income / assets. Best to not talk about it
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DerpsyDoodler
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Quite accurate. There's also the cost, per kwh consumed and investment in the equipment, shop space, etc, that help with minimizing tax liability.As for mining coins, that's considered income as you mine it and is subject to self employment tax like any other. So long as you're a US citizen no matter where you reside globally, you have tax liability for income / assets. Best to not talk about it
There's also several fires that we've seen as a result --- I've seen at least 10 fires because people fail to follow proper loading for circuits and connectors.
DerpsyDoodler
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That can happen on any loaded circuit not assembled to spec.
Of course, but most people aren't doing fully loaded circuits with 24/7 loads for months at a time. A 15a load on 120v 24/7 is 43kwh per day, 1,300 kwh / month. That's more than the average home's power usage.
The average person doesn't think about that at all -- it's just not something encountered in most homes. Of course the issue there is spec. Code isn't meant for 24/7 usage at full rated capacity. Otherwise every circuit would need to be factored in for actual ambients. Code itself (and code enforcement) is done on a 70 degree F ambient temperature. Exterior walls in the middle of summer would require a conductor to be derated if it was to factor in such usage (even though a 14ga wire is suitable for a 20a load). NM which just about every home is wired with is has restrictions placed on it by the NEC.
There's a lot of factors involved, but the issue is that people just don't think about this type of stuff because their biggest load is the vac, and they run it for 20m at most.
As long as you use 8 pin pcie and not data cables for the gpus, you should be good. And the main power supply cable should be 12 gauge.
On my ASIC, I ran my own conductors from the panel and oversized them. I oversized everything. But it's not that much current overall. Pulling 15A is easy for me when my main system charges at 120A at 48V.
Just need the proper conductor size for your temperature and you should be good to go.
If my ASIC did fail, or the power supply, I have it on my safe. If my GPU miner failed, it's on a metal rack.
On my ASIC, I ran my own conductors from the panel and oversized them. I oversized everything. But it's not that much current overall. Pulling 15A is easy for me when my main system charges at 120A at 48V.
Just need the proper conductor size for your temperature and you should be good to go.
If my ASIC did fail, or the power supply, I have it on my safe. If my GPU miner failed, it's on a metal rack.
Bud Martin
Solar Wizard
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Mike Holt: Solar PV Grounding Electrode System.
Just to clarify for any Europeans reading this: code requires any ground electrodes to be bonded together with a conductor. Added to that, you usually don't have (extra) ground electrodes. There isn't such a thing as 'ramming a ground rod in the ground and be done' here.
This information is mostly correct, and somewhat outdated. I deal with grounding communication towers among other things -- we use dozens of ground rods at times, sometimes more. There's literally a book on the topic --- motorola R56. We get some nasty lightning. The most dangerous is a pop up storm where lightning precedes the rain. After 10 minutes of rain, the lightning is much less dangerous in that it goes for the trees often. When it's dry, man-made structures take an unusually large number of strikes. I've got quite a few pictures of lightning damage. Personally I can't use enough ground rods. They're all bonded together. Even out buildings / detached buildings. They too have a ground rod and are bonded to the primary structure's ground rods. Code calls for subsequent rods to use 6ga copper or larger, I use at least 4 solid. Towers are different, it's a web of welded copper. I design mine more organically than grid-like (see lichtenberg).
Grounding for lightning strikes is a "best practice" type of thing. There's still a substantial amount not known. We do have best practices / mitigation techniques. A lightning strike isn't a static value though. There's "small" bolts and there are "massive" bolts. They're not all the same, nowhere close (there's also streamers that some mistake for lightning, nearby strikes can cause your structure to throw one out). The big boys shoot a burst of radiation into space called a sprite. Sometimes despite best practices, the monsters still cook a lot of shit. In tower shelters we use halo rings and EVERYTHING is bonded -- I mean everything -- AC systems, all metal. For radios that are at the top and run to a switch, I figure 8 excess amounts of shielded network cable to increase its run to mitigate the odds of lightning using the cable. Before doing loads of research on the topic and implementing my current methods, I had 2 strikes 6 weeks apart that blew up some stuff. Since, I haven't had a single lightning related failure despite numerous strikes.
There's 2 different camps --- one that believes in central "home runs" and the others like myself that put copper everywhere and bond everything in multiple places. Some like to say it creates a "grounding loop" -- When you've got 4ga and larger copper running everywhere and connect to it at multiple places, it only creates a loop on paper. There's far too little resistance to get any loop effect going on. Panels on a roof are a no-brainer to bond and interconnect to the structure's grounding system. Lightning isn't water, it doesn't only take the shortest path to ground, it takes all paths to ground. One of the aforementioned strikes bit me through my mouse. Given the distance it traveled out of the all-plastic mouse from the mouse's ground plain (came out between the LMB and the housing), it was somewhere between 20 and 25kv. It jumped about an inch. Computer and everything connected to it was fine. My ADSB receiver didn't survive and its antenna was vaporized. That was the moment I went all out on mitigating the issue. I also use shielded network cable exclusively, including in-wall.
DerpsyDoodler
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"Copper in multiple places and all bonded together at multiple points"
Based on your results, it sounds like you're doing something right. Can you reference any literature explaining your statement on ground loops and large copper wire, as well as supporting your design? Can you post a diagram of one of your designs?
Based on your results, it sounds like you're doing something right. Can you reference any literature explaining your statement on ground loops and large copper wire, as well as supporting your design? Can you post a diagram of one of your designs?
robby
Photon Vampire
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As for mining coins, that's considered income as you mine it and is subject to self employment tax like any other. So long as you're a US citizen no matter where you reside globally, you have tax liability for income / assets. Best to not talk about it
That is actually not totally true! Just because you are a US citizen does not mean you have to pay US Taxes. If this was the case the Country would be rich as we have probably about 200 million citizens that live and work abroad and many of them have not touched US soil since they were a baby. (Talking about Anchor Babies)
Anyway even if you run a successful business abroad, live abroad but still visit the states several time per year you are not liable for US taxes so long as you pay the Local Taxes in the country that you do business in and have a foriegn income exclusion filing. There are Tax agreements in place with most countries so as to prevent people from being Taxed twice. You can choose to Pay US Taxes or your residing countries Taxes. Most people choose which ever one is lower or is in their best interest. Anchor babies that have grown up abroad and who earn normal wages in their countries seem to not even be on the radar of the IRS as I have never heard of them going after them.
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It's a bit more common than you'd think. Any antenna whose base is grounded / part of its attachment and is attached to a metal object, and is interconnected with coax, is grounded both at the antenna and again at the receiver. A lot of aerials are connected like this.
Here is some great information regarding the rolling sphere lightning concept
Another regarding tower copper runs being ineffective
As I said, there are 2 camps out there -- both swear their stuff works. Personally I view lightning as a static electricity force. It's why my cables are figure 8'd. I don't do circular loops because circular loops can induce eddy currents.
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You are misinformed. You could have done a simple search and found this out. US citizenship includes an unshakeable tax liability that follows you no matter where you reside in the world, no matter where the money you make comes from. The only way to break this is to renounce your US citizenship, which you're free to do at any time. It's best to be a citizen of another state else you become a stateless citizen which is a citizen of no country.
U.S. citizens and resident aliens abroad | Internal Revenue Service
Find tax filing and reporting information for U.S. citizens or resident aliens who reside and earn income overseas.
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robby
Photon Vampire
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Well since I know several people who have gotten the exclusions I doubt it. They only pay local Taxes and Present their local Taxes from the country they reside in to the IRS.You are misinformed. You could have done a simple search and found this out. US citizenship includes an unshakeable tax liability that follows you no matter where you reside in the world, no matter where the money you make comes from. The only way to break this is to renounce your US citizenship, which you're free to do at any time. It's best to be a citizen of another state else you become a stateless citizen which is a citizen of no country.
U.S. citizens and resident aliens abroad | Internal Revenue Service
Find tax filing and reporting information for U.S. citizens or resident aliens who reside and earn income overseas.www.irs.gov
From IRS Website:
"Yes, if you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien living outside the United States, your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you live. However, you may qualify for certain foreign earned income exclusions and/or foreign income tax credits. Please refer to Publication 54, Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad, for additional information."
Ya know... I get bugged about things people know because they used to own land, or they knew their landlords property line, or they heard it from their neighbor...
My neighbor griped at me for years because my truck parked in my backyard he was certain it was in his girlfriends property. He assured me he was right because he used to own property, and he knows how to read a platt... he was speaking to me, the current land owner of my property who bought the property less than 5 years earlier, and had the survey markers set... I had to hire another surveyer, and the guy came up to the survey guy and insisted he was right, and demanded a printout of the survey... I said I'm paying for this SECOND survey, and he can pay for it if he wants a report... the markers and chains stay.
It turned out, 1/2 of his fenced backyard was on my property...
Most people say things that make themselves look best to whom they are speaking... and gloss over, or completely skip important details...
Which is by definition, the exception, not the rule. Tax "credits" while filing US income taxes has nothing to do with the cautions outlined in my original post. The best advice regarding crypto is to just not talk about it. Nothing prevents someone from having multiple wallets to dedicate a card or two towards for, well reasons.
Crypto is anonymous, right up until you try to convert it to a fiat. Once that occurs, the transaction history is tied to an individual. It's not found money, there are ways to wiggle around it, but the filing of forms puts one into making a statement of fact to a government, which has penalties for lying.
Given the capability of machine learning, it's a calculated risk one best not be wrong on. Some people get sloppy and get found out far easier than they believed could occur.
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