ghostwriter66
"Here - Hold my Beer"
Short story made long … one of the sub-contractors we have came into the TECH shop today with a ton of BBQ and asked if we had a moment could we help him eat some of the BBQ and also take a look at why he was NOT getting the charging he use to get off his panels on his RV … SO 15 minutes later all the BBQ is gone – along with corn – mashed potatoes – beans and Ice Tea and the five of us grabbed our gear and went outside to his rig... He had had the solar installed by a “professional” in Quartside (sp?) AZ a couple of years ago … about 1300W of panels and had upgraded recently to 800aH of LiFePO4 … SOOO we divided up the system -- one guy took the batteries .. one took the SCC .. one took the cabling on the ground .. and me being the lightest I always get the roof (because honestly – some of these Texas boys are pretty big – but I digress) .. By the time I got the lift (YEP too lazy to climb a ladder) the other guys were halfway thru and had not found anything major – just minor this or that a little dirty or loose and the SCC had some wrong settings … SO I get on the roof – get to the first panel, disconnect the MC4 and take a volt reading … 21.2V … hmmm that looks fine … I go to plug the (+) MC4 back in and the cable just pulls apart in half … (I’m thinking damn – I’m already breaking stuff) … so I making a new cable and realize that the (-) also broke off because they were zipped tied … THEN I realized – whatever idiot installed the cabling on top did not use UV resistant cabling but instead just 8AWG COOPER SPEAKER CABLE whose insulation had cracked (probably a month after install) and allowed the elements to get to the copper and – well – it was like a straw with cement instead of pliable 16 strand copper … SO since I was still burping Brisket I figure I would just re-run all his lines with 10AWG UV insulated copper stranded cabling … UNFORTUNATELY after we ran the proper cabling and set his SCC up correctly – he was THEN producing more AMPS then his SCC should handle .. but that’s another story – and going to take allot more BBQ …. BUT MORAL OF THE STORY – CHECK YOUR CABLING on the roof for any cracks or hardness …
