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One other thing to be said about the 100W panels over the bigger ones... They are a hell of a lot easier for an old guy to haul up to the roof and move around. The two used 225W panels that I bought last summer are huge and cumbersome to work with. Not sure what I will be doing with those. Might...

I now have two four-panel series strings on the roof of my storage building. One is running through a Victron Smartsolar 150-35 and the other is on a Victron Smartsolar 100-20. The first string is elevated 2.5" from the surface of the roof. The second is on Z brackets and at 1" above the...

Yeah, it's on plywood now. I got a sheet of aluminum that I can mount the stuff on as a shield, but that's going to take a notable amount of rework.

Yes, mounted vertically with the fins vertical. Hot to the touch, but didn't think to zap it with the IR gun to get a reading. Thanks for mentioning that though. I'll leave one of them out there in the shed to take readings regularly. It was fairly hot to the touch, and that was the front...

I've got a Victron SmartSolar 150/35 charge controller, charging a 24V battery system. I've been running a single string of four 100W panels in series and it's doing pretty well with that. But I'd like to add a second string in parallel. Tried it yesterday and it was getting 805-825W. Ran for a...

I'm using a couple of different sized Victron SmartSolar chargers. As soon as you put them on the network together, they select one as the master and it keeps the two in sync through the different charging modes. Pretty slick setup. They also both monitor the remote temperature/voltage sensor...

I haven't investigated it at all... yet. I'm running a 24V system for now, with plans to upgrade it to 48V. So the parallel thing has been low priority thus far. If I put the second set in parallel with the first set and see power issues, then it might get prioritized.

What did you end up doing? And how well is it working? The ones in the last photo look like they'd be supported by the metal frames well. And they look nice like that. Just want to make sure they don't break free and fall on somebody's head. Not sure what kind of wind and storms you get there...

Just bought four more of these to cover the complete SW side of my shed roof. I'm typically getting 360 watts from the four current ones. So this will get the system to just above 700W. I'll play around with mounting the used 220W panels to the patio cover, but it only get sun after about noon...

I had an old Raspberry Pi from about 3-4 years ago that was just sitting around and collecting dust. So I re-purposed it. I watched this guy's video about how to do it: Many thanks to him for sharing this. Very complete. Everything went like a charm. He leaves off at the end, before showing...

I will go out and test the Giandel when this weather event clears off. Nothing but rain, rain, rain now... and still feel lucky that it's not ice and snow... yet.

Located in Houston TX area. We get pretty good sun year'round. I need to correct this data though. I think I was using bad cables or connectors for this initial test. I checked them again about a month or so later, in series, with good wire and connectors and was getting 175 per panel. I'm going...

I've been looking at this inverter: https://www.amazon.com/WZRELB-3000W-Inverter-Outlets-RBP-300048/dp/B082XSR8JH/ref=sr_1_7?crid=LLMG6LVD1IKB&keywords=48v+inverter&qid=1643731958&sprefix=48v+inverter%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-7 But while watching a YouTube video, the guy mentioned that it uses 40W...

Those look nice. I'll research them. Thanks.

I have a couple of 230W Solar World panels that I want to mount on the top of my storage shed. So I can just walk inside the shed and see all the plywood roof and trusses. It's just got the tar paper and shingles on the top of that. The little Z-brackets that I used for my 100W panels are not...

Right. I was only planning on closing the lid for transport, or when I want to leave it shut down and secured in the shed. The thing I like about this box is that it allows for opening and closing the lid while the back of the box is pushed up against the wall. A handy feature if I decide to...

I'm going to use one of these: Truck Tool Box Not sure how much I need it for LiFePO4 batteries, but I like the idea of using it. I was going to mount the charge controller and inverter on the wall above it, but not I'm leaning toward spraying the inside of lid with some truck bed liner and...

On the following days (two following days), the wind calmed down and the output numbers got back down to something more realistic, at about 91W per panel. The sun is still down at a notable angle, so I guess this is pretty good for the middle of January. Not sure what was causing the high...

I now have four of these panels on my storage building rooftop. They are hooked in series and running to a Victron 150/35 smartsolar charger. Today we had a cold front and the temp was around 50 (maybe less) with a north wind at 25-40 mph. The sky cleared off early and I was getting 425-446...

I got a new Victron 150/35 this weekend. Seems to work well on a 24V system. I'll play around with it a bit more and then maybe try the Raspberry Pi upgrade. I have one of those laying around the house so no significant cost to me, other than time and effort... which might be interesting.

They come with a HUGE multi-government rebate.

Yes, it is well within range of the Wi-Fi. I could also run an Ethernet cable to it. Isn't that thing about $300?

I was wanting to set up remote access for monitoring my Renogy charge controllers over the internet but can't find anything that is built for that specifically. Some video on YouTube about using a Rasberry Pi for it, but nothing specifically built for it. Did I miss it? I have a Victron...

Definitely "off grid".

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-solar-arrays-to-power-nasa-s-international-space-station-research Well, somebody had to post it. As if any of us could duplicate this, in its entirety.

Yes, and you can only order it to be delivered by Midnight Express.

Is the photo in your avatar the result of using this battery configuration and the wooden holder?

I run mine through my charge controller. Mainly because the power supply is limited at 10A. If I run it through the CC, it can nearly double that.

Well, as long as you didn't break the little piece of tape that reads "Warranty Void if Seal is Broken". Then you're all good.

Also depends on what your system is used for (grid vs. off grid). I have a house in the Houston TX area and one in NE OK. I'm doing off grid backup systems for both. So here's the point... the primary season for power outages in Houston is the summer, during tropical storm season, while the...

It's the season. Things are very unstable during November and December. Take a deep breath. I've had several orders that have gotten all the way to "out for delivery" and then BOOM!!! Delayed another day or two. Very frustrating, but not insurmountable. I remember the old days of ordering from...

I'm laughing now. Thanks. At the time, I just looked at the second one that is still in the box (just bought it this week) and considered driving it down to Kohl's to do an Amazon return. The jury is still out on that one.

I just tried to talk to Renogy tech support and they told me that I need to mentally double the numbers on display for the settings. Even though everything is set up for 24V, all the parameters stay in the 12V levels and the controller automatically doubles them for operations. This seems rather...

It's connected to a 24V battery and set to that as well.

I went into the parameters after setting it up for 24V and they seem to be stuck on the values for a 12V battery. It won't let me step up the numbers on the charger and will not accept them when entered via the app with the BT-1 interface. How do you get past this?