diy solar

diy solar

4 X class solar flares to impact this weekend.

Madcodger said:
Well, at least I can turn the UPS's back on this morning. They were going wild. The one at my wife's desk beeps at almost any grid fluctuation, and the one for the router is also sensitive. But I have a couple of others from which I've never heard a peep after several years no matter what's going on, and even they were beeping. Mind you, they all continued to supply power, but the beeping was more than we wanted to hear.
Click to expand...
APC UPSen can be configured for sensitivity, high and low grid limits, and active or silenced alarms.

Of course, going offgrid is the best solution.

Nothing happened here exept my GPS wandered a few more meters than usual. 🤓
 
Brucey said:
Was probably circling over @Daddy Tanuki for a while.
Click to expand...
Fukuoka is south west of me about a 10 hour drive. thats right next to Marine Corps air station Iwakuni.
Boeing is taking a beating these days. maybe they should consider going back to hiring those old wrinkly white guys that did the job so well for the last 50 years for them, vice whatever the DEI initiative LGBTQ xyz with purple hair types they have been hiring lately.
 
We got nothing here, just a glow on the horizon that was only visible through a camera. A buddy 30 miles away got some great pics, but nothing here.

IMG_20240511_003248567.jpg
As far as I'm concerned, if I only "saw" it through my phone, I didn't see it. I'm not crossing that one off my list.
 
Daddy Tanuki said:
Fukuoka is south west of me about a 10 hour drive. thats right next to Marine Corps air station Iwakuni.
Boeing is taking a beating these days. maybe they should consider going back to hiring those old wrinkly white guys that did the job so well for the last 50 years for them, vice whatever the DEI initiative LGBTQ xyz with purple hair types they have been hiring lately.
Click to expand...
Daaaam the jokes about that town name must be intense! That or they REALLY dont like Oklahoma...
 
Q-Dog said:
Well, did anything bad happen?
Click to expand...
Not that I can tell. Just a lot of alarms on the UPS devices that were connected to the grid. Saw friends for breakfast that live near the main branch of the grid and they said nothing at all at their house. We're the last property down a long stretch of the smallest circuit they run, so maybe that had an effect, but no real idea. Civilization survived.
 
wpns said:
APC UPSen can be configured for sensitivity, high and low grid limits, and active or silenced alarms.

Of course, going offgrid is the best solution.

Nothing happened here exept my GPS wandered a few more meters than usual. 🤓
Click to expand...
image.png
My house normally 'moves' around 5M from it's average position, so GPS was slightly effected.
My FL condo 'moved' a lot more, but it's got a very compromised antenna, so nothing obvious happened there.
Both of them kept perfect time, which is what I care about.
 
wpns said:
Not sure, we haven't heard from @AlaskanNoob since he decided the best way to prevent problems from his 650 feet of cable was to connect to the grid, but then he's a few hours out, so barely morning there.
Click to expand...

I decided the best way to prevent problems was to connect to the grid? I'm off grid, I don't have the option of connecting to the grid.
 
wpns said:
Not sure, we haven't heard from @AlaskanNoob since he decided the best way to prevent problems from his 650 feet of cable was to connect to the grid, but then he's a few hours out, so barely morning there.
Click to expand...
I would guess that it was amazing up there. Hope he got his wire squared away.
 
AlaskanNoob said:
I decided the best way to prevent problems was to connect to the grid? I'm off grid, I don't have the option of connecting to the grid.
Click to expand...
My mistake, must have been someone else who disconnected their solar arrays and inverters and stuff and connected to the grid to save their solar system.
 
wpns said:
My mistake, must have been someone else who disconnected their solar arrays and inverters and stuff and connected to the grid to save their solar system.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Me Worry!

(several others here did too.)

Forgo a day or two of backfeed credits, don't have grid or even PV wires connected to inverter electronics.
Just took throwing a few breakers and switches.

Also shut off and unplugged office copier.
Have MOV at main panel, help protect PCs and the like.
I'm fed by an underground transformer so don't think any risk at one place anyway. Other place is overhead (couple thousand feet to transformer.)


wpns said:
This is what confused me, what did you do for power if you shut everything off?
Click to expand...

When off grid, what do you do for power when your inverter gets blown up by CME or lightning?
 
Hedges said:
When off grid, what do you do for power when your inverter gets blown up by CME or lightning?
Click to expand...
We just switched to some portable Goal Zero stations for our power while the main system was shut down.

From the attempt to learn about this over the past day or so, it seems that our 650 feet of wire is not considered a long wire. We found some research paper that leads us to that conclusion (largest observed from a storm was 20V/Km). So flipping our breakers and switches and disconnecting our panels wasn't likely needed with the storm adding 4 volts to our 650 foot cable.

MPPT wouldn't care about the even lesser voltage on shorter cables. But there is some question of DC power introduced to the AutoTransformer that might damage it (apparently it's not the voltage, but the DC power on an AC line that messes with transformers). Transformers seem to be particularly vulnerable to these events and most off-grid folks don't have transformers. But we have several so it might affect us more.

At any rate, better safe than sorry given the expense of our equipment and the pain of getting it to our homestead and installing it. Next time here in Alaska when the NOAA is issuing G5 "extreme" warnings I'll probably do the same thing as a precaution, if I can bring myself to suffer the humiliation the next morning when the world doesn't end.
 
Last edited:
So far, seems like no big issues with this storm. From this article:

There were also some harmful effects. According to NOAA, there have been some irregularities in power grid transmissions, and degraded satellite communications and GPS services. Users of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet constellation have reported slower download speeds. Early on Saturday morning, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the company's Starlink satellites were "under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far."

This is the most intense Solar storm recorded in more than two decades. The last G5 event—the most extreme category of such storms—occurred in October 2003 when there were electricity issues reported in Sweden and South Africa.

Should this storm intensify over the next day or two, scientists say the major risks include more widespread power blackouts, disabled satellites, and long-term damage of GPS networks.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
I am disconnecting my solar panel strings the next 36 - 48 hours.
2
Replies
26
Views
1K
ksmithaz1
ksmithaz1
K
Correct size Wires for Batteries
Replies
12
Views
540
ScropusGobbleBottom
ScropusGobbleBottom
O
Do I have this right? Class T fuse on 4/0 feed to two 2/0 feeds to inverter?
Replies
9
Views
575
Axotopia
A
B
Victron MPPT solar array help please
Replies
16
Views
197
740GLE
7
M
\#> please h%lp
Replies
16
Views
541
Q-Dog
Q-Dog

diy solar

diy solar
Back
Top