diy solar

diy solar

Desperately seeking Suzanne... but will accept guidance on installation

Jennifer

Joined
Nov 15, 2019
Messages
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Hi friends, if any of you have had any experience mounting panels on corrugated tin roofs but NOT flat, I'd love to hear your thoughts.... I'm going bi (facials that is) and am putting them on a hot tin roof (I'm in AZ) but want some tilt for the bi factor... please feel free to join the discussion over on this link:


I'm probably going S-5's on the mounts but need some recommendations on the tilt part.... they don't even require rails but this may only be for standing seams, not corrugated... will call them next week but thought I'd check with my peeps here first to see if any of you have had experience.


Your input is very much welcome and always appreciated...

Jen
 
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If you stare very carefully at this pic, what you can see in the background is the fixed array frame laying on the ground just behind the center post of my rotating ground array. Looks like it's butting into the nose of my pickup truck. That got mounted on my steel roof of the workshop on the left of the pic.

The array is constructed out of unistruts, and when I mounted it up on the roof, I simply mounted four perpendicular scrap 4-foot pieces of unistut directly in the valleys of the corrugated steel, with 2" 1/4" bolts projecting upwards. The scraps were held in place with gasketed roofing screws, with the rubber gaskets on the bottom side of the unistruts. The screws were long enough to penetrate into the 2X6 rafters I build the roof out of.

Once I hoisted up the array frame, I simply laid the frame down onto the perpendicular struts and bolted them down. This frame hold four 250W panels. It works.
 

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If you stare very carefully at this pic,
The last time someone started a sentence like this with me, I don't remember the following 72 hours and woke up in a jail cell in Tijuana....

But thank you for the comment.....

All joking aside, while your rack is a work of art, I live on the top of a very high hill side and get winds HURRICANE style that come down my vallue and have ripped homes off foundations here so am hoping to find something that would pass an engineering review if needed (so prob have to go factory/not home brew) JUST in case it ends up, upside down in the next county with a shed and a huge root ball attached to it, but thanks.

In fact.... this will give you an indication of what steps I'm going to in order to keep the same from happening to my toy hauler, buried railroad ties wrapped in grade 70 chain and binders coming to the surface attached with full on HUD style strapping etc...... I may wake up at 3am surrounded by nothing more than my bed laying on a toy hauler frame and no walls but at least I'll have a frame to rebuild on.. LOL (PS: First clip of the ordered chain/binders is from my Amazonia page, the photos are from another person who did the same install and did a beautiful job, my TH is black and blue (yes, I smack it around when it back talks, mind your own business, quit being a nosy neighbor), not brown as shown).

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Jen
 

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.. I may wake up at 3am surrounded by nothing more than my bed laying on a toy hauler frame and no walls but at least I'll have a frame to rebuild on...
Dear Dorothy, did you bolt the bed to the frame? If not, you might be waking up in Oz rather than Tijuana (I hear they're nice people though). ;)
Nice craftsmanship! I'd paint/oil/stain/blacken the wood just to stave off decay and pests.

Can't really tell from the photo's, but aren't there are 3 directions to worry about? The chains should prevent up, but what about left/right/forward/back? Seems like if the wind gave the caboose a push the whole thing would slide forward off the blocks? Rather than slide through the D-ring, why not attach to the D-ring, and then go across as well? Or is it something like they tensioned tight enough that the downwards force clamps it into place?
 
Dear Dorothy, did you bolt the bed to the frame? If not, you might be waking up in Oz rather than Tijuana (I hear they're nice people though). ;)
Nice craftsmanship! I'd paint/oil/stain/blacken the wood just to stave off decay and pests.

Can't really tell from the photo's, but aren't there are 3 directions to worry about? The chains should prevent up, but what about left/right/forward/back? Seems like if the wind gave the caboose a push the whole thing would slide forward off the blocks? Rather than slide through the D-ring, why not attach to the D-ring, and then go across as well? Or is it something like they tensioned tight enough that the downwards force clamps it into place?
just dont' ask to borrow their donkey

it's getting wrapped (no, not like a car silly, house wrap then siding)

D rings? :oops: What site are you looking at? DON'T ANSWER THAT ?

This thing ain't going anywhere, there are more screws in this thing than in a Nevada brothel and it's heavy as hell and the floor is packed with dirt to keep it from moving, this was at the start of floor filling with fill.

1625723041567.png
 
Hmmmm I guess wood won’t rot in Arizona.
I would think that frame would just sink in the ground over time .
Vey interesting .
 
Pressure treated, ground is essentially rock under that light dusting and we have a massive calichi field below that... if it sinks much, I have a spanky new Kubota to lift it up and toss dead bodies under (dang atv trespassers)
 
Iron ridge 1000 sells stand offs that you could mount the rails to ,I’m not sure how tall the come or how high you need them to be .
 
The ants up here in ny would eat the pt lumber in a few years .
If I build some thing it has to last indefinitely .
Looks cool
 
In my pt 2x8x16 are 38 dollers each , what do they cost in the south ?
Inquiring minds wanna know
 
In my pt 2x8x16 are 38 dollers each , what do they cost in the south ?
Inquiring minds wanna know
I bought them long before the "pandemic" and in the interest of keeping this on topic and not starting a south vs north civil war style multi page thread about wood prices, I'll leave at that.... other than to say if you want to PM me, I'll look up my receipt and gladly let you know.
 
Hi friends, if any of you have had any experience mounting panels on corrugated tin roofs but NOT flat, I'd love to hear your thoughts.... I'm going bi (facials that is) and am putting them on a hot tin roof (I'm in AZ) but want some tilt for the bi factor... please feel free to join the discussion over on this link:


I'm probably going S-5's on the mounts but need some recommendations on the tilt part.... they don't even require rails but this may only be for standing seams, not corrugated... will call them next week but thought I'd check with my peeps here first to see if any of you have had experience.


Your input is very much welcome and always appreciated...

Jen

This dated article has a few solar mounting solutions for metal roofing profiles you might be interested in.
https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2018/03/metal-roofs-no-problem-solar-installations/

No experience with any of those mentioned in the article. I used the standing seam S-5-B style clamps.
 
No that’s ok I buy buy the truck load all the time the price a month ago could give me a feel for what’s going on.
No need to fight the civel war all over ?
 

All I can offer is that the scale of the efforts make me admire the engineering.

No bi-facial photovoltaic experience, all my panels are mono-sided monocrystalline :)

Does anyone know if the two sides of a bifacial photovoltaic panel are connected in series? I'm dum.
 
No bi-facial photovoltaic experience, all my panels are mono-sided monocrystalline :)

Does anyone know if the two sides of a bifacial photovoltaic panel are connected in series? I'm dum.

I think they just don't have an opaque layer on the back.

(if two junctions in series, would have to carry same current. Parallel would have a chance. But I think it is just one junction, and doesn't have a metal layer for backside contact, something that allows photons to pass instead.)
 
Iron ridge 1000 sells stand offs that you could mount the rails to ,I’m not sure how tall the come or how high you need them to be .
I will second the Iron Ridge hardware, first class stuff and it went up very easy at our cabin.
 

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U-bolts hold horizontal lumber on vertical pipes.
If the bolts slipped, that would punch the panels. That would make me nervous. prefer a cap or bracket that bears on end of pipe.
Perhaps the nuts would settle into the wood, relieving tension.
 
I periodically check the tightness of everything and so far it's very stable. But, you have me thinking, so I might clamp a "stop" of some kind underneath at least the ends. The U-bolts are axle 1/2" hardened fasteners for attaching axles to trailers.
 
I might use a piece of angle iron (or aluminum) drilled for the two bolts and extending over end of pipe.

My Unirack has 2" uprights. On top is either a cap made of larger pipe and plate welded on, or an aluminum casting. Set screw holds that on pipe (one slipped up and off due to issues with my dimensions or something). Two U-bolts attach a horizontal 2" pipe for the welded one (other has a tube and set screw).

A kludge I made recently between block wall and fence has U-channel uprights and 1" conduit clips, which less robust than usual. "L" pieces bolted to channel make sure clips don't slip.
 
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