diy solar

diy solar

DIY California Permit'd Sol-Ark Build

Well thats a good start. I;'m guessing wire and misc(conduit-connectors etc) will put you up some $$$. Are you thinking batteries later as well? or is the grid is your battery forever? Or until PG$E outlaws this feature which they are working on .
 
Well thats a good start. I;'m guessing wire and misc(conduit-connectors etc) will put you up some $$$. Are you thinking batteries later as well? or is the grid is your battery forever? Or until PG$E outlaws this feature which they are working on .
DC runs will be 10 awg thhn and 1 inch fmc. $200 for all the wire and $100 for conduit.

The AC run will be pricy as it's 90 feet. I am scoping 6/3 nmb, 4-4-4-6 SER and 6 awg thhn in conduit.

I also found a smoking deal on on 2-2-2-4 SER but that will be a pain running through conduit.
 
Maybe you know this or not but if you use a vacuum and a mouse kit like this one that I have from Greenlee you suck the piston thru tied to line-then retie with larger line and use wire lube and pull the conductors thru. Make sure that you have no more than 3- 90s(elbows) and if you need more 90s have an access LB 90 with cover so you can pull it out there and restart it in again. 3 -90s max always unless it super oversize conduit
heres the piston mouse kit-

This line has very little friction and you can suck it thru hundreds of feet of conduit-it actually is really strong as well for most small wire pulls like #10 and larger
tools of the trade once for me and very handy to use-makes pulling #6 wire a snap
 
05/19 update.
Was doing some research on the RSD system I ordered (Tigo TS4-A-2F) and it looks like the leads won't reach or will require extension or mounting in a non-optimal way.
The Solarever 445w panels have split junction boxes which you see on panels meant for series installs in portrait and you see them on bi-facials.
1652985543917.png

~~~
Reached out to CED and asked them to quote out the APSmart system that is also compatible with Sol-Ark. They have a mounting solution via adhesive (we will see how reliable that is) that is meant for split JB and bi-facials.

1652985632732.png


Part numbers:
22 x RSD-S-PLC
1 x 29MM SINGLE CORE

I will need to do some research on industrial grade adhesives that will survive 25 years under a solar panel.
 
Maybe you know this or not but if you use a vacuum and a mouse kit like this one that I have from Greenlee you suck the piston thru tied to line-then retie with larger line and use wire lube and pull the conductors thru. Make sure that you have no more than 3- 90s(elbows) and if you need more 90s have an access LB 90 with cover so you can pull it out there and restart it in again. 3 -90s max always unless it super oversize conduit
heres the piston mouse kit-

This line has very little friction and you can suck it thru hundreds of feet of conduit-it actually is really strong as well for most small wire pulls like #10 and larger
tools of the trade once for me and very handy to use-makes pulling #6 wire a snap
I am starting to settle on 2-2-2-4 SER cable for the 90 foot run from Garage(Inverter) to Main panel (Outdoor set in Stucco)

It is coded to act like NMB so I won't need to use conduit in the attic as long as its secure and guarded near the entry hole into the attic. Also its
$2.21 a foot at my local Lowes!
I will penetrate out of the attic to a 6x6x4 JB to keep my bend radius good. Remove the outer sleeve (leaving 1/4 inch showing in the JB as per code) and run the wires down 2 inch (fill rate says I could do 1.5) Sch 40 that is 10'ish feet long to top of Meter box. Wires in SER are XHHW and rated for the run. I will use the meter lugs as a transition to switch to 4 or 6 awg I haven't decided. The IMO AC switch max wire size is 4 and the 50 amp backfed breaker is 4.

1652986915642.png

On the garage side its just 6 feet of EMT from the ceiling to the wiring trough.
 
05/20 update.

Permitting was approved through City and I was able to forward to County and they issued my building permit within 24 hours. I can officially start drilling holes in my roof.

I found someone on Ebay selling the RSD modules for $23 a piece shipped. Saves a bit of money compared to Tigo. Bought the 22 I needed and cancelled the order of Tigo modules through CED.

CED will still procur the transmitter.

Received the larger 200 amp CT's from Alt-E store and the box was labeled right but it only had the 100amp CT's inside. Someone probably did a box swap and returned them. Reached out to Alt-E letting them know of the issue and waiting for a reply.

1653089891727.png


Costs so far:
$90 - Permit plans
$160 - City Utility Permit fee
$436.96 - County Permit
$6004.18 - Solar Panels
$6425 - Inverter
$153.74 - CT's
$588.90- RapidShutdown
$1743.24 - Racking
$200.20 - Electrical and Enclosures
~~~~
$15,802.38 - Total
 
05/22


Grabbed the last bit of supplies locally. A lot of places have been hit with thieves so finding 500 feet of THHN 10AWG was a bit of a challenge.
Also will need access to the attic in my garage so decided to kill two birds with one stone and install an attic ladder.

1653277269569.png
I'll update totals once I have everything posted.
 
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You are my spirit animal. I wish I would just do it myself lol. Thank you for documenting this in detail!
 
05/23 update.
Turns out I am an idiot. The CT's that were sent were the correct ones. I was expecting each CT to be labeled 200 amps but its 100 amps per leg. Regardless I care more about the size of them so they can fit. I now either need to see if the Utility will let me install these in the incoming feed where I would have room around each wire or use a different CT that I can wrap around the Bus Bar.

Example of some Enphase CT's and how they are setup on an identical panel to mine:
1653321511300.png

My panel:

1653321554913.png

I need to call Sol-Ark and see if they will let me use the Enphase CT's.
 
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05/23 mini update.

Did some measurements and the CT's I ordered should work. One on the right line and one on the right bus bar. Turns out that your service breaker actually swaps inputs to outputs so each line will be taken care of. Problem is I might of ordered these CT's unneccessarily as I am seeing in the manual that it comes with this size. I thought for some reason they came with a smaller size. I'll wait and see once I get the inverter on Thursday and return the one's I don't need.

Costs so far:
$90 - Permit plans
$160 - City Utility Permit fee
$436.96 - County Permit
$6004.18 - Solar Panels
$6425 - Inverter
$153.74 - CT's
$588.90- RapidShutdown
$1743.24 - Racking
$1621.50 - Electrical and Enclosures and wiring
~~~~
$17,223.52 - Total
 
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Maybe you know this or not but if you use a vacuum and a mouse kit like this one that I have from Greenlee you suck the piston thru tied to line-then retie with larger line and use wire lube and pull the conductors thru. Make sure that you have no more than 3- 90s(elbows) and if you need more 90s have an access LB 90 with cover so you can pull it out there and restart it in again. 3 -90s max always unless it super oversize conduit
heres the piston mouse kit-

This line has very little friction and you can suck it thru hundreds of feet of conduit-it actually is really strong as well for most small wire pulls like #10 and larger
tools of the trade once for me and very handy to use-makes pulling #6 wire a snap
I use a vacuum and plastic bag (tied with some air in it) to pull string thru, no need for a piston. Then pull heavier rope back thru with the string.
 
I am starting to settle on 2-2-2-4 SER cable for the 90 foot run from Garage(Inverter) to Main panel (Outdoor set in Stucco)

It is coded to act like NMB so I won't need to use conduit in the attic as long as its secure and guarded near the entry hole into the attic. Also its
$2.21 a foot at my local Lowes!
I will penetrate out of the attic to a 6x6x4 JB to keep my bend radius good. Remove the outer sleeve (leaving 1/4 inch showing in the JB as per code) and run the wires down 2 inch (fill rate says I could do 1.5) Sch 40 that is 10'ish feet long to top of Meter box. Wires in SER are XHHW and rated for the run. I will use the meter lugs as a transition to switch to 4 or 6 awg I haven't decided. The IMO AC switch max wire size is 4 and the 50 amp backfed breaker is 4.

View attachment 95153

On the garage side its just 6 feet of EMT from the ceiling to the wiring trough.

Are you going to have input power on the inverter in the garage to allow some bypass/mixing?
 
Are you going to have input power on the inverter in the garage to allow some bypass/mixing?
No bypass needed as I won't be using a critical loads panel.

I thought about doing a secondary run back to the main panel using the loads output to a transfer switch that is attached to a breaker that is interlocked with the main but it seemed like a lot of cost and complexity just to allow running when the grid is down. The local utility I am connected to does not follow PG&E's PSPS so the amount of downtime I get is minimal.

I might put a manual transfer switch that swaps between Grid In/Out and Loads Outputs but utilizes the same wiring run to the main panel via the backfed breaker on the main and just put some warnings to turn off the main breaker first or you die. This would be only in an emergency situation and only be manually swapped over. Right now though just getting everything as simple as possible passed through inspection is the goal. I can tinker off the record once everything is signed off.
 
I use a vacuum and plastic bag (tied with some air in it) to pull string thru, no need for a piston. Then pull heavier rope back thru with the string.
Good cheap idea-I had the mouse kit as a electrician who did a lots of wire pulls the lots of different size conduits. The larger rope is always a must.
 
Good cheap idea-I had the mouse kit as a electrician who did a lots of wire pulls the lots of different size conduits. The larger rope is always a must.
Wasn't my idea, I watched way too many DIY home improvement videos back in the day.

I did come up with using a light chain to fish wire thru walls when rewiring an old house. I got so good with it, I could measure where the outlet hole was, drill a hole from the basement and drop the chain down the outlet hole and have it come out down in the basement. I had already done from the attic down to the second floor, downstairs I ran into blocking and all sorts of fun.

Back then fiberglass flex rods were unheard of, wish I had one running new wire crossways thru multiple floor joists. Was a riot drilling it too.
 
05/23 mini update.

Did some measurements and the CT's I ordered should work. One on the right line and one on the right bus bar. Turns out that your service breaker actually swaps inputs to outputs so each line will be taken care of. Problem is I might of ordered these CT's unneccessarily as I am seeing in the manual that it comes with this size. I thought for some reason they came with a smaller size. I'll wait and see once I get the inverter on Thursday and return the one's I don't need.

Costs so far:
$90 - Permit plans
$160 - City Utility Permit fee
$436.96 - County Permit
$6004.18 - Solar Panels
$6425 - Inverter
$153.74 - CT's
$588.90- RapidShutdown
$1743.24 - Racking
$1621.50 - Electrical and Enclosures and wiring
~~~~
$17,223.52 - Total
My panel is bit like yours-except its 1,000 time fuller with wires . There is no way a ct can fit any bus bars inside. I put my CTs on the incoming house feed wires from the utility as they come out of weatherhead and covered them with a rain sheild that extends from gable end of roof. I put the CTs on live wires.On a fiberglass ladder with rubber gloves on -never touched the lines .
 
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06/02 update.
Received Pallet of Panels from Signature Solar. Appear to be in great shape with no damage. I will pull them open today to mount the RSD to prep for install.

1654194569178.png


Over the weekend I installed the IronRidge racking. Process was simple as long as you verify your measurements. I had to switch the layout of the panels a small bit. Luckily I still had the proper quantity of railing and what I thought tile brackets. I did have to go back to CED to get 6 more as I borked the width measurement of the panels and my cantilever was out of spec. No big deal just a bit extra money and time.
Mounting will be tricky as there are all these little tricks to get the panels to run straight especially for a run that's 10 panels long. I think I am going to go with mounting a panel at each end and running a string line to get a straight edge to mount each panel to. That seems to be a good tip that I have read. There is minor variations of the rails themselves and then you have the straight'ness of the roof itself. It will prob take a bit extra time to get it right being my first time.

1654194598087.png
1654194619713.png
1654194759707.png


Pro tip - For any ladder work get yourself that ladder stabilizer. That thing makes your ladder rock solid and gets it off gutters.


I still need to perform 2 roof penetrations and mock up my FMC so I can pull the 10awg THHN for the DC side to the panels through the attic.
I built up the junction boxes for the transition from PV wire to THHN. These will be mounted to the rail and the EMT will go through the bottom into the roof penetration. Hoping I can get everything to line up proper.

1654194519034.png
All parts are in so once I move the panels I will have access to start mocking the wireway and conduit and mount the Sol-Ark. I've had to mock everything in draw.io to get a number for all the fittings and transitions and lengths I will need.

1654194882864.png
Got the meter socket off Ebay for $50 and paid $110 for the wireway. I thought I was getting a great deal on the wireway for $110 shipped (A101048T1T part # normally goes for $340) and found out the order was actually for 2! So technically got it for $55. I'll sell the other one locally for what I paid.

If anyone near Norcal wants a 10x10x48 Indoor Wireway for $50 let me know!

Lastly I still need to run the AC side via the 2-2-2-4 SER. I am going to junction that in the attic near the penetration points to 6awg THHN so I don't have to run massive conduit once out of the attic. That will be fun drilling holes in walls.


Costs so far:
$90 - Permit plans
$160 - City Utility Permit fee
$436.96 - County Permit
$6004.18 - Solar Panels
$6425 - Inverter
$153.74 - CT's (Need to return these)
$588.90- RapidShutdown
$1913.24 - Racking
$2255.24 - Electrical and Enclosures and wiring and materials
~~~~
$18,027.26 - Total
 
My panel is bit like yours-except its 1,000 time fuller with wires . There is no way a ct can fit any bus bars inside. I put my CTs on the incoming house feed wires from the utility as they come out of weatherhead and covered them with a rain sheild that extends from gable end of roof. I put the CTs on live wires.On a fiberglass ladder with rubber gloves on -never touched the lines .
I would love if the Utility would let me run the CT's over into the top of the panel. I need to ask them as that would solve any space issues I have.

1654196179817.png
 
You have a panel below the meter which is locked out-its fill of buss bars (no wire). They can access this but you cannot without cutting the sealed tabs.I'm not sure the CTs will fit around them anyway. But you can have them out to see.
 
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06/02 update.

Just unboxed the panels to setup RSD and found a broken panel on the last one.

1654217186388.png



Luckily I took video of it coming off the truck and you can now clearly see the two holes poked in with forklift blade.


1654217236712.png

I've sent the video and photos to @SignatureSolarUS via their online form. Hopefully they know what to do!
 
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