Great information for all solar enthusiast, good read.

[GridWorks Green Solar]

With the new data coming in suggest I got the fuse sizes a bit wrong on the main ISO transformer output, new safety audit says 800 watt system needs 5 amp glass fuse,1700 watt system needs 10 amp glass fuse,2600 watt system needs 15 amp glass fuse.
These changes will be a part of the next updated drawing.?

Just now a bit of sun after a rainy week, system is performing fabulous day after day of stable performance, only things I have noticed that don't really effect day to day operation, small changes in LED light brightness near sunset (system processing the last bits of solar energy before sun set brighter is solar energy being used)
The other is the lights dimming for the side by side fridge start (only last a second and fridge runs great on solar energy)

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Sun peeking out around the clouds, running quartz tube heater on first stage and house lights on a 1000 watt board around 500 watts total load.
Heater glowing red hot ?

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Still operating on two 1000 watt boards, running dual solar heaters at each end of the home, most every day since before Dec 21st. Waiting on parts in the mail to substantially improve the new system.
Makes a real difference in addition to the grid powered mini split heat pumps.

New solar power system also runs overhead lights,fans,monitors,3 cams and on a good solar day the living room heater on hi and second electric heater in the back hallway.

Ran living room heater on one tube in completely foggy cold conditions, unit can provide small amounts of power on a bad solar day upto the point of actual rain,snow or darkness, the 9 panels in series 180 VDC (In my case X2) provide a special kick not seen in other power configurations, In full sun although 65 to 70% in total PV efficiency the thing runs motors well especially off a 8FET 2000 watt pure sine power board.

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

New high mark for PV efficiency in full sun 76% ?

Preforming beyond expectations.see other thread for details.

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

11 AM partly cloudy day, Just successfully tested Kia EV car charging? on the new 2,000 watt kit board,16 amp ISO transformer to car charger, 18 standard panels 12VDC on the roof, 120 volt secondary power support ?
FLASHING blue lamp is proof of charging. System maintained 98-100 VAC during the test? 1,400 watts.

One more set of panels to own this situation.?
No load system voltage before cleaning PV panels 122 VAC and after cleaning 130 VAC also turned up the power boards.

In stepping up the amp draw in preparation for car charging noticed dual quartz tube heater on high only pulling the voltage down from 130-110 VAC noticeably better than previous testing.

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

82% PV efficiency, was 65% have made several big steps forward in solar power production, worth a second look.

See main thread for details, Big power performance from small changes in the build, everything works better even on a overcast sky day.

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Listening to the Ham Radio bands last night and the discussion was solar PV systems, My SDR radio about the size of a USB thumb drive is receiver only.

The points made in the discussion were $30,000 and 60,000 systems were not able to get the customers off grid power and one complaint was it only is capable of 61% of daily/monthly house hold needs, we are talking about 12 to 25 years years to break even if it works as planned.

If the system cannot exceed your daily needs selling solar back to the grid for a profit is never going to happen, If batteries are involved maintenance and replacement cost are just around the corner.

At $80 a solar panel and $55 per powerboard and using grid/secondary power to fill the gaps this DIY system can automatically/maintenance free run your lights,electronics and a whole lot more. The last 6 pages of the main thread spells out the details of this Hi efficiency system.

System naturally runs cool only heating up the FET heat sinks during max loads.

 

[scoharri]

There may be a reason you are not getting any action on this thread, but I will leave it at that.

My $25,000 system provides all of my power needs and I'm totally off grid. No grid assistance needed. My system will have paid for itself in 4 years.

 

[faccnator]

His other thread is good. Lots of trial and error and technical information. He’s trying

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Sorry was unaware of the two previous post in this thread pushing hard in the other thread to close out adjustments and final reports/drawings on the power board system.

First off the project system as it sets cost under $3000 planning an additional 9 mono crystal 12VDC slim standard 100watt solar panels for the full PV array that will add an additional $750 to the total.

Point 1: $3,750 VS $25,000 cost, what I could do with $25,000!, No payment plan or interest, pay as you go or expand as needed.

Point 2: adding one of the new Li-Ion power units, charged by day off a project system and run after hours for 24/7 power.

Point 3: No battery maintenance or replacement cost, No charge controller, Natural power blending is superior in keeping the cash in your pocket. Even if the unit is not set correctly (Running Hi secondary ISO mode 24/7) it will cut power usage more than 50% during sun shines events.

Point 4: The primary target of the grid backed system is to reduce grid usage with first class Green Solar energy every day so automatically that you will not have to think about it, may need to reset the CPU or clean the PV panels once in a while max.

Point 5: Most amazing thing I have ever seen in a career of being an electronic technician.

Look again, do the math for your self, if in doubt hire a professional solar arrays can be installed to code and also sub panels/additional house wiring added.
I fully recommend doing things correctly for power production.

Even if you are not pleased with the new power board system 9 series panel arrays ? simply take away three panels from each array and run the other guys flag ship products 6 panel array based systems. Something special about 9 panel arrays in full sun ? direct drive to the power board.

98% perfect the way it sits, It really works!, plenty of feels good green power ?

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Days away from from ordering 9 more standard 12VDC solar panels the slim mono crystal slim designed, this will complete the project system full PV array. Three sets of nine in series 180VDC output each, 27 panels that should push 2,500 watts of clean pure sine power in full sun ?

Currently using "Z" clips on a metal roof to mount all the solar panels, they will go up one at a time and may take several days to do all 9. Looking forward to the extra PV punch.

More soon

 

[Jordi]

Days away from from ordering 9 more standard 12VDC solar panels the slim mono crystal slim designed, this will complete the project system full PV array.

Currently using "Z" clips on a metal roof to mount all the solar panels, they will go up one at a time and may take several days to do all 9. Looking forward to the extra PV punch.

More soon

Gridworks, I am really fan of your doings just sometimes have trouble to understand what you are doing because I am not experienced. I really can see you worked with electricity before.

Perhaps when you finish big expansions like the new array you are about to add you can take the chance to make a wrap up or summary post to give in a short post a global view of what you have built.

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Gridworks, I am really fan of your doings just sometimes have trouble to understand what you are doing because I am not experienced. I really can see you worked with electricity before.

Perhaps when you finish big expansions like the new array you are about to add you can take the chance to make a wrap up or summary post to give in a short post a global view of what you have built.

The last few pages in the 23 page thread I am attempting to sum up the what the project system is all about and give detailed build information, It is a work in progress last few days the sun sensor has malfunctioned and I am desperately trying to get back the way it was, Sinus infection and sore throat are not helping one bit give me a few more days and I may get it right and also get back to work on about 3 more pages of information.

Here is the short and sweet story of the pure sine power board systems, 9 series standard 12VDC solar panels 180VDC directly driven to the 1000 watt power board nets approximately 800 watts of pure clean AC power, 18 panels gets you 1600 watts on a 2000 watt board and what I am aiming for right now is 27 panels three strings of 9 on a 3000 watt board for approximately 2500 solid watts of power.

The system can be run in several different configurations but my favorite is the grid backed no battery, no maintenance version, secondary ISO transformer supports seamless power transitions between solar power and secondary.
(Secondary can be a generator, Li-Ion battery unit or other 120VAC source of 10-15 amp power) bonus is ISO boost even at very low current raises the system voltage across everything (Solar panels provide significantly more power when the voltage is higher MPPT effect) look for the low and high quartz tube heaters side by side in the other thread for visual comparison.

Natural voltage controlled power blender works constantly to keep the bucks in your pocket.

Unit has had endless upgrades and testing to make it efficient and extremely durable, Almost bullet proof full surge of the system or FETs out sync can damage two of the opposing FETs, in the past few months not a single problem in normal operation and know this I run this thing hard every day of the week.

Did it for myself but seriously wanted to share with others the full system can charge a car, run AC/heat and lights and lots more all you need is sunlight in a grid down situation, I mainly like using solar to offset grid usage $80 Electric bills neighbors $200 - $300 monthly.

More soon

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Claiming Victory in the other thread, 6 years adventure done, about one week on a final few pages of documentation.

The thing is very durable and efficient, best of all it really works.

See last pictures in other thread Awesome

 

[Jordi]

Hi Gridworks, nice summary. 3 arrays, 9 100W 12V panels in series each, and a total of 2500W AC available after the power board.
You are backed up by the grid. Do you inject to the grid too? Or zero injection?
Rule of thumb for grid-tied solar is that it can cover 30% of the household demand; the rest is or injected to the grid or not produced. Which percentage have you achieved?

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Hi Gridworks, nice summary. 3 arrays, 9 100W 12V panels in series each, and a total of 2500W AC available after the power board.
You are backed up by the grid. Do you inject to the grid too? Or zero injection?
Rule of thumb for grid-tied solar is that it can cover 30% of the household demand; the rest is or injected to the grid or not produced. Which percentage have you achieved?

Number one rule of the new systems is not to back feed the grid or anything else ever with PV energy.

The conversion of everything to DC for the power board inputs ensures it is physically impossible to backfeed the AC grid with DC power, also everything is multiple glass fused at 15amps or less for dual protection, another level of protection grid power is on the wrong side of a rated diode bridge impossible to reverse feed anything.

This has nothing to do with grid tie more like a gas generator and transfer switch but no gas, PV and secondary power only.

What makes this extra nice is secondary 120 VAC can be from any source in my case another much older deep cycle batteries PV system, the lights cannot just go out here,entire system can be generator boosted in case of long term power down situation, new system is also easy to switch to PV only operation.

One note of caution, do not use 12VDC from a negative ground power system to run the CPU, Introducing a negative ground directly to the powerboard will cause immediate damage. In this case it will blow out the center of the power board and the capacitors will explode making for a burned mess (X5 now).

This is the reason for the ISOs and doorbell transformer any direct connection to earth ground will result in real damage to the power board from instantaneously to three days later depending on how the ground is introduced to the system, static charges will build up till something eats itself, component damage and a short on the high voltage DC buss ends the ground bias issue.

Introduction of the ISO transformers to the project made it rock solid in operation.

More soon

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Day after day of perfect air conditioner plus house lights circuit, 2 ceiling fans, two stick computers,two monitors, 3 security cameras,rechargeable vacuum cleaner and bug zapper.

Totally automatic operation.

More soon

Perfect solar day Perfect ?

At 7:45 PM 74 degrees inside 82.9 outside system in Hi ISO mode for the night ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Hard part was figuring out the sweet spot adjustments for this power system, running it is easy.

Practice soldering skills,wire to circuit board, wire to wire, wire to component and component replacement, practice on any junk electronic board once you have the skills this whole thing is easy.

Assembly photos in the opening few pictures show helpful information, test all builds with lowest voltage possible and proceed to the next part, YouTube videos can educate on any subject, please do everything correctly.


Good night all

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Successful 24/7 load management on the new power board system, using sun sensor, system power ISO blender and switcher units to maintain large appliances like the side by side fridge or 120VAC mini split PV operation.

Daily it works just fine, today had at least 5 rolling clouds events and the system just keeps everything going great.

Pulling it off with no batteries, no maintenance, a small amount of grid power to stabilize operation and 18 standard solar panels. Automatic and the lights run stable.

Best to all

 

[GridWorks Green Solar]

Solving real world issues in the other thread, About to tackle 100+ degrees Fahrenheit outside temperature and provide main air conditioning to the home with a 15Amp PV system.

Wish I had more followers, for those of you that are on social media you have something that is real and absolutely cool to talk about, running smooth everday and saving money, Doing amazing things with a relatively small and unique power system.

Best to all