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diy solar

diy solar

My build thread

That's about what new panels cost here.
That's double what new panels cost here now. I haven't seen panels this cheap here before though. Maybe because winter is coming and solar business is getting really slow. I'm going to put 26 x 550W tier1 half cell monofacials on my barn roof (perpendicular to my current array). Postage not included, but I can pick those up with my van, so ~80e for diesel.
 
I keep my eye out. SanTan has some used 65x40in 290's for USD66, thats 0.23/w . Solar steals had some 77x36, 325's for $100 (0.31/w) . The problem with the smaller wattage panels is you have to clean all the Trump signs off the front yard to make room for the extra mounts to hold all the panels. I have a bunch of older 250's around 65x40. I'm working on the mounts for them now, but at some point I may swap them for something a little more dense roughly the same size. Verticle mounts so I'll be able to go a little longer just not wider than ~40. The problem with the ~500w panels is they are so friggin huge, some are in the 80x45 range with makes them very awkward to work with.

I think something around 72x36 at 400W would be better. I'm holding out at this point for a density improvement, but my current fall production is around 60% of summer. Worst day for solar should be coming up soon mid-December, we'll see how bad it gets. Tim: You need to get some of those panels going before the shortest day of the year! Looks great though, I do envy the space you have, looks like your close a full disconnect from the power company!
 
Tim: You need to get some of those panels going before the shortest day of the year! Looks great though, I do envy the space you have, looks like your close a full disconnect from the power company!
So far I'm still getting to 100%, before noon.
I'm curious to see how it goes this winter, as is.
I will be doing some testing on the ground with these and some micro inverters. Before they go on the garage roof.
Once I get the power room built out, completely.
I will be completely off grid. Just have to find the time to finish it.
The only things still on the grid are the range, two counter top kitchen circuits, and the garage.
I'm getting closer every day.
 
I’m pulling from the grid again during off peak to supplement. A whole 80 cents a day on average for the last week? I’d love to go big scale like some of you guys but it’s not happening at this location. I’m getting giddy just thinking about moving to a place with land and less people. Learning from you guys what works
 
So far I'm still getting to 100%, before noon.
I'm curious to see how it goes this winter, as is.
I will be doing some testing on the ground with these and some micro inverters. Before they go on the garage roof.
Once I get the power room built out, completely.
I will be completely off grid. Just have to find the time to finish it.
The only things still on the grid are the range, two counter top kitchen circuits, and the garage.
I'm getting closer every day.

it is a great feeling. I even have the range on solar. So far this year, the grid's breaker has been off 98% or so since April 1st. 97kwh grid total, with 56 kwh due to charging the batteries a couple of time this month and in Oct via the Chargeverter from the grid, due to more rain and clouds

Since retiring last year, I have been watching and looking for loads in the house to reduce and replace. One is load is my main software development "big" box computer. I have managed to have it turned off most of the time now. Also I have a mini-pc in hand to replace my wife's computer (an older box I used to develop software on) which is an energy hog (4 kwh per day).

seek and destroy energy loads is my game plan now
 
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it is a great feeling. I even have the range on solar. So far this year, the grid's breaker has been off 98% or so since April 1st. 97kwh grid total, with 56 kwh due to charging the batteries a couple of time this month and in Oct via the Chargeverter from the grid, due to more rain and clouds

Since retiring last year, I have been watching and looking for loads in the house to reduce and replace. One is load is my main software development "big" box computer. I have managed to have it turned off most of the time now. Also I have a mini-pc in hand to replace my wife's computer (an older box I used to develop software on) which is an energy hog (4 kwh per day).

seek and destroy energy loads is my game plan now

Seek and destroy - I like it! :)
Just an FYI - The tiny Beelink computers on Amazon are very good. I have two of them and they are holding up well. The Blackview ones are not as good. The 4 core Intel CPUs have enough power to run just about anything. They draw very little power and can mount to the back of a screen. I replaced my big power sucking desktop software dev machine with a refurbed Dell Precision 6 core Intel i-7. Its screaming fast and it goes to sleep quickly and wakes quickly and draws very little power when snoozing. I can run my older software on virtual machines and it is still much faster than running on the old hardware. In fact the VMware convert software will convert an entire old machine to a virtual machine easily.
 

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