diy solar

diy solar

Off-Grid-Garage - better than NETFLIX -- :-)

ghostwriter66

"Here - Hold my Beer"
Joined
Nov 13, 2019
Messages
1,868
Location
EE from LAX CA -work in SouthTX for giant evil Oil
So awhile back we ran across this Gentlemen @Off-Grid-Garage ... he's from Australia via Germany I think is pretty entertaining ... he has a UTUBE channel
... YES from an EE perspective some of his stuff is kinda cringe worthy -- BUT from an overall SOLAR learning experience I would have to give it a 9/10 stars .. we have wound up buying virtually every piece of equipment he has recommended to play with and and his reviews are spot on ... SOOO he's not reviewing products like @Will Prowse does which has saved us tons of time and money but instead he basically is building a off grid garage/home from scratch and we are watching the adventure as he goes along -- totally like a TV series -- sometimes comedy - sometimes horror - but still well worth the watch ...

ANYWAY -- he recommended https://offer.alibaba.com/cps/i0ern...and-3-2v-lifepo4-prismatic_1600219202538.html these batteries and we just put an order for 64 3.2V 280aH batteries in to hopefully get the same results he did ....

Anyway ... thanks @Off-Grid-Garage for making this girls life out here in the desolate desert of West Texas a little more enjoyable .... I do get to go to the oil show in Midland TEXAS this week so am looking forward to staying in a nice hotel and just taking hour long showers with real hot water -- something we don't get to do often where we are at ....
 
Cringe worthy, YES
Some potential Horrors, he got lucky !
Worth Watching ? For Entertainment only.
Some things said & done - downright nuts, partly due to not knowing a few key things but he is learning, some of it the hard way.
Sometimes when an obvious DUH is pointed out he snarks....
He is now finally using mostly the right terminology which took a while.

I think his Missus is SMART, making sure he plays in an outbuilding and not in his actual house, and I noticed he acquired a Good Fire Extinguisher (I wonder who made him do that !) which is handy. At least he's paying for his hobby with his Youtube Bucks so another Bonus Point to make Missus Happy.
 
Cringe worthy, YES
Some potential Horrors, he got lucky !
Worth Watching ? For Entertainment only.
Some things said & done - downright nuts, partly due to not knowing a few key things but he is learning, some of it the hard way.
Sometimes when an obvious DUH is pointed out he snarks....
He is now finally using mostly the right terminology which took a while.

I think his Missus is SMART, making sure he plays in an outbuilding and not in his actual house, and I noticed he acquired a Good Fire Extinguisher (I wonder who made him do that !) which is handy. At least he's paying for his hobby with his Youtube Bucks so another Bonus Point to make Missus Happy.

You pretty much nailed it ... I kind of see it like watching a guy progress from an Drlver's Education Class to actually getting on the Freeway .... entertaining but scary ... BUT its good to watch his mistakes - and learn from those -- On a sidenote we had to go through our annual Fire Extinguisher training class 2 weeks ago -- 21 of us in the morning class -- OSHA guy came down to train us - started the class with "How many of you have had to use a Fire Extinguisher in the last 12 months?" ... Only 2 hands went up ... mine -- and the guy that had to use one to help me put out my "accident" when my extinguisher ran out ... ..LOL

If only they gave bonuses for that ....
 
So awhile back we ran across this Gentlemen @Off-Grid-Garage ... he's from Australia via Germany I think is pretty entertaining ... he has a UTUBE channel
... YES from an EE perspective some of his stuff is kinda cringe worthy -- BUT from an overall SOLAR learning experience I would have to give it a 9/10 stars .. we have wound up buying virtually every piece of equipment he has recommended to play with and and his reviews are spot on ... SOOO he's not reviewing products like @Will Prowse does which has saved us tons of time and money but instead he basically is building a off grid garage/home from scratch and we are watching the adventure as he goes along -- totally like a TV series -- sometimes comedy - sometimes horror - but still well worth the watch ...

ANYWAY -- he recommended https://offer.alibaba.com/cps/i0ern...and-3-2v-lifepo4-prismatic_1600219202538.html these batteries and we just put an order for 64 3.2V 280aH batteries in to hopefully get the same results he did ....

Anyway ... thanks @Off-Grid-Garage for making this girls life out here in the desolate desert of West Texas a little more enjoyable .... I do get to go to the oil show in Midland TEXAS this week so am looking forward to staying in a nice hotel and just taking hour long showers with real hot water -- something we don't get to do often where we are at ....
Agree , for most part . And that is what makes it entertaining , to see what next he will do to pull in viewers . WOW , at being able to buy dirt cheap Solar panels in AU..........they have gone very much for Solar . Have watched several of the Australian Solar videos , from different people . Would be nice if there was more locally where I live in the south . Would sure like to get started on a large system , with local used . Am about to buy some , either from SANTANN , or another wholesale USED panel business . Anyone tried to order from this NEW LiFePo4 chinese business , that Andy bought from lately ? Andy never did say what he paid for them in video ?
 
WOW , at being able to buy dirt cheap Solar panels in AU..........they have gone very much for Solar .
To put it into context, we are approaching 25% of all homes in Australia having a grid tied solar PV system and rooftop solar PV now supplies ~8% of the total Australian grid demand. Solar PV installation is expected to climb to be on 40% of all homes over the next decade-ish.

One consequence of this is there is now an increasing number of solar PV system upgrades happening and a growing supply of used panels coming off rooftops.

I have an acquaintance who trades used panels for DIYers and is giving me 10 x 250W Trina panels to use for my off grid project.

Pretty much all of the panels removed cannot be used again in another grid tied project due to regulations - all equipment must be on the current standards list and older panels drop off that list each year. What's most annoying though is installers ripping off the old panels in the fastest way possible, and usually this means cutting the cables rather than unplugging them. hence to reuse many such panels required refitting cable connectors.

There are plenty of such panels on local buy, swap sell sites. Lots of people think they are worth more than they really are - since they are only good for off grid DIY stuff the resell market is more limited than people realise.
 
Agree , for most part . And that is what makes it entertaining , to see what next he will do to pull in viewers . WOW , at being able to buy dirt cheap Solar panels in AU..........they have gone very much for Solar . Have watched several of the Australian Solar videos , from different people . Would be nice if there was more locally where I live in the south . Would sure like to get started on a large system , with local used . Am about to buy some , either from SANTANN , or another wholesale USED panel business . Anyone tried to order from this NEW LiFePo4 chinese business , that Andy bought from lately ? Andy never did say what he paid for them in video ?

He actually lives near me, I tried to order from the same place yesterday but prices are up everywhere. I ordered 16 cells from china to my front door in Nov and arrived Jan for just over $2550AUD, tried to order from his distributer but their prices are up since he ordered them 2 months ago? He says he avoided paying the import tax 10% which is slug onto anything over $1000AUD.

There are plenty of such panels on local buy, swap sell sites. Lots of people think they are worth more than they really are - since they are only good for off grid DIY stuff the resell market is more limited than people realise.
I picked up 14 330w panels for $700AUD the other week. Also some solar racking from a hailstorm area for $150.
 
I picked up 14 330w panels for $700AUD the other week. Also some solar racking from a hailstorm area for $150.
Nice. My panels will be free (but I have to go collect about 2 hours south of here) and I got 27m of Clenergy railing and feet for $100 delivered. My local installer had recently taken the rails off the rooftop of an upgrade job and I made an offer. They were just going to the scrap yard for recycling otherwise. Best I could do new was $480 for the railing.

I didn't bother with shopping for panels but they come up every week and I'm in a rural/regional location. There would be thousands of them in the cities.
 
Wow $118 for the cell now, they gave me quote of $89 ea (4 total) and $140 DDP to Cali a month ago.
 
Anyhoo, I've been watching Andy and he's entertaining although a lot of videos could be a lot shorter than they are. Sometimes I think he knows more than he lets on, then I see something and go, WTF? And I'm just a newbie at this game.

YouTube-ing must be a way to fund buying all those batteries. It's a whole chunk of coin just to have storage for a garage/shed. Running a mains cable from the house would be cheaper, both to set up and to operate. At A$3k per pack of 16 280Ah LFP batteries he's now got over A$6k / 25kWh worth and that's just seems way over the top for a shed.
 
Glad to know there are few Aussies in this forum.

recently ordered 16x 310ah CATL cells from Michael. and like off-grid-garage i got my panels second hard from people upgrading theirs off gumtree or Facebook marketplace.
 
Wow $118 for the cell now, they gave me quote of $89 ea (4 total) and $140 DDP to Cali a month ago.

YEP - they did the same thig to me .. got the quote from them right after watching Andies video -- and then literally 48 hours later got a note saying that the shipping had gone up from X to 2X which raised the price about $750 per 32 ... so going to keep looking ...
 
I enjoy his stuff, but yes we are watching his journey and certain understandings "click" or previously feigned ignorance for youtube value I'm not sure - but I do enjoy watching the journey; and the assumed long term goal of running his tesla off his off grid setup - all whilst ignoring the humongous grid tie system on his house. He has another EV channel, so I do think there is a certain amount of things being done for the sake of you tube - I still enjoy it.
 
I think he knows a lot more than people on this forum give him credit for. He's from Austria or Germany, can't remember which, but is working in Australia. Australia is very strict on immigration and do not allow just anyone to come work there. You have to have education and actual skills. I think that Andy is an engineer but not sure what field.
One thing I really like about his videos is that he runs experiments that you don't see on other channels. Most people just do reviews of equipment that manufacturers send them which to me is not very useful or entertaining.
 
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So awhile back we ran across this Gentlemen @Off-Grid-Garage ... he's from Australia via Germany I think is pretty entertaining ... he has a UTUBE channel
... YES from an EE perspective some of his stuff is kinda cringe worthy -- BUT from an overall SOLAR learning experience I would have to give it a 9/10 stars .. we have wound up buying virtually every piece of equipment he has recommended to play with and and his reviews are spot on ... SOOO he's not reviewing products like @Will Prowse does which has saved us tons of time and money but instead he basically is building a off grid garage/home from scratch and we are watching the adventure as he goes along -- totally like a TV series -- sometimes comedy - sometimes horror - but still well worth the watch ...

ANYWAY -- he recommended https://offer.alibaba.com/cps/i0ern...and-3-2v-lifepo4-prismatic_1600219202538.html these batteries and we just put an order for 64 3.2V 280aH batteries in to hopefully get the same results he did ....

Anyway ... thanks @Off-Grid-Garage for making this girls life out here in the desolate desert of West Texas a little more enjoyable .... I do get to go to the oil show in Midland TEXAS this week so am looking forward to staying in a nice hotel and just taking hour long showers with real hot water -- something we don't get to do often where we are at ....
i agree, have been following andy's channel for almost a year now, and he cracks me up sometimes.

his SPAT - priceless :)
 
I think he is smarter than he lets on and goes into more detail than many channels. He also has at least 2 other youtube channels that i'm aware of. Busy man.
 
Anyway ... thanks @Off-Grid-Garage for making this girls life out here in the desolate desert of West Texas a little more enjoyable .... I do get to go to the oil show in Midland TEXAS this week so am looking forward to staying in a nice hotel and just taking hour long showers with real hot water -- something we don't get to do often where we are at ....
Found it odd that you mentioned the "oil show" was happening in Midland. I grew up in Odessa (escaped as quickly as possible) and The Permian Basin International Oil Show was held in ODESSA, Oct 18-21, not in Midland. I won't delve into the political quagmire of the Odessa/Midland rivalry, but Ector County (Odessa) is where the Oil Show has always been held. I attended many an oil show while growing up.
 
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