ghostwriter66
"Here - Hold my Beer"
I posted part of this as a response earlier on another part of this Forum but I thought I would share here ...
I got thrown into Solar completely unexpected and had to hit the ground running - and honestly - knew ZERO about solar anything ... Although this is a DIY site for mostly homeowners - i/we (a large evil international oil company) have taken/stolen many/all of these ideas that these gentlemen have spent hundreds of hours refining into 30 minute videos -- and have taken these ideas and incorporated it into numerous large projects in the oil and gas fields of West Texas and New Mexico -- and with GREAT success. We have easily removed 500 or more smaller diesel generators due to their combined instructional efforts - and thus actually HAVE helped save both the environment (0.00001%) and more importantly - saved the evil oil giant a ton of $$$$ in doing so ...
ANY WAY -- if I was starting over and only had VERY limited time, effort, funds, in order to go from 0-to-100 ... here are the YOUTUBE Channels that i would watch and follow - religiously ... These will save you time and money --- and also let someone else make mistakes and save you the effort and $$$$ ...
Yes I am sure that you are all surprised that i did not put SIGNATURE SOLAR on the list ... https://www.youtube.com/@SignatureSolar ... BUT if i ever do a list of companies with the LONGEST Customer Service WAIT TIMES - or a list of companies that blame it all on the customer - then maybe - just maybe - they will make that list ... (man i need to just let some things go i guess)
so our TOP 5 YOUTUBE channels that has literally taken us from ZERO to HERO to SuperStars at work - and in no particular order are:
1. DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse - https://www.youtube.com/@WillProwse .... this is the one that really got us smart on the entire "how the hell are we going to make this solar shit work?" ... I started watching him when he was still living in a van ...even though I was a freshly graduated EE at the time - I had zero understanding of SOLAR. My training was in Heavy Power Distribution (aka - BIG ASS AC) - when I was told sitting in a nice cushy office in LA that the company was going to be removing allot of these smaller generators in West Texas and New Mexico offline and onto Solar because they wanted to pretend to save the environment, (aka get a huge tax break) and also probably place a token female minority in that position to satisfy DEI - I was like - "man I feel sorry for whoever gets stuck with THAT job" ... my first thought should have actually been "wonder why they are sharing this story with ME (an Asian female)?" .... however years later we are all still having a blast doing this stuff daily - my team has gone from (2) to about (20) and the company actually MAKES money using solar instead of these generators - which means that ppl are now actually trying to get onto our alternative energy teams since the pay, bonuses, and promotions are better than most other sections ...
2. Off-Grid Garage - https://www.youtube.com/@OffGridGarageAustralia .... OMG I love this guy .... watching him is more like watching a NETFLIX comedy/documentary then a simply YouTube ... his journey along the solar highway is more of a work in progress then a HOW TO ...- numerous of his ideas we have simply copied - we let him figure out all the mundane stuff and then at the end just simply order what best works for him ...
3. Engineer775 - https://www.youtube.com/@engineer775 .... he does a really good job of taking you from the installation of the ground mounts all the way through trenching and installation and testing -- for us allot of times THATS the hard part -- figuring out the wiring ...
4. UnpluggedTexan - same as #4 ... https://www.youtube.com/@unpluggedtexan .... very thorough explanations of what they are doing and why -- or at the very least you can stop/freeze the video and copy what he is doing on paper ...
5. DavidPoz - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPozEnergy ,,,, yeah he is the one that REALLY got us into making our own battery stuff -- probably has saved us 30's of thousands in the early days ... now days its just not worth the time effort or price savings to do your own - the costs have really gone down ... but his channel is well worth watching ....
Honorary Mentions:
1. HighTechLab - https://www.youtube.com/@HighTechLab ....demos some really cool solar stuff --
2. Јоhn Daniel - https://www.youtube.com/@JOHNDANIEL1 ....although his videos sometimes seem to be filmed by someone having a mild seizure -- his videos has helped us out tremendously on wind projects -- i will say that we have mirrored his exact system about 20X with excellent success out here in West Texas oilfields ..
3. Easypowerwall - https://www.youtube.com/@easypowerwall .... demos some really cool solar stuff -- VERY tight solutions ...
4. Lithium Solar - https://www.youtube.com/@LithiumSolar ....excellent product reviews - YES he's more of an infomercial but that's fine - he does good reviews ... worth the watch
5. Ray Builds Cool Stuff - https://www.youtube.com/@RayBuildsCoolStuff ....he got us onto APEXIUM DIY battery containers which are great -- that's really our go-to at this point ... just that alone saved us soooo much time and money early on ..
If there are some that I have missed please let me know .... we are always looking for sites that can make our life easier (and cheaper) ....
I got thrown into Solar completely unexpected and had to hit the ground running - and honestly - knew ZERO about solar anything ... Although this is a DIY site for mostly homeowners - i/we (a large evil international oil company) have taken/stolen many/all of these ideas that these gentlemen have spent hundreds of hours refining into 30 minute videos -- and have taken these ideas and incorporated it into numerous large projects in the oil and gas fields of West Texas and New Mexico -- and with GREAT success. We have easily removed 500 or more smaller diesel generators due to their combined instructional efforts - and thus actually HAVE helped save both the environment (0.00001%) and more importantly - saved the evil oil giant a ton of $$$$ in doing so ...
ANY WAY -- if I was starting over and only had VERY limited time, effort, funds, in order to go from 0-to-100 ... here are the YOUTUBE Channels that i would watch and follow - religiously ... These will save you time and money --- and also let someone else make mistakes and save you the effort and $$$$ ...
Yes I am sure that you are all surprised that i did not put SIGNATURE SOLAR on the list ... https://www.youtube.com/@SignatureSolar ... BUT if i ever do a list of companies with the LONGEST Customer Service WAIT TIMES - or a list of companies that blame it all on the customer - then maybe - just maybe - they will make that list ... (man i need to just let some things go i guess)
so our TOP 5 YOUTUBE channels that has literally taken us from ZERO to HERO to SuperStars at work - and in no particular order are:
1. DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse - https://www.youtube.com/@WillProwse .... this is the one that really got us smart on the entire "how the hell are we going to make this solar shit work?" ... I started watching him when he was still living in a van ...even though I was a freshly graduated EE at the time - I had zero understanding of SOLAR. My training was in Heavy Power Distribution (aka - BIG ASS AC) - when I was told sitting in a nice cushy office in LA that the company was going to be removing allot of these smaller generators in West Texas and New Mexico offline and onto Solar because they wanted to pretend to save the environment, (aka get a huge tax break) and also probably place a token female minority in that position to satisfy DEI - I was like - "man I feel sorry for whoever gets stuck with THAT job" ... my first thought should have actually been "wonder why they are sharing this story with ME (an Asian female)?" .... however years later we are all still having a blast doing this stuff daily - my team has gone from (2) to about (20) and the company actually MAKES money using solar instead of these generators - which means that ppl are now actually trying to get onto our alternative energy teams since the pay, bonuses, and promotions are better than most other sections ...
2. Off-Grid Garage - https://www.youtube.com/@OffGridGarageAustralia .... OMG I love this guy .... watching him is more like watching a NETFLIX comedy/documentary then a simply YouTube ... his journey along the solar highway is more of a work in progress then a HOW TO ...- numerous of his ideas we have simply copied - we let him figure out all the mundane stuff and then at the end just simply order what best works for him ...
3. Engineer775 - https://www.youtube.com/@engineer775 .... he does a really good job of taking you from the installation of the ground mounts all the way through trenching and installation and testing -- for us allot of times THATS the hard part -- figuring out the wiring ...
4. UnpluggedTexan - same as #4 ... https://www.youtube.com/@unpluggedtexan .... very thorough explanations of what they are doing and why -- or at the very least you can stop/freeze the video and copy what he is doing on paper ...
5. DavidPoz - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPozEnergy ,,,, yeah he is the one that REALLY got us into making our own battery stuff -- probably has saved us 30's of thousands in the early days ... now days its just not worth the time effort or price savings to do your own - the costs have really gone down ... but his channel is well worth watching ....
Honorary Mentions:
1. HighTechLab - https://www.youtube.com/@HighTechLab ....demos some really cool solar stuff --
2. Јоhn Daniel - https://www.youtube.com/@JOHNDANIEL1 ....although his videos sometimes seem to be filmed by someone having a mild seizure -- his videos has helped us out tremendously on wind projects -- i will say that we have mirrored his exact system about 20X with excellent success out here in West Texas oilfields ..
3. Easypowerwall - https://www.youtube.com/@easypowerwall .... demos some really cool solar stuff -- VERY tight solutions ...
4. Lithium Solar - https://www.youtube.com/@LithiumSolar ....excellent product reviews - YES he's more of an infomercial but that's fine - he does good reviews ... worth the watch
5. Ray Builds Cool Stuff - https://www.youtube.com/@RayBuildsCoolStuff ....he got us onto APEXIUM DIY battery containers which are great -- that's really our go-to at this point ... just that alone saved us soooo much time and money early on ..
If there are some that I have missed please let me know .... we are always looking for sites that can make our life easier (and cheaper) ....
