Solar panel rack

[Poverty Pony]

I made a rack to hold 3x 200W panels made out of Unistrut, Telestrut, and some aluminum rectangle tube. It's all held down by 400AH of lead batteries in a Jobox that also holds the charge controller and inverter. It is adjustable from ~14-44 degrees and I made the legs long enough so I can open the box at any angle.

Not sure I would use telestrut if I was designing from scratch (it's expensive) but I had some pieces around to recycle.

This is my "fooling around with solar power" system, but it does a great job running my back porch microwave/air fryer and charging e-bikes. We are on the variable price of power plan and we've just had 3 weeks at $0.44/kWh from 2pm-7pm. sure is nice to bake up those after work Chicken Tendies outside (also saving on A/C) using the power of the sun

 

[Poverty Pony]

 

[Supervstech]

So, are the vertical sections held down bolted to a plate the jobox sits on?

 

[Poverty Pony]

I've got to trim under there! The box has some convenient holes on the bottom, so I bolted it to the telestrut base. The uprights are held by unistrut brackets and some whopping 1/2" bolts. The strut channel below the panels provides the sliding action so the angle can be adjusted. I think the batteries are enough ballast so I don't expect it to blow over.

Unistrut building system is like an erector set for adults