What was your worse DIY solar mistake ever?

[Supervstech]

While adding a string of 5 Canadian 395's,
striped 3" off each wire for the snake.
I picked up the black in one hand and red in the other off the floor,
I got to waist level before I could let go!.

Yikes!

Yeah, solar panels dont have an off switch, and handling more than one wire at a time is VERY dangerous. Glad you are still with us!
I recommend wearing at LEAST one high voltage glove any time working with over 36V DC.

 

[Skypower]

Touching the MPP input on an operating inverter, thinking that the terminals should not have voltage when no panels are connected. Wrong!️

 

[Rain@]

Oh, I once made a 12V battery pack for the first time without installing a BMS. Later...the battery bulged! I asked customer service and found out that a BMS was required to install the DIY battery pack. This is a profound lesson!

 

[Skypower]

After removing the nuts from the studs that hold down the diagonal jumpers, I lifted the balance leads off and one snagged a jumper. Well, of course it had to swing around and find the opposing terminal. Lucky it only blew off a small nick off the terminal.

I noticed that the new two hole terminals use busses that can reach the other terminal. So now my rule is each buss being worked on must have at least one fastener in each end threaded down several turns before control of it is released and moving on, or it must be completely removed.

 

[SilverbackMP]

Heh... when im in the house assembling bms and cells, i routinely get asked what kind of bomb im building now...

I currently... sorry... have four 4s packs, three 8s packs, and a 48v 16S pack in what SHOULD be my dining room...
Long ago i emptied the dining area of foodie accouterments and setup two desks, a storage table, and three cabinets for my various indoor projects...

I have an understanding family...

I charged some of my cells on my mom's dining room table.

Now I have benches and carts down in my shop. And power.

 

[crossy]

Yup ^^^.

I've done all the usual, shorting a couple of LiFePO4 cells with an uninsulated spanner (large roll of heat shrink acquired), getting hold of both ends of a panel string (panels come up to voltage very quickly with even small amounts of light) etc. etc.

I admit that just last week, I managed to cable a string and got +ve coming out of the black wire (luckily, I'm paranoid about checking polarity, again and again).

 

[Bad Randy]

Yikes!

Yeah, solar panels dont have an off switch, and handling more than one wire at a time is VERY dangerous. Glad you are still with us!
I recommend wearing at LEAST one high voltage glove any time working with over 36V DC.

I have built up an immunity over the last 58 years!
It was probably the hardest hit I have taken,
even comparing to a Chevy HEI at 60,000V.
After testing each string I would normally break the string some ware before pulling wire.

 

[Subdood]

Just started on this journey and have been pretty fortunate to not do anything really bad. But I guess so far it was using half inch conduit and trying to run three 10 gauge solid wire thru 50ft of it. Imagine taking clothes hanger wire times 3 and trying to run it thru a half inch pipe.

I did get it to work eventually, my remedy was to lay out the 3 50ft wires the length of the house and taping them together every 3ft as I pushed it down into the pipe. Ugh, my hands cramp when I think about it.

 

[timselectric]

taping them together every 3ft

This actually made it harder.
Because they are forced to move together around bends. (Instead of individually)

 

[Q-Dog]

Just started on this journey and have been pretty fortunate to not do anything really bad. But I guess so far it was using half inch conduit and trying to run three 10 gauge solid wire thru 50ft of it. Imagine taking clothes hanger wire times 3 and trying to run it thru a half inch pipe.

I did get it to work eventually, my remedy was to lay out the 3 50ft wires the length of the house and taping them together every 3ft as I pushed it down into the pipe. Ugh, my hands cramp when I think about it.

Pushing? Not pulling?

 

[Subdood]

Oh and getting zapped by ~150VAC by touching ungrounded solar panels wasn't too pleasant. But, I didn't know such a thing was possible, so it wasn't totally my fault. Only by researching the subject on here did I know it was possible. Luckily it wasn't that bad of a situation. Seems like we're just the guinea pigs for some of this stuff..

 

[Supervstech]

This actually made it harder.
Because they are forced to move together around bends. (Instead of individually)

My little brother does this constantly, and i cannot convince him of the fact...

 

[Subdood]

Pulling wasn't an option. I tried, no dice, got some lube, no worky either. I was almost about to switch to 12ga stranded, but thought I'd try pushing it thru while taping. It was my idiot fault for ordering solid instead of stranded wires.

On all my other wire runs I did the rabbit trick with a trash bag and vacuum, and pulled it thru. I also used stranded for those. It was my fault also for using 1/2" conduit instead of 3/4". But technically it's okay for 3 x 10awg to go thru 1/2", so being the tightwad I am, you know..

 

[Mattb4]

Oh and getting zapped by ~150VAC by touching ungrounded solar panels wasn't too pleasant. But, I didn't know such a thing was possible, so it wasn't totally my fault. Only by researching the subject on here did I know it was possible. Luckily it wasn't that bad of a situation. Seems like we're just the guinea pigs for some of this stuff..

yeah I tend to simply write up such events as encountering the unexpected. Errors are when I should know better but I go ahead anyway.

 

[Subdood]

yeah I tend to simply write up such events as encountering the unexpected. Errors are when I should know better but I go ahead anyway.

Oh yah, I'd say that applies to a lot of things I've done in life outside of solar..

 

[Bluedog225]

I dunno. Dropped a piece of array steel on my foot. Maybe not my biggest mistake. Will know more after the X-ray.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Errors are when I should know better but I go ahead anyway.

I never do that...

 

[Eber]

Worst mistake I have made was that I did not have a good disconnect on the solar array.
The AIO I was using direct shorted inside and when I tried to flip the breakers I was using for
the disconnect I learned the hard way it was not sufficient. I have since installed better actual disconnects.
no more cool light show...
Second mistake which happened before the first one was that i also was married...
That mistake has been rectified...
Although i do have a girlfriend that has serious time management issues regarding 50 gal of hot water...

 

[Ampster]

The implications of my mistake keep surfacing. I just discovered my Air Fryer was killed by the high or low voltage.

 

[Skypower]

The implications of my mistake keep surfacing. I just discovered my Air Fryer was killed by the high voltage.

Sounds like there’s more to it

 

[Ampster]

Sounds like there’s more to it

No it was a simple mistake of disconnecting the neutral which allowed the circuits on L1 or L2 to vary in voltage.
Yes, in the sense that I am still discovering those which were damaged, including one GFCI receptacle. I have not used all devices on every circuit so that is the reason for the delay in discovering the damage.

 

[Subdood]

No it was a simple mistake of disconnecting the neutral which allowed the circuits on L1 or L2 to vary in voltage.
Yes, in the sense that I am still discovering those which were damaged, including one GFCI receptacle. I have not used all devices on every circuit so that is the reason for the delay in discovering the damage.

So you're saying without a neutral you had a brief 240V surge on your 120V circuits?

 

[Ampster]

So you're saying without a neutral you had a brief 240V surge on your 120V circuits?

It was not brief. I do not know how high one leg got and how low the other leg got. That is what happens without a neutral, the voltages vary on the 120 legs with the total adding to 240. It all depends on the loads on each leg. The damage could have been from over voltage or under voltage, I will never know. It took me ten minutes to figure out what was happening before I shut down that breaker panel.

 

[Subdood]

It was not brief. I do not know how high one leg got and how low the other leg got. That is what happens without a neutral, the voltages vary on the 120 legs with the total adding to 240. It all depends on the loads on each leg. The damage could have been from over voltage or under voltage, I will never know. It took me ten minutes to figure out what was happening before I shut down that breaker panel

Yikes that sounds bad. That's why I'm still on a single phase inverter, I'm afraid of not wiring the neutral right and frying my 120V circuits with a split phase inverter. Or I'm concerned the neutral in the inverter will 'go away' with similar bad results. I know I'm overly paranoid, and I'd be very careful about wiring stuff, but it does cross my mind more than once.

 

[Zwy]

So you're saying without a neutral you had a brief 240V surge on your 120V circuits?

I've done the turn breaker off and then disconnected the neutral, or at least what I thought was the neutral for that circuit. Seems I was off by one wire, I had the multimeter there but didn't check for voltage before touching the end as I was removing the circuit from the panel. The nice tingle/burning sensation came and I knew right away. Luckily I think the only things powered was a clock and a cordless phone. Nothing fried.