Woops, mega not mili.Power like that you could probably get from those gadgets that generate by motion of clothing, or harvest from the ambient environment.
Energy harvesting - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
What was your worse DIY solar mistake ever?
- Thread starter Mattb4
- Start date
Rednecktek
Solar Wizard
Man, I spend about $100/wk on gas, and $300 round trip when I go to camp.
Really looking forward to the Aptera with the lift kit and knobby tires.
Lt.Dan
Solar Wizard
I'm one of those people. But I went from an 11mpg Diesel Dually to a $600/mo Tesla and saved about $400/mo in fuel. I'm gladly paying that extra $200 to save my kidneys from that solid axle they call suspension... lol
JWLV
-.-. --.-
- Joined
- May 27, 2020
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- 603
You just need more solar and a bigger battery.
wheisenburg
Independent Solar Consultant
I spent most of my money on women and wine.Signing up on some DIYSolar Forum... so much of my time wasted I could have been meeting girls...
And like a fool, I squandered the rest...
Nobodybusiness
Solar Sponge.
Isn’t that true.
So tedious..
oh wow. I was wondering what would happen if I didn't ground the solar panels and this tells me. thank you for learning this lesson for me. lol. now i just have to figure out how to ground them....
I have about a thousand questions i need to ask before i do my main system. lol
Subdood
Photon Wrangler
Yeah, I didn't know about this phenomenon until I read about it on here. There's several threads on the subject on this forum.
To avoid derailing this thread, I won't go into too much detail, but basically you need some kind of clamp to tie a ground wire to all your solar panel frames. Then that ground wire needs to be fed back to your inverter/home earth ground.
It wasn't too bad of a shock, more of a tingle, but it was a surprise to experience. Imagine my "shock" to measure ~150VAC between the frames and a rebar post I had driven in the ground by the array.
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it has to tie back to the inverter? what if I just stick it in the actual ground?
oops. I just saw this part lol. maybe i should create another thread. there are so many posts here that it takes forever just to search if something has been discussed before
Subdood
Photon Wrangler
No worries. Here's one thread that talks about the subject. There's others, just use the search function and put in "grounding arrays", "grounding PV", etc.
Confused by array grounding
I am about to do the trenching to bury all my cables, so need to get this straight I read @FilterGuy white paper on grounding for arrays (pt3) and am still confused. my setup is as follows 2 ground mount offgrid arrays 6kw each using ironridge racks,weebs, on top of 3" metal piping, 2 strings...
diysolarforum.com
Zwy
Emperor Of Solar
No auxillary ground rod at the array, run the ground wire back to your system ground.
DBarr
New Member
Ecoflow Smart Home Panel, I started getting this out of phase error and I only had one 240v connection on Circuit 1 and circuit 2.
This had been working flawlessly for two years prior. So I checked all the wires in the SHP and replaced the breakers in the SHP. Did a lot of searching in this forum and other sites which led me to believe he contacts were too short. So I filed the breakers down on the short leg ones and replaced others. Still had the same error so I checked my well pump (this was the item on the 220v breaker), checked my starter box and found no problems. Still getting the error and about to pull m hair out. My wife was in the process of calling an electrician to replace our well pump.
I decided to pull the wires out of our house breaker box and noticed a dark blue color at the well breaker.
There it was the breaker had shorted and burned one of the two contacts off therefore single phasing the well.
Long story short, New breaker ordered and problem solved. Thank goodness I didn't need a new well pump and I found it before I paid an electrician $500.00
This had been working flawlessly for two years prior. So I checked all the wires in the SHP and replaced the breakers in the SHP. Did a lot of searching in this forum and other sites which led me to believe he contacts were too short. So I filed the breakers down on the short leg ones and replaced others. Still had the same error so I checked my well pump (this was the item on the 220v breaker), checked my starter box and found no problems. Still getting the error and about to pull m hair out. My wife was in the process of calling an electrician to replace our well pump.
I decided to pull the wires out of our house breaker box and noticed a dark blue color at the well breaker.
There it was the breaker had shorted and burned one of the two contacts off therefore single phasing the well.
Long story short, New breaker ordered and problem solved. Thank goodness I didn't need a new well pump and I found it before I paid an electrician $500.00
Sounds like a success, not a mistake. Well done.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
forgetting to open the breaker on my 5kw genset before I closed the breaker on my 10 kw genset... I let the magic smoke out of a 5kw makita that was in perfect shape... but as it was made in 1992 i can no longer get parts to fix it....
featherlite
Solar Enthusiast
Bummer!!
OffGridForGood
Catch, make or grow everything you can.
100 feet of direct bury cable in tough ground...now I need to up-size...should have used conduit. Crap. 
hwy17
Anti-Solar Enthusiast
At night I lie awake and think of all the creative ways that 3/4" still can be enough lol.
Brucey
Solar Wizard
Thinking large culvert style big enough to crawl through yourself. Just in case.... Also good bugout escape tunnel dual use.
Brucey
Solar Wizard
In seriousness though if one was to build a power house in the backyard to avoid risk of catastrophic fire, I'm thinking connect to the house via a 240/50A inlet and transfer switch by the grid meter, like if I was hooking up a portable generator. Then the only potential UL code requirement in the house would be the transfer switch/method. Could even do an interlock on the main panel. My big loads are all propane except central AC and that's only 2 tons. But then for the grid input to the inverters...another 240/50A in the other direction, from house to powerhouse.
If the powerhouse was in a trailer....nothing for code enforcement to get their panties in a twist about
If the powerhouse was in a trailer....nothing for code enforcement to get their panties in a twist about
ruralsolar
New Member
Forgot the last two tie downs on my sinclair rack, don't remember how/why (other than being in a rush), more than a few wind storms everything was fine, finally after one winter time high wind storm (tho no snow...), noticed the following after seeing reduced power on one string
Attachments
Brucey
Solar Wizard
Held on by the cable?
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
I plan a block house capable of containing a small tactical nuke going off.
Actually, I am planning a 6ft x 8ft building separate from the house to put all batteries and electrical in. Underground grid coming in on the side closest to the road. Then a pair of 3" conduits to the house. One for the main power panel in the house and the other for and other wires I want to pull from the house back to the block house. The wires coming to/from in the other conduit will be coax, cat5/6, smoke alarm wires, and probably fiber cables.
Originally I was thinking of using cinder blocks. But now I am thinking about using a double layer of firerock like you use in a garage over a wood frame.
The house and electrical room separated by 10ft or so.
And as I type this I am thinking 2 deep 2.5 wide garage and have a full bay enclosed the way I just described. Steel fire door either to the outside or into the garage.
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