diy solar

diy solar

Where do you have your Inverter and Battery installed ?

Once I get everything done in there the door can be closed, but I'm thinking I may have to put an exhaust fan to help keep it cooler when the door's shut.

Rather than circulating warmed air inside the closet and venting the closet, I suggest ducting either cool inlet air or hot outlet air from the equipment to outside closet.
 
Similar to others, mine is under the house. Cinder-block wall / floor with corrugated metal panels on top to slow flames burning thru the floor. Home wide linked smoke detector and fire extinguisher within arm's length. Ambient temps are 50F to 75F thru the year. Batrium BMS->SACE shunt-trip, heat monitoring/alerts, and very low stress / cell operations.
Great idea thanks.
 
Rather than circulating warmed air inside the closet and venting the closet, I suggest ducting either cool inlet air or hot outlet air from the equipment to outside closet.
I was talking about installing an exhaust fan to vent hot air outside, is that what you're inferring?

If it gets too warm I guess the door could stay open, and it'll get any cool air that comes into the room via the A/C vents in the room.
 
I mean better to vent hot exhaust from inverter out of closet, rather than let inverter vent into closet (heating all air in closet) and then have separate vent fan for closet.

I saw that sort of design happen for an instrument, packaged within another box. By an "expert", who teaches others in the subject. The instrument was temperature sensitive and took a long time to stabilize as it gradually heated air in the outer box. I refer to that as "carburetor heat" from what is deliberately done for aircraft to prevent icing. His Ansys model hadn't guided him to do it right. Later he prototyped cardboard baffles so exhaust air didn't feed back to intake.

Some inverters are designed to cool by convection. A smooth duct of suitable dimensions might act as a chimney to enhance that. Other duct configurations could restrict cooling.
 
I mean better to vent hot exhaust from inverter out of closet, rather than let inverter vent into closet (heating all air in closet) and then have separate vent fan for closet.

Some inverters are designed to cool by convection. A smooth duct of suitable dimensions might act as a chimney to enhance that. Other duct configurations could restrict cooling.
Ok. From what I understand, this inverter pulls air down thru the inlet ports on the top sides and down thru the unit via fans placed on the bottom side. So it doesn't seem too efficient.

I may just have to leave the door open, but it will get loud when I get batteries, and they have to be charged. From what I've heard these things sound like a turbine during high power charging. The most power that's been pulled from the array is about 3kw, and the noise doubled in amplitude at least compared to no load.
 
They may couple vibration through mounting as well as making noise slicing the air. Or maybe that isn't a big deal.
If you attach external large, slow, quiet fans you may be able to keep it cool without internal fans running.

Baffles for inlet might reduce noise, and not restrict airflow much if large.

HP used to have computers suck cool air from near the floor. They later switched to drawing air from the top, much less dust to plug the screens or deposit on PCB circuitry. Hanging up high, not such an issue.

My Sunny Island/boy have fans at bottom, discharge at the top sides. That makes a drip-proof design.
 
My Sunny Island/boy have fans at bottom, discharge at the top sides. That makes a drip-proof design.
Aren't they supposed to be rated for outdoor installs? Are those the ones that you knock on them to get the display to advance? Maybe it's just the Sunny Boy's I'm thinking do that.
 
As the title said. Where do you have your system installed ? Outside shed, workshop, detach garage, inside the house, attic, where ?
I just started to study about solar as Im really serious thinking to install it in my house. And I tons of questions already started to pop up on my mind. One of them is where to install everything. In my case as I lived in Austin TX and here is super hot during summer and during winter it can be really cold and also because I don't land, shed, workshop, detach garage, just a small house in a small lot, the only 2 places that I can image is inside the garage (small garage) or in the attic.
The problem with the garage is the temperature during summer, it can go over 110F easily easily and I don't see me installing a AC in the garage just because of the solar equipment.
Now attic probably is a good place as it is spray foam insulated. I now that it gets hotter than the house but not as hot as the garage.
I just added a thermometer outside the house, one inside the garage and one in the attic so I can compare all of them and have a real metric to be sure.
What do you guys think ? Is it okay to have inverter and batteries inside the house ? In my case inside the attic if it is not super hot ? Any concern about security ? As I said I'm really new on this solar world but my mindset still saying me that maybe it is not safe to have inverter and batteries inside the house. I'm looking to use EG4 LiFePO4 batteries.
Again, please let me know what do you think and your experiences and everything
Built a small enclosed area in the corner of the garage. This helps keep it isolated from dust, weather, etc. I installed in winter. Now that spring is bringing higher temps.....I installed a small AC unit to the approx. 60 sq ft room. With an infrared thermometer the inverters were reading close to 100 deg. and the outside temps have not reached 90 deg yet. I don't know the max temp these units will run at, but I can see outside temps over 100 throwing a monkey wrench into things without the AC.
 
Aren't they supposed to be rated for outdoor installs? Are those the ones that you knock on them to get the display to advance? Maybe it's just the Sunny Boy's I'm thinking do that.

You're correct, Sunny Boys outdoor, knocking turns on backlight. Display advances anyway. Some models I think knocking resets AFCI?
US model Sunny Island is rated for indoor only. Membrane keypad control and backlight.

I noticed Sunny Island had same "OptiCool" design as outdoor rated Sunny Boys. SMA calls those "3R" but really only the fans and transformer are 3R, the electronics is 4X like earlier models with no fan.
New European model Sunny Island is 3R (or whatever equivalent IEC) because they don't have breaker or SD card.

What I did was I bought a sheet of clear silicone from McMaster Carr and taped it on inside of lid. With lid screwed on, gasket seals to silicone and control panel is covered. With a couple modifications I'm able to work the breaker without sharp edges of the handle tie cutting silicone. Can't change SD card without removing cover.

For additional protection I put a corrugated roof above the inverters (you can see in my avatar.) That way water spilling on the deck is kept off.
I've been meaning to get a clear sheet of plastic and tape on the cover over the control panel as additional protection in case silicone fails.
 
The inverter sits on a shelf under the bench and the batteries sit on foam pads on the floor in the coolest part of the shed.
 

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I was talking about installing an exhaust fan to vent hot air outside, is that what you're inferring?

If it gets too warm I guess the door could stay open, and it'll get any cool air that comes into the room via the A/C vents in the room.
I put one of these :


in my workshop so it will notify me with an email if the temps get outside of a set range. If your going to close the door any this $39 insurance policy could be a lifesaver.

It works over wifi and you can log onto the site and see what its reading from anywhere in the world too.

So far it worked out great.
 
You're correct, Sunny Boys outdoor, knocking turns on backlight. Display advances anyway. Some models I think knocking resets AFCI?
US model Sunny Island is rated for indoor only. Membrane keypad control and backlight.

I noticed Sunny Island had same "OptiCool" design as outdoor rated Sunny Boys. SMA calls those "3R" but really only the fans and transformer are 3R, the electronics is 4X like earlier models with no fan.
New European model Sunny Island is 3R (or whatever equivalent IEC) because they don't have breaker or SD card.

What I did was I bought a sheet of clear silicone from McMaster Carr and taped it on inside of lid. With lid screwed on, gasket seals to silicone and control panel is covered. With a couple modifications I'm able to work the breaker without sharp edges of the handle tie cutting silicone. Can't change SD card without removing cover.

For additional protection I put a corrugated roof above the inverters (you can see in my avatar.) That way water spilling on the deck is kept off.
I've been meaning to get a clear sheet of plastic and tape on the cover over the control panel as additional protection in case silicone fails.
So your SI's are kinda outside then. One of the reasons I know about Sunny Boy's is that I'm on another forum and I guy from Kansas I talk to a lot just installed two new SB's in his barn, and runs the power cables to his house. His barn has like 50-ish used solar panels on it.

He's doing grid tie and his bills are just the base rate since he's feeding back so much power now. He said that they were heavy beasts and he needed help getting them mounted up on the wall.

He said finding new SMA inverters was tough and he felt lucky to find them. I think he originally wanted Fronius but couldn't find them anywhere.

I thought these inverters only put out 208/240V, I've looked at spec sheets and I don't recall them indicating that they were 120/240. So do these have to use an auto transformer to get split phase, or am I just reading the spec sheets wrong?

It finally cleared off a bit after raining most of the last couple says, so I guess I need to get out there and get my junction box at the array set up, and pull the PV wires. That ought to be the end of this project for now.
 
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Sunny Boys support 208/240/277Vrms (some models and wattages don't support all of those voltages.)

The -40 and -41 have "Secure Power" batteryless backup, 120Vrms 2000W

Sunny Island (US model) is 120V. Use transformer or 2x inverters wired 2s for 120/240V. Use 4x wired 2p2s for more wattage. For grid-backup, single SI system crams all current through one phase, probably not what you want. SMA used to sell a transfer switch with autotransformer which had 2-pole pass through, transferred to single SI, avoiding that bottleneck. I installed multiple SI instead.

Yes, my SI are kinda outside, with extra waterproofing and rain shields.

SI and SB 5000US series have transformers and weigh 140 lbs.
Transformerless TriPower 30000TL-US is 30kW and 140 lbs.
Transformerless 7.7kW -40/-41 are 75 lbs.


The new SB are hard to come by right now, probably a recent rush by consumers. Maybe supply chain too.
For my older grandfathered system, or offgrid or otherwise not needing Rule-21, old models are good.
I got lucky and bought a pallet of new in box inverters for about $0.10/kW. Couple more through Craigslist.
Even used may be good, but they have some finite life (SWR2500U my results were 34 years MTBF)
 
I weigh about the same, but at 6ft tall, so I probably couldn't do what you did. My max weight lift limit is about 50lb, so I need just about as much help as possible. I had to have my wife (who's bigger and stronger than me) help me mount the 62lb bifacial panels on my ground mount rails. She held it in place at the bottom end while I had the easy job of fastening them in place. It was tough for her, but as we got closer to the end, she could sit down in a chair in front of the panel and hold it without having to bend over. Took us a while just to get 8 panels put on.

Other than that I've done pretty much all the work myself. She did help with pulling the three wires for the inverter input. But I've done all the digging the trenches, running and gluing conduit, drilling holes and putting the ground mount up. I started in November, but because of bad weather and me getting sick a couple times, I'm just now about done. I just got done hooking up the last bit of conduit down at the array. Taking a break before I start pulling wire.

Funny you mention MTBF as I'm quite familiar with that term (mean time before failure). About 25 years ago when I was working for Tyco Electronics (formerly Lucent, formerly AT&T), I worked for a qualification group that tested small DC-DC power supplies. We did extended heat life tests of these supplies. I wrote the test code, and later designed the test cards using a CAD type software. We also did high humidity/heat life tests, hipot, non powered temp cycling, etc. That was interesting work, but it was getting a bit stressful after 8 years. They laid me off when we got bought out by a venture capitalist group. Anyways that seems like a lifetime ago.
 
Mounting the sungold tp6048 almost did me in. I'm 5'8 before I got shorter with age :)

That 78lb box took all I had and then some to get onto the bolts on the wall. I don't get much exercise anymore sitting in front of a computer all the time for work.
 
Mounting the sungold tp6048 almost did me in. I'm 5'8 before I got shorter with age :)

That 78lb box took all I had and then some to get onto the bolts on the wall. I don't get much exercise anymore sitting in front of a computer all the time for work.
Guess it's got that big transformer in it to weigh that much. I considered a split phase unit but we just wanted a 120V backup system so the 6500EX should do the job. How's your 6048 worked out so far?

I just came in after trying to get wires pulled, I'm trying to pull three 10awg solid thru half inch pvc for about 60ft run, and I couldn't get it past 40ft or so no matter what I tried. Had my wife feed the wires in while I pulled but it just wouldn't go through. I gave up after it got dark, my hands were hurting and I was hungry. I'll try it with pull lubricant tomorrow, hope it helps because don't want to put in wider conduit or thinner wire.
 
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Guess it's got that big transformer in it to weigh that much. I considered a split phase unit but we just wanted a 120V backup system so the 6500EX should do the job. How's your 6048 worked out so far?

I just came in after trying to get wires pulled, I'm trying to pull three 10awg solid thru half inch pvc for about 60ft run, and I couldn't get it past 40ft or so no matter what I tried. Had my wife feed the wires in while I pulled but it just wouldn't go through. I gave up after it got dark, my hands were hurting and I was hungry. I'll try it with pull lubricant tomorrow, hope it helps because don't want to put in wider conduit or thinner wire.
I had a friend come over and help when I pulled the lines under the house. I did this with 10/3 wire. Was fun....

The tp6048 is AWESOME for one simple reason. I forget its out there. Thats the ultimate compliment I can give to something I own. It does its job and I forget I even have it other than posting on the forums here.

All I do is add more panels to it from time to time increasing how much its saving me on the power bill. The unit so far has been absolutely flawless.

I had considered going with other models they have for some of the other installs I have planned since it uses 130watts just being there but its worked so great and Ive read others having peoples with firmware and such on the fancier new models Im going to stick with what works.

Plus in a pinch I could swap out a unit from something not important if one of the key ones ever had problems by sticking with the one model across all of the installs.
 
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