Solar Power

Just in time for the darkness of winter, Cole decided it was time for me to start installing the solar panels on the roof.

We started brainstorming on paper.
That roughed out a plan for the two different sized banks of solar panels I have.
Then we climbed up on the roof and made sure we even have the space for them both and lock in if they should/could go landscape or portrait.
So far so good.

We have a mishmash of unistrut, so that was the next bit we had to figure out. A lot of the nuts and bolts hardware is not cross compatible. Get me started about how the name UNIVERSAL strut, does not match the product you buy... go on!
Both Cole and I came up with the idea of laying it out on his one-day-soon-new-shop slab to get a physical plan of the paper plan.
Glad we did, we ran into some gotchas that we might have missed on the roof.

The solar panel to unistrut clips I got off Amazon are not great. I am going to replace the ones we used and not order any more for the next bank is just one example of stuff we found along the way.
Working a way around welding or bolting the two main lengths of unistrut together was another that the slab mock up helped resolve.

Once we convinced ourselves that we had it pretty much sorted, we moved it from the slab to the roof.

The stickaflex seems solid. We did need to use magnets stuck to the roof to stop the vertical bits from sliding down while the glue was wet. That worked fine and I will use the same idea for the other bank when I get to it. Oh and we used brake cleaner to clean both the roof and the bottom of the unistrut. It did a great job of getting any and all gunk off before the glue application.

The Ryobi caulking gun worked great. Sure saved a hand cramp pumping the thick glue.
Placing each panel was the usual pain. They slide down easily and the magnets wont hold them while I wire them. Its a two person job and Cole was just the man.

I was testing each one as we connected them to ensure the voltage was going up correctly and made sure to tell Cole to mind the wires. Of course when I get to the very last one - the highest voltage (210v DC), I ended up grabbing the wires with both a finger and the multi-meter probe and got a nice boot fingers to fingers right across the chest. Cole just joked that this must have been my first day on the job. I love my son-in-law.

So, with one bank up and giving around 1.2kW peak in late Autumn sun, the batteries are fully charged after 1 day and so now I have to fully commit to shutting down all the computers and moving the power lead from the mains power to the solar powered inverter output.

Once I do that, it will be game on for the sun, battery and grid to keep things balanced like they did in Temecula.

Its nice to have a bunch of trees around the place, but its a pain the shadow they throw late autumn to early spring.... That said, they are on Amy's property, so something might happen to them one day.....
I know for sure that once I get the computer load moved over and with winter well in play by then, I will be chomping at the bit to get the second bank installed.

Second bank went in very quick vs the first one.

The guy next door (solar panels at the very end of this photo) sort of hates solar as he got done over by the installing company, has no batteries and still owes money on them after about 12 years.

I have three more panels to put in. Two on the second bank and one for the first (black) bank.
I also have one more full bank spare - looking for the right spot to put them - something with less shade, but cant quite figure out where just yet - future blog topic at some point.

Cole and I have decided we are not going to quit our day jobs and start installing off grid solar for folks.