Have Power and I'm Moved In.

In my last post I kind of left off whining a little about the price of little tiny chunks of steal solar panel mount brackets. So I decided to build my own. In the vice is a 4 foot piece of stainless steel that I had a local metal shop bend for me. It has a plastic coating on it in this picture if it looks so dull. First I drilled all the holes-2 on one side and one on the side to be attached to the panels. Then I cut it up into 24  2inch pieces. Enough for 6 panels. The total cost for the steal $30.00. That will mount all 6 panels. Probably cost me about $50-60.00 total with all the bolts and nuts etc. But that is for all the hardware. I saved over $100.00 doing this myself. It would have cost me $30+ for enough of these to do one panel if I bought them. Probably about 3 hours of my time went into it and about 4 drill bits and 3 cheap 4" cut off disks for the grinder.

The finished product in the above picture.

For the next bunch of stuff going on, I had some help from an old friend that I hav'nt seen in years. I used to associate with her alot in my younger days. In my rodeo days. She was a big help with things. Anyway, we assembled half the panels on a skid system. The two botton panels are hooked together in series for an open voltage of around 72 volts dc. The other skid will be the same, then the top two panels will be wired together the same. So there is 3 strings of 2 panels in my system.

We got the ladders set up as a ramp on the panel side of the house. I actually had to purchase another ladder for this stunt. It will come in handy for future stuff anyway, I am sure.

Then we got the panels all set up and ready for the pull.

Up they go, I had to steal the winch line off my quad and run it through a snatch block on the panel mount(pulley). I pulled the panels up from the peak of the house as Jo-Anne was holding the panels there from the ground on the other side of the house with the rope that was tied on,  every time I took another grab. It was actually pretty heavy, but we made it. Then I bolted the panel skid down at the top and the bottom. I did'nt even have to move my roof ladder to the panel side of the roof to do this.

And there are all six panels up. They are Sharp 240 watt panels for a total of 1440 watts.  It did take the two of us about 4 days in total to get the whole job done, but we did'nt over work ourselves too much. By the time we got one rigged up on the skid system, it was just a little too late to start putting them up, as who knows what could go wrong. The second time did actually go much better than the first lift. The first lift did take alot of doing and rigging up etc.

Here is where alot of my money went on this project. Roughly $4500.00 batteries with all the cables.

The specs. These are 12   6 volt   L16 type batteries. These particular ones are 420 Amp hours @ 20 hour rate. According to the label. That's a lot of power storage.

It is a beautiful battery bank. Lots of power storage here. Just as I was hoping and thought I had planned, these babys keep up to my forced air furnace beatifully this time of the year. The evenings get down to around freezing, but the forced air furnace runs all night off and on of course. I have yet to bring my batteries down to less than 95% state of charge. I'll see in the morning though. They should be a little less tomorrow because today was gloomy all  day and the panels wer'nt doing a whole lot, and it has been cold and dreary. I hav'nt been holding back on my power usage. Sort of putting it to the test a bit, just for my own knowledge. Normally, I will be conserving energy, but I need to see. I've been running a larger microwave frequently, pumping water, and the furnace has been running all day and will be all night tonight.

Here is the charge controller in action yesterday. It's first full day on the job. (Oct 15 2012).

Here is the Outback Flexmax 60 charge controller pulling 1300 watts from the six panels on the roof. That is a lot of power. I ended up bringing in 3.1 kw/hrs that first day and there was actually a lot of cloudy periods through out the day. I also need to top a few trees. 3 on each side of the house to be exact. Once that is done things should start charging a lot earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon. I'll see how the six panels work out for me this winter. If not really well, I will maybe put six more up there next summer. lol. I'm sure I can get by with what I have though, just have to keep the wood stove burning more and the furnace running less.

This is the control center in the kitchen area. The remote for the inverter, thermostat, water pressure gauge, switches for the water pump, septic pump, heat recovery ventilator(future), outdoor plugs, on demand water heater, and one extra for probably something. This area will look much more pretty in the near future.

I guess one could say that I am actually moved into the house now. I know I have a lot to do yet, before the house is complete, but winter is a coming, and I do not plan on heating the shack for much longer, let alone run the generator just to keep those batteries warm. I do periodically visit the shack to sometimes use the stove, and maybe wash the dishes, but I have gradually been moving things such as my clothes and other things over to the house all the time. I have been sleeping in the loft of my house for awhile now. Things are going good. Slowly but surely. Oh, and expensively.

I just checked the battery data. At this moment, my batteries are sitting at 94% State of Charge, which is 24.95 volts. (Oct 16 2012 @ 11:00pm). That is the lowest I've seen the system so far, but pretty understandable given the usage and lack of incoming charge today. I'll see what things are looking like in the morning after using the furnace all night. 

UPDATE:OCT 17 2012 @ 7:45 am. 

Voltage when I checked this morning was at 24.93 and the SOC was at 91%. 

Guess I forgot to mention the inverter in this post. It is a Magnum MS4024PAE. (4000 watt and 24 volt system). 

 

 

 

Disclaimer--IMPORTANT

This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Furnace ducting, Battery Box, Inverter.

I think I got that gas line leak conquered. It's still holding pressure. Today was another run all over town day. I had to go to the furnace place and come up with a plan for a piece of ducting  for them to build me. As my furnace is going under the stairs in the basement, some things with the ducting are not going to fit together with ordinary parts.

This is the plenum which comes off the top of the furnace, and a what ya ma call it that connects to the plenum. And they are in the process of making me a 90 elbow to come off the what ya ma call it. That's what I call it anyway, cuz I forgot its real name.

 And a bunch more ducting that I did'nt yet assemble. I have been trying to get this furnace in, then all the gas appliances, except the stove, will be in. Then I can get things inspected and  maybe utilize some of this for my drywall mudding. It still gets pretty chilly at night sometimes. The other night was pretty close to freezing. I hear that when mudding, things need warmer temps in order to set right, I guess. I sure don't plan on running my new furnace while things are real dusty, but my 2 propane heaters will probably be utilized in the evenings while I am mudding.

Dinners getting closer to that frying pan all the time.

Real close.

I almost forgot to show my battery box. It looks and sits kinda like a bench. I talked mom into coming over tomorrow to give it a shot of paint. I picked up a can of paint today that was less than half price because the tint was wrong for somebody. So the color will be what it is.  I want to paint it inside and out in hopes of helping to seal and preserve it. There will supposedly be a little sulphuric acid fumes floating around in there and hopefully they don't leak out into the house. This box will have a vent line going directly to the outdoors.  Wanted to get a picture of it before the paint.

        Oh ya, and over to the left a bit is my 24 volt magnum inverter hanging on the wall. I don't know if anyone thinks the same as myself, but that bit of solar equipment is kinda purty hanging on the wall. That inverter takes the power from my batteries and turns it into nice clean pure sinewave energy. It runs two hot legs of power, which means that it makes my house just about as normal as anyones, as far as power is concerned. I don't plan on running anything on 240 volt power, but if I wanted to, I could do it with this one inverter. It used to be that you would have to stack two inverters for two legs of power, but not anymore. This helps me wire up my breaker panel. If this inverter only ran one hot leg, I would only be able to use half of my breakers. I guess I could probably modify something in there to correct that(not sure though), but this is a more normal way of doing it. Possibly I may sound like I know my power, but in all reality, I hav'nt a clue. lol. Someone, please wish me some luck. Well ok I do have a bit of a clue, but I aint no pro.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.