Storms Roll In...

The storms I spoke of yesterday did a good job of filling up all the creeks in the Resort.
I personally recorded 1.79 inches during the 24 hour period starting at 1:00pm yesterday,Most of it fell in a 1 hour period 1.25 inches ,The rest of the day was light rain to the tune of 0.54 inches.

From the front porch...and yea those are my pv panels and battery's in the front drive....soon soon! Power center first...

Of course some "Creek Chasing" was in order...

The rising water receded as fast as it rose.All of our water holes where already full,so most of this made it to Limpia Creek and flowed down to Ft Davis.

and that's the way it is.

cheers.

.bb

Power room #1

Power room started today, Took advantage of some spare time.
First up put up some OSB on the chosen wall. Then paint the wall...


A good 8 x 8 wall space is required for component mounting and room for air to circulate around the inverter and charge controller.

Left to right, inverter , main battery disconnect , combiner box , and charge controller. Missing 2 A/C panels,battery meter,hard pipe,unistrut for piping,sealtite flex,lighting suppressor and a lot of wiring and labor

These are only a few of the many devices to be mounted on the power center wall,The battery's are just outside in the corner of the bare OSB wall where the 4 foot level is. They will come into play later,first things first.

This little storm showed up about 1:30 and so I called it a day.

Those clouds dropped 1.79inches in about 2 hours.
and that's the way it is,
cheers,
bb.

Happy Birthday!

Took a few days for my B-day and getting Sarai off to U.T for her start off.

The solar panels arrived on my birthday,But as you see they didn't go to far from the truck.I popped open one carton for inspection and series 2 of them in full sun and got 62.3volts, 2 volts more than expected.

They are well constructed but large. This will be fun putting the array on the south roof. I have designed a Unistrut frame that will minimize the roof penetrations for mounting.I will be able to shift the entire array by myself for seasonal tilt to the south,Then back to 5 degrees for the extended west exposure during summer.I had to call my friends at Wholesale Electric for some special Unistrut devices that I could not ever find out here.

I will be fabricating all my cables on site.



The Goldwing is covered by 2 panels.

Units still in shipping cartons,along with combiner box and main battery disconnect

Service tag.

I really like the Solarline 2 MC locking cables.For many years we hard piped or ran SealTite flexible tubing ,pulled wires ,installed ring terminals in a junction box just to get the current to the power room. Now snap some MC2 cables and there ya go

Time to build this out....

The array will be a twin stack 5 panels long on a fixed mount.1.85kw total

@ 24 volts.With manual seasonal tilt feature.

A small potted garden we brought from the Gulf coast.This is our first tomato since last year.

Peppers,rosemary,basil.

We are seeing what will really grow at 6000 feet. Peppers always good.

Some rosemary doing well.

Basil seems to like it also.

Will be putting walls in the power room on Monday,going to do the rough-in electrical and build the battery box later in the week. The solar electric and wiring should take place over the next 2 weeks.

and that's the way it is.

cheers,

bb.

Dreams Realized

Things are getting exciting, Most of the solar package has made it's way to
Ft Davis, My pv panels are in El Paso as of yesterday and may be here today...

Just to give an idea of the size of the equipment, You may be able to tell from these pic's

Charge Controller M.P.P.T. Xantrex 60 amp
Battery's Trojans L16RE-B @370 AH x2=740 AH bank.
Outback VFX-3524. 24 volts in , 3500 watts A/C out with auto transfer

I'll begin the power room this weekend.

and that's the way it is.
cheers.
bb.

Sunset Last Night 8-15-2010

Went up hill last night for some porch time and before the rain started we got these.
We entertained a couple of friends and played "ChickenFoot" till the rains came in.

Beautiful colors last night.

Battery's arrive today.

I will unpack everything and arrange my power room this week...

and that's the way it is.

cheers.

.bb

Done!!!!!

Yesterday was a victory for the new place.
The final touch to the entry way is almost complete,Still need to pour the concrete landing for the bottom step,

But we are taking a few days off and heading for the river for a 1 day float down the Rio Grande before Sarai heads off to college

Hot............

Joy was very happy with this

My charge controller,inverter and MC4 locking cables arrive today.

Battery's and panels will ship today, yea!!!!

and that's the way it is

cheers

.bb