Still Working Things Out

If ya missed me sorry,If not here I am anyway.
Took a few shot at the big house today and figured it's time to share with ya.
Time is still at a premium,just not enough to get all I want done.

Merry Christmas to all...From "lifeat6000feet"



The bedroom is starting to take shape.

A look towards the master closet and bath.

I commissioned the system last week.

The combiner box from the roof array.

The inverter and AC voltage panel.

I'll be working the rest of the year,But will keep ya updated as I get time.

and that's the way it is.

cheers

.bb

Completed Solar Array on Roof

Bizz picked up quickly after moving back.Haven't had much time for the new home till yesterday.

Today I finished the pv array and brought wires into the power room.

Below is a mule hiding in the bush, Where looking for a thief, He was coming into the resort with a horse trailer and stealing the wild mules and selling for profit. I hope he rots in hell............
And sure HOPE he comes back on my watch, cuz I got your "Huckleberry" pal, You been had.

Look to the right and expand the pic and you will see him.

She was a little confused as I walked up the hill to take today's photos.

The service entrance was achieved via 2"weather head and E.M.T. straight into the power room.

The completed array on roof. Final rack size @ 10' x 20'.

Next on the list is grounding the entire system and roof.

A little further up the mountain.

A view across the valley,The rain has been good to us this year. Guessing 25 to 30 inches so far this year

Things are good otherwise,But behind on the house. I'll catch up soon.

God willing and the creeks don't rise !

and that's the way it is.
cheers,

.bb

Labor Day/Solar Day

Labor Day....................

Got to work about 4 hours this morning before the sun was to intense on the metal roof.
Managed to get 4 panels on the rack.


The panels are LARGE 39" X 54" and weight 35 lbs each.

This takes all I got, not to drop one.

Once on the rack system they are not so bad. My tilt feature worked great...But I'll make retractable legs , not 2x6's...

2 more and this rack is full, leaving 4 more to complete the system,Ran out of hardware today.But it was hot!!!

Did find out I'll need a stiff back in the middle of the 10' X 10 rack. Turned out heaver than expected

These are called C-Ports and used for holding conduit on commercial rooftops, I'm using them for feet on the ends of the thick strut.

This shot of the winter tilt or flat against the roof @ 22 1/2 degrees, Should be able to raise them to a flat position for the long summer days.

Slow today on the trial run, but expect to finish by Wednesday .

Takes quite a bit of equipment to pull this off. Not for the faint of heart.... The roof is slick from the heat and dust

Things are going OK so far and hope I don't bust my ass in the meantime.

and that's the way it is.

cheers .bb

24 volt banks and cables

Busy on other things last few weeks, College ,waiting on materials to arrive and moving my boat from Lake Travis to the mountains. Don't have much need for the boat at the present.
It's my Ark.... Got a boat in the High Desert, like I got time for it now. Haven't even started, much less rode my bike in a month.


I got all panels up to the upper pad last week,The lugs for the cables came last week also, But no time to fab-um up until today.

A look at the construction of the banks.

They have been on this pallet for about 3 weeks so I decided a charge was in order.

The heavy oak shipping pallet will be the starter for the enclosed battery box. This will happen quickly and expect no problems.I'll line the box with cut-offs from the Hardy Board and add some stiffeners under the battery's ,Then frame it out for insulation,Hinge the top,add vent fan,paint,add battery's and off to the races.(save 400 bucks).

This system gives 24 volts with reserve of 740 ah @ 20 hour rate. 820 @ 100 hour rate.

These are cabled Series/Parallel.

Series cables are 2/0 THNN 90c rated @ 190 amps

Parallel cables are 3/0 THHN 90c rated @ 205 amps

Finally got all the rack and strut necessary to complete the roof mount with seasonal tilt, Should be on the roof by Friday and hope for no rain. I need to make 6 roof penetrations right off the bat.

Due to the size of the pv panels, 40 inches wide and 60 inches tall, I will have to use a extra helper during the attachment process as I don't want to drop 1, much less a whole rack of 5...

and that's the way it is.

cheers,

.bb

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.