We are operational and it's good!

      Okay, so here we are now almost a month since the meltdown. I have the system up and running and we will be adding two new panels this Friday. So how and what did I do? Well once I calmed down from the excitement of cooking $1200.00 worth of solar panels I looked into how the error occurred then set in motion a plan of recover and written instruction manual for me to follow. As noted in my last post I changed my battery configuration so I could maximize the potential of my panels to recover my batteries.

      Now what the last couple of weeks have shown me is that my math isn't supporting reality. According to the math I should be able to operate for two days on batteries with no charge coming and at that point the batteries should be at about 60%. Well reality is I can operate one day before I hit the 60% mark. The good news is that it's been consistent everyday so I feel confident in my system design changes.

      Now the system as it stands consists of the following components:

          - 2 Talesun 250W 24V monocrystaline panels
          - 1 Renesola 260W 24V monocrystaline panel
          - 3 Helios 7T2 300W 24V monocrystaline panels (severely damaged)
          - 1 Trace Xantrex C40 PWM charge controller
          - 1 Blue Sky Solar Boost 3024iL MPPT charge controller
          - 1 Tripp-Lite 24V 2400W PowerVerter inverter
          - 8 US L16XC 6V 380Ah deep cycle batteries
          - 1 Custom built combiner box
               - 3 15A DC rated circuit breakers
               - 3 15A DC rated quick burn fuses
               - 2 8 connection DIN rails
          - 3: 4 position DC rated switches (Off, 1, 2, Both)
          - 1 two position DC rated switch

     As I stated in the beginning of this post, we are getting two more of the 260W Renesola panels, so that will bring me up to a total of 1.28kW potential power generation plus whatever the three Helios panels are producing. I haven't really taken the time to figure out what they are actually generating in terms of power yet. Eventually we will be getting a wind turbine as well, but for the interim we will have to rely strictly on solar.

     Okay so now for some gratuitous images! Yes... I am sure things could be cleaner, nicer and so forth. If you have the $$$ and spare time you are more than welcome to come on over and lend a hand! But this is how it is in the real world where people don't have lot of disposable income. It works, it isn't pretty but it works.

Here is my combiner box where you can see both the breakers and fuses.

A close up of each breaker I have them labeled for each panel in case I need to remove a specific panel I can just isolate the one panel and leave the system operational.

And a full view of the inside of the box.

The batteries, I haven't added the protective corrosion preventative coating to the terminals yet and I also haven't finished coating the buss bars with a protective coat in this image. It's done now. Remember to do this with your system. Corrosion is a killer of power.

Here you can see the two banks of batteries with switches I use to transfer charge and load. Each switch is labeled and I have a daily log I keep so I know what days I shifted load and charge as well as what the voltages were of each bank of batteries.

Here's the inverter, I need to protect it better from dust, but it's really hard to do considering we live in the mountains and this is an ad-hoc battery house. The floor is still dirt, although I think I finally convinced the Mrs. to allow me to put a simple concrete floor in with a spill basin.

Here are the two charge controllers I have in use at the moment.

The two panels you can see pretty clearly are the Talesun 250W, this photo was taken just prior to the Renesola panel being installed. The Helios panels are just below the Talesun panels.

      So that's it for this post, I will be updating periodically as changes are made and with some actual tracking data of the systems performance. I am just now starting to obtain data and it's not easy to collect it all. But I am getting it. Peace, love and Five Finger Death Punch... good luck in your solar adventures, I do hope you have learned from my mistakes and successes.