solar dorkery: observations from the first morning on the new setup

Backyard chicken people love to sit and watch their birds do chickeny stuff; this is called “watching Chicken TV”. Solar dorks like myself watch Solar TV. I’ve remarked before that overpaneled systems tend to not demonstrate amazing max output figures during charging since they reach Vabs much earlier than local solar noon. 50% of rated

solar upgrade success

In a welcome break from recent disasters the solar panel remove/replace went reasonably well. It took about 5 hours end to end and would have taken 4 if I hadn’t lost my stepped drill bits for a while. old panels off The surviving pair of 190w panels needed to come off, so I tripped the

Power measurements from the evap cooler

I mentioned it in the previous post but hadn’t busted out the kill-a-watt at that time. The following values are as read from the KAW and do not include inverter losses. power consumption plugged in but powered off it uses 0.5w to run the electronics (including listening for the remote). Heads up: I recommend using

USAA continues to be great

I have come to value vendor communication/transparency more and more. Here’s a recent snipped from USAA auto: We’re writing to inform you that an error was made when calculating the premium for your auto insurance policy. This occurred between October 2017 and August 2020 and was caused by a rating error related to your uninsured

Organ Mountains NM / pizza experiment

I got my immediate business done in ELP and withdrew to the Organ Mountains national monument north of Las Cruces, NM. They’ve made some changes since I was last here, putting up a barrier on the north side of this trail. Land recovery, one supposes: This cuts the available spots in half (south of two-track

logistics of the solar upgrade

I met the Craigslist gentleman, who had what appeared to be at least 100 Trinasolar panels (SS250P-60) pulled from a solar farm. There’s not a lot you can do to test panels, so I did a visual inspection, label check, and Voc tests with the multimeter. There is weathering but no snail trails, not that

article: a heretic nitpicks Maine Sail

Maine Sail, writing at marinehowto and various forums, is one of the best resources on the ‘net on matters related to batteries and their charging. He has real experience and performs valuable and well-designed experiments on our behalf. I will take my reputation in my own hands and push back on one of his statements.

return to El Paso

I am in El Paso for the 1st round of Covid-19 vaccination at the V.A. tomorrow morning. Even though my budget has taken a savage beating I had breakfast at a local restaurant, L & J Cafe:

backchannel: Why don’t we get more from 800w of panel?

From this thread on diysolarforum.com which I’ve really been enjoying lately. Lots of good discussions there, many clueful and experienced posters. First off, this is OP’s (original poster, the originator of the thread) first post. This often ends up in a “walk-off” (my term, no response to comments or questions, and never heard from again).

March comes in like an (expensive) lion

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…  Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities It’s been a rewarding month, but an expensive one due to happenstance, my own errors, and willing choices. I’ll be ok; that’s what emergency funds