Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Solar System gets some control

Lucky day today.....I just happened to have my camera in my pocket when I noticed this early 50's Buick across the street.

I got two shots of it....the driver was so cool acted like he did not see me standing on the sidewalk fumbling to get a photo.....not many of these 2 door fast back Buicks left.
I guess a few photos of my 250 Watt solar panels are due....this is the one at the rear of the 5th wheel, I have it all buttoned up in the lowest position.....this will be the position I will have it to travel.


Here is the center panel....if I ever use the other panels that is....I have raised to it's highest angle.

I guess my next step will be to put the vents back on and clean out the other vents....I found the one next to the center panel was plugged with mud.....I have read about the mud critters that plug everything up so I was not very surprised........just a reminder how easy we have it here in the high desert....

Oh ya this was about the controller...



I installed it in the closet...hope it does not get too hot in there....another on of those TBI things....I had planed to have it on the outside wall of the closet in the bedroom, but forgot and mounted it right where the wires came down next to the vent......trust me it was not the first error on this project.....lets just hope nothing burns the trailer to the ground.

I have lost many hours of sleep trying to keep things worked out and straight in my mind......I had all the battery and inverter figured out a few weeks ago, but now have forgotten everything.....today I found some notes...funny I usually forget to make notes......happy days this time.!

I found a nice 3 switch at Lowes and installed it......made it look nice then wrote off and on.....got it all wired with the rear panel switch at the rear and center panel switch in the center.....then....turned the switch upside down when I put it all together....spend about two hours checking and double checking the panels.....climb the ladder cover the panels, climb down the ladder test....over and over and over...finally pulled the switch out of the box only to see what I had done......I could only get the center panel to switch on......the rear panel was then wired to the front switch (I never thought to try that one).
Once I got the switch right side up, I could not remember off from on....lol....I burned up the bulb on my tester.....250 watts really throws a spark.

Anyway as you can see the controller is showing a GREEN light for the batteries, but that took me an hour or so to figure out as the light was RED till I figured out I need to double up the 6 volt batties to make 12 volts....once I did that I got a Green light.

The batteries are fully charged( I hope ) so the solar charger is not asking the panels to charge.....have to drain the batteries a bit to see how things are working.

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