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Forum Index : Solar : Solar Panel Real World Power Output
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| Alastair Senior Member  Joined: 03/04/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 161 |
Madness, I suspect you are right about power prices regardless of all the hot air from the polies. For me the batteries are a case of "I can, so I will, because I want to". I am not trying to justify it on economic grounds but I doubt it will be a bad investment in the long run. Cheers, Alastair |
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Madness Guru  Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
This Youtube Channel has some good info on Powerwalls, Tesla and other electric cars. All running off a house with solar and grid, you might find it interesting. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
I thought I'd charge up the batterys from my old explorer as they havent been on charge since I sold it to the wrecker The panels are still lying flat, just strapped down on top of my boat until I get the nerve to drill holes in the new hilux's canopy to mount them The batts were down to 11.6v, so I hooked up the reg and charger to the panels temporarily as I had simply removed everything from the old car by sidecutters lol In direct sunlight at midday, the regs meters said I was @ 13.9v and 34.8A (I know the V is accurate against my multimetermeter, dunno about the A tho- meters are just ebay lcd specials) This gives my 2 x 260w panels (520w) an output (lying flat, not tilted) of 483.7w, which is near enough to the rated current, esp as they a couple of years old So at least mine are close enough to the rated output I could have bought cheaper panels, but these had a good reviews at the time on the various forums, so I was happy to pay extra as I wanted the most power I could and they had to fit on the roof of the car (at the time they were about $350 plus each panel) but well worth it |
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| George65 Guru Joined: 18/09/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 308 |
Are you referring to the ideal summer angle? From what I read on a local site ( solar Quotes) ideal Summer angle is latitude less 10, ideal is latitude angle. I just rechecked that then and realised I made a mistake,. I thought winter and summer were 15o off latitude but it seems winter is +15 and summer is - 10.... According to them that is. I may have to adjust my calculations for my DIY panel framing and recheck the angle recommendation with other sites. No, I have not oversized 500%, that was tounge in cheek but I am running over double. The current regs allow for 33% over size and that's what I am seeing installers offering. Not that I am an expert but I can't see the difference in over amping. The electronics should only take what they are capable of drawing amps wise as long as the voltage is not over. If I run a light bulb from a little gel cell or an N200 battery, the amp delivery potential is hugely different but the lamp only takes what it wants. In my simple mind, amps is the size of the dam and volts is the size of the pipe coming out of it. Might be different in this case but No, I haven't the ability apart from anything else ( yet) to try the gross over supply but 2.5X is working fine that's for sure. Forecast is for rain all week so it's going to be a bit before I can see what my mismatched arrays are capable of producing. |
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| George65 Guru Joined: 18/09/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 308 |
I have looked into the powerwalls and other Batteries Like LG, samsung etc and found the same thing. They don't have enough capacity to repay their purchase price over their lifetime in the power they save you.... and thats my calcs on charging them up and fully using the stored power every day which of course would not happen thanks to weather alone. I can't figure how people can claim they save them money unless it's advertising hype and the companies with the testimonials are screwing the numbers to say what they want ( Surely Not!  ) or the people are conveniently leaving costs out of the equations. That is an upside to be sure. I want to go a bit of a different way with a diesel Generator. I have collected a heap of different engines from Listers to China Diesels, Italian engines and a 5 Cyl Merc out of my old W123 before it rusted away that I am in the process of getting a governor for so I can drive alternator big enough to power everything in the house and the 2 homes either side. Cost of a 10Kw and a 20Kw Alt is not that much different so may as well go big and be done with it. :0) I have been looking for a way to use solar power direct without charging batteries but it seems there is no practical or economical way for someone who is not an electronics expert to do something like that. I have read of boards that create the signal an on grid inverter looks for to make it think the grid is there and be able to use it direct but can't find any plans or schematics to verify that or build one. Same as direct solar hot water from panels. People say you can do it efficently with a simple to make controller but finding a schematic and parts list to make one has so far eluded my many hours of searching. This is what I just did a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to move everything I could off the electronic meter that registers backfeed as a use ( cost) and put the loads on the analogue meters I can spin backwards. Having 3 phase, everyone I asked went on about the loads having to be balanced. When I got into it, about 80% of the loads were wired to the electronic meter ( which was verified on the power bill) and the analouges had bugger all. the other thing that got me was my old place had single phase and far more potential load than this place. I'd put so many different circuits on that board for the 3 split AC's, pool pumps, A 40 A circuit for the garage when I had a processor up there and a heap of power points etc. Was still 100A from the pole and 80A wired from the service fuses. Upshot was now everything bar the off peak and one leg of the 3 phase AC is on the analogue meters which I am spinning backwards with my solar setup. I checked the meters today and one phase I have been backfeeding is 7 KW under what it was a month ago and the other is 20Kwh over. Don't know about the electronic meter, it's basically irrelevant because I can't do anything about it atm. I have seen controllers that monitor the solar power and the mains and only feed the amount of solar needed for the load and don't cause any back feed. Cost of those is over inflated to me but if I loose my spinny meters I may have no choice. At my last house they wanted to do " Maintenance" and kept pushing me for a time to come do it. ( said my meterbox was behind a gate and I had a big dog.) Pushed them to find out where they reluctantly admitted they wanted to fit a smart meter. I don't want one of those damn things for a heap of reasons. One of them being the stupidity of their advertising hype, I really couldn't give a damn about checking my power usage at any time of the night or day or when I am on holidays or any of their other ridiculous notions to try and sell me on the idea of something that makes them more money. I am wanting to have 10Kw of panels all up and I believe when I get to that I will have enough self generated power to run the house, AC over summer and sh*t the the hot water from the off peak to normal power and still have a minimal bill. In Autumn and spring when the AC is minimally used, I'll probably have to shut the panels off at times to make sure I don't go into credit on the meters which will probably get an inspection from the power company which I don't want. If I ever did go off grid, I think the way I would go is forklift batteries. Everything I have read says with proper care they last at least 5-10 years and as they can be had in 30 KWH packs gauranteed for 3 years for $2500, seem like they would be the way to go. With 10 KW of Solar and a Diesel driving a big truck alternator with an external controller for better efficency run on veg oil, I don't think I'd have many power concerns. :0) Hope you keep us up to date with how your power wall works out. Would be good to hear some first hand non biased feedback. BTW, does the power wall allow you to divert power to your electric hot water before feeding back to the grid? |
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| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
As per the original text I was referring to the highest annual total KWH's. This is 24/7/365 no changing of angles. Electronics are a lot more delicate than a light bulb, a cloud edge with all those extra panels will see a big spike in amps, better your inverter than mine. You may have some questions to answer when the next meter reading is less than it was the previous time. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1023 |
Yep I can confirm they do send the Inspector around when the meter reader reports it. And they ask why it not reading usage. I wont be getting one of those new meters. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
You dont have much say in the matter unfortunately- the meter does belong to them and they can change it to whatever they please Unfortunately there is a good reason for the old spinny meters to be replaced- because they only meter accurately into loads with a unity factor of near 1, and that hasnt applied for quite a while (so checking your consumption/ generation with one is actually quite useless for accuracy) They often do actually show increased usage when replacing a spinny meter- which is because with modern inductive loads, the old meters tend to underreport usage, so you are actually being undercharged for your usage. The other thing is that the newer meters are starting to do things like from the street usage figure readings, and the readers can log the figures directly, which reduces transcription errors- things like that which cuts down on costs A drawback of the various scare campaigns has been people trying to refuse them access to change the meters, unfortunately some of those people found that the companys involved found it easier to say, no meter, no power than try and keep arguing against people- so at the first hint of I dont want your new smart meter, they will say fine and walk away- then the next day you turn on the lights and nothing happens When you go to complain, you will find you have been disconnected (and charged a disconnection fee) and if you want power, the new meter will be fitted, and you will be charged a re connection fee They have literally had it with people quoting internet `facts' at them and once you start with the old `I dont want it and you cant make me have one' they dont even bother trying to talk you out of it, they just take it to the next step automatically- which could cost you several hundred dollars, and you will still end up with the meter... |
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| George65 Guru Joined: 18/09/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 308 |
In this day and age with power prices doubling in the last 4-5 years, no one is being undercharged. You are right though, the reason they want to replace them is to make more money with crocks of ship like Time of use metering that they try and insult ones intelligence with crap like it saves you money. Yeah right. The only reason any industry spends millions replacing existing working infrastructure is so they can make billions more from the exercise in the longer term. The FACT is that is not at all what happened at my last place when I refused them access and told them I did not want a smart meter. They kept ringing me to arrange the "maintenance" crew to come out even after I had told them several times I did not want a new meter. I put a sign on my meter box that was there for several readings. They were too stupid to figure out the meter reader had no problem getting to the box even though I told them it couldn't be accessed. They acted like I had not told them I didn't want a new meter even though they mentioned other things they had clearly made noted about from other conversations. I still had power for over 9 months after they wanted to replace the meter till I sold the place and left. There are laws and rules that say they cannot just cut you off and there is also legislation regarding meter replacement. There is an australian site that addresses smart meters and they have done their legal homework rather than just work of TV mentality of uneducated and unemployed housewife opinion. From what I have looked into where I am, their meter or not, they are not allowed to simply disconnect supply without good reason. I was also a little bit smart when I moved here and connected telling them there was life support equipment installed at the premises. I'm supposed to get a CPAP machine and as I don't know if that's considered critical or whatever they call it and they didn't ask, not my fault if I gave them a bum steer. I'm pretty certain they won't just disconnect me at the first sign of refusal at all. Matter of fact, I'll bet it would be quite a procedure to disconnect me even if I didn't pay the bill! You sound like you are in the industry. I'll bet they have had it with people quoting facts they don't like and know at least some are true and proven no matter what the source. The nuke industry will tell you crap all day long about how safe reactors are but history shows very much otherwise. I also love how they tell you all about how the accidents can't happen with new reactors they are building at the same time pushing the old ones they know have problems decades beyond their design lives. If they weren't an unethical money hungry bunch of criminals, they would take the old reactors they KNOW have faults offline. But they don't unless there is no possible way around it. If you think big business cares about anything but profit and wouldn't do anything or use any equipment they know causes harm, over charges causes or issues to people, you are very naive indeed. I am far from naive and am very aware when push comes to shove, I will have to make a choice of where my power comes from. I am very aware that one day they will come to take my old meters away and put their revenue increasing smart meters in and I will have to either agree and have grid power or refuse and go it alone. That is a major reason why I'm trying to gear up to be as self reliant as possible NOW. Going off grid is becoming more and more affordable these days and more and more people are going off grid. The power industry even have a term for it, the spiral effect. High prices mean more people go offgrid. the more that go offgrid the higher the charges have to be to those that remain to maintain their inflated profits which causes more people to become self reliant as the price of off grid becomes more attractive. and so it continues. As things like panels, chargers, inverters and batteries become cheaper or at very least, more people become knowledgeable about them, the easier it is to ditch the grid. They had so many people doing this in the US and the power companies were loosing so much revenue they forced the gubbermint to pass laws to say if the grid was available you had to be on it. From what I understand that law has been deemed unconstitutional although many places are still trying to enforce it and BS their customers that they have to be connected. There are already devices out there sold by multiple companies that monitor your self generated power and the grid input and balance the loads up to what you are generating with your own power. The idea is you use as much of your own power from solar or batteries as possible and buy as little from the grid as you need. Right now, they aren't financially viable for ME at around $900. Given the nature of this home ( and the others around) $900 is about what most people pay ( and well above) per quarter. If I had to even buy 3, one for each phase, it's still a worthwhile investment faced with the alternative. Right now I can back feed my spiny meters to reduce my bill ( and co2 emissions from coal fired generation and all that hypocritical stuff they go on about) so that is the cheapest option but when that option is no longer available, $2700 for these devices that could halve or further reduce my power bills would be a very wise economical decision..... and by then there will be cheaper knockoffs from China for a quarter of the price that probably work better and do more. :0) You may feel sorry or have vested interests in the power industry but I do not. The very fact they crap on about "Green" power and charge you extra for it at the same time they take the excess solar energy you make and give you 6C for it at the same time they charge you anything from 30 to over 50c per KWH and sell your solar power to the neighbour next door for at least a 500% markup tells me all I need to know about their ethics and bleeding heart BS they go on with holding the population to ransom. I did a bit of research into the industry years ago. Before the solar bonus scheme came in they lobbied the Gubbermint to approve a price hike. their reasoning was because people were using too much power with large TV's and cheap AC, The infrastructure couldn't take it and their excuse for raising prices was to lower usage so the grid didn't collapse. Next thing the solar scheme comes in, which, according to my friends father whom was the CEO of the biggest utility in OZ at the time, was largely pushed by the power companies to take the strain off their fast crumbling network they were ship scared of collapsing before they had time to prop it up. People by the thousands were putting panels on their roofs and consumption falls through the floor. Industry mongerals are then back pushing the gubbermint to grant another price hike because they are no loosing too much revenue through lower usage and to kill the scheme off because it was TOO effective. You won't read about this in the media, you have to do your homework and find the copys of the submissions they made. They are online, you have to find and read through the hundred of pages of waffle to find the real facts behind it. I have had too much time on my hands and done that so know what I am talking about. These bastards want it every way and it's not anything like the crap they go on with about having to invest in the infrastructure etc, they are posting profits of tens of millions every quarter and pushing for the next quarter to be more profitable than the last. When I am forced to decide to accept them putting me over a barrel and screwing me over with a new revenue raising meter, I want to be as prepared with options as possible and that's what I'm working on right now. 10Kw of panels, a couple of generators up to 20 KW I can run on free veg oil fuel ( as I have been doing in my vehicle for 15 years last month) and I DO have some very viable options. I'm in fact expecting, but not counting on, the belief that rather than disconnect you at the drop of a hat, they will be actually trying to prevent people goinjg off grid with batteries and panels etc because the more they loose, the more they loose and the easier it becomes for people to do it and the stronger the competition becomes that will encourage it. Things like Tesla power walls may not be economical against grid power now but when it comes to their price or no power, they present a whole different scale of economy. These industry's are competing for the power company business so again, it's not my belief the power companies are going to be nearly as blase' about disconnection of customers as you make out. I could be completely wrong. Time will tell and in the mean time, I'll work on the idea I am wrong and prepare for that so the worst that can happen is I get a better result that expected and planned for! :0) |
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| Alastair Senior Member Joined: 03/04/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 161 |
Wow this thread has certainly touched some raw spots. I was totally against the privatisation of electricity and the current situation confirms my concerns. @George Before we built our new house we lived on 5 acres on the edge of Sydney and had plenty of space to do what we wanted. By the time I retired and had time to seriously consider building my own solar system, we knew that our time there was limited. We had lived there for 30+ years and loved it but were starting to find the workload more than we could handle long term. Our new house is on a 800m2 block and so we don't have much space and are very visible. I decided to go with a commercial system so that the maintenance would not be a problem. I looked at many battery systems and decided on the Tesla (I was initially against them because of the hype) because I got consistent recommendations that they worked and were reliable. We shall see. They are more expensive that others. Re the HW feed. As it comes I think the answer is NO but when I asked the guy who will install it, he said they can add on a relay that will do it. I presume there must be an output that switches when the battery is charged. Once the system is installed I will setup a decent data logging and see what really happens. I will post my results when I have something definite. To be frank I am not paranoid about getting my grid feed to zero. I just want to do what I think is responsible and practical. We are not heavy power users, however we do have a big 3 phase a/c and I hate hot humid weather. Cheers, Alastair |
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| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
The Zeversolar monitoring device I got has a programmable relay, it could be set to turn on the hot water when a preset power level is reached. Also if used in conjunction with a power monitor it can control how much power goes to the grid. It does this by throttling the GTI. So if you had 10KW of panels it will only put 5 into the grid if that is what it is set to do. I don't know if this can be done legally. Does not bother me anyway as soon I will be 100% off grid, I doubt I would be forced on to the grid anytime as it would cost quite a few hundred thousand to get power to the property. I agree with George there will come a day where they will charge you for a connection to the grid whether you use it or not. That happens here with town water already, someone has to pay for the poles and wires. Different power companies and different states are going to have their own rules and procedures when it comes to changing meters etc. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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| Alastair Senior Member Joined: 03/04/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 161 |
@Madness I just looked at our last bill - Origin. Since July 1 when everything went up, we pay Supply Charge of 82.89 c/day Peak usage 27.09 c/KWh Solar rebate 9 c/KWh So even if I drop my grid use i will always pay for the privilege of being connected. That is ok because I would never have the capacity to run our 3 phase a/c otherwise. The penalty for comfortable living. Cheers, Alastair |
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| George65 Guru Joined: 18/09/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 308 |
This is exactly the same as Myself. Same company, same rates. Except solar which I have my own DIY setup and get the same return as I contribute thanks to back feeding. I don't want to have a zero bill, that would bring them running if it happened quarter after quarter but I do want to minimise it. The place was empty for a month after we bought it and before we moved in. The bill for that month it was unoccupied was $135. That was just to run the bio cycle and the hot water they left on no one was using. Over the first few weeks we were here, I calculated our bill was going to be $1200 per quarter. That's what the guy next door, a retiree with his wife and son pay and the lady next door with her husband and 2 kids pay a bit more. My brother in law up the road pays about $1600 a quarter as he has a pool as well. I'm happy to pay the supply charge which will be about $80 a quarter because I look at it as the cost of my battery. I do want to be paying around $300 a quarter rather than $1200 however. I did that at my last house. Had my Lister driving a 3 phase motor as a C2C configuration to get a single phase output, rectified that though a big 100A rectifier and fed the DC back into a solar inverter and back fed that to the grid. Spun my meter backwards and I got a cheaper bill than the old lady living alone up the road.... who once complained when she saw my bill lying round it was cheaper than hers. No one ever queried it and I did that for about 4 years. I also took the hot water from the off peak and connected it to the normal power because the old system blew about 18 Months before we moved and knowing we were going to, I got a good used 50L and had that so it would heat up instantly as 1 shower emptied it very thoroughly. I talk to my mates Dad, the ex CEO of a Big power company and he thinks there will be blackouts this summer and the companies are actually planning on it. He says I'm likely to get them being in an outer area/ semi rural of Sydney because they will want to keep the voters closer in and more densely populated Happy. If you are pretty much anywhere from Bris to Adelaide, you may find you get a lot more use out of your power wall stand alone feature than you counted on or want. All this blowing up coal fired power stations for no benifit to the environment what so ever has left the generation capacity of the country very short ( and why SA are taking the Brilliant step of installing Diesel generators that consume 80K liters of fuel an HOUR, not day, HOUR) and they are expecting when the hot weather comes the system will be well overloaded and blackouts will happen. The AC here is pretty old and I have already had a fridgy mate look at it and discussed options for it's single phase replacement which is the current thinking now anyway. If it dies or the 3 phase grid goes away, I'll change that and also be able to live in comfort with the ability to self power the AC more easily. Madness, A power diverter is DEFINITELY legal and many new inverters like fronious and others have that feature built in. One you can even daisy chain the appliances. The first diversion goes to your hot water. once that clicks off for 5 Min you can have your pool pump run for a certain time. Next you may have the washer or dryer running. Takes some wiring up but the feature is there and legal. I'm not informed about setting how much you send to the grid, the ones I know of use the excess not being used in the house and run the extra appliances then send whatever is left to the grid. Not to say I know about everything out there, far from it but using your own power first is definitely allowable and pretty much the thing that makes new solar installs viable these days when you get 6c for what you generate through the day and pay 30C at night. |
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yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
Hi George, Most of us here are very aware of the manipulation in the market and the mainstream media. What we are trying to do here on the 4M is to toss around ideas to find practical strategies and paths so that we are not the victims in all of this. I think smart meters is a good topic for discussion and we can handle some glass half full/ glass half empty debate. but when everybody is talking about the brick wall in front of us and no-one can see the door it is a bit hard to keep our spirit and enthusiasm up, it kinda kills the fun and the forum dies. I am not saying your post is in anyway bad, but my quota for despair and hopelessness is just about filled for this month. Even the woman on my GPS sounded terse and snippy when I took a back-road yesterday and she had to recalculate my route  .I am slowly getting some material together to do a topic on peer to peer energy trading and maybe what role blockchain tech will play in that. For example the price in SA was -$44.75/mw for 30 minutes the other day, can we tap into that through a broker and charge a battery? I might do a piece on lobbying and groups like solar citizens and how to stop legislation that cripples small distributed generation and discriminates against the tech that we love so much. I am also considering something about PV router tweaks and tricks for hot water, air conditioners, older appliances and electric vehicles. I could even do something on driver-assist technology and how that may morph into full autonomy. Chin up Guys.  there is still plenty of good stuff happening.I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
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| Alastair Senior Member Joined: 03/04/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 161 |
@George, I did consider installing a number of single phase split a/c systems as their EEC is better but I dislike having them all around the place and on the wall in the rooms. I know that you can get ceiling units but I find the ducted system almost silent and far more usable and we can shut down the zones not needed. It had to be 3 phase because of the size. The question of power diverters is not something I have looked into and now will. The evacuated tube solar HW system we installed is very good and supplies the hw we need most of the time. I have the electric booster on a low setting so it only cuts in when things are quite cool. I would need to play with the switching and thermostats a bit to make best use of a diverter. Having a higher thermostat when it is excess solar and lower if we have a run of cold weather and we need the grid feed. Can be done. When we were on 5 acres in the early years the power was quite bad and we had regular blackouts when the weather was hot or storms hit. We were literally at the end of the line. I bought a 11Kw Honda powered generator which got plenty of use until the lines were upgraded about 5 years before we left. I still have the generator and was thinking of selling it but may wait a while to see how our power goes. Cheers, Alastair |
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| George65 Guru Joined: 18/09/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 308 |
I thought thats what I was doing with setting up my solar arrays and looking to a generator to make up any short fall. To me that is a practical strategy not to be screwed over on power prices and avooid being a victim. That would be awesome -if- you can supply info that non electronics experts can follow. I can build lots of things from the arduino site where it tells you what you need and how to connect it. I can't do jack when someone says heres the code and what you need and that's all the info you get. All the time I see people saying " it's easy to do this or that, You just need to couple some FETs and and a cap with a zenner and that's it" But they NEVER give a parts list or show a diagram that a non expert can follow. Often the reasoning is " You have to learn how to do it yourself." To me that's like saying if you want to drive a car, you need to know how to build one and repair it. I wonder how many of these people could do that? I could but I'm not an electronics expert, just a beginner. Similarly, I can fix a car with a manual but even life time mechanics I know need the book to know what the settings on things are in order to do the job. I realise for an expert to have to state things so the Kindy kids like me can understand it must be boring as hell but the other side of the equation is without that info, they are pretty much preaching the converted that know and have done it themselves so the info is not benefiting anyone. What you are describing is exactly what I hope to find on places like this so I for one would very much look forward to seeing some of these tweaks, tricks and DIY builds. |
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| Warpspeed Guru Joined: 09/08/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 4406 |
[quote]All the time I see people saying " it's easy to do this or that, You just need to couple some FETs and and a cap with a zenner and that's it" But they NEVER give a parts list or show a diagram that a non expert can follow. Often the reasoning is " You have to learn how to do it yourself." To me that's like saying if you want to drive a car, you need to know how to build one and repair it. I wonder how many of these people could do that? I could but I'm not an electronics expert, just a beginner. Similarly, I can fix a car with a manual but even life time mechanics I know need the book to know what the settings on things are in order to do the job. [/quote] Yes I do all my own car repairs too. And I have had the deep core car nuts tell me how easy it is to completely rebuild an automatic transmission on the kitchen table. They can even point me to the 500 pages of instructions of how to fit the seventh gear widget to the whatsit pin using special tool XX47A. But the whole idea just terrifies me. Likewise, a fairly major electronic construction project using some expensive parts is not a job for a total beginner. There are threads here of some very smart and experienced people shedding tears of frustration trying to stop their home built inverter going into spontaneous pyrotechnic displays. When I get something finally settled I may start what could be a very long thread on "how I done It" but I am still a fair way off that. Cheers, Tony. |
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| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
The part I am thinking of is having an array and inverter that is capable of more than 5KW but is throttled back/diversions to only put 5KW max into the grid. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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| yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
Its probably going to take me 4-5 months or more to get to it, I have a lot on this year. I preferred working with commercially available diversion routers and do the appliance switching and monitoring with arduino or raspberry pi, the aircons usually just need a prod with an IR blaster to get them running. The break even payback time is so quick on this stuff I am not inclined to build much myself for grid connected applications. I would also like to review the open energy monitor (emonpi) and perhaps the zappi at the same time but I have been a bit slack and not ordered them. I was hoping to find a supplier of good quality far infra-red heating panels so I could include them in the review of potential diversion loads but no luck so far, all the panels I like are used by saunas, the companies that sell and install them are very tight lipped about who they buy them from. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
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| George65 Guru Joined: 18/09/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 308 |
I humbly apologise if I caused any insult to those like you whom are experts in this field which I think is akin to magic. I certainly did not mean to belittle your skill or knowledge. What I had in mind was many things I have read or seen pictures of that only have a handfull of components which remain a mystery to twits like myself but I could be capable of putting together with a bit of Guidance. I am not that far up myself to think I could put together anything but the simplest circuit and only if someone held my hand. I only know enough to know that I do actually have more chance of flying a 747 than I constructing something like an inverter or anything 1/10th the complexity. Again, If I came across the wrong way I apologise and meant no offense or under appreciation of peoples skills. |
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