Ben's Garage

[creeky]

Ya. i like the wood look right up until I realize how much it (uncoated) holds dust. and the wood yellows over time. a shop that size won't take long to roll either.

I love my sprayer tho. blush. you know. wave your hand and the wall is magically covered.

Ya know. semi transparent and the wood grain shows a bit. the fly poop is hidden. now if only I had a way to get that can of forest green semi transparent rusting in my field to you.

[bennelson]

I finally heard back from the local power utility. They have approved my solar application in full, with ZERO changes or recommendations.

I can now purchase all my big expensive components and start installing them!

[Daox]

Wooohoo, congrats Ben!

[bennelson]

Got my heat going!

https://youtu.be/PNHnkJoIyog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNHnkJoIyog

[stevehull]

GREAT video. Great explanations of temps and gradients. Too many people use what I call "innappropriate precision". This would you saying the floor was 58.7 F , but you properly said "about 60 F".

I used to HAMMER my graduate students on this as they typically confuse quoting ten significant numerals as better "precision" in an environment where the reading was +/- 20% of reality.

Clear, well edited and done well.

What is next?


Steve

[bennelson]

I need to "play catch-up" a bit as far as media editing and blogging.

At this point, the blow-in insulation is all installed, we got the plywood paneling in downstairs, some painting done, and the garage doors installed.

Last night and this morning, I worked on the hydronic heat.

I've been out of town a bunch lately, was rather ill for about 2 weeks, have a midterm to study for, I still have to do taxes!

Once I take care of a few things, I'll get caught up with photos and videos, but I'm very excited with how things are going.

Probably the next big thing is ordering equipment for the Solar PV install.

Hey Daox, want to go pick up solar panels with me sometime?

[bennelson]

Does anyone have strong feelings one way or another whether to use 215w micro-inverters vs. 250w inverters with my 260 watt solar panels?

And just so you know, the M215 are 215w continuous, 225w peak and the M250 are 240w continuous, 250w peak.

In my experimenting so far, it's been difficult to get the solar panels to produce more than 225 watts. (Sunny morning, manually tilting solar panels directly towards sun as best I can.)

It's been hard to find real numbers for the PTC (Real World Power) for the Helios 6T 260. I've seen numbers anywhere from 190 watts to 235 watts. Those numbers though seem to indicate that there's no reason to buy M250 inverters over M215 inverters.

The Enphase white paper can be downloaded at: https://enphase.com/en-us/support/te...microinverters

[pinballlooking]

Get the M215 they are cheaper and a much better fit for a 260 panel. The M215 will do 225 for a while during the peak on the day.

260w panel the m215 is a great fit.

I made 82KWh today and 210w was the highest on my 240w panels.

[creeky]

I've read a few studies that show the "clipping" that occurs those few moments when your panels outproduce the inverters power capacity never pays the cost of the bigger inverter.

Really. It comes down to price. What is the price difference? Enphase 190s work well with Sue's 235s.

[bennelson]

I did some work yesterday experimenting with solar.

I have 2 Helios 260w panels and got three salvaged Enphase M215 inverters. Those were from a friend who found them at an electronics salvage yard. (Too bad they have a weird mounting flange on them!)

I was able to "commission" the inverters using Enphase's "Envoy" internet gateway. The device communicates to the inverters over the power lines. So, that's used to set up the inverters in the first place, and then output production data of the inverters to the web after that.

The Envoy was pretty easy to set up with the "Installer Toolkit" App on my smartphone.

I was able to get actual power out of the solar panels. Pretty cool stuff!

Of course, this is all just experimenting. I was using a temporary power connection, the solar panels were just leaned up against my garage, and I was making sure to use plenty of electricity at my house at the time so I couldn't spin the meter backwards.

Actually DOING some of this makes me feel much more confident about my system.

Solar Experimenting

Part 1 of 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATm2Nv5ObS0

Part 2 of 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tlGmuDd5MQ