Dr. Evil

Hi Chris This is what I mean. http://imgur.com/mgpEriJ Instead of needing 2 thick angle iron pieces to be braced onto the roof joists (for the very first panel) I will only need one additional piece per additional panel. The same goes for the actual horizontal frame the panels will sit in.

Hello gents It's been a while since I touched this solar stuff again, been a bit busy. Anyways, got some things done the weekend at least. Finished with the adjustable roof panel mount (which I was supposed to have done ages ago) Just need to replace the temporary bolts I have on this one with shorter, high tension bolts and spring washers to help keep it sturdy in this horrible PE wind. Also need to galvanize. Hopefully, I can mount it the coming weekend if the gods show me favor. http://imgur.com/UF0znPh http://imgur.com/xCGB9bl The idea is to have these staggered so that, for the next panel, I just latch the new panels frame on to the existing panels frame and use half the steel of the first one. Ease of expansion.

Plonkie how are we doing in Cape Town? Im getting around 200w today, so I am happy to commit to more panels now

Making about 180w today, 12:30pm clear skies. Think I should start making the mounts for flat IBR roof. Basically want them to be adjustable between 12

lol always a good idea to have the theoretical background and manual ability. but in this case, unnecessarily tedious. leverage technology

Hi Chris. I did do a fair bit of dancing between tilt angles. Finally set it to about 12 degrees for that part of the day, that is how i got to the 160w. At our lattitude, the best angle to set at for summer is apparently 12 degrees. http://www.solarpaneltilt.com/ This would be consistent with my test yesterday. The best angle for winter here, is 50 degrees. Interesting side note. If you have a decent android phone, you have access to a wealth of instruments and free apps that come in handy for these kind of tests. I was using a clinometer app that leverages the sensors on your phone and digitally displays tilt and roll angle. What does a dedicated digital level go for?

Gentlemen, I have news http://imgur.com/W9PTkY2 http://imgur.com/K9VtxsI On my 255w yingli panel I have been pushing between 145w and 160w on a clear and sunny day, albeit a bit windy. I found it a bit odd that a 255w panel would only produce 160w on what looks to be a good day. So I put this down to inverter / cabling losses (inverter at 90% efficiency and losses along length of DC cables.) Wanted to find out exactly where the loss is though, so I hooked up multimeter straight to panel and I'm getting 36v and hovering around 4 amps.. Which correctly gives me the wattage im seeing (145w-160w). So the loss along the length of cabling to inverter and the conversion loss of inverter itself is negligible in this case. I will run a few more series of tests before I get more panels and I mount on garage roof. I would have liked to have different sourced 250w panels on loan to test, So I can run benches in same conditions and work out price / performance and best bang for buck panels, but alas. But in my mind I should be getting more amps in todays light conditions and cool weather between 20-25 degrees. Anyways, I will take 160w of free power all day, every day PS Chris you should have popped in for a beer. Plonkie how much you generating in CT for the day.

God damn.. would you believe it has been raining and murky since Saturday plonkster? The weather gods continue to p*ss on my plans! When will I finally get to test. pft

OK it was an awfully murky day in PE today and I only got around to testing at 4pm+. Chopped off the test lead pins on my multimeter and soldered some replacement MC4 connectors for easy panel testing in future. They were crappy test leads anyways Nominal open circuit voltage on this yingli is 35.7 and nominal short circuit current is 7.19. I was getting 34v and 0.5a at around 4:30pm on a murky day, so test conditions were not ideal. http://imgur.com/0z8NBze Does amperage drop off that severely on a late murky day? Hopefully 2moro will be a better day to for testing.

Okay guys, got 255w Yingli poly at Rubicon, out of stock on the 250s. Hopefully I can test in some decent conditions 2moro.

lol Master Hence my concern... the joke could be on the chinaman, for 'schutten' is german slang for skuit, isnt it? lol

Okay gentlemen, I have 2 options here on local sourced solar panels. I'm in Port Elizabeth btw Yingli panel vs Schutten panels. Any of you esteemed gentlemen have experience with these brands? Both are chinese made panels but the yingli seems to be a class panel, don't know much about Schutten. Generally, when a chinese manufacturer tries to fool you with a german name, the subterfuge is usually necessary lol

Ah, plonkie.. a fellow software dev warms my heart lol i think a good software dev is, by nature, fastidious. i don't intrinsically trust the word of a salesman i want to double check everything myself. Thanks for the info, will look into this.