leaves

Thank you very much.
How does one get around connecting copper conductor to the alluminuim panel?
Im wondering if there will be corrosion due to dissimilar metals?
Does this include copper?
Many thanks
J

Ah Just got word that the batteries are full up now :> So turbine has braked itself. hehe AAAW.
He needs to grid tie it man!

#pvlink
http://www.pegasus-systems.co.za/brochure/Pika%20Energy_Catalog_2015.pdf

http://profiles.pika-energy.com/users/144/dashboard
Its a 1.7kW machine. Pictures attached. Supplied by Pegasus-systems.co.za
Hope to see 12kW tonight at 12pm, Take a look at that live view from the controller! Use the link. above.
Leaves


 

http://profiles.pika-energy.com/users/144/dashboard
Its a 1.7kW machine. Pictures attached. Supplied by Pegasus-systems.co.za
Hope to see 12kW tonight at 12pm, Take a look at that live view from the controller! Use the link. above.
Leaves


 

Dear leaves,
 
It is one of my unfinished projects but what I have done so far is to built 1.2m x 2.4m woden boxes, just the size of a whole sheet of plywood and run a flexible aluminium tubing (150mm if memory serve me right) and closing it all up with glass or other tranparent material. I have built two such boxes so far.
 
Now the finishing part, I have to find a fan to push air from the room air to this solar box, and out on the other side comes hot air... hopefully the fan can be solar powered directly so when the sun is out it is working autonomously. 
 
Something along this lines(is where I got the idea from):
 
https://sites.google.com/site/glenssolarheater/
 
or
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DownSpout/DownSpout.htm
 
And I think you should review all this great website called Built it solar (I considered it the bible of solar DIY), starting from here:
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm
 
 
Warm regards from Sunny southern Spain!
 
Gustavo
 
 
 
 

Hi Guys
Whag is the best way to use solar for space heating?
It seams like heating water with flat panels and using a heat exchanger to circulate the warm air into your living space?
Thanks
L

Guess the correct answer would be to actually have big insulated windows that can let sunlight in but keep the cold out???

Ok, so the guys in Europe are way ahead with this one.
 
The old type of thinking is to use wall heaters, more like radiators. Problem is these units take room space, wall space and heats the room unevenly.
Advantage is it can be installed after a house was already constructed.
 
Underfloor heating is more expensive than wall heaters, but the room heating is even throughout.
Also, water temp for underfloor heating is a bit lower than radiators.
 
Now, how to physically do it?
If you look at overseas homes, you will normally find a utility room in the house. All alternative energy services are housed here.
The "geyser" is normally a huge upright unit and around 500L and more, depending the home size.
 
Heating is done via many different sources like gas, solar and wood stove.
The wood stove is great. It generates heat inside the house and heat water at the same time!
 
The advantage of having an upright heater tank is a phenomenon known as stratification.
Basically it means water will settle in the tank in different layers. Hottest water at the top and colder water at the bottom.
Hot water for washing and shower is taken from the top of the tank.
40 Degree water for heating is taken from around the middle of the tank.
Heat exchangers are also used to make sure the water going out is at a constant set temperature.
By taking lower temp water for heating, you still left with hotter at the top for washing.
 
EV tubes are great for heating water. I would suggest using a decent pumped system to make sure you get the most out of your system.
Normal thermoshypen will circulate the water so fast, you going to end up with water all at the same temp in the tank.
This also applies to circulating pumps running directly from solar panels.
A decent controller will monitor your EV temp and only start the pump once the EV temp is say 8 degrees higher than the water in your storage tank.

How does this compare to building your own battery bank?
Something tells me it is a battery in an iphone cover with a great marketing team behind it?
L

Hi Leaves. 
 
I am afraid it is going to have an effect. 
 
Exchange rate has obvious knock on effect. Those that didn't take out Foreign Exchange Forward Risk Insurance will be bleeding and may not import again and so you have a smaller pool of importers. In spite of the large number of importers the solar supply industry is not always that competitive (perhaps I am naive as to the costs of importing goods) and there will be fewer folk with the stomach for importing on the back of a fluctuating currency. There are losses to be made on both a strengthening currency and a weakening currency.

Hi Thys
Temp is easy to monitor with an aquarium thermometer whereas midpoint is more difficult. Midpoint also changes more rapidly and I would find midpoint more useful than a temperature probe.
Chris

It takes 1.16Wh to heat one liter of water by 1 degree centigrade. This formula breaks down a bit as you approach boiling point, but it works until near boiling point. So it doesn't really matter what you heat it with, that bit stays the same. What matters is how efficiently you can transfer the energy into the water. In that respect, a good old kettle with an element that sits inside the water is darn near 100% efficient. Anything where a utensil sits on top of a heating element will be less effective. Boiling water on gas being the least efficient, and an induction stove being the most efficient (though still nowhere as efficient as a kettle).
 
The trouble however is that few kettles can boil that little water, they need a bit more to cover the element. For that you can employ a thermos flask. That would be your best bet I'd say.

Gnome seems to be doing fine. Just sometimes the anti gravity generator of the bateries seems to have a problem. Lol.
Sent from my SM-G800F using Tapatalk

I have been using my cotek sk3000 inverter 24/7 for 2 years now and have to date had no reliability issues

MLT drives stocks the Weeb type washer.
 
I used them on my installation and am extremely happy with it.
 
You can hear the teeth of the weeb piercing the anodizing as the panels are tightened down onto the rails.

Hi leaves
 
You can use those fuses - they will be perfect. The voltage rating is the maximum voltage the fuse will be able to isolate when it goes open circuit in case of a fault condition. They will be perfect for low voltage (48V) use.
 
If you are looking for 100A fuses or lower, you can use this fuse holder from ACDC: CMS2258.1 It is also a DIN rail mount fuse holder.
Fuses e.g. 100A: 2258.100

What does this mean, right at the bottom left.  
 
" Utilisation category AC23A @415V and DC23A @220V 2 poles in series"

Ok, time for an update.
I have not recieved all the panels yet, but have mounted 2 so long.
 
The Tri Strap is available from Brights at R11/m ex vat.
 
Firstly, here is the view of an end panel. The 90 degree bracket is not 100%, but I think it would work well enough.
I did not put is right at the end of the channel just to make sure it does not bend the cannel lips open.

 
Here is the view of the square piece used between 2 panels.
Initially I was looking at keeping the gap very small, but then the metal square would start to overlap on the panel PV cells, so using a 17 socket on the bolts works great to make sure the gap is the same top to bottom.

 
Here is just a bit of detail on how I have done the earthing.
I would have liked to hide all the wiring under the roof, but that prooved just way too much work for me on my own.

It's not a bad product. A bit unrefined, in places it looks a bit like some of my high school projects, I hear reports of people shaking the last of the loose solder out of the case before they mount them, one installer told me about 2 out of 10 fail within warranty. But it's not badly designed... well MAYBE that DC-DC converter bit was a bit cheap, I can't say, I don't know enough.

What a hose. I thought that this show had real promise when I read the info page. "make your house loadshedding proof for R15 000"
 
The sales guy holds up a 50watt solar panel and says, yup, this is about R2000. R40 a watt? really?
 
In the end they bought everything (UPS, 10 globes, R1000 outside spotlight and a geyser timer) from Ellies at builders warehouse. Such a shame, you could of really done something substantial with that type of coin. 

Take off / subtract 20-30% of your calculations for inefficiencies and losses in cable, PC angle, pollution, etc. 4x 250W panels would probably deliver closer to 800W on average, and you probably won't get it for the full 6 hours.

The electronics in a tracker is very simple. There are hundreds of circuits available on the net. The simple circuits use a pair of LDRs and an op-amp per axis with a suitable H-bridge to drive the motor. If you can do the motors and gears you are 80% there. Keep in mind that you usually do tracking on 2 axis. I noticed that the tilt of your panels are quite steep. In SA the steepest most effective tilt angle is about 30

Popcorn Ready

Usually any metal component housing should be grounded and it should not cause any harm to any of the components if you do so using the recommended grounding points.  All these grounding points should also be connected to the house ground / common ground in the AC DB (as you mentioned). 
  Lightning (basically anything) will always take the path of least resistance.  You can ground your PV panels (and frames) by means of a cable directly from the panels to an earth-rod to help when lightning strikes the panels, but you should also connect that to the normal house ground in order to eliminate possible potential differences between the separate grounds.
 
I will not advise anybody to ground the batteries UNLESS your specific inverter installation documentation clearly states that you may ground e.g. the battery negative.  If the installation instructions of the inverter does not clearly indicate that you may do this, you might damage your inverter.