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Has anyone installed solar panels? What has been your experience? DIY install extra appreciated. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago by Miczech@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Thinking of self installing a 5kW solution onto a South facing garage. DIY solution appears to be 60% cheaper than hiring a local installer (Ohio)

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[–] ikidd@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

140 is a little light but yah, it's definitely a solar thing only. It's possible it bounced over the 150 for a very short time to trip the cutout, and the 140 number you're seeing is a time-smoothed average in your reporting system. If you're using something trustworthy like a Smartshunt to get that data, then yah, tripping 10V short isn't great.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I checked the manual and it's actually documented to trip at 137V and open its fault relay, and won't reclose until the input voltage drops to 134V. This is hidden in the fault section and not really advertised in the specs.

Obviously in a cold weather overvoltage situation this loss of load causes immediate runaway, which resulted in many full days of lost generation until I rewired the array down to 2s strings.

This issue was actually what resulted in me building the first dump load for the system, because as long as I kept the array loaded enough it wouldn't trip out. No way I was breaking the connectors or my fingers off during several weeks at -30C!

[–] ikidd@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

Yah, I'm in N Alberta and a farmer, fixing things at -30 is never fun. Those MC4 connectors are a pain in the ass when they're cold.