Got some welding in this morning before my GrubShack ice shift. Reckon I should be called Bearded Betty. To my surprise, the HOA road grader came out today to do my 2.5 miles. Kind of makes me wonder what's up - they usually do this area in December and we have lots of rain in the forecast for the next week or so. Could it be that some Realtors want to show off some land by way of smooth roads this weekend? I certainly didn't request the HOA to dredge my canals any deeper.
Put in my hour shift but only sold a couple of bags of ice and 2 cokes. Came home and got back to welding. Had to break at 3PM for a little shower....it passed quickly and I finished up welding the second half of truss 3. Just as I got set up to cut all the 6" pieces to join the two halves, the heavens let loose. Got about 1/4" of rain in an hour - just enough to swamp the road. Sure glad they graded today.....doubt if they will come back tomorrow to re-grade.As for yesterdays photos: #1 The dumb ass that worked on this system bypassed the blown fuse with a cable - and tried to hide it by scooting the battery right up next to it (can you say FIRE). Ryan replaced it with a 12VDC breaker. #2 A volt meter does not give a good indication of charge. Ryan installed a tri-metric battery monitor programmed for the AmpHr capacity of the battery bank - telling amps in, amps out, percentage of charge, reminders to fully charge and equalize. #3 As for the mysterious wire coming out of the solar panel....the dumb ass that installed it cut the MC connector thereby voiding the warranty of the panel. Not much you can do about that blunder - the damage is done. #4 There are actually 2 panels with the same problem depending on the time of day. Each panel is shaded reducing the output to 1/3 during the morning or afternoon hours. Ryan cut off the offending shade. #5 AC breakers installed for a DC system. Ryan left the breakers for on /off switches but installed DC fuses inline inside the box. #6 All the electrical panels and hob-job wiring is inside the living space...not a good idea anytime but with proper fuses and breakers in place - less of a fire hazard. Two other things that Ryan found while repairing the system: Although the system was well grounded - the dumb ass that did the installation also attached all the negatives to ground as well - WRONG! The charge controller was never set properly and left in the default mode - just charging to 13.5 and holding. Ryan reset the controller for appropriate bulk and float charging and set the unit to automatically equalize the batteries once a month. One last poor choice - the batteries are all marine batteries - a set up of good ol' 6V golf cart batteries would have been much more efficient and cheaper. I know the dumb ass that installed this system and I only hope that he reads my blog so he can defend himself.
