Considering installing Solar.

[007 RED]

11 hours ago, PR3 said:

 

@007 RED when you connected the inverter supply cable to the MCB; would you kindly advise where you connected to?

If you have an image or two that would certainly help.

 

I remember that its a great feeling when all the parts start arriving.  All you need to to now is get cracking and start building.

 

Re: the feed cables from the panels that are mounted on the car port roof to the 'safety box'.  The box was an empty 2 bay consumer unit that I purchased from HomePro for about 350 THB.  I drilled a couple of holes in the top and a couple in the bottom of the case to allow the PV cable access/exit via MC4 connectors. 

 

The cables from the PVs are attached to the MC4 connectors in the top of the 'safety box'.  The connectors are connected to their respective input (+pos and -neg) terminals on the DC MCB. 

 

The output cables (+pos and -neg) which are connected to their respective output terminals on the DC MCB are then attached to the MC4 connectors at the bottom of the 'safety box'.  Additional cables then connect the DC 'Safety box' to the PV input sockets on the inverter.

 

The DC surge protection device is connected to the DC MCB and an external earth feed.

 

Sorry I don't have a photo showing the internal connection for the DC 'safety box', but hope that above description and photos below of the external boxes helps.

 

 

Good luck with your project.

[Crossy]

12 minutes ago, 007 RED said:

I remember that its a great feeling when all the parts start arriving.  All you need to to now is get cracking and start building.

 

Next is the feeling of relief when it all lights up and doesn't go bang. Check your panel connection polarity with a meter before plugging them into the inverter (NOT after it fails to start up), then check them again! Do be aware that your panel strings get up to full voltage with a surprisingly small amount of light, there's not much actual power but they can bite pretty hard!

 

Then the feeling of money flowing into your beer fund as the meter starts creeping backwards

[Crossy]

18 hours ago, PR3 said:

Crossy, since I'm a novice with such things would you cast an eye over the wiring to see if it's correct. I just find it confusing that the inverter output will enter the "out" of the voltage regulator in it current configuration. 

 

It looks OK. Don't worry about the power monitor thingy, with a grid-tie inverter the energy goes both ways anyway.

 

Do check the sex of your MC4 in and out connectors, it's not totally clear in the photo but the IN end should be the opposite sex to the OUT end. 

 

 

[007 RED]

I would second @Crossy advice above regarding checking everything with a multimeter before connecting cables... in fact... double check polarity.

 

Also... ensure that your DC breaker is set to OFF position before connecting cables from PVs and from the DC breaker to the inverter DC input(s).

 

Yup... sex of MC4 connectors can be confusing so good luck with them.

[PR3]

Good Evening Gents,

 

No progress to speak of today unfortunately I have been on husband duties going for lunch and shopping and such like.

Thanks for the description of your set up @007 RED and also thanks to @Crossy for the technical advice.

I will check each and every panel for polarity to ensure the correct sexed plug is on the corresponding cable.

The PV4 cables I ordered are likely a little too long but they come assembled with plugs, for the sake of tidiness I'll likely cut them and fit new connectors hence buying the extras and the crimper, and having the tools allows a change of mind or future endeavours.

 

@007 REDI perhaps should have used better description when asking how you connected the inverter to the MCB as I was wondering how you'd connected from the AC safety box to the house junction box? I must apologise about that; I feel guilty as you took the time to correspond in such detail.

 

@Crossy I used the wrong description in an earlier post describing the item as a voltage regulator...its an adjustable over and under voltage/current protector. Will it still be okay going in the out?

 

Has anyone any experience of walking on tin roof in terms of where to not stand, I'm genuinely a little nervous about it.

 

Cheers Gents.

PR3

 

 

 

 

 

[Crossy]

9 hours ago, PR3 said:

@Crossy I used the wrong description in an earlier post describing the item as a voltage regulator...its an adjustable over and under voltage/current protector. Will it still be okay going in the out?

 

Yeah, I realised that ???? It's just fine wired as it is.

 

Do note that since you will be sending energy out that you should set the upper voltage limit rather higher than you would usually, say around 240V as a start point.

[007 RED]

13 hours ago, PR3 said:

 

@007 REDI perhaps should have used better description when asking how you connected the inverter to the MCB as I was wondering how you'd connected from the AC safety box to the house junction box? I must apologise about that; I feel guilty as you took the time to correspond in such detail.

 

No problem... When we had the car port constructed on the land which we purchased next to our house, I had the electrician install a power supply from the house to the car port so that we would have a couple of power outlet points for small tools and lights in the car port. 

 

The connecting cable from the house is laid within yellow plastic pipe which is mounted around the garden wall to a small consumer unit under the car port.  Approximate distance from house consumer unit to the carport consumer unit is about 40 meters (around the garden wall).  I'm not sure about the technical spec of the cable, but it's 2 core and quite large. 

 

Because the envisaged output by my small scale system is only about 1.2kW (although the monitoring system has shown that on rare occasions it can push 1.5kW), I was given to understand from the forum experts that it was OK to connect the AC output from the inverter to my car port consumer box.  And this is what I did, and it seems to have worked fine with no problems.

 

I appreciate that my solution may not work for a larger scale system and maybe the resident forum experts will give advice on this.

 

I hope that this helps.

[Sophon]

On 8/15/2022 at 7:10 PM, PR3 said:

Since I've only recently paid more attention to prices of panels I'm not really certain which way they're likely to go or what they cost before.

The way the world appears to be heading into an inflationary phase so I didn't want to wait any longer. 

In the end I paid 42000 for 10 x 420w mono half cuts.

Inverter, fitting kits, junction box for another 29000.

Hopefully another 9000 will buy the rest, so 80000 plus my labour didn't seem so excessive for a 4.2 system or 3.4ish in reality.

Everything may very well get cheaper in the future but like many things in life it's a gamble I suppose.

I'm sure more experienced members will know more.

Cheers.

PR3.

 

That's a good price for the panels, were they the BQ Solartech from your local shop you talked about?

[PR3]

The shop I bought from had BQ and BlueSun. I had intended  after much consideration to go with some BQ 390w mono half cuts @ 3800baht as they were shorter and  I could squeeze more on the area. 

However they were 104cm wide which shot that idea.

I ended up buying 420w mono half cut BlueSun ones as weight and width were a consideration also.

The shop have other choices and are doing BQ 340w poly panels for 3000baht.

They would have been ideal but not enough space to get the wattage as they're almost the same size as the 420w.

Not sure if they're any good  (bluesun) but I will know soon enough either way. Lol.

Cheers.

[Encid]

20 hours ago, PR3 said:

Has anyone any experience of walking on tin roof in terms of where to not stand, I'm genuinely a little nervous about it.

It may pay to ease your mind by taking a look under the roof in the ceiling cavity to see what the supporting structure looks like (if it is visible and not covered by reflective foil).

 

The best practice is to step on the nails, as they (usually) have some form of support beneath them (either a rafter (strong) or a batten (not so strong)).

 

Non-slip lightweight shoes such as running shoes or trainers are also a good idea.

 

[PR3]

Thanks for the advise regarding roofs @Encid; I'm lucky (or not) with one of them as I can see the frame, that's why I'm worried Lol. 

The other one I only have images; it was built when  I was stuck away for nearly 2 years in the Middle East because of COVID.

We have spoken to the builders about our intentions and they insist it won't be a problem. 

However for me I don't really trust metal structures unless I welded them together myself.

They're flat (5 degree pitch) roofs by the way; I'm sure they'll hold the panels but whether they'll support my heavy (90kg+) body at the same time is a worry.

Maybe I should look at something to spread the load...or weld extra sections in for strength....oh what to do.

So envious of the guys who have enough land to build a seperate array on a steel frame.

On the progress front I received the spares to repair the combiner box and they send a set of spare fittings too which was nice.

And my crimper turned up for the MC4 fittings. 

A slow day but in the right direction thankfully.

@007 RED thanks again for your info. I was hoping to learn how to put it into the house consumer unit; maybe ill have to employ a local electrician to do it.

I don't mind at all working on isolated electrical but the idea of undoing the incoming live cable to fit another in there is way way out of my comfort zone.

At the same time I don't really want to involve the PEA for obvious reasons. Perhaps there's a way to connect to the house consumer unit another way, after all it's a grid tie so will not back feed without a supply...hmmmm.

Ah well ill have a beer and ponder.

Thanks Gents have a good weekend.

Cheers.

PR3

[PR3]

Oh yes one more thing, thanks for advising me to check polarity. It's a little confusing that the +polarity on the panels is the same as the ones for the + on the combiner unit, more than  a little thought and planning is going to be have to put into the electrical planning.

To be fair you can't easily touch the electrode on either but seems a bit topsy-turvy.

Anyways back to beer.

Cheers All

[Crossy]

9 hours ago, PR3 said:

Oh yes one more thing, thanks for advising me to check polarity. It's a little confusing that the +polarity on the panels is the same as the ones for the + on the combiner unit, more than  a little thought and planning is going to be have to put into the electrical planning.

 

The + out on the panels should be the opposite sex to the + in on the combiner.

The + out on the combiner should be the opposite sex to the + in on the combiner.

 

For clarity.

 

This chap is :-

+ out from the panel

- in on the combiner

+ out on the combiner

 

 

This chap is:-

- out from the panel

+ in on the combiner

- out on the combiner

 

[PR3]

@Crossy Thanks for that Sir.

I thought as much looking at the combiner that things weren't right. 

With these panels if i recall correctly it is the female which is the positive, therefore you'd expect a male on the PV input.....they females????

Not the end of the world I'll simply do some swapping around in the combiner panel and put the relevant coloured heatshink on to satisfy my OCD lol.

A little disappointing as I bought a built up unit to avoid having to do it myself..oh such is life.

 

Been a mixed day here; power went off at 1am and didn't come back till around 3pm.

Had to wire my 5kv gennie into a domestic socket....(oh the shame I know) just to get some juice to the house. Things were running a bit odd so check the genie out put...L-E152vac and N-E 75vac....L-N 222vac. 

Anyways that's off topic sorry.

Good news is the rest of the bits showed up today including nice new shiny crimpers, and mysteriously another pair arrived with 4 extra sets of jaws, told the missus I double ordered by mistake...just like the plasma cutter which I "thought" was a MIG welder ????..honest.

Anyways crunch time is approaching now, next on the agenda will be trunking and earthing rod and straps (wire)

Time for a beer.

Cheers All

PR3.

[carlyai]

15 hours ago, PR3 said:

@Crossy Thanks for that Sir.

I thought as much looking at the combiner that things weren't right. 

With these panels if i recall correctly it is the female which is the positive, therefore you'd expect a male on the PV input.....they females????

Not the end of the world I'll simply do some swapping around in the combiner panel and put the relevant coloured heatshink on to satisfy my OCD lol.

A little disappointing as I bought a built up unit to avoid having to do it myself..oh such is life.

 

Been a mixed day here; power went off at 1am and didn't come back till around 3pm.

Had to wire my 5kv gennie into a domestic socket....(oh the shame I know) just to get some juice to the house. Things were running a bit odd so check the genie out put...L-E152vac and N-E 75vac....L-N 222vac. 

Anyways that's off topic sorry.

Good news is the rest of the bits showed up today including nice new shiny crimpers, and mysteriously another pair arrived with 4 extra sets of jaws, told the missus I double ordered by mistake...just like the plasma cutter which I "thought" was a MIG welder ????..honest.

Anyways crunch time is approaching now, next on the agenda will be trunking and earthing rod and straps (wire)

Time for a beer.

Cheers All

PR3.

I'm glad and impressed you're taking the time to keep your fluid intake up. ????

[PR3]

Well it is a hot climate so fluid intake is necessary to stay hydrated Lol.

I checked all the panels this morning and the polarity is as marked on the outputs.

I was wrong when suggesting the positive was the female it is in fact the male one. Good thing I checked again.

So will still have to mess around with the combiner but not in the way I thought.

The fitting will have to wait for now. I've lost my confidence in the roof construction so will be welding some extra sections in for strength, additionally 2 of the original roof supports where it bolts to the house are either missing or hidden will have to get my wife to contact them to find out which.

So that along with two other urgent DIY jobs which have come to the fore are going to knock me back about a week or so.

Will update as things start to move forward again.

Cheers All.

PR3

Edited August 21, 2022 by PR3

[PR3]

Hi All,

I managed to get back on to the solar project Monday.

Was still paranoid about the structure so set about making it feel safer.

Originally there were large gaps between the purlins so I added a bit of extra support.

[PR3]

After that was to add to the scary bracketing which I uncovered behind a well placed ally cover. There were many like this and worse so better do something.

[PR3]

So I put some fresh ones in

[PR3]

That was Monday and Tuesday done. 

So today to further help I pit a few extra temporary supports in and decided to fit the rails.

[PR3]

Then went to try it out whilst putting the rails in. Actually felt quite sturdy sooo....

I have no images of the rails as things quickly got out of hand once they were fitted..Lol...  Decided to try fit the front string of panels, was a mission as the panel brackets were for 40mm and mine are 35mm.

Soooooo lots of cutting and grinding later have the 12 brackets ready.

First panel was a bit of an ass twitcher but after that got into the swing of it and got cracking.

2pm and a storm moved in and drenched everything.

Luckily 60 mins it was done. 

Note....tin roofs are slightly slippery when wet. 

But got fin8shed in time for the school run. Blanked the ends with some empty MC4 shells with plastic in the ends where the cable gland is.

As an end note if I had a few baht for every kink I put in the steel roofing could probably afford to have a team fit them Lol.

Oh...and panels are b***ard well heavy when lugging them around on your own.

Unfortunately I'm getting dragged off to the inlaws for necessary Birthday Party so more delays till Sunday.

Happy with the weeks progress I'm going to rehydrate did 3 sets of clothes in today need t9 replace the sweat with healthy beer ????????????.

This is where I'm at for now.

Cheers Gents.

[Chris.B]

On 8/19/2022 at 4:03 PM, Encid said:

It may pay to ease your mind by taking a look under the roof in the ceiling cavity to see what the supporting structure looks like (if it is visible and not covered by reflective foil).

 

The best practice is to step on the nails, as they (usually) have some form of support beneath them (either a rafter (strong) or a batten (not so strong)).

 

Non-slip lightweight shoes such as running shoes or trainers are also a good idea.

 

Thats a UK roof.

[PR3]

Not sure of the nationality of the roofing materials but it's in Khon Kaen. Lol

[PR3]

@Chris.B Sorry; I realise you were referring to another post regarding roof styles.

 

5 minutes ago, PR3 said:

Not sure of the nationality of the roofing materials but it's in Khon Kaen. Lol

 

[Chris.B]

After the financial layout for the solar system and the maintenance costs, how long until you break even on electricity costs?

 

[sezze]

31 minutes ago, Chris.B said:

After the financial layout for the solar system and the maintenance costs, how long until you break even on electricity costs?

 

All depending on the system itself . If you take a simple grid tie system , non legal , pay back should be 3-5 y if im correct , not counting potential rising in electricity price .

For a battery powered system , pay back takes a lot longer , and that is largely due to the cost of the batteries . Then it is also lots of variables in there , since you can grid tie and use the battery pack solely as backup power ( small battery , more expensive inverter) . Or a complete off grid , with larger battery packs , which are used more heavy also .

For maintenance , not much is needed , clean your panels once a while , as it will collect dust , and that is about it . Panels are sturdy and normally very long living , inverters do fail , but decent inverters get you at least 5y further down  the line ( they are repairable ).

[PR3]

To be completely honest I have no idea. I have spent thus far around 85000 and there will likely be a bit more. I hope to generate around 20 units a day avge but that's down to the weather and there's no controlling that.

If we say 15 units it's still a 3-4 year payback which isn't so bad. 

There are not many investment opportunities which would give 20+% per year interest so it's a good investment provided nothing breaks in the meantime of course.

If i had a company do the work it would cost more, even in that case and for those what dont feel comfortable trying its not a waste considering the way things seem to be going.

Fingers crossed nothing breaks I suppose.

Cheers.

PR3

 

[PR3]

Hi All,

  Been a busy one today was hoping to get string 1 on line but not to be.

Got it hooked up to the combo box 7 cells and 287vdc so it's around the 41 and change vdc as they suggest.

Got the inverter wired from the box and all the earthing done too.

Ran out of daylight to get the final connection done and feel safe and ran out of trunking anyway so it'll have to wait.

Here's where I'm at tonight, tomorrow will fireworks or joy I expect.

Fingers and toes will be crossed.

All the Best.

PR3

 

[PR3]

Evening Gents,

Happy to say as at 1pm today everything fired up smoothly. 

It's been overcast but in a few mins of sun I did see a max of 2.16kw.

But it's been cloudy on and off all afternoon so didn't really observe too much backwards spinning action meter wise, although at one point it was doing rather nicely hahaha.

I haven't played with any of the settings as yet.

I notice there's a country code to input....haven't done that or set the time so need to do it.

I logged into the inverter through the WiFi dongle and set it all up.

Now as I understand it I must install Solarman on a device in order to monitor the inverter?

I no longer see its WiFi signature when I search so can't see what's going on.

I looked on apps and there's 5 to choose from.

Would you kindly point me in the right direction @Crossy and @007 RED.

Cheers in advance.

Now to start thinking about the second string.

Can't get to the steel work on this roof and the photos my wife has don't look particularly sturdy. Better get my thinking cap on for that.

For now though it's time to put my drinking cap on and rehydrate/celebrate the outcome of the DIY project. ????

Back for part 2 soon.

Cheers All

 

[sezze]

Dont forget to shut off your inverter when the electricity man comes . He must not be able to see your meter spinning back ( and also , if you are spinning back a lot , make sure your meter goes up in monthly consumption ).