Testing the Solar Panel

The solar panel arrived. It was a bright sunny day - 23C, not much cloud and generally above what constitutes here for a "nice day". 

I dragged the wall out.. and a battery to see what I could get out of it. 

The panel itself pulled enough juice to fire the controller, so that was a start. 

 

 

 

 The panel itself is in full sun. The controller is connected via wifi to a PC that is monitoring the power generation. 

I noted fairly quickly that I was only making around 20-40 watts. With a 350w panel in direct sun. I tried a few things to change angle, and even resorted to facing the panel directly at the sun with negligible improvement. 

Briefly I held the panel up in the air, facing the sun directly, and briefly made 100w. Again.. in full sun. With a 350w panel. And this angle, direct at the sun is not exactly sustainable. 

It's fairly hard to be convinced this panel is working right.

What you can see here is the panel going from full sun, facing north to some cloud cover dropping the production right down. The spike at 100w is me picking up the panel, holding it as high as I can, pointing north west as the cloud cover broke, before putting it down, then lifting it up again, then having it propped up on a ladder, facing west. 

This one was taken in the position as shown in the first picture around midday before cloud started. As you can see, it's still making sub 60w in what should be a fairly optimal set of conditions. 

Doing some research suggests that I really should be seeing a lot more power than I am for the conditions. I can't realistically expect 300w+, but I should be in the high 100s. Which is fine. Adding a second panel would get me enough power to deal with the ongoing load during the day and to reasonably recharge the batteries overnight - the inverter will always be on with drill chargers connected, there will be a PC running direct from 12v and there will be a few other little things sucking on the 12v line. 

I did note that whilst the panel itself appears to be fine, there are a couple of bends in the rear of the frame, so perhaps something less obvious is going on. 

I did contact the retailer - and am awaiting a reply - asking for a replacement panel. I've offered to dispose of the panel if they're happy to replace given the cost of transporting it back. If they're happy with that, I'm inclined to hold on to it long enough to do a side by side comparison with the replacement. 

Moving along..

The solar wall isn't quite finished. I've got connectors there for the powerpole box, but don't have the box yet. 

The battery protector isn't connected as I'm waiting for some decent sized lugs. 

The panel isolator is in transit. I was initially just going to use one of the 63A circuit breakers, but one was faulty and I decided I might as well order a proper DC breaker for that side. 

Also awaiting another batch of Anderson plugs just to finish off the battery feed.

You may have noticed the DIN sized hole above the inverter... I found a cheap car MP3 player that is about 60mm deep that I plan on inserting in there. I've printed a couple of brackets to support it at the rear already. It'll be by no means premium sound, but I can at least sync my phone up through it to play music, add a USB stick and so on. I haven't sorted out the speakers yet. Obviously there are a hundred other ways I could have achieved the same thing, but this was the obvious.. and cheap way to get something that could run off 12v, that wouldn't burn up valuable bench space and would generally do the job. 

My new storage bins arrived yesterday and I've gone to work filling them

I grabbed the one pictured and another with all smaller drawers. 

Somehow I managed to half fill one just with the electronics and screw collections in the study. Then I got to the garage - where I have a few smaller drawers already. Some needed consolidation. Then there were little baggies full of screws and components in various tool boxes, scattered around the work bench and so on. 

It dawned on me that in order to actually move out of the garage, I'm going to need to clean up. A lot. Sort what I want to keep, and loose the rest (easier said than done). 

I have a mechanic style toolbox that has been collecting crap for 20 years; last night I threw out the wheel nuts I replaced on a car that I sold in 2006. I may have found the fuel pressure regulator I'd replaced on it in 2004. I've cleaned it out - in the new shed, it'll be on my second bench prominently for tools. 

There's a fair bit of work on the horizon just going through the stuff that is on the benches and shelves destined for the new shed, and trying to make some realistic decisions about what I really need to let go of. 

Amongst other things, I'm going to have less shelf space on account of me pulling out two shelves under my current work bench (I want to be able to sit at it), and the shelf above it will be ceiling height. My second bench will potentially gain a shelf but it'll likely take some time before I can get near it given there is about 1/4 of my garage currently stacked in front of it. 

I can smell another.. very large.. skip bin on the horizon. We've got a heap of junk in the yard that needs to go anyway - buggered old kids bikes, holely inflatable pools, random junk and so on that needs to go. 2 old big screens, stacks of cardboard. An old table top... I could write a list for days. As soon as I can get through the garage again (currently made difficult by the sheer amount of building material in there), that'll be on the list of things to get done. 

I've been a bit yard motivated of late - mostly because I can't progress with the new shed yet. Despite my having a cold, I managed to build a garden bed last weekend - which is really just a boxed in section with 3 600x600 concrete pavers, surrounded by a hardwood mulch, with some polytube and sprinkler risers. The mother-in-law now at least has something to do when she's here. 

There is a section next to that that disappears behind the kids cubby house (currently my "smoke house" that needs to become a space for the XYL) that is quite simply gross. At the moment it's got a couple of old blow up pools that need to be removed, and a few bits of blackberry that have come in from the property behind us (that the owner promises will be resolved late April when their tenant vacates with their horses).  I'd very much like to strip that area out and just gravel it. It does weed up easily and we tend to worry about the potential for snakes in that corner in the summer, so having it gravelled makes sense. I do also need to get in there as the rear flag pole for my dipole is in that corner.  It's otherwise dead space. 

There are other garden beds to do, but I really need the shed ready first. There's a second shed that needs to move after that. Once I do that, I can start one bed, an area for the kids to sit outside, then I can do yet another bed.