Stage 2 Off Grid Tracking Solar Panel Installation

Tom T. thanks for letting me know that someone is actually reading these postings.

Update 07-04-09 Well between family medical issues, and changing jobs I have not been able to work on my friends system much. Either he is busy or I am busy. But Friday night my friend called and had a problem. We had installed some new 2 volt batteries in his system that I talked about in previous postings. He said the generator was starting on its own every three to four hours. So Saturday morning I made a service call. These batteries have been through some hard times and some were damaged due to over dischaging when one of his generator failed a few years ago. Well I found all the new batteries were fine but two of the old batteries had real low voltage and were not taking a charge. We remmoved them and replaced them with two spares. The system is up and running like new again. The lesson I have learned and want to pass on to everyone else is if at all possible never allow the batteries to be run down lower than the manufacture recommends. I his case the generator was the only source of charging the batteries at that time and he did not turn the system off and did not get a back up generator, so the damage was done. I am partly to blame for not programing the inverters LBCO low battery cut off to the manufactures recommendations, thinking there would never be an issue where it would get down that low. The generator having long since been replaced and a back up generator installed, along with the solar panels we are in good shap but the damage to the battery banks caused by this issues years ago is starting to come back and hunt us. Summer time is a real bad time for batteries due to the hard load from the air conditioners during the day, and night, and the high temperature losses on the solar panels. If I had to do it all over again I would recommend in Texas with the temperature extremes we see, use a Flooded Battery, and not a Vent Regulated or Sealed Gel Cell battery. The Flooded batteries are far more forgiving with both temperature issues and deep discharge recovery. Just my two cents worth of information. I have everthing ready to finish the second solar panel installation, the combiner box with diode array isolstion, and the light weight aluminum mounting brackets. All I need now is a couple free weekends to complete the installtion. Then it is on to Stage 3. Dave Rygwalski (KD5EWT)

Update 7-25-09: A bad storm passed through Fairfeild a while back with Tornado damage in many areas. My freind called me when the storm was happening telling that there was hail about quarter to golfball size. I told him the solar panels were rated to handle quarter size hail ar 50 mph. I also reminded him that I had told him he should insure the solar panels last year, it would be cheap and smart. He did not get insurance. After the storm he said everthing was still working and all the panels looked ok. When I went down their Saturday I found one panel that was shattered. The glass looked like a car windsheild that had be hit by a baseball bat even though it was still working. Its not going to last long. You could see where one hail ball had hit the edge of the panel. He said his neighbor about three miles away had baseball size hail balls damage his car. I installed the new combiner box I built that has the diode array in it. The extra room will allow me to connect the power leads from the tracker system to the input supply leads of the fixed array. The batteries seem to be holding up ok now wired up for 26 volts instead of 24 volts. I have been looking for two more solar panels to add to the fixed array but now I have to find a replacement panel for the damaged one. "Lesson learned", my freind purchased these panels from someone else I was working with back in 2000. I suggested he not purchase these panels because the company was new and there was not alot of testing of these panels and feild data avalible. The other person I was working with was trying to become a dealer for this company and needed to sell a certian number of panels to get the dealership. Sure enough the company is no longer in buisness. PhotoWatt. I would suggest anyone looking to buy panels try to find a company that has been in buisness for some time. The tracker system is ready to install and complete. I will finish making the last two mounting bracket this weekend and install them the weekend after. Word to the wise, its no fun working on a solar panel system in the direct sun with air temperature of 101 degrees, and 40 percent humidity, for four hours stright, this is just part of the builsness. Dave Rygwalski

8-29-09 Went to Fairfeild with plans to install half the solar panels on the zome tracker. Instead we found another dead cell in one of the two battery banks. It was an older cell damaged from server discharge when the generator failed a couple years ago. I swapped the bad cell out with a newer one and the system is back to normal. My friend is living by hmself for a while. His wife and daugther moved back closer to Dallas for job reasons. With him living there alone the system is doing great. The fixed solar panels are providing between 3.5 and 5.2kw of power each day. He says the voltage is about 26.6 when he goes to bed and about 26.3 when he wakes up, and 27.8 when he comes home from work. The generator does not come on at early in the morning anymore. I feel this is because he is only running one window AC instead of two now, also no hair dryers, microwave breakfest and other resistive loads. Next week i will install another 350 watts of solar panels on the tracker, and the week after that the last 350 watts of panels. Once the panels are all installed the next stage of the project will be to install the 24 volt water pump, then the wind generator. Dave Rygwalski

I had not posted before but appreciate all yours. Have you ever played with construting a piston tracker?

Ok, I give up, what is a piston tracker? Dave R.

10-4-09 Finally finished install four of the eight BP585 photovoltaic panels on the zome tracker. Finished in the rain so I did not get a chance to see how they helped the system. With full overcast gray sky and no sun showing through the clouds we were still seeing the MX-60 charge controller outing out a few amps of charging current. I tried to add photos of the installation but our Photo section is not working and will not allow you to look at all the albums so looks like no picutes for show and tell. Check out pictures at http://alternativeene...
titled Some Informative Battery Installtion Pictures Dave R.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for sharing your update!
You still have one MX-60? Would be interested to see how the MPPT tracking adapts to the two different input sources. Is the final plan to get all the BP585s on the Zome?
Greg

10-4-09 Finally finished install four of the eight BP585 photovoltaic panels on the zome tracker. Finished in the rain so I did not get a chance to see how they helped the system. With full overcast gray sky and no sun showing through the clouds we were still seeing the MX-60 charge controller outing out a few amps of charging current. I tried to add photos of the installation but our Photo section is not working and will not allow you to look at all the albums so looks like no picutes for show and tell. Dave R.

Greg, Yes the plan is to have eight of the BP585 panels wired to give me approx. 72 volts @ 8 amps in parallel with the Photo Watt panels that are wired to give approx. 68 volts at 10 amps. I have seen the MX-60 showing an input of between 66 and 74 volts from the Photo Watt panels @ between 10 and 12 amps. I have installed Schotty diodes on each of the Photo Watt five pairs of panels. It is my way of keeping the BP's from being able to back feed into the Photo Watts when the sun is in the 4 oclock to 6 ioclock position. The BP will still be aimed stright at the sun providing full power but the Photo Watts will be facing 12 oclock with a much lower output. I will let you know how it works. My friend has not had any sun since Saturday when we were installing the panels. It started to rain half way through the install. I found out even with the sun behind the clouds the solar panels can still shock you, it does not help being all wet and working in the rain. I keep the panels covered until the install is almost complete. I removed the panels to do some final testing. That is when I felt a tingle every now and them. Safety first should always be the rule. My friend slipped and fell off my truck gate because the rain was making things very slippery. Learn from my lesson, go slow, check the wiring and polarities twice before turning anything on, dont work in the rain, and dont be in a hurry. Dave R.

10-20-09 Update, my friend called me and said there may be a problem with the system. Ond of the inverters has a blinking yellow light on and the MX-60 says Floating on its display. I told him the yellow light meens the inverter does not see any loads on the AC side and it is just waiting for him to turn something on that is connected to that side of the power panel. And Float in the MX60 display means the batteries are almost fully charged and the charger is just keeping a float voltage chage which I have never see happen on this system. We added 340 watts of solar panels on the Zome Tracker and now the system is able to provide enough power to actually get the batteries to a full charge. I will be adding another 340 watts of solar panels to complete the Stage Two project with the Zome Tracker unit. So far it is working very well, no problems as of yet. This weekend I will be finishing wiring up the meters in the solar panel breaker box and working on his large generator getting it ready to sell. His plans have changed and he might not be building the large house on the property so he only needs one other 11kW unit as a redundant backup generator. On all Off Grid Systems I try to have everything in the system with built in double backup. Stage three will be the wind generator and or co-generation system. David Rygwalski

Update: 10-24-09 I went to my friends house. The Zome Tracker system is working fantasticly. The diode array I installed in the fixed array allows the tracker system to keep the votage and current up as the sun travels across the sky. and the fix system starts to loose power. I was seeing 68 to 72 volts @ 10 to 13 amps on the input side and 28.2 vots at 30 amps on the ourput side most of the day. Until the unit went into Float then is leveled out at 27.8 @ 12 amps because the batteries were almost fully charged. I finished installing the Delta Lightning arrestor unit and system ground. Worked on getting the 35kW generator ready for sale. And removed some very old Liberty 100 amp batteries that the owner had for years in storage. I found a battery store in Plano that will dispose of them for free which makes me feel good. I am almost ready to install the wind generator system now. I am going to try one more time to get the SWWP Wind Seeker 500 up and running, if I cant fix it I am going to build my own Axial Flux Alternator system. There should be plenty of wind this winter to help the system maintain during those overcase days. I have three solar water flat panel systems at my house is anyone is interested in overhauling them for use on there house. I hope the meeting went well and may learn a great deal from it. I feel it is the way to go, many of my family in Florida have been using solar water heaters since the 1940's with good success. David Rygwalski