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DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

mobile-solarpower.com

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Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#11

Post by Syonyk »

pengaru wrote: post #10
Syonyk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the rest about solar, I actually just grabbed it from my bookmarks and didn't realize he'd posted anything new since 2011. Ignore the first few posts and carry on reading his rants about solar, batteries, wire gauge, charge controller location, charging voltage, panel placement, shading, etc.

Quoted post unavailable.

I've been dealing with an off grid solar office for 5+ years now. Year round power, heating (propane at times, candles/kerosene at others, electricity most of the time if I have the light), and have spent the bulk of this time in some esoteric backwaters communities on IRC with other people who do the same sort of thing.

It's really, really hard to find people who have written accurately about solar on the internet. What he said about solar, RV installs, battery charging, etc, is all 100% accurate. He deals with the broken installs by the places that advertise that they know what they're doing.

If you're willing to toss all that out based on more recent writings, it's your choice, but I try to judge writings based on their accuracy, not what I think about the person. You're entitled to judge writings however you want, but if you're considering off grid solar and write the guy's writings off, your loss.

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#13

Post by redtexture »

zoba wrote: post #8

I recently set up my own off grid solar system in a tiny cabin that I designed and had built. I used the Solar Controller+Inverter Combos recommended on this site (Growatt) but ultimately switched to ones by Renogy. The Growatt one I purchased has a wifi adapter and app - wifi requirement was a deal breaker when remote. The renogy one has a Bluetooth adapter and app, plus feels better designed (though actually I thin…

Insulated Root celler equivalent location for the battery.

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#14

Post by pengaru »

Syonyk wrote: post #11
pengaru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I've been dealing with an off grid solar office for 5+ years now. Year round power, heating (propane at times, candles/kerosene at others, electricity most of the time if I have the light), and have spent the bulk of this time in some esoteric backwaters communities on IRC with other people who do the same sort of thing. It's really, really hard to find people who have written accurately about solar on the internet.…

How intelligent can the guy be when he's flagrantly demonstrating such flawed thinking? It calls into question everything he writes, full stop. Better things to do with my time and why give him more audience.

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#15

Post by jf »

zoba wrote: post #8

I recently set up my own off grid solar system in a tiny cabin that I designed and had built. I used the Solar Controller+Inverter Combos recommended on this site (Growatt) but ultimately switched to ones by Renogy. The Growatt one I purchased has a wifi adapter and app - wifi requirement was a deal breaker when remote. The renogy one has a Bluetooth adapter and app, plus feels better designed (though actually I thin…

Could you dig a hole for your batteries and store them below the frost line?

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#16

Post by wglb »

unnouinceput wrote: post #4

Buy this, buy that and oh! don't DIY because my stuff is more awesome and everything. Since when we get ads at top of HN?. I flagged this crap.

Not an ad. His YouTube reviews are all about diy and cover many brands of batteries and f at liar systems.

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#17

Post by Syonyk »

zoba wrote: post #8

I recently set up my own off grid solar system in a tiny cabin that I designed and had built. I used the Solar Controller+Inverter Combos recommended on this site (Growatt) but ultimately switched to ones by Renogy. The Growatt one I purchased has a wifi adapter and app - wifi requirement was a deal breaker when remote. The renogy one has a Bluetooth adapter and app, plus feels better designed (though actually I thin…

> Still not sure how I’ll ultimately get around this.

If it's portable, your option works well.

For year round off grid use, there's something to be said for sealed lead acid, or flooded lead acid - they don't care about being cycled while cold (capacity is down and the voltage sags a good bit), and as long as they don't get too deeply discharged, they don't freeze.

A single panel, facing south, absolutely vertical, will shed snow and if you have no other loads, is usually enough to offset controller loads and self discharge over time to keep the batteries fully charged (and therefore not freezing) over winter.

There's no way you'll generate enough heat on electricity to keep a battery bank (or cabin) warm in the winter most places. I've got 5kW of panel on my office, and still can't manage that for a small, well insulated shed.

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#18

Post by csours »

zoba wrote: post #8

I recently set up my own off grid solar system in a tiny cabin that I designed and had built. I used the Solar Controller+Inverter Combos recommended on this site (Growatt) but ultimately switched to ones by Renogy. The Growatt one I purchased has a wifi adapter and app - wifi requirement was a deal breaker when remote. The renogy one has a Bluetooth adapter and app, plus feels better designed (though actually I thin…

#2 reminds me of this: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/04/cold-war-nuc...

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#19

Post by kyleee »

Syonyk wrote: post #7
ctime wrote: post #2

Will Prose seems like a really great person. If you’re interested in what you see on this site, check out his YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/c/WillProwse

The problem with him, and people like him on YouTube, is that about 90% of what they say is fine, and 10% ranges from "iffy" to "This is a good way to burn your house down - at some unknown point in the future." The average viewer of that sort of material can't tell the difference, and by the time you can, you're not in need of handwaving entry level information, because you can read the design documents, spec sheets…

"YouTube is simply the wrong medium to try to teach detailed"

YouTube is literally just humans talking, so you are basically saying you don't think humans can teach complicated subjects?

Re: DIY Off-Grid Solar Power

#20

Post by csours »

pengaru wrote: post #14
Syonyk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been dealing with an off grid solar office for 5+ years now. Year round power, heating (propane at times, candles/kerosene at others, electricity most of the time if I have the light), and have spent the bulk of this time in some esoteric backwaters communities on IRC with other people who do the same sort of thing. It's really, really hard to find people who have written accurately about solar on the internet.…

How intelligent can the guy be when he's flagrantly demonstrating such flawed thinking? It calls into question everything he writes, full stop. Better things to do with my time and why give him more audience.

Intelligence has almost nothing to do with it. The whole 'rona thing has been very very stressful and many people have not reacted well to it. Scam artists have exploited this stress (as they always have and always will). Some people have been led astray and some are leading people astray, and some are both.

At any rate, it is an impairment of gathering and processing information correctly, not intelligence. It's a filter problem. I had a really hard time with this too, after seeing how people I previously respected dealt with this whole thing.

---

For what it's worth - I'm strongly in favor of people choosing to get vaccinated and masking up in public. I despise the people who made this a wedge issue for their own benefit.

I also think that being self-righteous about it is very tempting but also very bad and destructive to discourse.

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