Posts tagged as:

solar

Solar BLACKOUT!

June 14, 2017

Today, I was up at 4 AM for work and had a short day. As I was driving back home mid-morning, I noticed the roads were wet. We had a thunderstorm roll through my neighborhood while I wasn’t there. I saw a power utility truck at the transformer just past my backyard. It didn’t take […]

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Solar is LIVE!

June 6, 2017

Bam! My solar is now fully operational! This morning, the electrical inspector stopped by. I pulled off the cover of the MidNite Solar AC Disconnect Box for him to look inside. That was about it. VERY simple inspection for the solar. I also had a sample of the Enphase trunk cabling to show him. After […]

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Wiring for Solar

June 2, 2017

We got the wiring for the solar done! My electrician, Ross, came over and we set to work on the wiring. I already had mounted electrical boxes to the racking on the roof and connected the Enphase Engage cable to the boxes with liquid-tight cable strain reliefs. I also made the conduit connections from the boxes […]

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Electric Boxes on Roof continues

May 29, 2017

I did some more work today on the junction boxes on the roof. For one thing, I couldn’t get one of the 1/2 liquid-tight connectors to seal up. I ended up replacing it with a 3/4″ version instead. Of course, by that time, I had sort of messed up the whole box and ended up […]

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Electric Boxes for Solar Roof

May 28, 2017

I had to double-check and saw that it’s been over TWO WEEKS since my last solar garage update. I’ve just been busy, working out of town and on the weekends. In the time that I’ve had, I’ve chipped away at getting the racking installed over the course of several evenings. After that, I also installed […]

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Fall Protection

May 10, 2017

Probably my single biggest goal of building my own solar system is simply to NOT FALL OFF MY ROOF! Once I got the first piece of solar racking up, I had a brace which let me get ON the roof. At that point, I realized that the metal roofing is INSANELY slippery and would NOT […]

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Solar Racking Begins!

May 8, 2017

I finally had a chance to start installing the Racking! My package with the S-5! clamps showed up, and I was able to begin the racking during two evenings of this past week. Let’s state two things right off the bat: 1) I am NOT a professional. I do not make a living doing this […]

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Solar Road Trip!

April 30, 2017

Today, we headed out on a road trip to pick up the solar panels for my garage. My brother, Wayne, and I hitched up my multipurpose trailer to the van and hit the road to go see Phil Manke at Practical Solar in Wautoma, Wisconsin. Phil runs a solar hot water installation business. He also […]

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Solar Experimenting

April 9, 2017

Spring is Sprung! It was the first Saturday of spring with some actual nice warm sunny weather, so that means it’s time to experiment with solar! A couple of weeks ago, I got a few used Enphase micro-inverters in the mail. My buddy, Russ, (https://www.youtube.com/user/rwg42985) had found some inverters at an electronics salvage yard near […]

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Insulation, Doors, and Solar Cables

March 11, 2017

Two weeks ago, I got the bid from the insulation company. Because of their economy of scale, and having a nice box truck and other equipment handy, the insulation company can insulate my garage for not a whole lot more than if I went to the big box home improvement store and bought insulation to […]

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