1 million watts
 

Passed a minor milestone in solar production today..has taken 4 months.....nothing compared to things Nub and Fullpower and others here have done, but I'm happy with it.

1000 Kilowatt hours is 1,000,000 watts for a split second......I told a buddy of mine the million watt figure and he immediately grabs a calculator to see how many 60 watt bulbs that is....he calls me back all excited and says "MAN....that's 16,666.66 bulbs you could have lit up !! "......and then I broke it to him...."yeah....but they would have only lit for a split second "....and broke down the 1000kw/hr to show him that would have been 166 of those bulbs for one hour's worth of light.....which doesn't sound NEAR as impressive as "a million watts".....ahahahaaaaaa.....clearly, I've been listening to way too many govt.corp statistics......

Anyway, with the addition of 6 more panels, and getting tracker controller issues solved ( knock on wood ), I hope to be cranking out this much every two months now....which is half our use.....sort of a "buy one, get one free" thing going..... :biggrin:




http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...2_p124852.jpeg

Re: 1 million watts
 

,,,when Tn...Andy get's goin', watts get-a-flowing...

:ARMS1::ARMS1::ARMS1::ARMS1:

Re: 1 million watts
 

Very nice Andy! Congrats!

Re: 1 million watts
 

One of two arrays ( west ) .....new panels are the different colored 4.

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...2_p124853.jpeg

View from underside on east array.....the new panels have a different backing as well...."see thru" sorta. Made cheaper, probably....I noticed they cut the amount of aluminum in the frame as well.

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...2_p124855.jpeg


Hey Rich.....I had to 'add on' the Unistrut.....where were you ?? :biggrin:

Re: 1 million watts
 

Only a phone call away ..... :)

Looks GREAT!!!.

:smokin:

Re: 1 million watts
 

TN_Andy
What did that panel array cost ?

Have any linkage to PM ?

I'm about ready to put up some new panels and would love the info on the tracking system as well.

Thanks in advance.

Re: 1 million watts
 

Ah, I just chopped up 10' stuff in half, and bolted it on the ends of the stuff we welded to the "H" frame......seemed to work fine.....But I think I've pretty much got that west one maxed out.....may add two panels for the east to 'even' it up.....

Re: 1 million watts
 

About 8k in that pictured array......800 per panel. The Suntech 175's are down to about 700 now.....so I'd probably use them if I were buying today. Virtually the same spec as these Solarworlds.


The physical part tracking system is dirt simple......there is a piece of 8" channel 4' long welded at 37 degrees to the 6" steel post, and that set in concrete.

The moving part is that black painted "H" looking frame.....with a piece of 2" round shaft steel welded in the center for an "axle".....it sticks out just a couple inches past the channel, and pivots by two pillow block 2" bearings bolted to the channnel....so the "H" acts like a see-saw.....

Then, Rich and I welded 8' lengths of electrical "unistrut" perpendicular to the top of the "H" rack....and the panels mount to these. I set it up for 6 panels originally, and added some bolted on Unistrut on top and bottom to add 4 more panels.

Whole thing is powered by a 36" 30VDC linear actuator, controlled by a light sensing board. The view above is the Parked East position they go to at nightfall, then they track all day to the west, little jog at a time..... I had some REAL issues getting the controller to do what it was supposed to do, but finally got it worked out, I think. IF you decide to go that route, PM me and I'll maybe keep you from having to re-invent the wheel there......

Re: 1 million watts
 

Wouldn't that be 1,000,000 watts for one hour? or 3,600,000,000 watts for a full second?

Re: 1 million watts
 

You're right of course, I am an idiot at times.....like MOST of the times...ahahahaaaa

Re: 1 million watts
 

Yes, his math was fuzzy. Also, those 16 666 60W bulbs would burn for a whole hour.

Re: 1 million watts
 

In theory. But after the initial second, everything went POOOFFFF and it got dark-like :111::23_31_2::111:

Re: 1 million watts
 

Nice work Andy.
I am hoping to add another kilowatt to my array this year.

Re: 1 million watts
 

I demand ...

One million...
no, one billion
make that one trillion watts.

http://goldismoney.info/forums/custo...tar5239_28.gif
Bwah ha ha ha....

Way to go Mr. Andy, .:23_28_100s: Dr. Evil is jealous

Re: 1 million watts
 

Hey....if any of ya'll are on TVA power, they are changing the buyback program July 1st from the 15 cents/kwhr they were paying to 12 cents PLUS whatever your local power retail rate is.....9.3 cents in our case....so I'll be getting 21.3 cents for each hour generated....a 42% increase !!

They MAY actually have to send ME a check before long !! Hate that.......

Re: 1 million watts
 

Andy, have you thought about doing wind at all?

Re: 1 million watts
 

Re: 1 million watts
 

Not a good site for wind here. Tower would have to be 150' tall to clear trees and then located at the top of the mountain to catch prevailing west wind ( 2300' transmission line from my house ). Even though the actual generation equipment is cheaper than solar, by the time I overcame the physical requirements, it would be much more expensive.

Plus wind generators must either be climable or able to lower the tower relatively easy for maintenance purposes....again, that requires a clear, preferably level, area the diameter of the tower height....300' in this case. That simple doesn't exist at the top of my mountain....it is tree covered all over, runs up at about a 50-60 degree angle, 20' of somewhat level ridge line, then back down the other side I don't own.... This ain't Kansas, Toto.....

And believe me, I KNOW about towers.....I built a 100' tower up there now for internet reception ( wireless ).....it only sticks up about 10' above the tree line, in the direction necessary to pick up signal from another tower down the country.....a wind tower would have to be 150 to clear a rise in the ridge behind this tower. And getting that wireless tower up there was a REAL challenge the first time....I wouldn't even want to think of having to lower and raise it again.....here's a few pics of it from about 5 years ago building it:


First of all, there is no freaking way to get a concrete truck up there.....and most of the top is rock with a little dirt here and there. So to get a base for the tower, I built a "rock box" out of some scrap yard square tubing and some 3" pipe, then lined the inside with chain link fence, then filled it with rock. The tower base is mounted to those studs welded to a piece of 3/4" plate steel, that is welded to a pipe ( the last one back ) that pivots inside a slightly larger piece of pipe. We assembled the large base section ( 50' ) and used my tractor and bulldozer to pivot it up. Then the smaller, 10' sections, were hauled up the tower using a gin pole and bolted on in place.....50 more feet of that to the top. Then the radio antennae were installed.

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...3_p124870.jpeg


http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...3_p124868.jpeg

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...3_p124869.jpeg

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...3_p124871.jpeg



Wanna know HOW you anchor a guy wire in a place an anchor won't go ?

You build a mat out of pipe, then push a few tons of rock on top...ahahahaaaa...

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...3_p124867.jpeg


And you haul the welder up there to do the welding.....

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...3_p124872.jpeg


and the end result is that little tiny point sticking barely out of the trees:

http://www.digistash.com/data/026a39...3_p124873.jpeg


So, yeah.....I've looked at wind.

and solar it is.

( You guys just REALLY wouldn't believe some of the crap I've done around here.......Skyvike came one day, and I think he left with his mouth open....and he didn't see half of it..... :biggrin: )

Re: 1 million watts
 

Re: 1 million watts
 

His mouth is still open but that's not much of a change from before....

But please Andy. Don't tell 'em about the sawmill 'til I get mine. I don't want all the goldbugs to run up the price!

:36_1_30:

Re: 1 million watts
 

I live on 90 acres in a very rural county. My only choices for internet were dial up or satellite. So I went with Wild Blue. It works but there are issues I wouldn't mind leave behind someday. I've thought about building a tower back behind my house. It could be used for internet access. And it seems like the same tower could have a TV antenna on it somewhere. And a ham radio antenna. And maybe a windmill as well! But I don't really know where to start. Where did you buy the tower and where did you get the information on what needed to go up the tower and to your house? And what kind of hardware did you use to deal with lightning strikes?

Thanks,

Gregg

Re: 1 million watts
 

Andy,

I can appreciate the challenge of building towers. I have erected 110' + towers for wireless in my business life. Towers are a hell of a lot easier in Florida but still no fun, a lot of work, and quite a bit of grit to do the work. Additionally, you obviously have to support the tower with guy wires adding another issue of anchoring as you covered above. Oh, and another fun thing about Florida is lightning! Nothing worse than being up on a tower with an incoming storm out of nowhere.... Yikes!

Obviously, wind loads are quite different with the wind generator versus the antenna for wireless. Yet another aspect of the equation which becomes geometrically worse with height. Ruprick I am sure can attest to that.

Here are some pictures of a tower project I spearheaded:

http://www.cxp.com/username/dave_tower1.jpg
http://www.cxp.com/username/dave_tower2.jpg
http://www.cxp.com/username/dave_tower3.jpg

Dave

P.S.

I will be putting up a 100' + tower on the property for TV and wireless so I will be sure to post pictures.

Re: 1 million watts
 

To start, I'd pick up the yellow pages and look under Internet Providers.....because you are either going to have to start a company ( which is a possibility ) or work with an existing one that is already doing wireless in your area.....the latter being the easier way to go unless you WANT to get in the internet business from an ISP point of view......

My internet provider came up with the tower....fortunately, the guy that owns it is almost as nuts as I am.......they have wireless around the area, and I asked about it to replace my dialup years ago....the answer was I'd probably never get it due to our location......so then I got to asking "what would it take"....and the project went from there...."well, we would have to have a location for a tower"....OK, got it....now what ?......"well, we would have to have power at the location".....OK, I'll get it up there, now what? ( After he came and looked at the mountain) "well, we would have to have a road up to the site"....OK, I'll build it....now what ? And finally he ran out of "now whats"....ahahahahaaaa


The base section is an old aviation tower he scrounged from an airport....and he sent it up to me in sections on a flatbed truck...it's a fairly heavy tower, with 2 1/2" pipe in the legs, which are set about 3' apart....VERY well made. The lightweight sections are just standard com tower stuff. I built the support base, the guy "mats" etc out of stuff he either supplied or I got from a junkyard. On the day we stood it up, he sent a couple guys up to help, and we got it upright, then they hung the antennae on it and mounted the radios. There are 3 antennae.....one to transmit/receive from the next tower about 30 miles down country....one to T/R into our valley....one to T/R into the valley on the other side of the mountain. I have a small antenna on my roof to receive/transmit to the tower, which passes it on to the next tower, and on down the line of towers until it gets into a fiber optic line and out to the internet.....THIS is how I communicate with you guys......

For lightning, the protection is pretty simple.....there is a lightning arrestor "can" on each set of wires coming down from the antennae before they go into the radios, which are mounted in a small box on the base of the tower.

In 5 years, we've only lost 1 radio to lightning...and two of the arrestors have burned out from hits, but basically, we've had no problems to amount to much. It just works. And I get mine "free", if you don't count the cost of building a mile of road and erecting a tower....ahahahaaa.....but it SURE beats the crap out of dial up.....speeds run in the 850-1200k range, depending on the day/weather/etc.....not what you get out of cable in town, but still beats the crap out of 56k dial up. If I ever have to go back to that, I'm off the net.....I couldn't take it.

Re: 1 million watts
 

I've used the wireless signal that emanates from the bigass Cross in Bristol. I don't remember the company's name but the service (both personal and electronic) was exceptional. It is a line of sight technology, though. I was working with that Cross tower from Bristol Motor Speedway and there was only a very tiny portion of the grandstands that could see that antenna.

Re: 1 million watts
 

Andy,

As you can imagine lightning protection is probably the most difficult thing we deal with in Florida. On most of the towers that I have installed we typically have to drive deep for good grounding. This typically involves grounding the tower with a nice copper rod. Typically, you want to make sure your rod goes down in to the water table deep enough that it is wet year round. In Florida this can be a problem due to the change in water table depth and the sandy consistency of our soil.

Beyond grounding the tower, I place arrestors on the antenna cable at the tower base, and entry in to the building. Obviously lightning starts from the ground up so it is important for people to remember that as most visualize it coming from the sky to the ground.

Next, I like to ground the radio, and ideally use fiber through a media converter to connect the data side. Obviously fiber is non-conductive. Even with all of that protection, I managed to loose about a radio a year at some locations.

Dave

Re: 1 million watts
 

Obviously, you display your ignorance on the subject of lightning. Your POV is about 1/3 correct.

Re: 1 million watts
 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is just part of the article,
Gd

Leader formation and the return stroke

As a thundercloud moves over the surface of the Earth, an electric charge equal to but opposite the charge of the base of the thundercloud is induced in the Earth below the cloud. The induced ground charge follows the movement of the cloud, remaining underneath it.
An initial bipolar discharge, or path of ionized air, starts from a negatively charged mixed water and ice region in the thundercloud. Discharge ionized channels are known as leaders. The negatively charged leaders, generally a "stepped leader", proceed downward in a number of quick jumps (steps). Each step is on the order of 50 to 100 ft (15 to 30 metres) long but may be up to 165 ft (50 m).<sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference">[21]</sup> As it continues to descend, the stepped leader may branch into a number of paths. The progression of stepped leaders takes a comparatively long time (hundreds of milliseconds) to approach the ground. This initial phase involves a relatively small electric current (tens or hundreds of amperes), and the leader is almost invisible when compared with the subsequent lightning channel.
When a stepped leader approaches the ground, the presence of opposite charges on the ground enhances the strength of the electric field. The electric field is strongest on ground-connected objects whose tops are closest to the base of the thundercloud, such as trees and tall buildings. If the electric field is strong enough, a conductive discharge (called a positive streamer) can develop from these points. This was first theorized by Heinz Kasemir. As the field increases, the positive streamer may evolve into a hotter, higher current leader which eventually connects to the descending stepped leader from the cloud. It is also possible for many streamers to develop from many different objects simultaneously, with only one connecting with the leader and forming the main discharge path. Photographs have been taken on which non-connected streamers are clearly visible.<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference">[22]</sup> When the down and up leaders meet, the flow of electric current greatly increases.
Once a channel of ionized air is established between the cloud and ground this becomes a path of least resistance and allows for a much greater current to propagate from the Earth back up the leader into the cloud. This is the return stroke and it is the most luminous and noticeable part of the lightning discharge.

It is the return stroke that causes the damage.
True the step leaders do start from the clouds,
but the bad part is from the ground up...

Re: 1 million watts
 

how do i connect my inverter to the electrical panel???? here in wyoming it is legal for citizen to connect . i just need to learn that process. current system is just panels, battery bank to inverter.

Re: 1 million watts
 

Well, you say "current system is just panels ( assume you mean solar panels ), battery bank to inverter."...so what happens after that ?

The power stops at the inverter and never does anything from there ?

What panel are you wanting to connect to ??

Re: 1 million watts
 

SLV,

I think you misunderstood my point. When planning placement of arrestors, you need to base energy flow from a ground up. Most people think of damaging lightning coming down from the sky and destroying what it touches, that is not the case. The greater ability for destruction is the entry/exit point on the ground. That is the point I am trying to make and call attention too.

I did not intend for this to become a scientific discussion on lightning or I would have expanded on my one line statement you quoted. My purpose was to discuss proper grounding and the proper mentality when it comes to planning a path of least resistance around your equipment and not through it.

Dave

Re: 1 million watts
 

By the way, I can't help to think about this after reading through this thread:


Dave

Re: 1 million watts
 

Andy......got another curiosity question...

on the tower bases and guy bases......is there a reason you didnt drill and grout it into the rock? or guy it off to the tree bottoms? have you had any issues or movement?


i had a similar situation and i just took a small trailer compressor and hand rock drill and drilled 2" holes 4-5' in the rock and grouted in rock anchors

the way you did that certainly works and is portable, just something i havent seen before

that tractor is a gem!

Re: 1 million watts
 

sorry. i run a power strip off the inverter and power my computer and lights in my man cave. playing around until i get larger panels and a larger inverter to tie into the main house. just not sure how to go about doing that?

Re: 1 million watts
 

If I may suggest, I would create an "essential grid" in your house where you will power essential lighting, electronics, and appliances, nothing more.

You can buy an inexpensive panel from the hardware store with a main breaker that matches the output of your Inverter. ASSUMING you are using full time alternative energy to power these "man cave" items, I would re-terminate all electrical circuits from your main power panel that you would like to power to your newly created essential grid panel.

I am of course making the assumption this would be for full time use. Alternatively, you could place a transfer switch before your new essential grid box where you transfer between your inverter power and utility power (install a breaker on you main panel for this). This is of course if the plan is for just backup purposes.

As Andy said, we need to probably know some more physical details and of course what your goals and intended uses are.

Dave

Re: 1 million watts
 

thanks Dave. that seems like it. the engineer at the local utility said once i was tied in they would install a smart meter that spins for me. i thought about running the juice straight in and seeing if or how much it brings down my utility bill or ultimetly earns me credits.:23_28_100s:

Re: 1 million watts
 

What you describe is termed within industry as "Critical Power". I offer that in hopes that internet searches would prove more fruitful.