Just shocked the living shit outta myself installing another solar panel in my array.
 

fortunately the sun is on the horizon and the panel hadn't charged up, I had just turned it over to face the sun....but i clamped up a tic when I got jolted!

Super powers kicked in yet?

Are you trying to "one up" Mark Prince?:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

How many panels do you have up? Do you generate 100% of your usage?
And can you recommend a setup?

Thanks!

I always, I mean always hire an electrician for any type of electrical work.

My exgirlfriend's father died in the basement trying to replace a socket.

I'm using Renogy | The Future of Clean Energy monocrystalline panels with a Windy Nation PWM module.. the MPPT modules are recommended but I can't find a big reason to pay extra for them instead of the PWM.

Currently have 4 150 panels cranking ~35 amps per hour in ideal sun. the solar array replenishes a 500 mA battery bank running a 2000 watt inverter.



the batterys are 6 volt golf cart batteries and the inverter is a go!power pure sine. I will keep adding panels till I get to 100%, maybe 2 more!

good luck with yours, you'll love making the change! :thumbsup

does he conserve? I know he bought that Volt, which dumped 20,000 tons of carbon on the planet. maybe he has a solar panel flashlight keyfob to make up for that.

http://www.geekalerts.com/u/3led-solar.jpg

Dyna mo,

Is this for your RV?

No he doesn't he just thinks he does. The volt is like Ethanol. It takes one gallon of fossil fuel to produce one gallon of Ethanol.
It makes him feel good!

You should have a power disconnect before the charge controller and after it. I also use breakers before the charge controller & after it.

and the nickname of this guy is dynamo...

Power to ya

This :2 cents:

Power extreme!

Were you with currently sober?
he would have enjoyed that surely

He died from a 110v wall socket shock?

I was thinking the same thing. Was he standing water? 110v is nothing, scares you a bit 220v that hurts. Just recently installing a new hot water heater got shocked by 220v. And I'm alive to talk about.

be careful man

He had a bad ticker to begin with and the 110v killed him dead. No one was around to do CPR. Found him a few hours later when he was cold as ice.

the fine folks at Renogy have not mentioned that.

I've got a 40 amp fuse on the main line coming from the panels to the module, based on their advices, and 15a fuses on the lines from the module to the battery bank and from the bb to the inverter.

what sort of power disconnect are you recommending? Why would you need a disconnect between the module and the bb? This module has a option to stop sending current to the bb

this one is, yes. We've solar power for several places and things,

<--big fan!

Years ago we had a short in our kitchen stove element - got a 220v shock while stirrin' a pot with a metal spoon.

It woke me up. :1orglaugh

I want one of those set ups that causes birds to burst into flames

Ah. Too bad.

isn't it the current that kills you, not the voltage? I think I'd rather get jolted by 220v and 1mA rather than 110v and 1A, as I understand it.

Yep, that's correct.

Well the fuse can work as a disconnect as well, but you have to remove the fuse to stop the power. I just used a inline breaker and a actual disconnect like one of these, because it's quicker & easier than trying to pull a fuse.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTI2WDU5MQ...TfBhj/$_35.JPG

I have one of these between the panels & the charge controller and one after. I then have a quick disconnect on the battery terminals.

Solar panels? Dynamo ain't working? :)

Yeah, it's the amps that get'cha.

But 220v still packs a punch that'll straighten your hair even at comparatively low amperage.

Even after I fixed the stove element I still used a wooden spoon to stir the pasta after that. :1orglaugh

What voltage/amps are residential AC units the part that sits outside? My fan motor broke on mine once and I decided to fix it myself. I killed the breakers but forgot the power disconnect which is outside. When I cut the wire, I stated getting shocked to hell and back to the point I don't think I could have let go.

The only way I was able to let go, was I happened to be standing a bit off balance so I leaned away and was able to break connection. I dunno how much voltage or amps that was, but I wasn't able to physically let go of my wire cutters to break the circuit.

Now to this day, anytime I fuck with electrical shit, I stand so I can put myself off balance in case that shit happens again. :1orglaugh

Mine's on a 220v circuit - probably the same amps as our stove or clothes dryer.

I worked for a printshop back in the 80s that ran a whiteprint machine that had a helluva capacitor inside the chassis. We called in a repair guy to do some work on it and he accidentally touched a screwdriver to the capacitor - threw the dude about twenty feet from the machine across the floor. He survived, but we had to do CPR and call the ambulance. Fucked him up pretty bad.

Did your wire cutter have any insulation on them ?

Yea, but I think they were just cheap cutters and perhaps the insulation wasn't very good or maybe my finger was touching some of the metal.

Crockett I did not spock myself as bad as you got it! Lolz I was able to let go fairly easily. Thx for the feedback on that interupt

Dang. I restore guitar amplifiers and had read to make damn fucking sure to discharge the caps, even on the small amps. Sounds like that dude should prolly be dead eh.

I've been following this couple over the past year. They have an amazing solar setup on their RV: Solar

Check out their video, A Day in the Life: Boondocking with Solar.

LOL! It's the JUICE, stupid!

You are the queen of bad science. Don't pretend that a gasoline vehicle can compete with an electric car in terms of carbon emissions. It can't.

Electric cars have different carbon emissions depending where in the world they are charged. In Canada where I live, the cost is 115 CO2e/km because most of our electricity comes from hydro and nuclear. In the united states, that cost is higher at 202 CO2e/km., but still nothing compared to Gas.


From Mediamatters.org:

Myths And Facts About Electric Cars | Research | Media Matters for America

http://mediamatters.org/static/images/item/evco2.jpg

http://mediamatters.org/static/images/item/evco2ca.jpg

Please explain to the group how buying a new car that just the manufacturing of dumped 20000 tons of carbon on the rest of us is good science.

Here's your chance.

Fantastic site, thanks for that link. Bookmarked!

**********,
provide us the math that shows how many years you have to drive your Volt before you even get back to a zero carbon footprint cost of your vehicle. Any energy conservation comes after that.

I would do it very quickly based on the # you provide in your post above but it depends on how many KM/year you drive.

Yea, I think the inline fuse that yours has is ok as well, but you just have to remember to pull the fuse. The way mine is (or was I sold the Westy in Denver) I can cut power from the solar and also disco after the charge controller so the battery can't back feed into it. Then with the battery quick disconnects I can remove all power everywhere so I can isolate any part of the system when working on it.

I'm now building one of the 4x4 Syncro Vanagons but it will have a hitop so I can stand up inside without popping the top. I'm thinking of getting some of those newer real thin flex panels that allow a bit of bending.

fun story: got 240v (no idea what ampage that would have been) from the back of a wanky old TV when I was ~12 years old, threw me ~8 feet across the bedroom. Frightened the fucking life out of me :1orglaugh

eta: weirdest part was feeling the 'wave' my arm was doing, reminded me of the perfect body pop wave (this was back in about 1984). Very strange feeling as it went through my arm.

This suddenly explains quite a few things. :1orglaugh

I feel bad now.

lol :1orglaugh

If you assume a car is going to be manufactured one way or another.. an electric or hybrid car will still be better in the long run. The talking heads that use that as an excuse always fail to remember that a fossil fuel powered car also has to be constructed and doing that also dumps carbon.

Meaning starting from the point both types of cars are produced, electric or hybrids are far better in the long run, because at some point that fossil fuel car was also built. Meaning it's not accurate to add the pollution created while building one but ignoring the other.

You have to assume new cars will always be built, because we live in a throw away society that thinks they need a new car every 2 to 4 years. Meaning the manufacturing process is built in to what ever car you buy, so if in the end it produces less carbon during it's use cycle it's still better.

You are still not getting it. You are not conserving by buying a new car.

Assuming they are going to build the car anyway simply assumes away the rule of supply and demand.

The simple fact is you do not conserve. No biggie to those of us that do but lets be real

We are going to end up with a wind solar hybrid system geared mostly to wind. We usually have a 12 mph wind around almost 24/7 Sun in the winter is a solid 8+ hours of high and strong enough but we get some slow wind days. so it will be 2 or 3 panels for that time and wind the rest.

Well I drive an 86 Vanagon, so as far as new car carbon footprint I'm pretty sure I'm ahead of the game. However it's not fair to assume that everyone can get by with an older vehicle. If mine breaks I can fix pretty much anything on it myself, however others likely can not do the same. Meaning it's a given that new cars will have to be built and older cars will go by the way side.

So you would have to have some sort of govt mandate to limit the production of new cars, which also has effects on the economy & jobs as less cars built means a whole lot less jobs all the way through the auto manufacturing food chain. Be it the manufacturers, suppliers, dealers or the people whom cook their lunch and take out the trash.

This is why the govt doesn't put a mandate stopping new car production, but instead puts mandates on fuel economy. The idea being that as older cars get less emissions and worse fuel economy get put in the junk yards, the newer more fuel efficient cars take their place.

I'm personally not sold on wind farms, at least not in their current incarnation. I've seen a few wind farms here in the US, some up in New England, Shit loads in West Texas and some scattered here and there around Co & OK.

One thing they all had in common, was many stood idle with blades that did not turn despite the wind blowing. I'm in no way an expert on wind, but from what I've seen a lot of power production seems to sit there wasted as you might see 10 turbines in a group and usually half are not moving because they aren't facing the right angle for the wind at that moment.