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KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178
Posted: 12:45pm 19 Jun 2010
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OK
Stage 1 buy all the equipment
-2X CMS 2000 inveters
-24x 185W panels
-Racking
-CB's wire MC cables etc
Done arrived Friday
Stage 2 Install INverters (all day Friday)
-Main board to inverters 1 x 6.0mm cable 32A CB in the board
-Install CB boxes -1 has 10ADC breaker and 16A AC CB the other 20ADC breaker and 16A AC CB
-wire run to inverters 2.5mm flex (1m)
-Run 6.0mm cable to the two arrays, clip decktites, conduit external.
Done
Stage 3
Install racking (all day today)
-16 rails, 90 odd feet, 180stainless steel bolts,
all string-lined level, even etc.
Stage 4 (tomorrow)
install roof mounted breaker IP66 rated boxes (about 2hrs)
wire in to conduit and earth all the frames (individually)
Stage 5
Install 24 panels (guessing most of the day)
Missing the larger diameter bolts
(rail profile changed on supplier and he has no nuts)
(Should be Mon/ Tues)
Stage 6
Get my sparkie to sign off ($500 for almost no work)
Stage 7
Claim RECS back 216x today $36 each
Stage 8 watch the KW's roll in with more than a few beers knowing that I have saved
myself about $8K by doing it myself.
Luck favours the well prepared
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 01:48am 20 Jun 2010
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Hi Karl
Good on you mate its good to see the savings you can make and I hope it encourages others to follow your lead.
All the best
BobFoolin Around
KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178
Posted: 11:00am 20 Jun 2010
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Stage 2 and three pics
NW facing roof, will be 14 panels
Bulletproof, double feet, top and bottom
Frame earths
Frame earths sealed to prevent moisture ingress (boeing spec!)
Method of moving panels to the roof without breaking them
Laptop strap and suction cup thing
Circuit breaker box 2x10A breakers one for each string, decktite for
roof penetration.
Breaker box with cover in place
Inverters on the wall (with additional spacer behind to improve passive cooling
Also note top inverter is "Lucy" has 1850W North facing and bottom inverter has 2590W NW facing "Sophie"
If passive cooling allegedly good enough doesnt pan out, i'll fan force the cooling with a large PC fan and some nice looking clear plastic cover
Hoping for ~22KW/day here in Perth from the 4.44KW, I went up-spec on everything but the panels figuring panels are panels and if it pays for itself in 3-4years then it doesnt really matter.
Cable to each of the arrays is 6.0mm @9.5m each, one carrys 360V@5A the other carrys 252V@10A, a single 6.0mm cable runs back to the switchboard.
Accordin to "sunny design" this is worth 40-50W extra output /hr to the meter end!
win thats another 1/3 of a panel! call it $250 (add up inverter cost panel and racking cost -starts adding up!)
Edited by KarlJ 2010-06-21Luck favours the well prepared
Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333
Posted: 03:19pm 20 Jun 2010
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It dont look as though the feet on your panel tracks are made with correct spacing to match fastening to the top of the iron flutes on both sides, and i would find it very strange to fix through anywhere other than on the top of each corrogated flute.
It might be the camera angle, other wise its a poor design in the footings.
Other than that it all looks pretty neat system compared to some rubbish i have seen.
You best hope your girls are early risers in the mornings. What about the teenage years Karl, when they want to sleep all day...no return to the grid then.
Let us know when you get it on line and i will see if the lights here in Adelaide glow brighter.
Nice work.
Pete.Sometimes it just works
KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178
Posted: 01:37am 22 Jun 2010
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Camera angle, feet line up perfectly with the tops of the ridges
STAGE 4 complete!!
Stage 5 Started, got 9/10 panels up on the north facing last night (in the dark!)
and will get the remaining 15 panels up tonight (weather permitting).
then the following night will be wiring back to the now otherwise completed roof breaker boxes, then commissioning on Friday by the sparkie.
Luck favours the well prepared
VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539
Posted: 07:28am 22 Jun 2010
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Hi Karl
Nice job mate.
bobFoolin Around
KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178
Posted: 12:03pm 22 Jun 2010
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Stage 5 almost complete
Nth facing array complete, 1.85KW 10 panels
NW facing 8/14 panels up, took these in the dark hence the blue tinge on the ones that were wet...
Fitting panels in the dark and in the rain sucks!
Luck favours the well prepared
Robb Senior Member Joined: 01/08/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 221
Posted: 04:01am 23 Jun 2010
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Whats the peak no load voltage if you were doing it in full sun?
KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178
Posted: 10:43am 23 Jun 2010
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array 1 will be 446Voc 10 panels series
array two will be 312Voc 2x 7 panels in series.
Not doing it in the dark for the hell of it!
doing it in the dark as don't finish work and get home until its almost dark.....
again for the $9,000 savings it doesnt matter that I perhaps need to take a week to install it.
Rain / storms prohibited me from doing almost anything tonight, only got 1 panel up before a storm came through and put a halt to proceedings for the evening.Luck favours the well prepared
Don B Senior Member Joined: 27/09/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 190
Posted: 09:56am 24 Jun 2010
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Out of curiosity Karl, what do you connect the other end of your frame earths to?
RegardsDon B
Robb Senior Member Joined: 01/08/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 221
Posted: 11:41am 24 Jun 2010
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Yep. Just saying it could be an added bonus.
446 volts... Hmm do you get to wire it all up or do you have to let the electrician do that? How did you find out what you can and can't do with all this? The rules and regs etc.
dwyer Guru Joined: 19/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 573
Posted: 02:02pm 24 Jun 2010
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Robb
Robb wrote
446 volts... Hmm do you get to wire it all up or do you have to let the electrician do that? How did you find out what you can and can't do with all this? The rules and regs etc.
Easy if kaelj know what he doing the wiring it all up correcting and let the Mr Sparking check if everything done right there is no reason that he can sign the paper off maybe a good mates of Karlj so what as l have done this many time myself in the pass when l was working for company as workshop maintence fitter just save time and money until my mate who is Mr Sparking arrive the shop to see every jobs done correcting then l never had any problem with it.
Dwyer
Greenthumbs Regular Member Joined: 05/12/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 40
Posted: 01:43am 25 Jun 2010
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Install looks great.
I have just had to move my original PV system across the roof to the other end of the house to make room for the new system to go in.
I could only afford 10 175w panels but I was paying to have them install it.
However I got them to put the rails in for 24 panels and the extra wiring for the other strings so that when we have the money I can install them my self without any problems.
That was a good price on your panels you got.
What brand are they?
Putting the rails verticality like that is good too coz the leaves and junk dont get trapped under the panels.
I did that with mine too.
Why do you need that bloody great earth strap along the rails?
The rails are metal the screws are metal the roof is metal and the roof is connected to a lightning rod/earth one would hope.
I am assuming you put insulators in between the rails and the galv roof to stop corrosion, silicon sealant over the bolts is good I did that too.
I used special insulator ETSA plastic which I got for nothing but I could have used PVC pipe after thinking about it. Just use a 1inch hole saw through the pipe and use the cutout for the insulator even has the hole in it for you and is shaped for the top of the corrugation
Arr the rail has stopped out to Finnish putting the gutter guard up
KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178
Posted: 11:25am 26 Jun 2010
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I'll reply in great detail here for a number of reasons....
The earth cable I used was just normal solar spec cable -I had it left over
as I bought sufficient extension leads to avoid cutting the leads on the panels (ease of re-configuring and/or expansion later.
Why earth the frames...
Transformerless inverters have AC with respect to ground on the inverter inputs.
ie not galvanically isolated.
what does this mean -a capacitive coupling is developed with the frames causing them to be live with ~110VAC.
As it happens, the insulation between feet and roof is poor thus they dont in fact develop the voltage as other TL systems I have seen.
So why bother you ask - those joints that leak the voltage away will cause corrosion and if you can take it away more easily to earth via a proper earth then this will slow down or stop any electrolytic corrosion occurring.
They are connected at the roof mounted breaker box to the 2.5mm2 earth wire.
What about lightning? now that I have a large earth on the roof.....
I bought two earth stakes, one for earth, the other will be a lightning rod
lightning problem solved for $32. (although I have yet to fit it)
As for the sparkie - I didnt commit to buy the equipment until I had a verbal from a sparkie (who indirectly works for my company as a contractor)to go ahead. Problem, in those three weeks the aussie dollar slumped 10c and the REC price dropped $6 result system cost $3000 more....OUCH!
So 450VDC be very careful indeed!
the other reason I bought the extension leads and not cut the ends off the panel leads, I could do all the connections dead, then just plug in the connectors.
I would NOT like to work on live 450V as the hit would kill you without a doubt and as careful as you can be it is very easy for a cut lead to flick around while you are tucking it in somewhere and WHACK dead.....
Is it safe and right... Wouldnt have even attempted it if I didn't know 100% what I was doing.
Do I recommend other to go down this path?
good question
if you have the skills which I'd imagine many here do, and you find a sparkie
friendly to the idea and have some time, go to a couple of installs and lend a hand for free. LEARN everything he does and do as much as he will let you.
He will then either say yep, go for it and i'll come and check it out, tick the box.
Or he will say, lay some cable, do the reacking, plug in some panels and wait.
You will need to be highly specific in the equipment you intend to run as in my case
2.59KW panels on 2KW inverter should be ringing alarm bells BUT through my research, its a tried and successful combo with this equipment and 100% safe and within all the manufacturers (CMS) guidelines.
I did have to spend some time running through the figures with the sparkie before he accepted that fact as he hadn't used these before and wasn't familiar with its parameters.
Panels are ZNShine solar - and yes hunted around for a long time to find panels at reasonable money without having to import them myself.
Pindan Power was the guy. Racking system is bulletproof but next time I'll use an insulated pad under the feet (too late for that now) rather than some sealant -which will be fine anyway.
PVC pipe is a good idea but lots of work -if I had thought of that it would have been a better idea . again too late now.
Final pics to come soon, didnt bother this arvo as I had earned a rest and to boot I had too many beers last night celebrating my savings thus was a little under the weather today!Edited by KarlJ 2010-06-28Luck favours the well prepared
Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me.
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. again too late now.