I’ve been away for so long that another power.com is gone. Have wondered whatever happened to Oztules or Big John. I know 10 years ago he was up in years but his stuff was like magic. Any info would be great. For myself I finally retired in 2021 to the Philippines. 5.4kw of panels didn’t do the job well after turning on the bedroom AC. Recently upgraded to 30 620w panels from TongWei bifacial and just under $100 each. Painted my roof white so I get reflected light too. These things are kicking like crazy. Had to turn down max pv charge because it was tripping bms and burnt a breaker. Dc MCB’s aren’t made for clamping wires effectively so a switch and fuse now. We’re in the monsoons and I still get enough charge to run the whole night. I started with 18 300w panels from bluesun and they never produced close to their rating and cost me twice as much as the new panels. I’ve got half on the east roof and half on the west roof and by noon batteries are full and rainy day full by 3-4pm. No more brownouts for me. I use a PowMr inverter cost around $500 but it has 2 pv input rated at 500voc and 6.8kw per input. Grid tie is on or off in setting. All setting accessible thru the app Solar of Things, Sun Wise or Sun House on iOS. You can use it in solar assistant or home assistant at powmr’s data site solar.siseli.com using a GitHub with HACS or make your own app. All these are on android as well. Home assistant is free. This inverter is an all in one package at 10.2kw output. Charges batteries from grid if you wish up to 140a with a system max garage of 160a. 2 year warranty and hackable if you’ve got those kinda brains. OTA firmware updates if you contact them. No 2 are alike and Ai recommends caution about firmware in the wild. No, I’m not sponsored, too old for that crap but if your starting out it’s a really nice inverter. My Advice always get an inverter rate twice what you really need so it’s never pushing at its limits. Pics of system and setting batteries. A graph that shows the difference in old panels versus new on the 21st. My days of experimentation are done but very interested in what others are up to.

---

Hi Mike

Yeah was a shame to see Another Power and the Fieldlines forum disappear. Some internal conflict I believe, or a change in direction. I think shutting down the Fieldlines forum was a bit selfish, it was a fantastic resource and keeping a site like that, even in read only mode, is not expensive. I see someone has kicked off a new Fieldlines forum, wish them the best.

This forum will continue and evolve as new topics crop up. Its mostly about the Maximite/Picomites now. As long as people use it I'll keep it online.

Oz and Big John sort of left the scene a few years ago. There was some confusion about a post or something, I've forgotten, and Oz said his goodbye.

I've not worked on a windmill since the last one blew up in a willy willy ( dust devil ), my solar and battery are good enough now that I dont need it.

Glenn

Hi Solarnewbee, good to see you are still about and that you have finally moved to the Phillipines.
Enjoy your retirement
Pete