What did you do today? 2018 version

[NW-Bound]

Just came back from a drive to go pick up two more solar panels.

After finally installing the panels I bought a few months ago on a ground-mount rack along the back fence, I found that I needed two more panels to fill up the space. Hence, the additional purchase. Then, another stop at an electric supply place to get the miscellaneous hardware, such as the panel clamps to mount them on the rails.

I may get to a point to post a photo of the work so far , although there's a lot of work left, starting with wiring them up to the solar shed, building the lithium battery rack, mounting the electronics, etc..., before I can call it done. Still rushing against the summer arrival, particularly if I want to take a 2-month spring trip through northern Spain and Portugal.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We saw a holiday concert by the US Air Force Band of the Golden West. They were great!

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, here's the photo of the DIY solar array that I finished installing yesterday. It has a nameplate rating of 5.5 kW.

Sorry to my technical friends who wanted to see more, like photos of the electronics, schematic diagrams, firmware listing of the battery monitor microcontrollers, etc... I do not have anything finalized yet, and still have a lot to do. This will go on for a couple of years to have all the bells and whistles, although I hope to produce power in a month or two.

PS. The array is against the backyard fence, on the northside of the lot. It is partially shaded by the peak of the 2nd story in the winter, but facing south and in full sun all day about 10 months of the year.

The slope is very slight at 5 degrees for rain water run-off. This angle is not optimum for year-round production, but best for summer production which I care about the most as I use 4x more electricity in the summer compared to the winter. And it works out well, as a steeper angle would cause me to bump my head on the edge when walking under it.

 

[Jerry1]

Nice solar panel set up.

I did a small bit of electrical work today. I had a guy in to do a lot of troubleshooting/clean up work on my electrical. Old house that we bought two years ago and just getting to this job. It’s attic work and it’s tough but I needed to get it done so I can insulate the attic and call that part of the house done. Anyway, one of the plugs in the house did not have a ground. He followed some wires and concluded that it wasn’t a break/lose wire in the attic. He gave me some ideas on what it could be and I said I’d handle it. Well, today I did and now all the plugs in that room have been replaced and are working properly. Nice little project for a retired guy.

 

[Ronstar]

Nice solar panel set up.

+1

I’m intrigued by solar panels lately since there is a move afoot to build solar farms near our place in Illinois. Doesn’t really seem like a good spot for solar farms.

NW - do those few leaves on your panels diminish the output of your panels? Will you have to periodically remove the leaves?

I just watched a YouTube video of an off grid Wyoming tiny house with solar panels and they had to remove snow from them to keep them working.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Sitting here watching it snow at a rate of 1" per hour, I'm savoring the feeling that I have nowhere to go Monday (except the doctor and I plan to cancel that). This will likely be the record snowfall in a December since records started to be kept.

 

[travelover]

...........I’m intrigued by solar panels lately since there is a move afoot to build solar farms near our place in Illinois. Doesn’t really seem like a good spot for solar farms...........

I think you need to grow them where there is a lot of silicone in the soil, so that is where they site the farms.

 

[Walt34]

First day back at the gym in a bit over a week because I had a cold. Somewhat to my surprise I was able to do the entire workout as normal although I did have to take longer between sets to rest. And of course I don't know yet whether I'll be too sore to get out of bed tomorrow.

 

[NW-Bound]

NW - do those few leaves on your panels diminish the output of your panels? Will you have to periodically remove the leaves?

I just watched a YouTube video of an off grid Wyoming tiny house with solar panels and they had to remove snow from them to keep them working.

Yes.

Any shading of a panel will reduce its output. And shading a small portion, say 5% of a panel, will cause a reduction of 5%, or in the worst case to zero output, depending on how the panel is wired up in a system.

What happens is this: the panels are built up from cells - the visible individual squares - wired in series, and each contributes about 0.5V to the output. The current from each panel will have to travel through all the cells. If a cell is partially dark, its current is reduced proportionally. If a cell is entirely shaded, its current is 0, and becomes a blockage in the string.

Solar panels are commonly built with 60 (6x10), or 96 (8x12), and even up to 128 (8x16) cells. It is terrible to lose the whole panel if just one of the cells gets blocked.

So, most panels have the cells wired in 3 substrings, and each string has a bypass diode. And if one cell in a substring is blocked, the entire substring is bypassed, which means the output voltage is only 2/3 of the normal output. So, you lose 1/3 of the output, instead of the entire panel output, right? Only if you are lucky!

What happens is that the panels in a system are often wired up in series in strings. Large arrays may have multiple strings, which are wired in parallel. Let's say you have 2 strings, each string consists of 10 panels. If one panel of String A has just one of its cells blocked, that panel will contribute only 2/3 of its voltage, and the entire String A will have its voltage being 9.66x the individual voltage of each panel. However, String B still produces 10x the voltage.

When they are wired in parallel, the controller may load the two strings down barely to the point where String B will conduct, but String A does not. You have lost one entire string, or 1/2 of your array!

PS. Recent residential installations use microinverters instead of the old-style string inverters. This allows each panel to operate independently, and that solves the problem above. In the example above, instead of a small shading of just one panel causing loss of 1/2 of the array of 20 panels, you will lose just 1/3 of the affected panel, which is now only 1/60 of the total array.

 

[HFWR]

I think you need to grow them where there is a lot of silicone in the soil, so that is where they site the farms.

You’re thinking boob implants...

 

[MRG]

It's was cold this morning when we went to the hot springs, 16°F. Warm mist coming off the pools quickly turned to frosty ice. Couldn't see more than 20 feet; absolutely awesome once you committed to going outside in your bathing suit at that temperature.

On our way home we were treated to these elk attempting to cross the highway. When we first saw them they were running full tilt towards the highway and then pulled up. Later they went back, only to return. I talked with another guy who said they'd been trying all day to cross the highway. There's a Walmart over there, not sure what they need to pick up.

 

[W2R]

It's was cold this morning when we went to the hot springs, 16°F. Warm mist coming off the pools quickly turned to frosty ice. Couldn't see more than 20 feet; absolutely awesome once you committed to going outside in your bathing suit at that temperature.

On our way home we were treated to these elk attempting to cross the highway. When we first saw them they were running full tilt towards the highway and then pulled up. Later they went back, only to return. I talked with another guy who said they'd been trying all day to cross the highway. There's a Walmart over there, not sure what they need to pick up.

You have NO idea of how exotic your post and photos seem to those of us down South! Next you'll be harnessing a team of sled dogs or building an igloo. How cool that you saw all those elk! Elk? What a magnificent, huge beast. I can't even imagine.

It has probably been a half century since I experienced 16F, and I sure wasn't wearing a bathing suit...

Frank loves the colder temperatures that we have been having this week here in New Orleans. It's 56F outside right now, brrrrrr….. I am not used to this and prefer the heat. It's nice and warm inside, though.

 

[Octogirl]

well. its Monday so I was at work by 10 am.

My day's highlight was talking to a friend of mine (we stand at the copier - think "The Office) who is also in OMY and we talked about our retirement plans.

 

[MBAustin]

I've turned into a serious wimp after living in Texas nearly 20 years - now when it's below 40 degrees I delay my morning walk with our dog until it warms up. So today I spent the morning starting to tidy the house for my bunco group visit on Thursday as well as DS and DD being home over the holidays.

After yoga class, I went to the post office to priority mail two documents for one of my volunteer gigs. What a zoo! Line nearly out the door so I decided to use the self-service kiosk which had only 3 people waiting. Got one completed and then the address for the second one was rejected. After a phone call I got the correct address and then had to get back in line, this time behind a man mailing a dozen holiday cards to several different foreign countries. Total of 40 minutes in there!

Stopped on the way home to visit a friend who's in a nursing home for rehab, then got air in my tires and filled up the gas tank - I'm driving to San Antonio for a meeting tomorrow.

Finally made the little dog happy as we got our walk in. Time for a glass of wine and dinner prep.

 

[Souschef]

Spent the afternoon having the portraits of us taken on our cruise printed at a local photo shop. DW ordered the frames and they were due here today by USPS.
Watched the sub mailperson put mail in our box and start to drive away. I yelled,"What about out package?". He thern stopped and opened the back to get our package.
The rest of the afternoon was spent unboxing the 9 frames, and putting the correct photos in each one.
We have sets for our 4 sons and our 4 grandchildren, plus a set for us.

 

[MRG]

You have NO idea of how exotic your post and photos seem to those of us down South! Next you'll be harnessing a team of sled dogs or building an igloo. How cool that you saw all those elk! Elk? What a magnificent, huge beast. I can't even imagine.

It has probably been a half century since I experienced 16F, and I sure wasn't wearing a bathing suit... [emoji23]

Frank loves the colder temperatures that we have been having this week here in New Orleans. It's 56F outside right now, brrrrrr….. I am not used to this and prefer the heat. It's nice and warm inside, though.

Thank you. I can only hope we need to use dogsled for travel! Our Maltese and Shih Tzu are ready![emoji1]

This area really needs water, we're still in a drought. At this altitude 100" of snowfall is the average(no worries, it's a dry snow[emoji23] )! Hopefully we get back some of last year's shortfall.

 

[pb4uski]

Yesterday actually.....

On Saturday I mentioned to DW that since she has always been keen to go to an NFL game and our Patriots were playing the Dolphins in Miami only 3 hours drive away that perhaps we shoudl but some tickets and go to the game... I got a lukewarm reception.. tickets were "too expensive" so I thought ah, she just doesn't care to go that much.

So at 0730 on Sunday morning she stands next to my bedside and wakes me up... informs me that she found some tickets for a decent price and she wants to go. By 7:38 we have bought the tickets and by 8:20 we are on the road to Miami. After a couple stops for provisions and call of nature, we arrived at Hard Rock Stadium at 12:11 pm and were comfortably seated soon thereafter. The game was good, entertaining since neither defense decided to show up... and as I'm sure the whole world knows by now, the Patriots defense left before the game was over.

A quick exit, stop for gas and we stopped to visit some friends in Naples on our way home, arriving back home about 10:15 pm. It is truly impressive how easy it is to get in and out of that stadium.

Today, lunch out and then to the Tervis Factory Store to return some of DSister's Tervis tumblers that needed repair and then some furniture shopping on the way home.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We saw a community theater production of A Christmas Carol and attended a holiday party over the weekend, so today was a stay home and catch up around the house today. I put up the inside Christmas decorations. We simplified down to a few LED light strings and tabletop trees around the fireplace. The squirrels chewed through our outside light strings so we have to wait to put up the outside decorations until we buy replacement lights.

 

[Walt34]

Gym day, then early afternoon lunch with DW at Ruby Tuesday with a $5 off coupon (her idea) a grocery run and then home. I'm making progress at the gym with modest but steady increases in the weights on some machines.

 

[Ronstar]

Morning workout, met a rattlesnake on my morning walk, bought the latest Clive Cussler book at the mom and pop book store, now resting in the mall waiting for DW. Then to the Apple store to evaluate a new laptop and then off to dinner.

 

[mamadogmamacat]

Lazy morning (best part of ER) with coffee and a handful or two of nuts and spending time enjoying the views of the woods and the companionship of my three remaining old pets. Then feeding and medicating them. A phone call to my 91 yr old Aunt, the last of the prior generation in my family. She sounded strong and sharp, and it was so invigorating having spoken with her, as it so often is for me, quite a treasure is she. Some computer time, probably more than I should, but so what, another benefit of ER. More coffee and an omelet. Then on to Bible study group, accompanied by my dog. Back home to more pet care as subQ fluids and more food and meds are on the agenda for the cats. Salad and kefir with fruit sometime later. Online Christmas shopping too, and maybe a call to one of my work mentors and good friends who is also getting up there in yrs, as I sent his gift off online last night.

 

[aja8888]

Took DW to her endocrinologist for her 6 month Prolia shot, then picked up two prescriptions for her at Walmart Pharmacy. That about did the day in except for racking some leaves in the back yard.

 

[Retire2013]

Today is like most other days in ER. I go to my local animal shelter and walk the dogs there. I do this almost daily. It's a miracle my own dog is not jealous. When I come home from the shelter, my dog smells all these other ragamuffins on me. She seems to understand that I go somewhere to take care of some other dogs. I love dogs. Everyday I am trying NOT to adopt a dog. My rule for myself is I am allowed to volunteer as many hours I'd like to; I just cannot adopt. I already have one rescue dog and one rescue cat. After walking dogs at the shelter, I took my dog to dog beach and give her a run on the sand, off leash. She was super happy. ER is truly awesome.
So much free time to clean and organize the house and the garage and to try cooking new recipes. Each and everyday in ER, I still am so thrilled that I've ER'd. I am not taking this for granted at all. I am loving it!!!!

 

[iloveyoga]

Today, after sleeping very well, I got up and had coffee and messed around on my computer. DH had Christmas music on by the tree, so I wrapped and added some decorations to the main tree. We went out for a nice lunch and had a good walk in our 'hood.

I worked in my office for less than two hours, laid around some more and then met a friend for dinner at a local restaurant.

It was fairly warm here in central Iowa, nice and dry too. A very nice retiree day.

 

[coveredbridge]

Baked my first ever batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Taste just like Mom used to make.