Engineer775 is a channel covering a variety of topics from Homesteading to Renewable Energy, from Water pumping to Hydronics, from Gasification to Air Conditioning.
My ultimate goal is to be completely self sufficient through the wise use of the resources that exist on any small farm. We hope to continue to share ideas on a constant quest to figure things out and help as many people as possible.
Owner of Practical Preppers LLC
www.practicalpreppers.com
Engineer? Yes 1992 Graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute B.S. M.Eng Mechanical Engineering specializing in Robotics and mechanism design.
www.rpi.edu/
Worked as a Product Development Engineer for Michelin Tire Corporation.
Hi thanks for the explanations. can u calculate pls how much elevations and distance it is possible to x-fer the creek water if the volume is 3liters per minute. thakns in advance
*Due to the extreme drop in the price of solar panels trackers are now superfluous. It is much cheaper and much more reliable to simply install more panels!* Trackers are mechanics and need maintenance. And they are very susceptible to wind. For this reason and because of the mechanics, most of them only last a 1-10 years. If you want more constant yields throughout the day, you simply have to set up the panels in an S-E and S-W orientation.
nice to finally see someone not installing a "fire bomb" system in their house. didnt even know they was out, i bet your insurance company likes this model.
I’m interested in putting up panels a friend has Canadian solar CS6P-260P 260Watt. I am not sure what kind of inverter should I use? Looking at putting up 15-30 panels up. Thanks
I think it's too niche, man. A tiny motor is all that's really needed with neglible power. The advantage with that normal kind of system is you can then go bigger and make it a smart system so that you can integrate weather and avoid dangers like wind and hail and even make it so they can shed snow automatically. This also looks a lot more expensive comparatively. It just doesn't make sense to me. Am I missing something like a special use case?
Beautiful work as always. Really enjoying your channel. I would love to know more on how you were able to maintain a 400-amp service yet back up everything with a single solar/battery setup. Are the two Sol-Ark 15k's paralleled or run independently of each other?
@@WilliamLeeming-e6f The two inverters are run in parallel. We use two manual transfer switches that are each 200 amps to each panel so we can maintain the 400 amp service. Though he never uses more than 100 amps so that is why we can backup the entire place with two inverters.
From the EMP Commission's report from April 2008... The EMP Commission “tested a sample of 37 cars in an EMP simulation laboratory, with automobile vintages ranging from 1986 through 2002. Automobiles of these vintages include extensive electronics and represent a significant fraction of automobiles on the road today. The testing was conducted by exposing running and nonrunning automobiles to sequentially increasing EMP field intensities. If anomalous response (either temporary or permanent) was observed, the testing of that particular automobile was stopped. If no anomalous response was observed, the testing was continued up to the field intensity limits of the simulation capability (approximately 50 kV/m).” They go on to describe how little damage was caused. However, they only tested up to 50kV/m. When this ten-year-old video was posted, the report was already six years out of date. Things have probably changed since the report was released sixteen years ago. ;) Most people who are concerned about EMP damage are concerned about “Super EMPs”, which are said to be a much higher voltage pulse. Here is the link to the full report (the automobile section starts on page 115): www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
Man it's addicting watching solar production. I have everything fed into Home Assistant from the SolArk 15k along with some individual circuit monitors to keep a closer eye on things. I love it.
@@engineer775 thanks for replying, I just looked it up! It’s hard to tell on the website how far off the ground the bottom of the panels are and how much land needs to be cleared. We have a lot of trees.
I am planning on doing a similar DIY project as I am about 200 yards from the Gulf of Mexico, just to the north of Clearwater and I know that it is sand at the 15' depth. My water table is between 10' and 15' as I was doing a DIY shallow well. I am am sure these beams would hold up to the 140 wind requirement for hurricanes. I am looking at sinking 6" aluminum pipe (not a beams) into the sand. Then taking the EG4 Solar Ground Mount Rack base brackets and having the local aluminum fabrication shop come out and MIG weld it to the 6" in diameter aluminum pipe end. The nice thing about the EG4 bracket is that it has only one base mount for each support (3 required) and the panel angle is adjustable. Unfortunately, the rack itself is only rated for I believe 110 MPH and Florida will not like that at all. I received my EG4 6000XP last week and next week I am scheduled to receive my EG4 Power Pro All weather 14.3kWh battery. Good luck with your project
@@donaldhoudek2889 please let me know how it turns out!! i bought the eg4-18k package... and im worried about the ground mounting aspect... i got some eco-worthy kits (for a temp)... they dont seem real sturdy (even tap-conned to some cinder blocks).
Our family of 4 have been off grid in our fifth wheel now for a week while we are starting our new home build. 16k of solar on the hay barn running to solar shed (Shed has its own Sol Ark 5k with 3200w array on top with 10kw battery storage with eg4 9k mini split and starlink internet) where the Sol Ark 15k sits with 3 EG4 powerpro batteries. Batteries have yet to fall below 51v and we have been running both ACs (in the 90s in NC) and all the creature comforts of the fifth wheel. Love being independent of the grid. Can't wait to see if we can make the house more efficient than this fifth wheel and stay off grid in a modern farmhouse. Our power company is a co-op so they do not do anything for solar anyway.
@@shawnstangeland3011 I agree. I've resisted this for a long time but I decided to go for it and see how it does. Hopefully my daughter will forgive me if it blows up. Lol
What is the brand/make and spec on the 28 pv panels you installed? I believe you have two 28-panel arrays. Since you're using Sol Ark, that means string inverters as opposed to micro inverters. The 18k EG4 has effectively 3 built-in string inverters. So I'm wondering how many panels you have in a string? Thanks for any details you can provide! -John.
I like this setup with the battery next to the ground mount panels all outside. With the hybrid inverter also outside, it looks like your outside solar powerplant is AC coupled to the house by the inverter, and you probably have a large diameter cable to carry that current to the house. Could you share details on the cable sizing and run for that? Also, would there be any potential cost savings in using a just charge controller outside to fill the batteries and then sending high voltage DC to the house over a potentially smaller diameter cable to just an inverter to do the AC coupling at the house?
@@Turkeychuk It's a good question and it depends on whether or not you have over current protection upstream from the disconnect. If there is a 200 amp breaker upstream in the meter base then. No, you do not need a fuse disconnect but if it's just a standard meter base with no breakers then you have to put in a fused disconnect. One other way around it is to put in an enclosed circuit breaker at 200 amps plus a lockable non-fuse disconnect, but that ends up being more expensive in the long run.
@@alexherrera3918 We have several customers that do not have room for solar. They use inverters and batteries for backup power along with a generator. They use inverters for time of use peak shaving. There are many options.
@@engineer775in UK/Ireland we have time of use power. At night is cheaper. You could have batteries pull from the grid at night run property during the day from batteries cheaper rate
Awesome job. Just one question: Is the cable between the battery bank and the inverter not supposed to be a lot shorter? During my training, we were always taught to keep the cables between battery and inverter to under 3 meters (9 feet). Perhaps our lecturers are overly strict…
@@Tranquilitarian Yes, the rule of thumb is to keep battery cables short. However, a customer requested that we put them in the room that they're in. We use 4/0 cobraflex wire that is capable of 454 amps. The most the inverter can dish out is 275. I believe that cable is 16 ft. We have done up to 20 ft. The voltage drop is acceptable with that type of wire.
