Built the first of three solar panel mounts. / redpoppyranch Contact: redpoppyranch98@gmail.com Music: Epidemicsound.com 1st Song - you know it too Da Sein 2nd Song - feel good folk Bo Jarpeq
You seem to love looking for a lot of bargains putting your family home together, from your family background you had a lot of family showing you had to do these things. You are doing an awesome and amazing.
Throw a chain over the horizontal pipe and weld to the vertical pipe to keep the entire array from lifting off in a storm. It will let you rotate the setup still and if you need to remove can cut the chain off. Don't forget the snow load for weight that the setup needs to support. With the side of the arrays you will need to clear the snow in front of them after each storm so a small level path large enough for a plow to push the snow away or else it will be lots of shoveling before the snow hardens up. One idea that might help keep the panels clear is attaching tubes to the back of each panel to send warmed water (50-60F) ahead of a snow storm with a little wood burner to heat the water and a 12v pump to circulate it. Don't need to get the panels hot just above 32F for them to melt the snow as it hits. The same heater would also make cleaning them off easier if you start heating and create a water layer between the snow and glass. With 3 arrays you can have one aimed more south east for early light. one aimed south for mid day and one aimed more south west for late day sun with them all producing all day just when each is at its peak.
Yes I'm sure your glad to get that off your mind since it's been a year and a half! Looks like it should hold up in the wind as well which I know you said was a concern. Things are really coming together now so I happy for you and the family. Thanks again for sharing.
I would run 4 lengths of unistrut across it, one of our neighbors installed a ground mount similar but with fencing pipe. We had a really good wind up here and the wind put a twisting force on the panels and cracked all the panels from the flex from the wind..
I’m absolutely floored that one man, you, have done all this! Your amazing! It must feel incredible knowing you worked so hard, through heat, cold, blood, sweat, love and sheer grit, to give you and your family a beautiful life! Generations to come will enjoy what you’ve created.
Wow, that's a big sail. My concern would be wind catching that puppy and popping it out of the ground. Just a thought, but might consider a piece of rebar, angle iron, or something crossway to give resistance to it just being pulled out of ground, if wind catches it just right. 50-80mph are not unheard of, kind of common in my part of the world. I've had my 8' satellite dish move with a 1,000 pound piece of concrete bolted to it. Something you might consider for east west adjustment is installing mobile home tie down augers a few feet out from each lower corner, and use ratchet load straps to turn, and anchor panels to ground.
Looks Good! My only suggestion. I don't think the set screw is going to be good enough to keep it from not spinning in the wind. I would drill through and pin it or bolt it
Hi Invention Development; That is called "Tableing". This only gives false security as the mount should be strong enough to resist any wind from any direction iat all times. See my comments above. Down bursts happen in a couple of seconds at any time. There is not enough time to do tableing. Besides there are other aerodynamic effect that are just as bad. redrok redrok.com
Looking good, you've avoided mistakes that a lot of others have made by not mounting them so low on the ground that they get covered by snow and weeds, and by making them rotatable. Hoping you can install the batteries pretty close. It should be pretty easy to add a tracking actuator later on.
Nice setup, I find being able to adjust from time to time can be helpful. If I've had a particularly high use day I'll tilt my panel for optimum morning sun then re-adjust it back as the day passes. Great Channel as well. Congrats on all your subs.
If you run the electric wires under ground, encase any wire showing from the ground up the pole to the panels,we used an old hose and coated it in tar to keep the rabbits from chewing the wires
Looks great, paint and tie it down. I have made one like but it's out of 5" case. I have 1k (9x125)on a tracker. been up and running since 2011! thoughts panels are very nice!
Suggestions for you on bracing and anchoring. I like most of it, except your ideas for bracing and anchoring. At the angle you talked about bracing it, I don't see it doing much of anything structurally. My suggestion is to take a second piece of female coupling and have it float closer to the bottom of the pole and weld your supports to that. You might be able to get closer to (or an actual) 45 degree angle on your supports, which would be super strong. Then you can put you wires off of the angled ties further out. I would also do opposing wires (four at 90's) on the center top coupler, which will give you full stability. Also, as I was typing this, I thought about something else I will add to mine. A series of rebar anchors in a circle with rings welded to the tops (at ground level, and at whatever degree intervals make sense ). That would allow for using quick release couplers at the bottom, so you can have ready to go anchors when you adjust direction (or you can just put in additional anchors as you go). I am going to be buying property (again) myself soon, and will probably borrow your ideas on the other portions of your design.
Looks great. I'd love to have a mount like that. I only have 1850 currently but hopefully I can get another 12 or 16 panels soon. At the moment I have 8 adjustable aluminum ground mounts but they still need to be bolted to something. They are the 50 dollar each units from Amazon and kinda light weight but not the best for sure. Good video thanks for showing your build
Great work ! Simple design. I'd definitely agree with "T" below on the set screw. We live on 'the point' here with lots of wind. I've seen bolts even ripped out of concrete - but we hit over 120 mph then. Anyway lot of force directed at that one spot - So very fine idea with adding the guy wires. Peace of mind is always a good thing. All the best!
To camouflage the solar panel array from the road, you could build trellis or arbor (grow plant of choice), or build a rammed earth wall too block the view and act as a wind brake.
I fenced in my priory with railroad ties and cattle panels, 16’, and Tractor supply 5 yrs ago had a smoking deal, I couldn’t pass it up, was cheaper than the rolled fence as well. How heavy are those? I think mine were,200-250lbs each.....I installed 75, and three telephone poles for a ranch style entrance way....memories....
You may want to build a stair case from the back yard to your solar panels - it will make access easier for routine cleaning and inspection. Looks good.
See if you can find a tracking telescope you can use that mechanism to track the sun in order to get the most direct sun for the longest period possible as it is where you are peak solar hours are low so getting as much as you can may be of great benefit especially during the winter months
Hope that I am wrong but I think that you need that pipe installed, anchored into a LARGE cement block. They use about 4 yards of concrete here so that it won't blow away or pull out.
Over here in Northern Utah, we have had some serious 50+ MPH winds, bad enough we couldn't see across the street for all of the dirt blowing, I love, love, love the design and your materials selection, ( I have been wanting to build a tracking array myself.we have a large mountain in our backyard to our west ) my only concern is needing some weight to hold that puppy down, but I have an idea so nothing has to come apart, dig down on one side and weld some horizontal pipes down in the ground, then bury the horizontal pipes with a mix of large rocks on top of that, would be nearly as good as concrete without the costs. Then repeat on the other side.
Before you paint your next 2 pipe mounts , go buy a quart of 4% Phosphoric acid and acid wash the pipe ! USE rubber gloves !!!! It'll remove all the rust , let it sit for 24 hours , then paint . Should be available @ home depot and\or Lowes ! You should really use cement for your main pipe sloar mounts . The dirt will allow the pipe to lean if the snow load gets too heavy on one side or the other . UNLESS , you add pipe braces to the main pipe !!!!!
If you're really concerned about the pipes rusting and losing integrity you could strap an anode (big piece of zinc) onto it. The zinc will rust out preferentially to the iron just like in a hot water heater.
How are you storing energy, batteries don’t last so I’m sure someone’s used super capacitors but i haven’t found them yet. You could add a retaining natural pool with a hydroelectric setup. I think a waterfall retaining wall behind the house would look great, plus since you’ve saidur not going to have ac your n your kids are gonna want some way to stay cool in the summer.
Ok. So now you have water and electricity up there. When will you bring in your propane tank? Man you guys will be living up there before too long! Well done! (And I do reaize that you need to finish hooking everything up and connecting it to the house...) But you're really moving forward. Oh and I agree with one of the other comments. Thru drill that mount, and reinforce your corners. You have a very large wind sail there and you don't want to lose it to the weather...
It's said, so much loss of current over length, due to resistance. A heavier gauge helps, but shortening the run is best for preserving your collected solar energy. Have a blast and rock on! peace
Hi Red Poppy Ranch guys; I don't want to be critical but I do want to say that I think your mount is a bit weak for the panel array you have. Here are my comments on it. Wind loading calculations based on the National Building Code, NBC. I 'm wary about the strength of the main pipe you are using in your design. My problem is your not designing to a high enough wind force. The NBC is used for houses, structures, and towers in windy environments. Generally, the wind loading portion of the code is used to design for horizontal wind pressure is 10 lbf/ft^2. Some areas of the country use 15 lbf/ft^2. This means the structure must resist this load for every square foot projected horizontally. Other local building codes I have seen go to an extreme of 50 lbf/ft^2. You need to see what your building codes say. The max force is not caused by normal weather based wind which rarely exceeds 70mph. The max survivable force is caused by down bursts from cumulus clouds which causes an almost instantaneous 90mph which is 10lbf/ft^2. 105mph causes 15lbf/ft^2. Down bursts don't happen often but they do happen annoyingly enough. I have, over the years, had a number of my customers that it happened to. Some survived, others didn't. They had an expensive lesson. Of course, tornado go much higher but are not survivable. Hurricanes are also not survivable but you have time to take the panels down. I don't think your drill stem will survive, even the 4" won't survive. I have not calculated the dynamic wind loads nor the panel supports. There is a reason the big commercial mounts have massive support pipe. Take a look at what I call "Tripod Mounts" which are stronger in every way and use relatively light materials. See: www.redrok.com/electron.htm#tripod I have a spreadsheet that may be useful for calculating pole strengths. I tailored it for your vertical post. See: www.redrok.com/Red_Poppy_Drill_Stem.xls I hope this is helpful! redrok redrok@redrok.com
I bought 2.5kw in used solar for $577 delivered. I just uploaded a video and they seem to produce the power and more. I was going to buy 10 more panels but was really curious of the condition. I just realized I will use 3 in series so that's 9 or 12 per array.
My biggest concern is the U-bolts allowing the Unistrut assembly to Vertically shift in the wind and the pipe being undersized for the structural load.. Good luck.
i watched this again to see the cost of the panels. I heard you say the pipe was about $450, but what was the cost of the panels and what is the rating of them. I think what you are doing is great!! When you are doing this stuff it is sometimes by the seat of the pants, but it seems like you have been planning. Again great job. Thanks for sharing this.
Look at God!!!! Won't He do it for you when you trust and believe? I watch you cause you are a man of faith even with trials and tribulations you keep pressing.
Why not use a jack screw or a 12 v ram to do your fine tuning? I would also run angle iron as a brace to take out your bow….any flex or deflection adds to some solar loss.
I’ve watched this video 50 times and I want to copy yours to the tea I’m using 395 white panels I’m gonna have to use counterbalance legs we can’t penetrate the soil in Southeast Oklahoma would you by any chance be willing to send me your dimensions my panels are 40 x 80 anyhow great job
