A Buying Spree

I ahve been on a buying spree of late. I am somewhat getting ahead of the tariff debacle. Unlike others I understand how tarrifs work and how other countries will retaliate.

I have most of the important circuits in my circuit breaker box routed through my transfer switches. will allow me to move many of my electric loads to use the solar generated elctricity. Not all circuits will be on solr, but many of the ones used daily will be. This involves light and outles such as bedroom, bathroom, refrigerator and freezer and important lights around the house. It also will power the computers, router and modem.

If the utility loses power I might not even notice right away. Essentually I will have a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) which is powered during the day directly from the sun and after hours powered from batteries.

I had 2 each 100 watt batteries already but decided to take advantage of the Black Friday deals and get one more battery and a rack to house them. The discount helps pay fort he shipping costs.

I also ordered the wire to go from the solar panels to the house and some ‘caution’ tape to use on the conduit these wires will be in. There are dangerous voltages and currents involved. I also bought a special crimp tool and some connectors that I will need to hook up all the panels. Included int hat order is a special circuit breaker to be put at the panels to disconnect them at the panels themselves.

I have been looking at many videos on how to rack the panels in the yard, since I will not be putting them on the roof. I finally decided to order a mounting system rather than try to build something. I toyed with the idea of just using electrical “U” struts or angle iron, but with so many projects I want to get the panels connected and generating electric sooner than later. If I decide to do the panels differently I can do that in the future.

So far I have charged the two batteries from the grid and run some circuits off the batteries for an hour or two, but probably should have performed a specific test by now. That test would be to run the loads I already have connected from about 5pm when the sun is not in a good spot and see how long into the night I can run the house. By just ordering the third battery, I eliminated the need for that test. The test would have told me if I needed another battery, which is now on its way.

So what is left to do?

I have 2 more circuits to move to the transfer switch. Hopefully I can have the whole breaker box replaced next year to neaten it up and bring it up to date.

Then I need to buy and install conduit (grey or metal) from the house to the locations of the panels.

I will need t ochop down one or two trees that are in the way of eary morning sun. One is a mango tree which has been there for decades and producing but no one has eathen the fruit as it was hard to get to. The fruit dropping to the ground also encouraged feral pigs to live there.

I will probably prop up the panels when I get the wire and then appropriately mount them when the mounting hardware arrives mid month or later.

I am also documenting every breaker and what they control as the old breaker box was missing that.

So I am very close to using the solar panels to run much of the house.