Slower Going

The solar install is taking longer than I want for many reasons. Life is complicated.

I have added and remove circuit breaker connections a few times. I am at least one slot short of what I need and in actuality, would prefer to upgrade the whole breaker box. It was installed perhaps in 1985 and the connections have been patched a few times and it looks not to be up to code in some places. I see two 120 volt circuits seem to be on one breaker and I have not been able to determine what they are connected to.

I bought a circuit breaker identifier which has two parts. One looks like a circuit tester that plugs into an active outlet and you use the wand at the breaker box to find the proper circuit breaker. The sender at the outlet is powered by the outlet and emois a signal down the wire. At the breaker box you scan each breaker and the unit determines which breaker had the strongest signal. Then when you scan again, it indicates the (most likely) breaker. I say most likely as sometimes more than one breaker is indicated. When you switch off the indicated breaker, the wand should go silent. This unit requires you to plug into each outlet or each light socket to create a proper list of what is on which breaker. In the past, you would either plug a radio into an outlet and then switch off each breaker until the music stopped. Another way woudl have been to turn on all the lights, flip a breaker and see what turned off. With this unit, you can have someone go outlet to outlet and you stay at the box and keep scanning.

Since my house is somewhat open underneath, I oftentimes can just follow the wires and see where they go up into the main level. There would be an outlet above that area for example. Only having beans and plywood above and no basement ceiling makes it pretty simple.

So, for the few cases where I have a breaker or a lose wire in the box that I cannot identify, I have an alternative. I have a wire tester that I use for LAN and telephone cables. It generates a tone on the wires and the wand is a simple amplifier and speaker. When you get near the other end of the wire you touch the receiver near the wire and should hear a loud beeping. Th eproblem with using this for live circuits is that it was not designed nor well protected for that type of connection. However, fort he loose wires in the breaker box, they are not live as the ydo not connect to a breaker. I’ll just clip on then and go through the rooms and see which outlets or swtches beep. Perhaps they are completely disconencted which I can find touching the receiver to the wires in the unfinishened part under the house. I do know that the 220 vac dual breaker for the hot water heater was disconencted and the dual breaker changed t otwo individual breakers. I use a propane on-demand hot water heater which does not require 220 volts. In fact it only requires 120 volts just t oignite the propane. Some units use a battery operated ignition system.

Also, the circuit breaker box was installed at a wrong height for either its installed location where you are standing on the ground (its too high) and too low for its locatiuon whe nwe extended the downstais to outside. It also has not great locations to add new wire cables for my installation. One connection might have to temporarily come out of the back of the panel into the open space under the house where I have the solar controller and transfer switch mounted. I am trying to do a professional looking install but keep getting thwarted. Yes, if I had all the right tools and parts it would not be such a problem. The metal flexible conduit I received with the transfer switch is to oshort and I am unable to just buy a 6 foot section that I need. I can buy 25 feet… but that is a waste of money. I can use eletcrical PVC but it is bulky for the location I have available. Metal rigid conduit would be best but then I need tools and lots of extra parts. The more time I spend trying to get this hooked up takes away from me building a rack to hold the solar panels. I believe that I will get the couple of trees cutdown I need to and temporarily connect the panels to my system. That will allow me save some money in electric costs which can be used for a proper mounting. I think I am goung to end up with vertical posts in cinder blocks willed with concrete and electrical struts across. I only have 8 panels and will probably just have one string across the yard. It would be helpful to know if I need more panels before some idiot decided to change the tariffs for these systems made overseas.

I have tested things to sensure how I can bring power into the system from the grid but that menat not having my clothes drier connected (that lack of space for another breaker). Right now I can only charge the batteries from the grind and I prefer not to power the drier from the batteries only or the grid. My thinking is to get the panels hooked up and only power the drier from my solar controller during the day, thus that power would be next to free. I’ll leave the stove on the grid and it is a heavier user of power and I prefer not to drag the batteries down at night when I might decide to cook. I can evaluate that based upon my final grid costs. Note that we will be on Time Of Day charges and nightime cost is pretty high. I have to see what amount of power I really use vrs how much battery and daytime solar I have. Perhaps adding one more battery woudl cover me. Time will tell.

So another issue that is slowing me down is parts. Ace Hardware a very few items I need. Generally I have to drive 20 miles into town to Lowes or Home Depot to get electrical and building supplies. Any thing from Amazon can take a couple weeks to get here even with my Prime membership. Buying from other sites can cost tremenbdously. For example I wanted to buy a $20 cable (a small, fits in an envelope cable somewhat similar to a cable you plug into your computer and router but with some components inside). The company which had one could ship it but shipping was going to cost over $50, thus a total cost of $70+ dollars! That is because they drop ship and the company they get it from usually only ships solar panels and heavy equipment and does not use the US Post Office but rather freight. Freight to Hawaii is often by boat and takes weeks! So you either hope there is an Amazon seller who will ship USPS so it takes 2 weeks because Amazon takes two weeks often, ot you buy from some othe r3rd party who will still take two weeks but adds $50 just because the can. If the part had been just a LAN cable, I would have made that up myself as I have the parts.

Another slow down is that a limo company had computer issues and I went to help. Then there is the occasional when I am called into giving tours at the nearby historic church.

So I also am trying to get the farm into shape and got on the tractor yesterday. I found the drive belts were loose and one was starting t ooverhead. I removed the cover and spent a few hours swapping out two the the three belts. There still is a bit of play in one and I am going to have to order 3 belts so they are all the same age and size. Belts stretch after a while. So I got the cover back on the mower deck and found that the tractor would not properly turn the flails, so I could not mow. The belts were not overly tight so I checked the hydrolic fluid and found it low. Thus the tractor didn’t have enough ‘oom pa pa’ (it’;s a technical term 🙂 to drive the mower. At that point I checked and did not have anough fluid to top off. I checked the NAPA auto parts store nearby and they had some in stock. I grabbed my credit card and headed there. I stopped at ACE first and bought a long-neck funnel because getting to that small tractor fill spot with a large can of fluid will cause all sorts of spillage.

This a 5 gallon bucket of fluid that costs over $100 dollars. I ge tto NAPA and the clerk asks me if I can pay in cash. The othe rclerk was busy and that other clerk had the card swipe machine that has been broken for a while. No, it seems that all card swipe machines for NAPA on island are down. Well he tell me the total is something like $120 or so but I only have a $100 bill. I have a discound code but that doesn’t drop the price enough. I am about ready to leav and head t otown but he figures out a code or discount that will drop the price to something like $99.65 so I buy it.

Life in the tropics is ALMOST like a 3rd world country. We just try to roll with the punches.