solar

I was approached this week by a solar company. I live in Virginia and our electric bill is rising due to Virginia doing away with coal and nuclear. There are solar farms popping up everywhere. Salesmen said I would save money over the long haul with solar. They own the panels and I would pay a...

I recently installed a solar panel on my dump trailer battery. It has really solved my dead battery issues however recently one of the wires gets hot and starts smoking. The wire that smokes runs into the bottom of the onboard battery charger. The battery charger is never plugged in now given...

Hope this is a good forum to post this: Does anyone have a solar water well ? I am in the VERY beginning stages (actually, just thinking about it) installing one. Have a 6" cased well an oil company drilled that now is my possession. Several years ago, the static water level was about 80'. A...

I was looking at our tractor today & wondering what to get it for Xmas.... Something inexpensive but useful would do it. And not too large of a project. Why not put a solar charger up there on top of the canopy? There's lots of unused space, and then the battery would always be fully charged...

I am looking to do a 10kW ground mounted adjustable solar panel system. I am on 15 acres so I have plenty of room for ground panels. I also will want them to be adjustable so I can change them from winter to summer sun angles. I currently use under 600 kWh of electricity per month. That will...

Spent my first weekend in my solar powered cabin. This is on some property I will build my retirement home on in the future. We just needed somewhere to get out of the heat and cool off when working at the property, or to sleep at a couple nights a month. Power company wanted $5000 to run...

Finally got everything done with solar....so time to dump some pics. Site prep was challenging.... hillside.... The racking is Sinclair sky-rack 2.0 seasonal adjust. They spec'd a 7' deep hole 24" in diameter. Had to make an auger extension for that. Panels are Canadian solar 540w bifacial...

Long story short....My local coop/electric company have made some favorable changes to their residential net metering policies that now has me re-evaluating going solar. Basically I currently pay $51 as "meter" charge. Thats simply the pleasure of being hooked to their grid. Beyond that, I pay...

Guys, I have 5 deep cycle batteries, all with "750amps Cold Cranking Power" which I don't know how to interpret. Feeding these are 5 100W solar panels. I want to add a small refrigerator powered by an inverter to 120V. Advertised to draw roughly 1 amp. That sounds OK, I think. I worry about...

Farmers planting with super accurate GPS systems have been idled by the recent solar storms: https://www.404media.co/solar-storm-knocks-out-tractor-gps-systems-during-peak-planting-season/

Anyone use a mini split with dedicated solar panels? I don't have any connection or have I bought anything from this company but I like the idea of self contained solar...

I would like to hear thoughts on a "survival" mode solar set up. The only heavy draw we have is a 3/4HP well pump (6.8 A @ 230V). Our old 5000kW generator handled it fine so that should be all the power we need. Typical usage is .7kWhr at night and .9kWhr during the day. 500-600 kWhr per...

We just happen to be in that narrow swath where it will be a total solar eclipse and I hope that people heed the warnings about wearing the special (free) eclipse glasses so they don't burn their retina's. Just because the sun will be totally blocked off for a short time, the sun's corona will...

My solar went positive for the first day this year. That’s normal for where I live as January and February are cloudy months. It will only get better as May is my peak output month. Peak output was 6.9 kW. Not bad for a 7.5 kW system.

Good morning. Our 1960 Case 430 diesel has two 6v batteries, apparently it is 6v running 12v starting. It lives out in a shed on a lot with no power. I would like to keep the batteries up, but am unsure how to go about it. I use the little 1.5 watt solar maintainers from Horrible Fright on...

Like most people here, over the years, I have had several trailers. Some have proven to be good and some have not. But every trailer that has had a backup brake battery has been a problem. Every battery has gone bad. Every year. So before long, I quit checking it. I live in Missouri which...