New garage time!

[fatjay]

They said m4 or m5 for mounting, converted to metric which is 1/4", but 1/4 doesn't fit. #12 does, hex head lag bolts because I am done dealing with phillips.

Backer board up, 4/6 inverters up. Reset switch was poorly placed directly in front of where one of the mounting holes was and I had to remove it temporarily. Kind of a dumb design, but oh well.

 

[fatjay]

So my big panel as it turns out, is 3 phase. So in theory, if i bond L2 and L3 and run split phase, i should have all slots active, but if I want to run any 220, i need to make sure I hit L1 with the DP breaker.

The question is do I bond it above the main breaker or below it? Above would be easier, but that would mean the main breaker must be on to bond L2 and L3.

I bought a new panel for my garage, it's powered by a 20a extension cord. If I hook up power to L1 or L2, it works fine, but if I hook the same phase up to L1 and L2, it trips the breaker. My reason for trying that is I wanted all slots to be active. But that didn't work so I'm only running half slots.

The other question is does this old panel have that same sort of protection built in? I'm going to try it with an extension cord tomorrow.

 

[fatjay]

I have a cock.






He's cock-a-doodle-doing at 6am every morning.

And for the rest of the day.

Not a complaint, just an observation. I don't mind actually. After 52 chickens at 10% sexing accuracy for pullets, I finally got a cock. And what a cock he is.

Otherwise, getting ~30 eggs a day even through molting season. They're doing well, they're healthy, I can't complain. It's been a good ride so far.

 

[EddieWalker]

Hard to find a good rooster. We hatch a bunch of eggs every year, and half of them are roosters. It takes awhile to know which is which, and then another couple of months before the change happens, and the roosters turn into the devil. If there are 20 roosters, we might get lucky with one that isn't pure evil. He gets to live, the others become dog food.

 

[fatjay]

Hard to find a good rooster. We hatch a bunch of eggs every year, and half of them are roosters. It takes awhile to know which is which, and then another couple of months before the change happens, and the roosters turn into the devil. If there are 20 roosters, we might get lucky with one that isn't pure evil. He gets to live, the others become dog food.

He isn't aggressive with me. Any time I'm in there he doesn't bother me at all. I've had a few roosters years ago and they were more aggressive by far. This guy pretty much ignores me.

 

[fatjay]

I went to HD and picked up 500' of 10/2 wire for the inverters. Each inverter needs two runs of wire, one for the grid box and one for the solar box. So 12 in total. I decided to go with pex staples because 2 wires can fit in then. So 6 sets of 2. Tonight, I managed to get 2 sets run.

 

[airbiscuit]

Spaghetti for supper?

 

[fatjay]

Spaghetti for supper?

It's the perfect opportunity to finally clean up my wiring mess when I transfer everything into the new panel.

 

[yanmars]

500 feet of 10/2 would not be a cheap purchase.

 

[fatjay]

500 feet of 10/2 would not be a cheap purchase.

You are correct. $1.02 per foot.

 

[fatjay]

So I got half way through running the wires, then realized I forgot to do it the way that I wanted. I wanted the first drop to be closest to the wall, but I was wiring the last drop first, and ran it against the wall. After 3 sets I realized it and kicked myself.

Thankfully, I replaced the nail hangers with screws, so it was easy to unscrew them half way and redo the wires in the proper order and spacing.

Then I finished the 12 runs, 2 per inverter, and started tidying up the board. The last 2 inverters will be here monday.

Tomorrow I'll start adding breakers to the new panel. Then the breakers to the grid panel, off position of course. Then i'll take up any slack and trim them to the correct length. And another trip to the steel store for more panel mounts.

 

[airbiscuit]

Much better!

 

[fatjay]

Got the last 2 inverters up. Now it's must a matter of days of wiring. I'm looking forward to powering up the system.

 

[chim]

Got 2 more panels up. It's finally starting to look like something.

Drilling these holes is killing me, my shoulders hurt so much. I can't put my weight on it so I have to use shoulder and bicep muscles. It' hurts pretty bad after about 2 and there's 4 per panel.

So I made the HoleMaker 300™, patent pending, by modifying a drill press to be a portable drill press that I can clamp to the rails and drill more easily.

But when I try to weld the thing, it just falls off. I am getting penetration, but after it cools, it just comes off. What kind of metal is this and how can i weld it?

Almost looks like your shielding gas is turned off and you're running solid wire.

 

[fatjay]

Almost looks like your shielding gas is turned off and you're running solid wire.

I’m running gasless flux core. I got a solid puddle back and forth, but the metals wouldn’t mix.

 

[fatjay]

I had my hands in the inverter wiring it up. Then the power went out. And I thought "did i do that?"

I had to go down a mental check list to see if it was something I did. It wasn't.

This is the exact reason I'm doing this bs. 15 minutes later electric company texts, "sorry your power is out, we dont' know why, we'll have it on by midnight."

 

[fatjay]

No one talks about the wiring... Or if they do, I skipped ahead.

Current sharing and communications cables installed.

 

[fatjay]

Finished up the ac on the inverters, and did the new inverter breaker box feed lines. Tomorrow I'll do the grid panel and maybe get the battery shelf set up.

 

[fatjay]

I cleaned up the main box and free'd up 6 breakers to power each of the inverters. I'm going to have so much room in the new box, it'll be great not dealing with such a cramped space.

 

[ning]

From what I've read, the electric instant hot water heaters use so much power to heat the water that there isn't a savings using them over a conventional electric hot water heater. The real savings with instant hot water heaters is with Natural Gas or Propane. Especially if you have the supply line big enough to supply the amount of gas needed.

The advantage is that you have it at point of use, less water waste and no storage losses. It's a gain over resistive heaters electric but very dependent on electricity vs gas prices as you said.

Oh, it's also an advantage for places that only have cold water pipes, you don't have to replumb.