Puppeteer

Author Topic: Blasphemy..... Solar power.  (Read 148507 times)

BruceM

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3054
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #180 on: October 28, 2017, 06:03:08 PM »
Brown's gas is so highly explosive that any sane gas collection scheme will separate the hydrogen alone and only collect that. Storing hydrogen mixed with even air is just way too volatile and dangerous...no one without a terminal illness and/or death wish would attempt to compress Brown's gas.

You can make hydrogen in a  plastic pail with a tight lid and hose connected with Lye water and aluminum foil; just put the pail in a bigger container of cold water as it's exothermic and will melt the pail otherwise.  Easy on the aluminum.  The first trash bag you fill via the hose will have some air from the pail.  If you light that floating bag with a torch, it will EXPLODE loudly. After that bag, the air is gone and subsequent bags will just go quietly with an almost invisible and barely audible blue whoosh.  This is nothing compared to the volatility of Brown's gas with pure hydrogen and oxygen.

Magnum Energy's off grid inverter is quite popular for cost/performance and claims to be a transformer isolated, low frequency design.  Yet it still blows away the AM band entirely in a home wired with unshielded Romex.  So yes, the low frequency designs can be better, and like the much lauded and long lived Trace SW series, they tend to be more robust and reliable, but there is a lot more involved in good EMC in design that just the topology of the design.  The early German Sunny Boy inverters were reported to be much better for EMI, but they have gone transformerless designs to compete as well.

Remoting a decently reliable inverter, and adding filtration after the fact does reliably work, it's just simpler and cheaper to solve the problem in design. For example I've had both military grade filter companies Genesco in California and RFI Corp in NY develop special high performance filters for home inverter use that use less than 15 watts of power 24/7 due to capacitance.  Both were able to exceed -100 dB of filter performance at 100KHz and above.  They do cost roughly $2500 US, and do not change the directly radiated emissions from the inverter or the attached DC side wiring, so a remote setup is still needed.  For new construction, I also highly recommend all home wiring in EMT (thinwall steel) conduit with compression fittings.  It was and is a technical/public health blunder to have unshielded wiring all around you and then plug in many strong sources of EMI such as switching power supplies, variable speed motor drives, etc.  Just one particularly bad power supply can trash ALL the entire connected wiring. Again, something you can prove to yourself with a $15 AM radio in your own home, on or off grid.











mike90045

  • Mendocino Metro
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1594
  • Mmmm BBQ
    • View Profile
    • Mikes Solar PV page
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #181 on: October 28, 2017, 06:05:15 PM »
i get R/O, DI water from the water store locally. 50 cents per gallon.   I also test it with a TDS tester, and it's always been ok

mikenash

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 955
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #182 on: October 28, 2017, 09:40:48 PM »


Humour, Glort.  ("Humor") for our friends Stateside

BruceM

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3054
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #183 on: October 28, 2017, 11:46:37 PM »
Ah, I should have realized Starfire's  post regarding Brown's gas was a spoof, a sarcastic poke at free energy,etc.  My apologies, Starfire. 




starfire

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 282
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #184 on: October 29, 2017, 12:17:40 AM »
Non needed Bruce....
I have periods where the different cultures and the sense of humour of the different countries interests me.... world wide forums like this one gives access to this multiculturalism very easily. We have a love hate relationship too with our Australian neighbours,   where we take delight in rassing them at any opportunity
I suspect the US would have a similar thing going with Canadians.
We inherited the "dry" and subtle humour of the British, it can easily fall flat on some.
I will try to moderate my poor behaviour in future.......

dieselspanner

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 726
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #185 on: October 29, 2017, 08:51:17 AM »
Well spotted for the actuators, Glort.

Not sure they'd stand continuous use but for altering the angle of pv panels a few times a year they'd be great.

Stef

Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

BruceM

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3054
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #186 on: October 29, 2017, 05:24:57 PM »
I concur Glort, for roof mount, fixed is probably best, especially since you have access to bargain, young, used panels and are doing a fairly large capacity PV setup.  Pick an angle that gives you good-enough performance when you can use it most, and acceptable performance the other parts of the year.  Your biggest dilema is planning for the inevitable- the power co. noticing your power bill is too small or mandating digital smart meters.

My off grid neighbor wants to do some small farming/animal raising- which means lots of inverter water pumping here in AZ.  This is the one case where historically sun-tracked panels made sense as it adds hours of power for water pumping; battery storage has too much ongoing cost, still.  With 2017 PV cost, adding panels for afternoon summer sun is probably his best bet since early AM summer sun is blocked by a hill.  If we put a vertical panel array (5 panels for his 120VDC system) on standard round steel tube fence gate type panel(s) mounted on post(s) like gates, we can swing it back to facing the SSW for winter and have ''free'' additional winter gain which will help on darker winter days.  His SO would also like later PV input in summer so she can use more electric cooking for dinner.






starfire

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 282
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #187 on: October 30, 2017, 09:48:10 AM »
Here is a quick frequency scan of a typical cheap High Frequency DC to AC inverter showing just how noisy they are in a radio frequency sense.  The spectrum analyser is struggling to keep the RF interference levels on screen. Without getting technical, thats a logarithmic vertical scale, each division is twice the  amplitude of the one below it, so around a 1000 to 1 increase over quiescent background noise..  Vertical scale is the amplitude of the interference, the horizontal scale represents the frequency of each harmonic. The total scan width here is zero to 30 MHz, or the complete BC AM and Shortwave broadcast band. The harmonics on this inverter example extended  to well over 500MHz  despite the output frequency being  at 50 Hz.
The analyzer itself is operating off a Low Frequency inverter, with no signs of interference at all and having no additional supression.


https://youtu.be/xmoqa5KFo7U

BruceM

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3054
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #188 on: October 30, 2017, 03:59:56 PM »
Typically the thinwall square tube is a pretty good deal, and you won't see a big price jump in going a bit oversize for safety/overkill.  Reducing holes in the roof is the goal- so larger square tube and fewer attachments to the roof makes sense to me. Your roof material/construction also would make a difference, as would the number and spacing of rails.

I'm absolutely not a roof mount expert...you might want to take a look see at bigger company or more reputable  residential or commercial jobs in your area and at the commercial hardware being used.  See how high above the roof they are mounting them -  trade off for wind and heat.  Some engineer likely figured out something that was a good trade off for cost/performance.

The 250 watt panels typically use 50 mm C section aluminum that is pretty strong.  On my smaller roof mounted panels I use nothing but 4  L brackets made of 1/8 x 2" steel, except for the winter tilt 12V panel on my shop which has braces off the top edge.

LowGear

  • Casey
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2130
  • What? My diesel had fries for lunch?
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #189 on: November 10, 2017, 06:29:52 PM »
Does Australia receive FOX News?  Humor is where you find it.

I think this last page of posts underline Elon Musk's current criticism of Hydrogen powered fuel cell power.  When we have way more electrical power than we need then that tune will most likely change.
NPR Tipper/Dump Truck
Kubota BX 2230
Witte BD Generator
SunnyBoy 6000 + SolarWorld 245

LowGear

  • Casey
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2130
  • What? My diesel had fries for lunch?
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #190 on: November 11, 2017, 04:07:36 PM »
Good Grief

So how is the big solar storage thing going?
NPR Tipper/Dump Truck
Kubota BX 2230
Witte BD Generator
SunnyBoy 6000 + SolarWorld 245

starfire

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 282
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #191 on: November 16, 2017, 10:40:18 AM »
Im pretty impressed with my Chinese solar panels. Have had 30 amps for 10 hours  a day now for nigh on a week, batteries are bulging with hot electrons. Lister hasnt run for the longest time in its history, its looking a little lost and neglected.
This is my first summer with a decent lot of PVs... they are pretty boring, no moving parts, no comforting exhaust note, and have never heard my batteries bubbling before because of the noise.
Just read an article, China is now leading in  electric vehicle , battery technology and solar panel manufacture.
My next battery bank will be a 2 kW Toyota Prius battery pack rewired to 48 volts. These are $3000NZ new, very competitive with a similar bank of lead acid.
Im sure a charge controller can be designed to allow car alternators to charge these correctly without damage.

mikenash

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 955
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #192 on: November 19, 2017, 09:38:22 AM »
Hey Starfire, re China and EVs

Dunno if you take any notice of the Nurburgring?  It's kinda THE forum to sort out the men from the boys when someone claims to be making a genuinely fast car.  Not just fast in a straight line, or fast off the mark, or fast through a set of tight bends - but genuine real-world point-to-point FAST

Last time I looked the fastest thing around the Nurburgring was, you guessed it, a 1400 HP, Chinese-built electric car

Way of the future perhaps?

BruceM

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3054
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #193 on: November 19, 2017, 05:40:54 PM »
Hmmm-  Prius cells are only 6.5 ah, so I'm not so sure about this approach. I don't know what kind of individual cell charge management they use in these Prius modules; some approaches don't lend themselves to parallel cells. I also wonder what the residual cycle life curve looks like after 80% depletion.





BruceM

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3054
    • View Profile
Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #194 on: November 19, 2017, 06:23:10 PM »
I did a bit more reading on the Prius battery packs. No wonder so many are available cheap-  they don't have a good cell management system so cells are drifting out of match and then failing prematurely.  You must then replace all of your mixing varying aged cells will result in very poor performance. They seem to be monitoring two blades of 7V in series but don't provide enough detail to know what the problem with their battery management system is. Individual cell voltage/charge management isn't use and I believe most EVs do that to avoid this type of problem.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1028.2529&rep=rep1&type=pdf

They certainly aren't ideal for off grid power use.