Re: Some phoaties of a domestic solar system

On May 15, 7:30 am, Scotty <nob...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Some time ago Adam challenged my to post photos of a solar system that I
had mentioned and to either put up or shut up! Since daughter #2 and family
have returned home after a short holiday, I now have the time to put up.

I have a longtime friend who had made buckets of money during the dot net
boom and managed to hang onto most of in the bust. Being a "greenie" (yes
Adam, some of my best friends are green) he and his wife decided to buy a
run down cottage in a Nature reserve bordering on the Kruger National Park
in South Africa. I have no idea how he found it.
He rehabilitated the house (Italian floor tiles, sliding doors, the whole
enchilada) and she furnished the place with the help of a bottomless credit
card, very lavish.  There was no electricity but he and his wife thought it
would be romantic, candle lit, lanterns, back to nature, idyllic, far from
the madding crowd, and no phones.
Well that soon wore off...

There were regulations against overhead power cables and telephone wires
because of the giraffes and underground was impossibly expensive. He
initially bought two little solar panels to just supply a few electric
lights but none of the roof panels pointed in the right direction and the
lights kept going off.
Because he was still active in the internet business, he needed internet
and she wanted to watch TV.  Apparently watching the giraffes walk past the
kitchen windows and watching the monkeys and baboons swing through the
trees from the deck and listening to the bird calls wasn't good enough.
That picture of me with the giraffes was taken from the front door.

At this time, abt. '02 he asked me what he could do.  A site visit was
called for and with him paying, I'll go anywhere, on the second visit I
took my wife with and she is responsible for most of the pictures.  He now
runs the entire house off electricity, washing machine, fridge, deepfreeze,
lights, satellite TV, computers, internet server, etc. He uses bottled gas
for cooking and (soon to be solar) for hot water. Next trip in six months
:-)

The wireless coverage in SA is spotty at best but I eventually got internet
working, although only at dial up speeds. I was there for a short time (had
to get back for daughter's visit) a few weeks ago and finally got
high-speed internet working. Lots of hard work with hi-gain antennas etc.
The status of the security system and the battery condition is relayed to
his computer and mobile here in the US.

As Adam says, the system can "pump" 120 amps at 12v but the cables would
have to have been the size of welding cables or motor car starter cable. So
each mast is wired in series to produces 48 volts, each mast (about 6 amps)
is wired directly to the battery room where they are connected together to
produce two seperate systems of 48 volts and connected to two 48 volt to 12
volt "Outback" converters to provide redundancy and fault tolerance ,The
batteries are wired 12 volt because the existing AC inverter was 12 volt.

Just a few phoaties for Adam, you can see them here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/spscott1/Solar_Cells#

The rivers in Africa usually run at a trickle but there had been a tropical
storm during the night before some of the pictures were taken, very
frightening, hence the massive lightning arrestor visible in one of the
pictures.
Enough for now,
Scott.

When you said Solar system I thought you meant planets!
.