The Wall of Shame

[kitestrings]

Years ago I salvaged everything.  I worked as a carpenter for many years and before we built our house managed to accumulate many things from electrical boxes, to doors & windows, to plumbing fixtures.

One of the things I've been wanting to change for quite a while is this old fuse box.  (Code minded) people will cringe, but for 30+ years we've used an old 60-amp fuse box - Palmer Electric & Mfg, Wakefield , MA - for our 12VDC circuits.  The transitions on this wall are interesting.

Here's what it looked like in 2007.  We had our old Sencenbaugh 12V turbine and about 350 watts of PV.  The water heater was an open-hood Aquastar, and the timer - I'd forgotten about - split our battery bank, and temporarily reconfigured it to 24V to fill the cistern (24V pump).




Shortly after this we moved thing over to 48V, added a new Ourtback inverter, about 3 kW of PV, and most recently our 15' axial (also 48V).  We kept many 12VDC outlets and lights; just because.  The 12V loads we've paired down to a relative small percentage of total.  They come off a 12V "tap" that gets balanced with a converter/equalizer.  Here's what it looks like now:


I added an OB DC Main and a Murata digital volt meter.




Among the challenges was that the wall this was on is only 2 x 3 (2-1/2") framing, and some anal young(er) home-owner stapled the wires about 12" O.C. up to the old box.  Hence the hole saw cut-outs.

[ontfarmer]

What a change you will be proud of the upgrade.  There will be a big change of those children in the pictures too!

[SparWeb]

I commend your courage!

The first wind diversion load I built was made with resistors found at Princess Auto and some scrap sheet-metal to make a cover.
Once windy day, not long after I hooked it up, I came home and found it was on fire.

I was too ashamed of myself to take photos.

[kitestrings]

Here's the near finished work.  Just a bit of (curved) baseboard trim left.  Can you say, "fat cat"?


I put a brick-mold frame around the box which can be removed to access the stud chase & knockouts, in case something has to be added in the future.  There's about 2" clearance all around it.


The picture frame (cleverly) hides an access to the pressure relief valve for the water heater.

There will be a big change of those children in the pictures too!

The configuration hasn't really changed, this just cleaned up some of the remnants of the old turbine wiring, conduit, etc.  It should be safer, as it does away with the old glass & cartridge fuses.  So, the kids are actually my niece & nephews.  They're a reminder of how fast time goes.  They are now one graduated HS, two in HS!

[clockmanFRA]

That cat gets everywhere?

My Libaray here in Normandy France, monitoring the youngest boy.

[clockmanFRA]

This second hand/used 3kW GTI is still working.

Its 'on test' I keep telling myself, in the garden machine shed powering into my OzInverter created 230vac 50HZ Mini Grid.






And here is what a 5kW GTI installation to French regs should look like?. Again these are second hand/used, powering into the OzInverter Mini Grid.

[kitestrings]

They look to have similar temperament to ours (cats).  We have two fat cats and four skinny boys ages 31, 12, 10 & almost 8.

Good to hear your system is working well.  The wiring can be more challenging when you have to surface mount things, or have limited wall space (this was our case), eh?  Yours looks pretty tidy.  In the first photo are those breaker/disconnects?

I tell my wife that her next husband (after I kick-off) better be a pretty good electrician.  There will be some head scratchin' when they are trying to figure out this crazy science experiment.

We have a 48V battery bank.  Our inverter is 48VDC to 120VAC, and we have one water pump that runs on 48V.  We also have 48V load diversion that pre-heats our dhw.  We have a 24V freezer and water pump that operate through a buck converter (48 to 24V).  Then, we have this (newly replaced) 12V lighting, outlet, USB panel that is a 12V tap off the bank, with a balancer/equalizer.  Oh, and did I mention we have a 30+year old 12V fridge that runs thru a 48 to 12V converter.

Seriously it's all working fairly well.  Over time you learn to iron out a lot of kinks. 

[SparWeb]

Is that the cat who walks through walls?

That's a really clean set-up Bryan!

After all the trouble your SunnyIsland gave you a few years ago, I was expecting to see an axe buried in the case.

[clockmanFRA]

  In the first photo are those breaker/disconnects?

Yes 'Kitestrings' they are breakers, and one set of main disconnect, but here in France the reg's say they must be double pole breakers, and we don't use neutral connection buz/bars here.
In the right hand control box is a rail mounted mechanical meter. Oh yes, most of that electrical stuff is used/second hand stuff from Fleebay.

My No 2 boy is trained and in charge of all the PV, Wind Turbines, Trackers etc when ever I am away. Her indoors, the wife, is a microbiologist, so not that good with electrical stuff.

[clockmanFRA]

Eye eye!!!! 'Sparweb', I am getting there.

Those Used/secondhand  SMA SunnyBoy's GTI low frequency solar inverters are all bought for very little money from Fleebay.




 

[kitestrings]

I recall that you had an ordeal with trying to get the 50/60 Hz default switched.  As I recall the sentiment was that they make good products, but could use a lesson like many companies today, in customer support.  Is that close?

Here's my curved wall trim applied.  The other (concave) side was actually the more challenging it goes behind an old claw-foot bathtub.


and a gaggle of boys (our youngest three), just after haircuts

[kitestrings]

I thought I saw a photo of your latest inverter over the weekend.  Where'd it go?

[clockmanFRA]

Hi Kitestrings,

I did post a few photos of the latest BIG OZINVERTER, but they were slightly off topic, so removed them.

Besides , The OzInverter shouldn't really be in the 'Wall of Shame' as it does everything with out expensive ancillary control equipment.

I have a legal gagging order from S ... A not to talk about the inadequacies of the S....u Isla.d 48vdc to 230vac Inverter.

[SparWeb]

By interpolation, I think I know what their dad looks like (if he got his hair cut, too)

[JW]

Funny you mention "interpolation"

I have built several lathes as big as a car. The lathes are old school and use a dual axis hydraulic tracer.

When you track the movement its X&Y making a curve that's what we call interpolation...

I thought a guy that I trained could never understand that. He used a method that was easier for him to understand. He didn't speak English very good, and he learned by doing.

The guy today has access to three of these monster lathes that I built. He's a very good operator/machinist.

When you resurface a alloy wheel the spindle speed approaches 1000rpm. The whole thing is complicated as hell. The machines are very safe to operate I had an OSHA inspection passed with flying colors.

When the tool bit traced the surface the aluminum it flew off like a thread of string.         

[Bruce S]

Here's a few of our pics.
The cabinet took 2 men 2 cats and 1 dog to wrestle it into place. It's 6 foot tall 4 foot wide and 1 foot deep  .


Here's the all encompassing UL label warning.


And Toby's "sad-eyed" look after he knocked over my beer

[kitestrings]

he doesn't look like a beer drinker...

So what's going into this monstrous cabinet Bruce?

[Bruce S]

It was to be the holder for our disconnect switch over system,and solar banks which is still micro sized compared to most who post here, but steadily growing .
 This was to include the small FLA set of batteries ( (3) hybrid deep-cycle batteries 12Vdc , the much more used NiCd banks (12Vdc 38Ahr bank that's used in the summer for my Alky heater and winter for growing leaf lettuce ). Even a cute little 18650 bank  that I'm still learning to work with (recharging station for all things LiIon based including our patio lights) thanks to OperaHouse's post on UNO stuff.

Now, I may very well put it up on fleaby or here in the forum's classified section since my battery supply all but dried up and my job is taking evermore of my precious time.
Since the Li based fires have been in the news in the past years, hardly anyone wants to allow me to salvage the laptop batteries :-(, Lowe's now has a top on their recycle bins, Home Depot same same and both wants to charge a fee if you don't bring a battery to swap into the bins.

Toby (the dog) isn't a beer drinker, his tail is a beer waster .