New solar Panel and dead generator

[muskeg]

 For my birthday my wife bought me a solar panel to replace a cracked one.

 The solar panels are mismatched a bit so this should encourage those who worry about having a odd panel....

 The panels feed a MX60 into a 24 volt battery bank.

  There are 3 strings of panels.

 2 sets of BP 75 watt 4 in series for 48volt , 85 volt open circuit.

( 500 watts charging on a good day)

The bad set was made up of 3 astropower 120 watt panels with a cracked kyocera 120.

Open circuit on this set 80 volts testing showed it was good for only 200 watts

  All astropower had 21 volts ocv and cracked  kyocera showed only 19 volts.

 I replaced the cracked panel with a BP 115 watt.

The string now shows 85 ocv.

 The MX60 is recording a average of 950 watts charging, (1070 watts for a minute)

 Panels are running at 65 volts about 15 amps charging.

This is a January day at 55degrees N , array set at 45 degrees tilt( keeps the snow off) and snow on the ground.

 Not bad...

Next project.... Redo the autostart generator..

 The Ignition coil on the old ( 1980) Honda G400 genset quit...

This unit has way over a 1000hrs on it. Mostly on propane.

  And I needed it now!

Princess Auto had a 15 hp JD ( chinese) gasoline engine.

 I took six hours to make new mounts and hookup.

The propane carb fit on and the exhaust adapter fit too.

It fired right up on gasoline.

  The carburator float level is too high- check later.

Switched it to propane and it ran like a kitten.

 So far So good....

After the first oil change I will be going to Wal Mart tech 2000 0w30 synthetic oil.

The can said it is for gasoline/propane /natural gas.

This oil proved itself in the Honda with nothing for spark Plug deposits ,minmal oil comsumption and easy starting.

Muskeg...

 

[GeeMac]

Y'know, I've had some success with an idea I had for my solar panels that boosts the output a bit. I got to thinking about making a sun tracker for my ten main panels. The cost was more than I had, so I started thinking again. My panels are not too big and I am a pensioner and cannot afford the ones I want. Mine are 12 volts and 15 watts. I have them on a home built rack on my roof. They are oriented vertically. and are pointed towards the sun's position at noon.

Here is what I came up with to boost the output. I got to thinking about mirrors and remembered we have a stack of one foot by one foot mirror tiles in a box in the garage. So, I cut a couple of narrow boards to ten feet and took the boards and the mirrors up on the roof where I installed the boards below the mirrors and used double sided tape to stick the mirrors to the boards. So far they have endurred a sixty mph wind storm, so I know the tape will hold for a while.

Now when the sun is a bit lower than the perfect right angle to the panels, the mirrors add extra photons to the panels. In a month or two I will add another one with an adjustable angle over the top edge of the panels.  With a little experimentation I might be able to bounce the photons into the panels a couple of times before they fly away.

I don't recommend adding mirrors to the sides of the array as they will cut off the morning and afternoon sun.  I'm sure the purists will want to tell me that most of the reflected light will hit the panels at an angle and that isn't efficient. Well, I don't care. I like to experiment and this works to improve the output of the panels quite nicely, thankyou.

Keep having fun folks.

PS. In the spring, when I won't slip and break my hip ) I'll post a picture of the thing for you to see.

[tanner0441]

Hi

I only have 40W of solar but placing a mirror flat along the bottom of the panels increased the output by just over 10% when the angle was correct.

Brian