My Solar Power, Recovering From a Lightning Strike

[wooferhound]

I had a bad Lightning Storm a few months ago and it took out 2 Ghurd Dump Controllers and my old 8D battery. I had been experimenting with LongWire power generation and had about 200 feet of wire stretched out like an antenna and connected to the battery through a bridge rectifier.

It was only making enough power to make an LED glow. When Thunderstorms came through, the LED would flash randomly. I thought this setup was fairly harmless so I left it all connected to the battery for a few years. This Summer we had a couple of violent Lightning Storms that came through with huge and loud strikes all around my property. It wasn't long after that I found that my solar power was running low. After investigating I found that my  two Ghurd Dump Controllers were blown up and dumping power all the time.

I replaced one of the controllers with a spare that I had, but the battery never did come back right. I looked into the Plastic bin that the battery was in and I noticed evidence that the battery had sprayed liquid from the filler caps and there was even a good amount of liquid in the bottom of the bin. Nothing I did would bring that battery back, so I had to hook a battery charger up to it so I could power the stuff that normally ran off of the battery.
What good is that . . .

Ghurd sent me 2 more Dump Controllers. One was to finish the repairs on my charge controller and the other one is going to be a spare or a Low Voltage Disconnect (LVD). I built both of the controller kits and replaced the second unit in my 2 stage controller. Here is a picture of the 2 new controllers, mounted and working in the charge controller.


Here is a link to the construction of my 2 stage Ghurd Dump Controller
http://fieldlines.com/board/index.php/topic,129731.0.html

Now for the battery problem. I had a good week at work and enough extra cash to get new batteries for my solar power system.
I was going to go to Costco and get some cheap Golf Cart batteries from there. But I went to my favorite little battery store and found them selling new Trojan T-105 batteries off of a pallet for $118 each. I couldn't resist and I bought two for my 12 volt system at a cost of $254 dollars tax and all. I eagerly got them home and connected to the system. While doing the replacement, I noticed that the old battery had sprayed liquid up about 3 feet on the metal shed walls.


Then guess what . . . 3 days of No Sun . . .
I was so happy when the Sun came out and pushed the batteries up over 14 volts. I got the new controllers set up
Stage 1 - 14.6 volts - 3 amps
Stage 2 - 14.7 volts - 6 amps
Now everything is working wonderfully and plenty of battery power. Ready for the Tornadoes now. The power was off here for 5 days in April 2011 because of bad storms and I was so happy to have my Solar Power.

Oh, and one more thing . . . Don't mess around with Long Wire power generation  ! !

[Rover]

Hi Wooferhound,

Out of curiosity, was the bank (battery)  earth grounded ?

Rover

[Bruce S]

Hey Woof ;
Good score on those batteries. I like the use of multi stranded wires too.
What is your Solar bank up to now 100+ watts?
I'm still working with the NiCds, slowly getting the course up to go bigger again in the Ahr range 
I'm using the controllers in dump mode too but dump is other batteries.
Got your Christmas tree lights running off these yet 

Bruce S
Check!! NO long wire tests, too many "projects" already

[bj]

    Glad you're up and running Woof.  Lightning does some funny things.  (not haha funny)
Well, at least you are a member of another growing club.  Not sure what the club is called, but the entry fee
is steep.

[wooferhound]

Rover
Yes the negative of my solar power system is Earth Grounded at the Ground Stake for the house wiring.

Bruce S
Each battery lug has eight 12ga stranded wires that are individually fused in the battery fuse box.
On paper I have 136.5 watts of solar panels, so in the real world it is about 100+ watts of total power. I am still actually planning on putting up a 200 watt wind generator that will sit still most of the time in these North Alabama breezes.
I'm wanting to build some LED Lanterns out of some of those NiCad packs.

bj
10-4 on lightning being expensive Bad Juju.
No more Long Wires for me.

[DamonHD]

Several grown-ups (ie qualified electricians) suggested that I *not* ground my 12V off-grid system (as simply adding potential trouble) and I have taken their advice and it floats.

I will also take your advice and not run any long-wire experiments, though given the size of my plot, I could put up anything that would qualify as 'long'!

Rgds

Damon

[SparWeb]

Hi Woof,
Isn't it cool how those T105's fit perfectly into the Coleman cooler like that?  I found a stack of them being thrown away (used as soil sample boxes at a lab) so now I have the perfect containers for Trojan batts.

[wooferhound]

DamonHD
I debated with myself a lot about grounding the negative side of my RE system. Initially I grounded it because I was sharing a ground wire on a 120vac line so I would have two 12ga wires to get the negative underground and into the house. Of course a grid power ground is Earth ground and that grounded the system. The negative side is also connected to the metal skin of the shed that the system is in.
Some of the stuff that I am powering would end up grounding the negative anyway. The amplifier for my computer system and TV is powered from the battery. The amp audio is plugged into the computer which is grounded, which would make a connection to ground through a small conductor going through the computer. I am also powering my Router and Cable Modem directly from the battery and there are ground connections there that would ground the system through the modem.
I just thought it would be best to ground it all together.

SparWeb
When I bought the batteries I kept wondering if they were going to fit into that cooler. When I got them in there, I pleasantly surprised about how it was a perfect fit too, about a quarter inch spacing around everything. I was in the Bar Business a few years ago and ended up with a few extra coolers.

[Bruce S]

Woof;
Are you going to leave the top open? or build a small vent for the vapor fumes?
OR do those tops I see in the middle, recombine fumes as like VLRs?
I noticed the lid will close nice and tight.
Have fun!!
Bruce S

[rossw]

The negative side is also connected to the metal skin of the shed that the system is in.

There are quite good reasons for grounding the positive (rather than negative).  (That is, if the arguably even better reasons to float rather than ground, are ignored)

I am also powering my Router and Cable Modem directly from the battery and there are ground connections there that would ground the system through the modem.

Are you sure about that?
Your router and cable modem are (I presume) ethernet. Ethernet - assuming UTP not coax - is specifically and intentionally isolated. The phone lines are generally isolated too, and it's actually a "ground fault" if either of them has even moderate resistance to ground.

Oh, and I have to share this - what happens when someone who doesn't know what they're doing gets the grounding *WRONG*
Customer brought this to me to see if I could put the magic smoke back in....

[ghurd]

Great to hear is is back up and running again, Woof.

New batteries look great!

There are quite good reasons for grounding the positive (rather than negative).  (That is, if the arguably even better reasons to float rather than ground, are ignored)

And that is EXACTALLY why I keep out of it anymore.
G-

[wooferhound]

Are you going to leave the top open? or build a small vent for the vapor fumes?
I noticed the lid will close nice and tight.
Have fun!!
Bruce S

If you look very closely at the picture of the Batteries in the cooler, you will notice that there are some small holes drilled in the lid that allow the hydrogen to escape from the high points that are molded into it. There is also some ventilation that comes into the cooler through the valve that normally would let out the melted ice water from the cooler.

[wooferhound]

There are quite good reasons for grounding the positive (rather than negative).  (That is, if the arguably even better reasons to float rather than ground, are ignored)

There are many parts of my system where the Negative will find a ground. I would be afraid to ground the positive.