condiut piping

[thirteen]

Since I am finally up to my cabin I have found out that in order to get the most solar I can I will need to install 4 more solar panels about 350 - 400 ft from my bank. I will be able to get 2.5 hrs of sunlight on the ridge across the road up the hill from the house. I read in this forum that a couple of people were having problems with animals chewing on conduit causing problems. Most of my piping will be exsposed for over 250 feet. There is no way to bury it. I cannot find it but I am wondering what they did to correct the problem.  24v system 240w panels
13

[Mary B]

Metal conduit would be pretty animal proof, maybe a bear could chew through but I doubt one would try.

[Frank S]

13 I'm assuming the reason you cannot bury is because of either rocky soil or tree roots. I there no way to rent even a small walk behind ditch-witch trencher? OR if it is because of rocks how about a concrete saw? 3 or 4 cuts a few inches apart then the rock between the cuts can be broken out fairly easy with a mall and chisel.
 I'm just asking this because it is never a good idea in the long run to have your conduit just laying on top of the ground even though I know it is done. A lot of oilfield pipe in TX has been laid on top of the ground mostly for temporary use that sometimes winds up being several years.
 If you absolutely have to leave it on top of the ground you might consider using that 2" orange or green urethane piping the really thick stuff that is strong enough to drive over with a buldozer

[gww]

13
Sounds like a long run with lots of loss.  You could use the same wire that the electric company uses and string it overhead on poles.
gww

[birdhouse]

what about metal conduit on top of ground, then a foot or so of soil pilled on top of that? 

not ideal, but atleast it would be "buried' to a point and out of view. 

adam

[thirteen]

The price of the wire will hurt. The slope is around 45%, big rocks(connected to mother earth), small cliff(8-10ft), you cannot drive over it so that is not the problem, you cannot walk up most it, you have a hard time just standing on it. you have to crawl on all 4's up it, I might be able to make a rock wall. If I move from the straight line from the panels to the power shed I would have to add about 100 ft to the run.  I'm already longer than I like for this run. There is about 24 inches of new snow on the hill this last week and more on the way. I will be back  in there Wednesday and I might take a rope and come down from the top. It is to steep in the snow to walk up  or down unless I use a rope. I need to measure exactly where the Sun is at this time and what angle it moves at from left to right.  Where it will be impossible to cover the pipe I might switch to metal for that section then paint it. I will make a switch back trail so  person can get up to it easier and that will have to be this fall.
13

[thirteen]

As a side note here they come into the back country every 5 years to check on property improvments for tax purposes. And every 8 - 10 years they photogragh the land and then change the property taxes accordenly to there beliefs of improvement. They do now give you notice 6 mo before inactment of the tax rate hike. Brush is good ground cover so are native vines they help hold soil erosion. A 20lb bag of native grass and wildflower seed is worth maybe $60.00 A tax boost of $40.oo for the rest of years say 10 is about a $540.oo improvment for stablizing soil.
Just a thought.
13

[tanner0441]

Hi

What's wrong with Steel Wire Armour?  It has a higher rating than single conductors in conduit or trunking, it is to the great part animal and vermin proof, and is weather proof.

It comes in single, twin concentric, (like a coaxial) or conventional multicored. You could just lay it over the surface apart from crossing the road, and once terminated with the correct glands it is submersible.

It consists of the insulated conductors, with a steel wire wrapping and an outer PVC sheath. It is normally rated at 600V so you could series your panels, to reduce voltage drop, and put an MPPT controller near the battery.

Brian

[thirteen]

I've been back for a couple of days. While I was up there I tried twice to go up the mountian then tried to side hill but the snow is to deep and it is to steep to be so I will need to wait until the snow leaves. Brain thanks, I will look up the wire you suggested.  I'll probably have to sell my first born to buy it if it works out and I use it. I will end up with 5 panels upon the hill. 240w 24v each. I now have 3 on the wood shed . 5 + 3 =8 = 1920 w. I do not have a bank made up yet. I am still using a couple of old batteries but I will get a new one this fall. 800 ah or 1200 ah depending on what I find for a good buy.

I am thinking that I might need to buy a diode to put in line to protect the 3 panels next to the power shed as a safety procaution aginest the ones coming from the hill since they end up on the same connections. These are 3 / 240 w 24v panels on 10 amp breakers. Any suggestions? There will be several months when all of the panels will working together all day then it changes where only the 5 will be powering things then back to the 3 for about a month. I am just in a steep canyon.

I will end up buying another controler to use with the set of 5 panels. The other panels are just 30 ft from the controler now and the others will be at least 350 ft away. I think I might have problems if I only used one controler for all 8 panels. It would work for awhile but 3 years later something would be taken by the power gremlins or casper the friendly ghost.   

[tecker]

Rock wall sounds good ,or run it in chain link fencing.

[SteveCH]

Your terrain situation sounds familiar. My array is above my house on a very steep hillside that is rocky. Maybe an inch or two of topsoil. No way to get any machine up there.

Unlike you, my array is set up ranging from 40 ft. to about 60 ft. from my house and the controllers. When I first set this up, back in the 80s, I ran 1" plastic PVC pipe as a temporary measure to protect my wiring from rodents. Chipmunks and ground squirrels tend to bite through cable insulation in hundreds of places if allowed. I finally upgraded the conduit a few yr back and simply used inexpensive ten-ft. lengths of metal elec. conduit. I did not use any special "outdoor"-rated conduit, just the stuff at big-box elec. depts. Every so many feet, I poured a small concrete pad with a piece of scrap angle iron sticking up out of it, then secured the conduit to those "posts." I did that to prevent the animals or me or a rolling rock or anything from shoving the conduit around on the ground.

There would be zero way to bury anything up there on my hillside. Maybe dynamite, I suppose. And the conduit works great. I have several runs of the conduit because even the 3/4" stuff is too small for my several cables. But the conduit is inexpensive, very easy to work with, and weather-proof.

A friend decided to use that black plastic pipe sold for yard irrigation [sprinkler]systems. Comes in 100' rolls, I think, for just a few bucks. It was a real pain. Even on warm days, it wanted to roll back up when he was working with it. Plus, the connectors he had had a smaller inside diameter than the pipe, somewhat, making it a chore to run the wires through them. He finally got it laid out on the ground and held in place by cinder blocks. Crude, but worked. Took him a lot longer to do it with that pipe than it did me with the conduit. Plus, I question the effect of UV light on the plastic, but I don't know if that is a factor as I've never had any dealing with that sprinkler pipe.