Upgrading the System
After installing the system in early September, Burlington experienced two weeks of incredible weather. It was sunny nearly everyday - if I was careful, I always had enough energy for my needs. After around two weeks, it became or rainy every day except maybe one each week - all of a sudden, running my laptop off the battery was out of the question - I would have enough energy to charge my small devices completely and that was about it. This fact, coupled with my desire to set up a utility intertie (which required 24v) at home, lead me to begin shopping for a larger panel. The first that caught my eye was a Kankea Thinfilm 60W panel on Altenergystore.com. It cost $249 but was large enough that it needed to be shipped truck freight, which increased my costs for the panel to $340. Even though DHL would ship it for $47, I decided it would be a better idea to get a more compact panel - would I want to pay $47 if I needed to ship it home?
I quickly found a 72W GE Panel for $350 at the same site. Another site, Mr. Solar.com had the same panel for $20 less, but Altenergystore.com was closer to me, so with a shipping difference there might not be much savings. I e-mailed Mr. Solar for a shipping quote, and they told me the panel was not in stock. I promptly placed my order through Altenergystore.com. Twenty four hours later the order was still being shown as "In processing." I called them to check its status and I was informed that the GE panel would not be available till the Spring of '06. I was offered another similarly priced panel - the Evergreen 102 for $400 - which I calculated in my mind was a much better deal. If I was going to go to a 102W system (which seemed enormous compared to my current 20W panel) I would need a new charge controller, so I ordered a Morningstar Sunsaver 10, as I had a good experience with my current Morningstar controller.
The new panel would be almost 63 inches in length and 30 lbs - dimensions that my platform would barely be able to hold. I figured out that if I put the panel on it's side and laid it horizontally across the balcony it would likely fit. I wouldn't know till the panel came in. I knew the platform would be able to hold 30 lbs, but that I would need more counterbalancing rocks. I spotted a cinder block on the ground three stories below and made a mental not to retrieve it when the panel came in.
Much in the manner of the original equipment order from Sundance, I ordered the panel on a Wednesday and it was shipping from New Hampshire, so I hoped to have it by the weekend when I would have the most time to set it up. Again, I was wrong - the panel didn't ship till Friday, meaning it would be in Monday. I was pleased enough that it was on its way: talk of a shortage of solar panels had made me a bit concerned.
Given that I would be dealing with greatly increased amperage, I ideally would want to upgrade the exterior wiring to 12 gauge, however I'd only be loosing around 5-6W at most if I did not upgrade. Given that a single sunny day would charge my battery 1.25 times over, I really wasn't too concerned about replacing the wiring. At home I would go for 12 gauge wiring as I was more concerned about power loss and I'd also be running both panels at once.
Monday morning arrived and the solar panel was delivered promptly by UPS. Getting it back from the mailroom was a little awkward due to its shape and weight, however I managed:
In order to have some room to work, I brought the panel outside where I unpacked the panel:
After making sure everything I ordered had arrived, I set to work removing the old panel and installing the new one. Two upgrades would have to be made: the switch from the old panel to the new panel, and from the old charge controller to the new charge controller. In effect, however, I'd have to rewire the entire system, as the new charge controller wired the load (i.e. the DC outlet, and anything I connected to it) through the controller itself, whereas the old controller wired it through the battery. I set to work in my room disconnecting the battery and old charge controller:
I then went out on the balcony and disconnected the old panel. I've also provided a shot of the old and new panels for comparison:
The new panel came with "quick connect" plugs that allowed one to connect a number of panels in series. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the quick connects with my system, as I had no reciprocal plugs on the wiring that went to my room, so I cut them off and stripped the wire. I then seated the panel on the mount and rewired it in the fashion of the old panel.
With the panel wired I cut the wiring for the voltmeter so it was separate from that of the DC outlet. This way, I could wire the battery and voltmeter to the battery connection on the charge controller and the DC outlet to the load connection. I wired the battery first, per the charge controller manual's instructions, then the panel. At this point, the green "charging" light turned on, indicating things were working. I finally connected the DC outlet to the load portion of the charge controller and plugged in a device to confirm it worked. In order to improve the look of the setup, I attached the charge controller to the wall behind the battery with packaging tape.
The new charge controller also served to organize the jumbled mess of wires that composed the original setup:
Last modified October 31 2005 05:07 PM
