by Bob Boyce » Sun Sep 17, 2006 2:27 pm
Hello Dan
I had a group come visit me yesterday and help me out big time. Brian (brian), Kevin (burnhydroxy), Leon (mos68x) and his wife and son drove here to visit.
I had bought a 12V, 2000 pound capacity electric cable winch from Harbor Freight Tools a while back, and erected 20' of Rohn 25 tower next to the pole as a support structure for the lift. Without any help, it was not going any further than that.
Kevin volunteered to go up the tower and do the on-tower work using my tower belt that no longer fits me. He cut the pole off at about 11' with a sawsall, and secured the cable winch to the top of the tower.
Brian and Leon assembled the upper sub-array to the central array, which was required in order to attach the season adjustment to the mount. The mount was adjusted to winter position to better align the angle of the mount with the pole, and the array was hoisted up to position. We discovered that the hoist did not have a reverse switch to lower the array, so here we were with an 800 lb array assembly, hanging by the cable. Kevin had to climb to the top with the winch handle and loosen the clutch enough to hand crank the array down onto the pole. As if this was not enough, the back of the mount kept hanging up on the tower and pole, so Leon and Brian had to keep working it back and forth to get it to come down. Kevin inserted a sheet of 1/4" 316 plate scrap as a slide to get the mount to slip enough to get past the tower rungs. After some twisting and wiggling, it finally lowered all the way, so it was aligned it to the south and Kevin tightened the bolts to secure the mount to the pole. Kevin then removed and lowered the hoist, and the guys dropped the top section of tower out of the way. Kevin set the season tilt for approximately spring/fall position, and came on down from the tower. The wiring will be done after I hang the lower sub-array, which is the 4 Siemens panels. I can reach the bottom of the array from a ladder to add those panels, but I will have to go up the tower to do the wiring on the rest of it. I really need to mount my electrical junction box up there anyways.
After that, we went into the shop where the guys proceeded to frame up the north wall with furring so I can finish with insulation and ply. These guys deserve a lot of credit for driving all that way to get here, and for helping me out. They did more in one day than I could have done in a year by myself. Thank you guys!
Yea, I just loved how they can, over 5 years after the sale, cut my original 25 year warranty period to less than half. It's certainly not my fault that Siemens Solar decided to sell out to an oil company. The discoloration is not from overheat. The panels were not even in service at the time. I had just assembled the primary array and had the entire array laying face up on a set of sawhorses with support boards to support the array mount. They were not even in direct sun at the time, they were shaded by the house because it was in the fall. I had posted pics of the discolorations on some of the solar power forums way back when I had to dismantle the array. I will have to take those panels out of storage again to remount, so maybe I can remember to get some new pictures.
As the temps drop up there, I would imagine the bio processes would take longer. It is cool here but not too cold yet. Beautiful weather if you ask me. Thank goodness, this is the time of year that I can tolerate the lowered humidity and spend time outside, and be able to breathe ok. It's great to be free of the oxygen tether outdoors part of the year. using the waste heat from genset exhause certainly makes a lot os sense to me. I used to do a lot of battery rejuvination with desulphators of my own design. I can get plenty of the group 31 lift truck batteries from the scrap yard for a few bucks each, just have not bothered to do so recently. An array of recovered lead would go far in helping me here once I get more panels online. The more batteries I have, the less I would need to discharge them, and the longer they would last ;0)
While I would really prefer to have an all-electric energy production source, the genset approach may be a short term answer. I just hate to have to rely on ICEs for my energy. There is a lot of info on this site where you can read up on it. Let me know if you have any questions about the HOD systems that you cannot find answers for.
Bob