What ever happened to the KISS principle?

dgsloan

While I was setting up my grid tie system, I read all the threads for beginners about evaluating your needs. Before putting in the system I bought a few 20 dollar monitors to see what was using what power. When I had that in hand, I figured that I would get a system where I could monitor the performance - so I read the threads. I wanted to use the meters that I had purchased to keep track of power from each solar panel. I wanted to check the wind load on the roof. I wanted to make sure that I had no shadowing. Everything that I read pointed to a LAN with a computer and some fees to monitor the power. I had most of this in the 20 dollar meters that I bought. What I ended up doing was building a simple platform to simulate the roof and enclosing a small area with all meters on one wall and buying a car backup camera for 35 bucks from Wall Mart to send the current picture of the readings and state of the solar array to a place beside my outdoor temperature guage. Am I missing something

nsaspook

Re: What ever happened to the KISS principle?

dgsloan wrote: »

While I was setting up my grid tie system, I read all the threads for beginners about evaluating your needs. Before putting in the system I bought a few 20 dollar monitors to see what was using what power. When I had that in hand, I figured that I would get a system where I could monitor the performance - so I read the threads. I wanted to use the meters that I had purchased to keep track of power from each solar panel. I wanted to check the wind load on the roof. I wanted to make sure that I had no shadowing. Everything that I read pointed to a LAN with a computer and some fees to monitor the power. I had most of this in the 20 dollar meters that I bought. What I ended up doing was building a simple platform to simulate the roof and enclosing a small area with all meters on one wall and buying a car backup camera for 35 bucks from Wall Mart to send the current picture of the readings and state of the solar array to a place beside my outdoor temperature guage. Am I missing something

If all you want is to check the current values of your system that's great but most of us want long term trends and storage of data samples. (in my case every 30 seconds) Most simple monitoring system are usb or serial for data collection and generate files that a spreadsheet can use. The LAN/payment requirement seems isolated.

dgsloan

Re: What ever happened to the KISS principle?

I guess I will have to wait six months for the 30 dollar model with the SD card slot so that I can borrow my wifes SD out of her camera. In the meantime (if I want too) I will use my webcam on my computer to record all the changes in the picture. Hopefully my OCR software can convert it so that I can make a spreadsheet.

nsaspook

Re: What ever happened to the KISS principle?

dgsloan wrote: »

I guess I will have to wait six months for the 30 dollar model with the SD card slot so that I can borrow my wifes SD out of her camera. In the meantime (if I want too) I will use my webcam on my computer to record all the changes in the picture. Hopefully my OCR software can convert it so that I can make a spreadsheet.

If it works for you great. I built my own custom system for data collection and control.

http://code.google.com/p/solar-monitor/

dgsloan

Re: What ever happened to the KISS principle?

It is people like you and Duane Johnson at Red Rock that make our life much easier. After I bought an actuator, Duanes magical board and a peanut butter jar (ate the peanut butter) I was able to easily attach the motor and battery and maximize the solar input. I enjoy his web site even though I do not understand half of what he says = because in the end what comes out is what his passion creates. I visited Duane this spring and totally enjoyed his wisdom on solar production. Duane is probably happy that I live 1000 miles away - otherwise I would be there every week with a new idea to get put in perspective. I PUT YOUR WEB SITE IN MY FAVORITES = I'll be watching.

Ralph Day

Re: What ever happened to the KISS principle?

I found the plastic container a pain for a Redrock sensor. I opted for a glass baby food jar and abs pipe. It looks like a demented flashlight from a distance, but no uv degradation to the transparent medium.

This winter I had to put black electrical tape on the bottom side of the jar. The clearing to the west of the array (cleared for 10kw fit system) was covered in snow and the west sensor would find that the brightest spot in the sky and point west all day.

Ralph