Instalation/devolpment help

Re: Instalation/devolpment help

I take it your not running much.

I have had a similar setup, with an inexpensive charge controller, I will suggest setting every thing up where the panels are and run AC to the house.

First build an 'A' structure for your panels tall enough for the bottom panels to be above growing vegetation. If your in a windy location, you will want to strongly cross brace the frame, if your not in a very windy area, you can let the solar panel frame take the stress (my thin walled Photowatt panels survived 30 year this way) Figure out how you want to attach the panels to the frame, if you use aluminum angle for the pieces behind the panels, you can just bolt them to the aluminum, if you use wood, small sections of aluminum angle can be cut to mount the panels.

Below the 'A' section, you want a box, think cedar chest type thing. You should section the box into 2 areas, on one side you want to have your batteries. The batteries will add weight to help the panels from blowing over! Hook up the batteries in series and parallel, so you have 2 sets of batteries attached + to - and then have the 2 sets attached to each other + to + and - to -, to create a large 12 volt battery, you might like to have a fuse of breaker for each string of batteries. From If you use 4 cables all the same length to attach the batteries, you can attach the negative to one string and the positive to the other and have equal resistance across the 2 strings of batteries.

Run cables from the battery side to the electrical side, we divide the sides since the out gassing of the batteries is corrosive to electronics. Mount your inverter and charge controller to the wall of your box. In a small system like this I would attach the battery bank cables to the inverter, If you would like you could use a switch to disconnect the inverter, or count on the inverters switch.

Wire your panels together using MC4? 'Y' connectors then run the + and - cables into the electronics side of your box. Attach the cables to the solar input of the charge controller. From the solar output of the charge controller run your + and - lines to the first attachment point of your battery bank on the electronics side, on the battery side of the switch if installed.

You can run with out, but it's nice to have a switch to turn off the solar array as well. From the back of your inverter, cut off the end of a heavy extension cord, 12 gauge or better and hardwire it into the back of your inverter. you could just plug it in, but it's nice to have it hardwired. run this into your cabin.

This is pretty minimal, you could bury a direct bury wire to your cabin, or put wire in conduit. You could add breakers at the box. I suggest doing this since you have such a great distance to the cabin and you would need to run heavy wire to take the electric current at 12v to the cabin to install the electronics.

Please note your array is very minimal for a 12v 440Ah battery bank.

Re: Instalation/devolpment help

Caveman wrote: »

This is what mine looks like for now, I know its over sized for the job, but it's one I already had.

I have a similar panel on my generator. Only caveat is that the 120v 30A output is on one side of the 240 while the two 20A duplex receptacles are one on each side. Have to be careful which you choose to use at the same time as the 30A or you will overload one winding.

Re: Instalation/devolpment help

Caveman wrote: »

The generator is not earth grounded, but the transfer switch that it is wired into, is....

A common misconception is that the safety ground wire works by creating a path to earth ground. It actually works (except for lightning) by creating a path that fault current can follow back to the supply to trip the breaker if a hot line contacts exposed metal on the outside of an appliance or tool.
It is also a good idea (and required if you have to follow NEC) to connect the safety ground wire to an actual earth ground. But a ground-wire to neutral bond at the generator will cause GFCI tripping even if you do not connect the generator to a ground rod or other ground electrode.
If there is also a ground to neutral bond at the transfer switch, or also one on the house wiring side of the transfer switch, or even one somewhere on the other side of the transfer switch if the switch does not interrupt the neutral wire, then a GFCI at the generator will trip.

Re: Instalation/devolpment help

NorthGuy wrote: »

If I were you, I would remove the bond between neutral and generator frame, and re-connected ground at the cabin. This would effectively disable GFI protection, but everything would be grounded.

This will not exactly disable the GFI protection. Just as you can use a GFCI receptacle on a two wire circuit, the GFI at the generator will still be able to detect any imbalance in the current on the hot and neutral leads. But without the ground-neutral bond at the generator the current flow at the generator will be matched even if current is flowing into the equipment ground inside the cabin.
But if you want to keep GFCI protection, you should leave the bond at the generator and remove it at the cabin.
The problem this will cause is that when you flip the transfer switch to go to the inverter, your ground neutral bond will still be there, but will go away if you unplug the generator.
Replacing the generator with a dummy plug which just bonds ground to neutral will preserve this necessary bond. But it will not allow GFCI protection in the inverter (if any) to work properly.
:-)

Re: Instalation/devolpment help

Caveman wrote: »

Here they are in proximity

This doesn't look like a transfer switch. These are two DPST switches (breakers?). Looks like only one side is used, which disconnect solar and generator independently. If you turn on both, it may not be good for either generator or inverter.

Transfer switch is DPDT. You would connect two wires from solar to one end and two wires from generator to the other end. Then you would run two wires from the transfer switch to your AC panel.