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The first thing I want to do is recommend that you watch some of Fire Safe Marin’s excellent videos. If you want to create a defensible space around your home you need to understand what that means, and these videos do a great job of that. I’d start with this one, but they are all […]
Project: Save Your Home From Wildfires With Solar Power Episode 1: Introduction Can Solar Power Help Protect Your Home From Wildfire? Yes it can, and this project will show you how. There is a long list of preparations you can undertake to make your home more defensible. We’re going to cover most of them. But
Could Solar Power Help Protect Your Home Against Wildfire–Episode 1 Read More »
This is the first, of (I hope) many posts from other experts, which was part of the original plan for Expert Amateur. I intended to solicit content from other experts on various topics. This came unsolicited on the Adventure Riders forum in the 390 ADV owners thread from a member with the unlikely avatar name
A recent comment from Will Prowse about PV disconnect switches really turned a light on for me (pun intended). Especially since it contradicted some bad advice I’ve been giving people. He was saying, for lower current installations that a properly rated little polarized DC breaker makes a serviceable disconnect switch, as long as it’s ganged
Into the guts of disconnect switches Read More »
I didn’t really want to write this, but there is so much confusion about lightning protection I think I need to. Yay, an explainer video! I stole the cloud pictures (and corrected my faulty understanding of charge generation from Encylopedia Britannica. Wikipedia and web resources are cool, but Britannica is Britannica. Lightning starts off as
What is Lightning anyway, and why is it trying to destroy your solar power system Read More »
My recent video, “Solar Grounding and Bonding Demystified”, caused quite a stir. Will Prowse called it an awesome video, but lots of other folks commented that I didn’t know what I was talking about. It’s a controversial issue, and some folks think that if experts don’t agree on the solutions that they don’t need to
Preventing lightning damage to your solar Installation Read More »
If you already know all about legacy AC-coupled, grid-connected Solar power installations you might want to skip down to the paragraph titled “Planning for Upgrades” and avoid all the background stuff. A somewhat sardonic capsule history: Roof-mounted AC-coupled grid-connected PV systems are now considered legacy systems. Installed by companies at great expense for people who
Upgrading a Legacy Grid-tied, AC-coupled PV system Read More »
My experimental solar container is doing exactly what I intended it to do: Teach me how modern solar power systems work. I’m definitely drinking from a firehose, but there are some things that make me stop dead in my tracks that just don’t seem to make sense. RSD (Rapid Shutown Devices) and the requirements of
What’s with RSD? How can it even work? Read More »
“Nearly anything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”—Richard Feynman Historically residential solar installations were frequently sold as AC-coupled systems (microinverters or string inverters), using the grid like a storage device to yield a return on investment by reducing the amount of electricity you buy from the grid. While that is a
Deep Dive Into the EG4 18K PV Read More »
Introduction to the Solar Container Videos This is the first video in the solar container series Which I shot at the early stages of planning. As the project progressed my plans changed substantially. The overall goal is to build a high-capacity three phase system to power my shop completely. I intend to remain grid-connected but
Solar Container Project: First Video Read More »
