Hawkes Bay in Wisconsin

[ClassicCrazy]

Vic
It was below zero F here all yesterday , minus 12 last night , and below zero and very windy here all day. But the sun was sort of out .
We actually expect this kind of  weather or supposed to if we want to stay alive - ha ha !
If anyone is interested I made a short video today  of my original Arco 55 watt panels which I bought in late 1980's or early 90's for $300 each .
They still make some energy via a midnite brat controller.
https://youtu.be/dOUul-DL5qw
Larry

[Vic]

Hi Larry,

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!!! !!! !

Thanks for the video.   Far too cold, and far too much snow for me.

It seems that you have quite a few PV arrays,  there.

Please do keep warm,  take care.  Good Luck to you,  and ALL of the many others who are experiencing all of the bitter cold,  wind,   snow,  and flooding.  Best wishes for a Merry Christmas,   and a Happy New year.  Thanks,  Vic

[littleharbor2]

Amazing those old Arco panels still work. The cell surfaces are the worst I've ever seen. Here's a real old Arco panel that is odd in that it has a boxlike construction. Not sure of the vintage but looking at the crude cells I'd guess one of the first.

[ClassicCrazy]

Amazing those old Arco panels still work. The cell surfaces are the worst I've ever seen. Here's a real old Arco panel that is odd in that it has a boxlike construction. Not sure of the vintage but looking at the crude cells I'd guess one of the first.

LittleHabor
Those are some vintage collectible solar panels ! I wonder if anyone collects old pv ? I have some vintage solar controllers here. My first controller was small cube made by Bobier Electronics. When the sun was getting low , the relay started chattering in it off and on real fast.  I asked Bobier about it and he sent me a new improved version that didn't do that . I should take a photo of that controller next to the Hawkes Bay  ha ha - that will be a striking comparison .
Larry

[littleharbor2]

 What a contrast that would be for sure. 

Here's one more photo with a few more vintage panels and controllers. See the long lost relative of the Midnite line of controllers.

Theres a pristine Solar Power Corp. panel with fiberglass backing and silicone front encapsulant. Top right is an odd panel made with cells designed for satellites. Notice the radial traces on the cells?

[ClassicCrazy]

What a contrast that would be for sure. 

Here's one more photo with a few more vintage panels and controllers. See the long lost relative of the Midnite line of controllers.

Theres a pristine Solar Power Corp. panel with fiberglass backing and silicone front encapsulant. Top right is an odd panel made with cells designed for satellites. Notice the radial traces on the cells?

You have a neat collection there.
That satellite pv is cool.
We should make a forum topic called show us your old solar stuff !

Larry

[ClassicCrazy]

Part 3 video of my Hawkes Bay install . I show my cold weather adventures finding the 2 gauge wire, terminals, and making the cables to go from Hawkes Bay to adjacent Midnite MNDC breaker box.
The sun was out in full force today - first time in a couple weeks. The sunshine and cold air temps had the solar panels putting out their full rated power or more today.
I also show at the end of video some data monitoring history and analysis  from how my lithium batteries did last night with heater load to keep the batteries warm. This showed how some of the cells are not balanced , but by the end of the day today the 48v 300 ah of battery was 100% charged . I welcome comments on my video making - for example I sped up parts in editing cause I didn't want to bore everyone with my slow talk and action. I just hope it may be of value for others who want a more detailed look at what it might take them to plan and wire up a Hawkes Bay .
Here is the youtube link
https://youtu.be/jsFOfkaCHU8
Larry

[ClassicCrazy]

Just uploaded the Part 4 of wiring Hawkes Bay.
I got all the wires from the breaker box to the controller connected, wired up a ground, an SPD, and got a junction box in for the PV .
I found that a cheap 300v DC breaker I was going to use for the dc baseboard heater wasn't up to the job of breaking a load and sent a nice flame out the side of it.
No fancy speed up editing on this video so it is what it is !
https://youtu.be/WDnMvbjDiwA
Larry

[qrper]

What a contrast that would be for sure. 

Here's one more photo with a few more vintage panels and controllers. See the long lost relative of the Midnite line of controllers.

Theres a pristine Solar Power Corp. panel with fiberglass backing and silicone front encapsulant. Top right is an odd panel made with cells designed for satellites. Notice the radial traces on the cells?

Good grief! One of the old Trace 'clicker' regulators. Damn, those are rare. I've been trolling ebay for years looking for one.

Solarex had a line of PV panels that were cells encapsulated onto what looked like PCB material. I had several and the worked fine as long as they did't get too hot. If they did, they would stop working. The cause? Then the cell backing, the PCB material, would heat up, the expansion put stress on the silver strips that connected the cells. So, once hot, the connection would open and the panel would drop to zero volts. If you took a garden hose and wet the back, bang! The panel would start producing voltage again.

Ah, those were the days!

Mike, wb8vge

[ClassicCrazy]

What a contrast that would be for sure. 

Here's one more photo with a few more vintage panels and controllers. See the long lost relative of the Midnite line of controllers.

Theres a pristine Solar Power Corp. panel with fiberglass backing and silicone front encapsulant. Top right is an odd panel made with cells designed for satellites. Notice the radial traces on the cells?

Good grief! One of the old Trace 'clicker' regulators. Damn, those are rare. I've been trolling ebay for years looking for one.

Solarex had a line of PV panels that were cells encapsulated onto what looked like PCB material. I had several and the worked fine as long as they did't get too hot. If they did, they would stop working. The cause? Then the cell backing, the PCB material, would heat up, the expansion put stress on the silver strips that connected the cells. So, once hot, the connection would open and the panel would drop to zero volts. If you took a garden hose and wet the back, bang! The panel would start producing voltage again.

Ah, those were the days!

Mike, wb8vge

Mike - Glad that we have moved on to bigger and hopefully better things !
Larry

[ClassicCrazy]

Today I finished up all the wiring to the Hawkes Bay and powered it up. I had to wrestle around quite a bit with my existing cables which took a bit of time. And the Whizbang on the shunt was in the way of getting the shunt removed because the Whizbang blocks the mounting screw. And since I had added heavy wire cables above it , it was really hard to get a screwdriver on the Whizbang to remove it so I could remove the shunt. I was removing the shunt so I could stack two Whizbangs on it - one for the Classic, and another for the Hawkes Bay. I had a lot of extra Whizbang mounting hardware from past projects . What I did was to install spacers so there was access to the shunt mounting screw. Also had to space out the two Whizbangs with extra spacers because of protrusion on the bottom they won't fit flat on each other. I got it done as shown in the video I made .
I had a lot of wrestling with stiff cables to get the cables all reattached on the shunt, and had to make up a new negative wire to the Classic just so I could position the terminal better on the shunt.
I got the PV wired up, then made all the checks, and powered up the Hawkes Bay . All seemed to go well though it was just before sundown so it barely made any watts . I downloaded the android updater app and updated firmware and or MNGP2 with no issues. This is so much easier than the old days of dragging a laptop out to the Classic and then messing around with serial ports. The Android updater app just finds the Hawkes Bay right away . There could be some refinements to the app because I wasn't sure what updates I was doing at first , I just touched the screen and it started updating . But I am sure that will get improved along the way. I may have done the same mngp2 update twice - not sure.
Everything went pretty well so now I can finally take advantage of using the extra 1.8kw of PV I put up this past fall to charge the batteries - which will really help out on the short and cloudy days of winter.
Here is the youtube link to part 5 video. I tried to make it short - had all kinds of editing mess ups and had to redo it once - fun times with video editing - I am not that skilled at it !
https://youtu.be/7t7lw8ryIxA

[Wizbandit]

I use this to get some better connect points.  I have bolted it on the MNDC250 breaker as well.  Makes it way easy.
https://www.midnitesolar.com/productPhoto.php?product_ID=209&productCatName=Busbars&productCat_ID=17&sortOrder=19&act=p

[ClassicCrazy]

I use this to get some better connect points.  I have bolted it on the MNDC250 breaker as well.  Makes it way easy.
https://www.midnitesolar.com/productPhoto.php?product_ID=209&productCatName=Busbars&productCat_ID=17&sortOrder=19&act=p

I should get one of those and make my wiring life a lot easier !
Larry

[qrper]

Amazing those old Arco panels still work. The cell surfaces are the worst I've ever seen. Here's a real old Arco panel that is odd in that it has a boxlike construction. Not sure of the vintage but looking at the crude cells I'd guess one of the first.

LittleHabor
Those are some vintage collectible solar panels ! I wonder if anyone collects old pv ? I have some vintage solar controllers here. My first controller was small cube made by Bobier Electronics. When the sun was getting low , the relay started chattering in it off and on real fast.  I asked Bobier about it and he sent me a new improved version that didn't do that . I should take a photo of that controller next to the Hawkes Bay  ha ha - that will be a striking comparison .
Larry

I used to sell those Bobier controllers. They weren't much in the way of current capacity, I'm thinking less than five amps? They were potted and un-repairable, too. They worked like the Trace C30 and used a relay to control charging current. The Trace had a T90 20 A relay. I have no idea what Bobier used. Both were really efficient as there was no blocking diode lost or power wasted in a transistor. Power MOSFETS were still too expensive and fragile at that time. Neither one, that I recall, used a microprocessor so they were RFI quiet. They did click when regulating the battery voltage.

Without a blocking diode, the relay would be opened, camparators would look at the solar panel's voltage and if the panel was in the dark, keep the relay open until dawn.
They worked okay if you didn't mind the clicking of the relay. The T90 relay used by Trace was rated at millions of cycles, so it should, in theory, never fail.

Great times back then!

mike, wb8vge

[Vic]

Hi Larry,

Thanks for your videos of your installation of the Hawke's Bay.

Too bad about that "300 VDC breaker".  To me,  it is difficult to trust many/most/all of these inexpensive DC breakers that come from central Asia.  This sounds  and is prejudicial,  as a general statement.  BUT,  there is so much riding on these breakers,  and if we can find DC breakers from MidNite Solar/Carling/CBI/Sq-D,  and other majors,  it seems well worth the extra purchase price.

Not to lecture, too much.   more later,  thanks, Vic