Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans: Get out of the house and take a walk at a local park.
- 06:00 Up and sipp’n coffee while writing in my Blog.
- 07:00 Found out car battery is dead, now how do I get a replacement.
- 08:00 Mounted 2x more solar panels on the roof and adjusted the counter weights.
Narrative: I am still floundering a little, time is opening up and I need to get focused on what’s important.
I temporarily laid two more solar panels on the roof to simulate the six panels mom will have on the sandbox.
My plan for years was to deploy solar panels stored in the garage to protect them. I cannot deploy them in the yard or someone will remove them, possibly with force.
The plan was to use the 20 blocks that are stored in the driveway to hold the solar panels in place and run temporary wires to charge the batteries. I have repurposed three circuits and now have those 12AWG wires to bring the solar from the roof to the batteries.
When I tried holding down the solar panels with the cement blocks. I hadn’t thought of how I was going to attach the straps to the blocks. That the blocks needed a felt underlayment. I also hadn’t realized that the blocks won’t hold the panels unless half of them are on the other side of the crest of the roof. The straps across the crest need to be wide enough not to damage the shingles. (I used 6” wide flashing for my test, but it’s pretty thin to hold an array of 10 panels.)
I was amazed at how much power I could get on a cloudy day.
I also decided to series / parallel the panels into five banks of two solar panels. That keeps the voltage below a real arcing concern and the current is not too outrageous.
I have four panels that face East/West that are paralleled together 2S2P so they produce roughly the same power throughout the day. (Verses having a peak power at noon.)
I was impressed pretty quickly that they were producing 80W on a pretty cloudy day!
Bought mom a fan, emergency radio and some batteries, they will all be there tomorrow.
Golf cart shop called mom today, they’re picking up the golf cart today…. Yea!
Feelings:
Tomorrow: Church service in the evening.
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Repairs: Pi News:
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To