North Central Texas Setup Just about to turn a year old!

Hello Sports fans, it is time for the next issue on my radar.  Reliable water delivery.

Up to now I have been using the orbit series timers. This his been a good choice EXCEPT: they go through batteries faster than ... through a goose and it was getting very expensive running up to 10 timers at the height of summer.  

While bumming through a small store in Haslet I came across this little bugger...  IT IS SOLAR POWERED!     Now my trees are a bit from the water tank (about 400 feet +- 20ft)  so I had to crank up my wifi extender.  I have good signal to to of the trees closest (after raising the WavLink 1200 by 20 feet.  I may have to raise it higher yet to reach the other two units at the far end of the property (approx. 600 ft).

so far the signal is good and I can turn them off/on from home.  Lets see how it does over a week or so.  If it holds up I can truly see this replacing my battery driven units.  They are the same price, so at a minimum I save the cost of duracell batteries.

EG4 24K mini-split ORDER IN!

I finally found a EG4 24K mini-split vendor that does Amazon Pay!     

This has allowed me to take advantage of the fact that Christmas was not done entirely on Amazon this year AND bonus will pay-out in the last paycheck in Feb and I can payoff the entire purchase before summer!  I actually shopped early and made purchases of things through out the year when I found them on sale.  That is much easier now that the kids are all grown and I know what they want/need well before Christmas.

Thank You Solar Guys Pro.   Their reviews are good, I'll let you know how they pan out for me!

Well that turned out to be a floater in ye ole' punch bowl! 😔 

HOWEVER; all was not lost!  Brooke from Signature Solar was there to save the day and some $$$.

It turned out that a.) they were still open when i got the news from the original vendor.  b.) they had the 24k mini-split in-stock!  I suspect "lack of stock" was the case with the other vendor, but since they have yet to call or write me back I'm just guessing.  If I ever get a reason from them I'll update this post.

But wait, there's more!   It turns out I only live a couple of hours away from the warehouse/factory so by driving over early New Years Eve when metroplex traffic was light (a truly rare event), I would save about $300 in shipping while only costing about $20 in gas for the round-trip.

and the cherry on top was that there was a sale going on that I was unaware (it was added at the counter ).

I must say I will be doing business with Signature Solar again (I should have started there and saved myself a LOT of headache). 

Thank You very much.  Brooke @ Signature Solar! 🍺 

@dfwtinker Glad it worked out.  YAY!

Does SS do Amazon Pay?

JB

@joel-brodeur 

No.  I asked.  I wonder what it is about the terms that most large vendors seem to not want to participate?

I had to move some stuff around, but they made it worth the effort!

Posted by: @dfwtinker

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Well that turned out to be a floater in ye ole' punch bowl! 😔 

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HOWEVER; all was not lost!  Brooke from Signature Solar was there to save the day and some $$$.

It turned out that a.) they were still open when i got the news from the original vendor.  b.) they had the 24k mini-split in-stock!  I suspect "lack of stock" was the case with the other vendor, but since they have yet to call or write me back I'm just guessing.  If I ever get a reason from them I'll update this post.

But wait, there's more!   It turns out I only live a couple of hours away from the warehouse/factory so by driving over early New Years Eve when metroplex traffic was light (a truly rare event), I would save about $300 in shipping while only costing about $20 in gas for the round-trip.

and the cherry on top was that there was a sale going on that I was unaware (it was added at the counter ).

I must say I will be doing business with Signature Solar again (I should have started there and saved myself a LOT of headache). 

 

Thank You very much.  Brooke @ Signature Solar! 🍺 

 

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-- attachment is not available --

 

Thank you so much for the shoutout! I'll let Brooke know of your compliments! 

We don't take Amazon pay but we do accept Affirm! 

FPO (for placement only)  so that i could get measurements for raceway and figure out security.  More to follow.

I intentionally tilted the internal mount about 2 degrees off of level (down on the right) to assist with the draining as suggested in an install video.  He mentioned that perfectly level "may" still cause drainage problems.  A slight tilt eliminates that risk.  It made sense to me, so I incorporated it into my install.

Security: From inside the lower box, bolt the back of the box to the shed,

              bolt the mini-split to the box with 4in carriage bolts and nylon nuts with a 4x4 between each set of legs (front/back).  This will provide about a 4in air-flow gap beneath the unit.  

              Fill it with 300lbs of solid cinder blocks and lock/bolt it shut.

              Place a non-descript cover over the unit.

24k Mini Split INSTALLATION DAY!!!

100% solar (actually running on 240v off of my battery which of course is charged by solar.  In the daytime the panels make enough power to both charge my battery, run the well to refill the tank AND keep the A/C running     Let's see what tomorrows charts show.   Then on Sunday when the temps head below freezing again, and the heat tape kicks in (400w).

Stand by one!

Where did I leave off?  Oh yeah freezing my ass off...  ==>   What I Learned From My Winter Vacation... (24k mini-split performance during a winter storm)! 🤔

It has warmed up a bit and I think we are on the road to an early spring.  We may get another front or two (maybe even a March ice storm), after all it is Texas.

It was a bright sunny day so I decided to push the system to the max and see what it would do. 

But lets step back a couple of days to Feb 21st, it was cold, nasty and windy.  Low temp for the night was 15F degrees, the battery died at 1230 the morning of the Feb 22nd.  At 0900 the system had enough charge and fired right up.

 The mini-split fired up and stabilized in about 2.5 hours, it was still around 20F outside.

I did some work on the property doing the usual spring prep work and left around 1700, the mini-split did its thing all night and the temps did not go below freezing and I crossed the midnight point at 74% SOC  which for the past two weeks has not happened (with the low temps).

This is when the real test began on Feb 22nd.  

 The sun came up around 0730 and SOC 30%

at 0900 The well kicked on with 2000w to begin filling the water tank.

at 1000 I also turned on the 1000w water pump to beg watering the trees.

at 1010 I added 2000w with the mini-split by turning up the temp to 75F (outside temp 40F).  The photo catches the A/C mid-cycle.

EG4 DID JUST FINE!    XP6000 cranked out 6700W (89% eff)

I will be getting my next indoor battery as soon as my tax refund arrives (already filed) . 

That is the only way this is gong to make it through our summers (and now I know; our winters too).

I will continue to do my seasonal benchmarking here.  I will also be look to see if there are any EG4 products I am missing in my setup!

Boy!  Talk about being LUCKY!   

This past Tuesday, as advertised, I put my half of the Income tax return (plus some rat-hole $$ - aka savings) and ordered my second Wall Mount battery:

  The next day I got notice of price increases and this morning I received this in the mail.

  now THAT is an attention grabber for ya!   Some are a LOT higher; some only a bit higher... shop carefully!

A third battery, although part of the original design; it will be pure luxury at this point, so I think I'll wait until the price comes back down.  I have some other things to do before the heat of Summer.  I need to finish the insulation and put in a ceiling to prevent heating & cooling the second floor of the shed!

I will pick it up Saturday morning and publish photos.

L8r

The long awaited second Wall Mount Battery Install.

Today was the day!  

I picked up the battery at Signature Solar Saturday morning bright and early at 9am.   I arrived a bit early to avoid traffic and was met by Payge Lorda as she was opening up.   

She was quickly able to locate and call up my order from the warehouse.  The loaders were at the counter ready to load before I even had my receipt in hand.  I don't think the entire process took more than ten minutes.   It was obvious, everyone was there to take care of business!  Thank You Signature Solar and Payge Lorda!

Now that I have taken care of the "Propers" I'll get on with todays events.  

First off, getting it out of the car by myself took a a bit of thought, but I got it worked out.

 I watered overnight as usual because I knew the new battery would not be at 100% SOC.  

When I started Battery #1 was down to 40% so I let it charge while i unloaded and set up Battery #2.  When powered on Battery # was at 55%; when SOC on Battery #1 reached 57%. I shut down the entire system from solar panel disconnect to the pwr off buttons on both batteries AND turned off both battery circuit breakers; then Shut off the Inverter.  According to lights and meter.  System Powered DOWN!

 I connected the cables from the paralleling kit according to the instructions in the manual.

After following the manuals instruction for connecting the Battery comms and setting the dip switches to make sure each had it's own ID

 A few minutes after switching the power back on the inverter started charging the first battery.  It took about 2 minutes for everything to sync up.  Over all it was very, very easy and a nice switch in an industry where "gemicks reign"

 Start to finish it took me about 90 minutes, and that included waiting for the SOC on Battery #1 to come up so we could begin.

I know a lot of folks are having trouble with their EG4 products (me too, nature of the beast.) but I'm very glad I found this product line.    

I'll Be Back! . . .   (i think that has been used already.... )

Apparently this is the correct way to wire in the second battery.  the photos are reversed from the manual drawing.   However, it looks like I have the cables in the wrong spot.  I will correct tomorrow when I go out to check on property.

SPRING is here!

It is time to take stock of the adjustments I made last fall when I installed the second set of solar panels.   I Changed the pitch of my array 8 degrees off horizontal (which i established for max summer power to the 3000W of solar I was running on last summer). To a 24 degree pitch which is a bit off of the recommended 35 degrees for this area, however I wanted to gain the most power for the longest time period (days).  https://forum.eg4electronics.com/community/share-your-setup/north-central-texas-setup-just-about-to-turn-a-year-old/#post-592

Here is the math i produced in an earlier of what my Planned power would be during Summer Peak.

 Today with both batteries charging full out, the well pump running and the A/C was keeping the building at 75 degrees, while the outside temps got as high as 88 today.  

While I had only anticipated 5625W of usable PV generated power, my actual output was 7799W or 104% of rated output of my solar panels.  I must say I am most impressed by how well and efficient all of the EG4 stuff works together.  

To be totally honest, I am expecting the production to go down just a bit during summer (because I'm off the peak angle quite a bit), but pick pack up a bit in the fall.  From the looks of it Summer will still truly tax the system, but it shouldn't max out and cause an overload condition. Finishing the insulation should help a lot. 

Summer is June 20th.  

An update on the insulation project. I have finished putting in the insulation, the vapor barrier covered by 1/2in plywood.  I have completed the entire east end (except the ceiling).   Paint and double sided reflecting film with 5mm foam insulation happen this weekend (arthritis not acting a fool).  Stand-by.

@herque   

Good morning.  A while back you asked me how I felt about my experience with my setup.  Here is the latest link to the Spring Surprise (for the better).  ==> https://forum.eg4electronics.com/community/share-your-setup/north-central-texas-setup-just-about-to-turn-a-year-old/paged/2/#post-15713

l8r