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Thanks Fintray

Deep joy, now we have the other six panels up on the lofty roof, so the full 4.8kWp is live, still no smoke, flames, arcing, or anything, just lots of lectrons being persuaded to mingle with the battery.

So if a million square miles of Strato - nimbus invades the British Isles ............it's my fault.

Desp

Hi all, does anyone know about the following??

The MCS manual says a type B RCD should be fitted if the inverter is capable of feeding DC current into the grid, but a type A is ok if the inverter has
"at least simple separation between the DC and AC sides"

Hagar want over three hundred quid for a type B so it would be cool if the existing type A is acceptable.

Ta everso

Desp

spread-tee wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 3:48 pm Hi all, does anyone know about the following??

The MCS manual says a type B RCD should be fitted if the inverter is capable of feeding DC current into the grid, but a type A is ok if the inverter has
"at least simple separation between the DC and AC sides"

Hagar want over three hundred quid for a type B so it would be cool if the existing type A is acceptable.

Ta everso

Desp

You need to refer to your inverter documentation. Most if not all SMA Sunny Boys are OK with Type A - SMA publish a list here:

https://files.sma.de/downloads/RCD-Typ-A-HK-en_17.pdf

Solis Inverters also say they are OK with Type A:

https://zerohomebills.com/wp-content/up ... aranna.pdf

There is no "simple" rule as far as I can see.

What inverter do you have?

Thanks Marshman, we do indeed have a Solis RHI 5G inverter, that's the document I need. I didn't dig deep enough into the certification online.

The manual and specifications within don't seem to mention this.

I owe you a beer or three

Desp

Lots of great projects in this thread! This might be the year to get on with our garage roof project. It's flat, needs planning permssion to insulate (gah! had to do this for EWI previously), but I "may as well" put in for solar on it as well. "The internet" says I need the panels at a 10 degree slope to avoid having to clean them all the time. PVgis says we can get 4kWp on it, giving 2800kWh/year - not to be sniffed at!
I've seen plastic tray things that the panels can fit in - they look neat, but seem bizarrely expensive. And I worry too about whether the panels will overheat without any airflow at the back. So my assumption now is that I'll make a frame out of "Filcris" recycled plastic lumber, put a couple of sandbags on it/panel to hold it down - like this stuff:



I've used it before - it's a bit bendy compared to wood, but it's strong and won't rot, takes stainless wood screws fine.

So far in the journey I've had our main cutout upgraded to a full 100A , asked the DNO for permission to fit a mega 8kW hybrid inverter, and I need to do a planning application. Fingers crossed !

I fixed our panels down to the flat roof using frames made from 47*/47mm treated timber screwed down to the flat roof. I used 2 bits of timber about 20cm long each, stuck them down with a good blob of cold fix roofing felt adhesive and wound 2 stainless screw straight through the roofing felt/decking into the joist below, then fixed the frames to that..

I tested this on the shed roof last year and it is fine, no leaks, bloomin strong as it needs to be and repairable if neeed be, and cheap. All the timber was cut to length and soaked in Cuprinol 5 star overnight, left to dry and then two coats of Lesanol. To be fair the workshop roof and the lofty roof are pretty accessible so I do plan to keep and eye on it as long as I am able to haul my old arse out of the velux window. I will see if I can post some piccys if you like.

I'll let you know if it blows away

Desp

Awesome to hear, if you don’t mind me asking what type of cold roofing adhesive did you use?

Getting parts ready for mine!

Hi AGT,

I've got some Cromar cold lay adhesive but there are loads on the market, whatever your nearest roofing shop or builders merchant has in stock will do.
Something like this for example:- https://www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk/pro ... ve-5l.html

Be warned though it is horrible black sticky stuff that gets everywhere even before you open it I trod some on a white carpet once
not a good day........

Desp

Thanks Desp, appreciate the reply!

Having been live now for nearly four months it seems timely to add a progress update, if any of you are still awake

In early Feb the woodstore/shed array was connected, 6 of Canadian solar 410W panels.



This shows the steel sections Mr Smegal sold to me bolted onto concrete post stubs supporting a pair of 4*2 timber rails onto which the 2+2 timber brackets are fixed which incline at about 15 degrees.



When the batteries were first connected they were at about 65%SOC, this rapidly plummeted to 20% when the inverter shut them down, occasionally we charged them up to maybe 45% ish only for them to fall back to 20%. as yet we dont have a cheap rate.

Near the end of Feb the second array up on the lofty roof went live which seemed to bring the SOC up to 60% plus by sundown. We still drained them down to 20 overnight. Around the second week of March we finally hit the 100% mark and bar a couple of days that is where they have stayed.

Mrs Desp is very good at timing her laundry and etc to coincide with good generation, but to be honest for the last month we have had power to spare all the time. So far we have generated 1127 kWhr and exported just shy of 400kWhrs, hopefully when Octopus have installed a new meter we can persuade them to pay us for some of it.

The Canadian Solar panels supplied by Bimble certainly do what it says on the tin, they are rated at 4.92kWp and yet I have on a few occasions seen more than 5.1kW output which did surprise me. The previous system never reached even 80% of the nameplate capacity, mind you they were cheapo sale items from the other place, so no beef with that. We obviously need to use more power locally so maybe I will build an electrolysis plant, or an Arc furnace, especially if as some of you have said these last couple of months have been pretty poor. Next winter though we will play more extensively with the A/A heatpump so that could be interesting.

Enough for now, seeya.

Desp