Today I went to get going on projects. Things didn't go well. For starters, the wire that came in the kit for the solar panel was big. I don't understand why they felt the need to include a 4 or 6 gauge wire with a panel that only outputs 5A and would be fine with a 16 gauge wire.
As a result, the wire nuts I had from doing my house wiring (you can put 4 12 gauge house wires in that nut) didn't fit.
Neither did any of my butt splices or other electrical terminators.
Thankfully, I found one of my old giant nuts. I bought a small pack of these for the 6 gauge grounding strap for the propane. For comparison, the yellow wire is 12 gauge.
I got the solar setup going. The fan is to keep the BAR from overheating, since 100W of heat dissipation is a lot when there is no heatsinks. You may notice that the laptop isn't there collecting data because I am a noob and forgot to grab a USB serial converter.
The ideal angle in NH is around 40 degrees. This was close to the optimal angle.
I did get a reading when cloudy out, the panel was putting out 21.7W. I checked a few times and saw between 17W and 25W. That is a steeper decline than expected (assuming my panel is good).
The clouds were pretty thick. So much for partly cloudy.
The sun did come out periodically. And I have some explaining to do at work next week. It looks like the LCD couldn't handle the sunlight.
I also got some painting done. Turns out that one of the cans of gray I bought last fall for this had gone bad despite being stored indoors. Thankfully I had two cans and at least the fronts of the boards are all gray. The two cans were supposedly the same, so I can't explain they weren't the same color.
The backs are more patriotic. I used the leftover red and blue that I had bought when I was doing plumbing insulation to identify cold vs hot.
I also tried to work on the trailer wiring a little bit today. I should have checked wire length on the plug that I bought. This one is less than a foot, the other one was two feet.
So I managed to replace the wire screwed into the frame (the white wire). I only had speaker wire in the shed, I couldn't find any other wire (other than house wire which is a very poor choice). I also had literally just one self-drilling screw left, but that was all I needed, so the grounding is good again. Turns out the other wires all had the same problem as the white wire though, so I couldn't get the new connector on unless I wanted to make it too short to actually plug in. I also can't believe that I am out of wire, but I wasn't able to find any in the shed. Ugh.
Batting at 0%, I did at least get the snowblower ready for summer. I put ethanol shield stuff in and ran it bone dry. It is over by the other project trailer so it is out of the way. I really need to build an equipment shed at some point.
Just to add insult to injury, I cracked my phone screen today as well. It isn't bad and the phone is still usable (for now, but the crack goes from edge to edge so the glass will start peeling), but given my general disdain for this phone and its general sucktitude, perhaps it is time to consider buying a new phone. I would also like to note that my old MotoX that I bought when I first moved to Syracuse fired right up and took these pictures. I have briefly considered pulling it out of retirement and just reactivating it, but it is old, the battery doesn't last in it, the camera is still broken (despite the pictures below), and the charging port on it has gotten flaky since it is way past its expiration date. Matt still has a Pixel 3XL available, it is something to ponder.
I apparently didn't grab a picture of it, but I did pull out the grinder today and started on the trailer prep. All the miscellaneous bolts that were still in the frame have been ground off. I just have to hit it with a wire brush and paint it.
Hopefully tomorrow goes a bit better. It is supposed to be warmer tomorrow, so hopefully I can get at least a chunk of the utility trailer painted.
Just bite the bullet and get a new phone! It should take even better pictures than this one did!
ReplyDeleteto be honest, i was actually kind of disappointed with this phone's camera. the dynamic range is poor, its low light performance is poor, and its zoom is atrocious. its regular daylight pictures are ok, but not very sharp if you blow them up to full size.
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