u/Ryan_e3p

Figured since I sort of re-did my solar generator, I'd take some pics and show how easy it can be done. Pics will be in the comments.

Case: Crafstman case, was $54 at Lowes. Very sturdy case, with excellent wide metal latches. This is replacing my old setup that had plastic handles that broke, and really don't want to deal with that again. I carved away at parts of the removable tool tray so it holds the battery from moving in the box.

Battery: 12V 100Ah LifePO4. Technically free, since the battery can only hold about 80% of a charge, so the seller sent me a replacement and let me keep this one. It has roughly 960-ish watt-hours of capacity. Otherwise, they go for about $130ish.

Renogy Rover 20A MPPT charge controller. 280W 12V output, which is 40W more than the little 12V outlet strip thing I have, but I'm not going to be pulling more than 100W from it. The MC4 connectors for solar panel input, I also initially planned on drilling a couple holes through the case to put through, but this looks cleaner. $70 or so on Amazon right now, but I got it for much cheaper second-hand at $20. Mounted to a piece of scrap 1/4" board.

12V side panel: $17, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTSPH756 . Has a 12V socket adapter (perfect for my fridge/freezer), and USB A and C out. Also has a little screen to tell me how many volts are on the battery, as well as an on/off switch.

600W pure sine inverter: This is where I'm not the most happy with things, but oh well. I was hoping to custom make a 110V cable coming out and going to a weatherproof/outdoor style one, but I couldn't find a "base" socket that was flat and angled in such a way that I didn't have to add height to the inverter being mounted flat to the board. Most other plugs stick out too much and would be riding the battery, or flat ones that go straight down and hit the board. Ah well. Thankfully I had a flat & angled outlet power strip that fits perfectly between the battery and the case wall, so I'll just stick with that. Works fine, and means less drilling holes through the case. The inverter also as a remote switch to turn it on and off so I don't have to pull the entire thing apart. I could mount that to the case also, but this is good enough for now. These are not expensive, anywhere from $40-80.

Note that with the inverter, there is something missing that I recommend other people add: a fuse between the inverter and the battery. I lost mine, and the replacement won't be here before I go camping. The inverter has 15A fuses for each socket, so that'll do for now, but I highly recommend having one just to safely kill power if needed. One thing I am happy with is the 1/4" base board it is mounted to, I added another 1/2" strip of wood to help "lock in" the battery from moving, so combined with the modified tool tray, that thing isn't moving anywhere.

Also one thing missing is an intake/exhaust fan. The lid is going to be open when using or charging this, since otherwise, things are likely to cook. And it needs to be open anyways, since I didn't really feel like adding more holes for the MC4 connectors or 110V outlets. 🤷‍♂️

Anyways, wanted to post this for others to see. I like these style of DIY projects since it helps build confidence! I've always been a proponent of solar, and this is an easy alternative that saves a couple hundred bucks compared to all-in-one solutions like Jackery, Bluetti, etc. These are also customizable, repairable, and adding capacity is as easy as adding another 12V battery. You can make smaller ones with a 12V 50Ah battery, use one of those modular wheeled tool carts to stack batteries for added capacity, drop the inverter altogether, use a different charge controller, and just make it how you want!

Long-awaited Enfield mall residential plan collapses as possible mystery developer emerges

I remember being at this mall when I was younger. Packed with people during Christmas with all the department stores having decorations up, being a shady teen in the arcade, and it's just sad to see how far it has fallen.

With this news, it'll likely continue just crumbling the next 10 years and being a place of constant break-ins.

CT suburb gives a hard ‘no’ to plan for 237 new homes. Council member called it ‘a very bad idea’

The town council in Farmington unanimously voted no against new housing units being built, with arguments against it from locals ranging from "taxpayers shouldn’t be burdened with the expense of more public school students" and "why these aren't age-restricted" [sic].

Another local "urged commissioners to reject the application, saying that Edgewood’s senior residents pay thousands of dollars in taxes but get no garbage collection or snow removal and have no children in the schools"; the irony being that the town has no say in what their private HOA community does for garbage collection & snow removal, and that they themselves are products of a public education that locals without kids paid into.

Unfortunately, the time has come to pick a new supplier. Sweetheart deals of 8.35c/kwh expire in a few weeks, and it generally takes some time to change it on the paperwork.

Looking at EnergizeCT.com, it looks like picking Eversource as the supplier is going to be the best balance between price & convenience. While there is a cheaper supply rate, the rate is only good for 4 months, and I don't want to have to bounce around suppliers making changes every few months to save a few cents.

Otherwise, if you have the Constellation plan from a couple years ago and you don't switch suppliers, your cost will be automatically adjusted to 14.79c/kwh. Make the change if you haven't yet!

As a follow-up to my [now after upgrades] $3,000 solar build post back in March (Solar isn't impossible or needs to be super expensive, but it does require some planning ahead), I've been living primarily off the system for a while now. Through sunny days, cloudy days, and rainy days, my system continues to impress me, and I've done some decent upgrades to it since the original install last year, including swapping for more powerful secondhand panels, rebuilding my ground mount frame to allow for a more optimal panel angle, and adding a bit more battery capacity.

To be reliant on the system, I haven't had to make any concessions (like living in the dark or getting rid of appliances). The changes I've made were good to make regardless, and include: finally fully stocking the second chest freezer, reducing how many UPS devices in the network rack (each one had an average draw of 10-20W, so I just pulled the batteries from all but 1, and put them in parallel on the 30A UPS and reduced my running load by almost 80W), I got a more energy-efficient fridge, things like that.

Since March, I've only needed to draw 32.9kwh from the utilities when the system was either down for maintenance, down for me to do electrical work, or making changes to the battery housing. My average daily draw is anywhere from 6-9kwh per day, which the 6kw of panels easily generates. With the humid times coming, I got a bit creative with things using Home Assistant, smart plugs, and automatic transfer switches so I can fully cool the house with window units during the day, and with a semi-complicated series of "if/then" statements, have it so I can have the window ACs can be powered off the sun and/or battery if a series of checks against forecast UV exposure and battery levels are met (otherwise, I can choose to have the AC powered via utilities as a backup if internal room/house temps or humidity are not met). So far, they haven't had to touch utility power. In fact, my system generates enough that I could even consider installing the wiring for a Level 2 charger for an EV for daytime charging.

I still have some devices using utility power, like the dishwasher (which has an electric water heater built in), clothes drier, microwave, and a couple spare rooms in the house, but I'm OK with that for now, since especially in an extended power outage, I likely wouldn't be using them anyways. I've dropped my electric bill down below $75 for the first time in almost two decades (and here in CT, where we are paying an average $0.35-40/kwh for energy, and that cost is going up again in about a month), which I am super happy about, but that was also in part to me just using better, more energy efficient appliances, and being smarter with my usage in general. And, I'm continuing to migrate/add outlets to continue moving things over to it and off of utilities. While I could have made the system backfeed and "sell back" to the grid, I'm glad I didn't, since I have a great disdain for the monopoly (Eversource) that runs the area, and recent changes in the state would have it so that if I signed on, I would still get charged for what I produce and use on site (which is like the grocery store coming to my house, counting how many apples I picked and ate off my tree, and charging me to cover their profit losses). How much I generate and what I do with it is none of their goddamn business.

I've also learned a couple things about my usage overall that I hope others can learn from: while it is good to know your average load in watts, it may not be as high as you think. Outside of compressors kicking on for fridges, freezers, and air conditioners, my average running load is only about 400W, and I run a tech heavy house with over a dozen devices in my network rack, and another dozen-plus around the property. Definitely make sure whatever you use for power can handle all the compressors kicking in to cover the peak, and chase down and minimize phantom draws where you can, but a cheap system built using a lot of secondhand parts can damn near eliminate an electric bill with enough creativity and planning.

Happy to answer questions if there are any, and here's the 'core' of my system:

-5,886W of panels (SunPower E20-327), 18 of them, 3 strings of 6 (these were secondhand, found on Facebook Marketplace for $10 each, and replaced my mishmash of panels that made the original setup)
-Eco-worthy 5KW hybrid off-grid inverter (new)
-12V 100Ah batteries in series to make 48V 100Ah, and quite a few of them (and growing!) (new)
-Solar Assistant for tracking statistics and management of the inverter, running on a Pi Zero 2W
-Home Assistant on a Pi4 (for localized smart home management)

As I sit here with panels under the cover of clouds, I'm still watching my batteries charge up while handling the watt load, and a big concern of mine (energy independence) is checked off.

Wondering if there is a firmware (even if it needs a separate app) for the Tdeck that allows use of the unit itself or an app. Would just be nice to strap the Tdeck onto the top of a backpack or something and get alerts to and respond with my phone as opposed to stopping and removing the deck from where it's stationed.

I know it's a bit tricky, since based on my experience with nodes so far, once a message is "pulled" to an app, it is removed from the node storage, but it would be a great boon for the device's useability.

Had Comcast internet exclusively for over a decade. Never had a cable TV subscription. After leaving Comcast for Frontier fiber (as it was half the cost of Comcast, and much faster speeds), I started getting emails from Comcast saying I needed to turn in a cable box otherwise I would be charged and/or sent to collections for it.

The cable box in question is an X1 digital cable box, which not only is something I never had, it was released years after I opened my internet-only account with them.

I finally called them up today and told the service rep that I have never had a cable TV subscription in all my years with them. I never accepted any equipment, and have no idea why I'm being sent these emails. I guess this isn't the first time the rep has dealt with this, since they had no issue dropping the equipment from my account. Almost like they had zero standing to defend wanting to charge me in the first place. 🤔

I really hate that companies do this sort of thing, where they send bills and threats of collections to people in the hopes that they will just pay it off without question and assume a child, significant other, or some other person in the house used said product/service. Sure, I have the time and energy to deal with these companies and push back, but it makes me wonder how much companies can extract from people without ever first proving the reason for the charge to begin with.

I swear places like SubaruParts had a parts blowout diagram where you could find those parts that you didn't know the "Subaru" name for, in order to get the part number to do a wider search for on other sites.

Does anyone know of any sites that has that?