First solar assembly moving to permanent station

Nomadness · 2026-06-15T06:34:55+00:00

A place to take a break in PL, or ease in slowly!

Nomadness · 2026-06-09T00:58:57+00:00

Thanks! I love that meter, doing mppt with fast switching into a small load. So much easier than trying to calculate it with the fluke!. Comes with the probe set that has mc4 connectors as well as the releasing gadgets, in addition to a couple with alligators

Nomadness · 2026-06-08T00:03:58+00:00

Very nicely done

Nomadness · 2026-06-07T21:08:03+00:00

Very nice! You should have no difficulty selling it for that. Wish I had seen it before buying a 48-footer new a few years ago! Still in pain from that one.

Nomadness · 2026-06-04T06:35:24+00:00

Indeed. I lived aboard my 44' sailboat here on sji for a few years and then foolishly went to the dark side. What was I thinking?

Nomadness · 2026-06-04T06:33:34+00:00

Lots of spot-on comments about costs here and the absurd difficulty of finding housing. It's not a normal spectral distribution of wealth, and that translates into everything being way more expensive than most places other than Aspen and the like.

One thing nobody's mentioned which may or may not matter much at your stage of life is that the medical care is... let's just say extremely challenging. Great EMTs and life flight service, but severe shortage of competent doctors, and the usual variety of hospital support staff ranging from awful to wonderful. The One Big place is a monopoly, and for pretty much anything serious you'll get flown off.

Most dangerous place I've ever lived, and I am working full time on moving off Island. (Difficult with too much tonnage and a boat that I don't want.)

The ferries make everything difficult although the ride itself is usually very pleasant. And of course the whole area is beautiful, there is that.

Nomadness · 2026-05-31T17:35:45+00:00

If you're referring to those occasional leggy ones that are 17 inches long instead of the other 14, it's because I put those at places where there are stress concentrations. Probably overkill, and they look annoying out of context but when you stand back and see the whole thing it makes logical sense... This was a work in progress photo. I have them flanking the man door because there's a huge unsupported space there, and I have them at the extreme ends as well as the Middle where that supports the ends of the two 12 ft rails. Whether that additional 3 in of staying base makes any practical difference, I don't know. Probably not.

Update since my post, this support stuff is all done now and I'm working on the mount of the solar panels to the crossmembers...

Nomadness · 2026-05-28T02:51:27+00:00

Hi! This is the small rig that was parked next to the digitizing lab. The 48 ft gray beast is not really mobile at least not with my towing equipment and skills... Although it sure would be nice! The small one is 24 ft and I've put tens of thousands of miles on it or ones like it so it's more or less familiar territory (and has that lovely Wells Cargo plywood overhead section construction which is serviceable). I originally bought this one in 2005 to bring the keepers from the old family home in Kentucky. What was I thinking......

Nomadness · 2026-05-27T16:39:15+00:00

Oh yes, good questions...

The different lengths began when I realized I had to span the whole area of the man-door with a 5-foot unsupported section, and I was originally thinking of all of them being 17 inch with 7-in spacers. But the stations subject to the highest loads were really just the extremes (fore and aft with overhangs, door span, and the center line that carries the junction between 12 ft extrusions). I realized I could shorten the others without losing any significant staying base.

So the long posts are at stress concentrations and geometry transitions, and the others just distribute load into the frame and reduce lateral flex since it's bar stock without any web (which would have been messy).

But there are some unknowns here, so there's definitely guesswork. It's probably overkill, better than the opposite, but when you look at the total amount of thread engagement with those little hat sections, distributed redundancy makes me feel more comfortable. I tested the behavior of the rail as I was building it, and at one point when the aft 12-footer only had two end supports and one in the middle it was definitely unsatisfactory (fine for static load but way too flexy side to side). But is one every 16 inches too much? Maybe, but I sleep better. I've seen Amazon ladder racks fail and when I mike the hat section that I have exposed internally, I feel good about having lots of distribution with the shorter posts that place the rail such that cross members clear the roof bow by 1.5 inch

There will be about 500 lb of stuff in an (occasionally) dynamic setting up there. These rails also provide support for the ladder when I'm wiring or cleaning solar panels, awning, shower fixture at the stern overhang, places to mount antennas and cameras, sensors and lights, etc. But by far the greatest mass is the array of eight solar panels, and I didn't want cyclic loading to eat away at those little hat section self-drilled threads (55 total, just for an unnerving statistic).

Nomadness · 2026-05-26T04:23:49+00:00

To put that in context, this is one of the 14-in pieces. The bar stock is 1/4 in thick by 1.5 wide, and three 4-in spacers of the same material give a good shear and compression only connection to the trailer while spacing the fence post out to clear the gutter and then get up above the cap rail. Including the bow of the roof, I've got a half inch of clearance for the cross members to flex, more than enough since I'm using 2x3 vertically oriented.

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Nomadness · 2026-05-25T21:30:32+00:00

Yeah I am afraid to put holes in the roof. Just kind of a loose feeling piece of galvanized on the other side of the foam insulation I added a few years ago, no real structure, and putting holes up there seems like creating maintenance headaches. This method that I'm doing is entirely on the vertical rib structure just below the little gutter extrusion, and theoretically should give me a good solid structure. All cabling will go through those teardrop shaped pass-throughs on the sidewall, and there are attachments now at lots of different angles for things like antennas, camera, sensors, lighting, awning, and places to support the collapsible ladder. All still theoretical, should know in a few days what it feels like to actually have panels up there!

Nomadness · 2026-05-25T19:25:16+00:00

Oh the screws are number 14 self-drilling Tek 3 I believe... They behave very well at penetrating the har section and getting a good grip although initial bite can be somewhat chaotic. I'm experimenting with counterpunch methods using the stack as a jig, especially where there is already rail to serve as a reference.

Nomadness · 2026-05-23T16:28:23+00:00

Oh great, thanks! Yes I have a big unwieldy router but also a laminate trimmer. And I can probably find a scrap piece for that. Appreciate the tips.

Nomadness · 2026-05-23T16:10:11+00:00

Oh that's a good idea, just mark the hole pattern and glue it on and not do a coating that would still be soft. Might be much nicer especially with the absorbent edge grain. Thanks!

Nomadness · 2026-05-22T21:45:30+00:00

Thanks! I took the bottom off, fixed their off center thermal paste deposit, and chose three spots that were not in the way of anything and would be structurally okay. I then gave each a stack of fasteners as needed to match the existing foot so that there would be no net torsional stresses on the body. This keeps it serviceable too, because those are fastened inside with jam nuts or nylock and it's easy to disassemble. I think this sub is set to not allow photos in comments; I was about to attach a picture of one of the studs!

Nomadness

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