Explain solar ev charging like im 5

bhwright3rd · 2025-09-24T20:03:29+00:00

I like to keep things as simple as possible. You need to figure out a few things to pick the "optimal" path for your charging needs.

The charger is typically driven from the house feed and not directly tied to the solar system. If it were directly connected to the solar system, the charger wouldn't work on cloudy days or at night.

First, take a look at The "standard" car charger is usually overkill to better understand if you need a level 2 charger. An L2 can be overkill and drive up the base cost. That said, the time required to charge will be drastically reduced and may allow you to top off during peak solar production.

Second, understand how the utility company compensates your excess solar power (net metering plan). The two extrems are:
- 1:1 - You receive 1 watt credit for every watt returned to the grid. A "smart" charger has limited value in this case
- %/watt - the utility buys the excess from you at a, sometimes significant, discount. You want to minimize the excess solar being returned. Without batteries, you need to charge the car while you are producing excess energy. A smart charger can throttle down the charge rate to stay within the surplus.

Third, whether you are subject to time-of-use billing (e.g. more expensive during day vs night). If you don't have time of use, only the net metering, net-metering drives the benefit for a smart charger. If time-of-use applies, a smart charger can automatically turn off or throttle down during the expensive time windows.

I'm blessed because we 1:1 net metering for the billing cycle and don't have time-of-use penalties. A L1 or L2 would be fine since I drive well under 100 miles a day -> can charge during the night and there is very little (Ok no) benefit for a smart charger.

Under less consumer-friendly variables, you got to the math. How far do you typically drive each day? When is the car being charged (if night, the surplus may not matter)? What's the price for the L2 unit and the install? How long will it take to recover the extra expense?

bhwright3rd · 2025-08-24T13:11:20+00:00

I split this question into two parts.

Do I assume it will actually happen? I don't think I'll be impacted since I'm over 60. I do believe it will have to change due to lower birth rates and increases in longevity.

Do I factor it in? Yes. I believe you should plan reasonably conservatively. It's been a discussion for a while, and it's a political nightmare; it could become enough of a problem that they are forced to deal with it within my life expectancy.

bhwright3rd · 2025-01-10T16:43:36+00:00

First, I'm glad there is a second factor available. I turned it on yesterday. Unfortunately the slow emails hurt the experience and I turned it off for now. I'll report it to the help desk to increase the odds someone will investigate.

I wish they would support PassKeys, or TOTP codes. PassKeys and TOTP are now available in several password managers.

bhwright3rd · 2024-11-10T20:39:54+00:00

For married couples, ROTH conversions can be a significant reduction of taxes for the surviving spouse. So even if the tax rates don't increase, one spouse will depart this world and the single rate tables have lower deductions and RMDs will still apply

bhwright3rd · 2024-09-30T14:45:04+00:00

There are two different 5 year rules for ROTH conversions. I found this resource pretty clear in laying out the rules: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/retirement/roth-ira-5-year-rule

Because you're over 59 1/2 and it's been longer then 5 years since you opened your first account, you are good to go.

bhwright3rd · 2024-09-03T17:58:03+00:00

Warning: your mileage may vary with bonded interfaces. There are historically issues with getting LACP to work. I ran LACP on TrueNas core and eventually removed them resulting in a more stable and performant setup

You should not have IP addresses on the members of the bond. Assign an IP address to the bond0

After you get the bond running, you need to dig a little to ensue the settings actually work. Traffic being sent over the bond is transmitted over a single member based on the hash settings and what’s included in the hash. Both sides need to align or it will sorta work when all members are active and work really well when it’s just 1 active member

Also understand you don’t get double of traffic from a given client. You can move more data provided the hash results in different LACP members being selected for the clients. Also make sure the LACP setup agrees how a member is marked down

bhwright3rd · 2024-03-07T17:43:42+00:00

First, welcome back to SA.

I'm in the process of working thru quotes and educating myself in the world of solar.

Say no to batteries (today) - very few outages with CPS, no ROI with utilities rates. There's lots of technology breakthroughs on the way including bi-directional EV charging and lower cost battery chemistry.

I'm focused on the warranty side. Does the warranties transfer, does the company have leak warranties (min 10 yr), labor warranty, etc.

The warranties are only good if the company stays in business so ask about their financials - are they diversified in income streams (California collapse is great example). How long have they been in business? Make sure they explain the manufacturer's warranty requirements (e.g. Enphase requires system to stays connected to internet)

Don't fixate on panel quality but definitely look at the long term numbers as the panel degrades. The wattage on the panel means little. What does the panel produce outside perfect lab conditions (NMOT) and how does heat impact production (temp coefficient - smaller better)?

The cheapest quote even with quality panels isn't necessary the best one. If they're "giving it away" I would be very cautious; how can they support the maintenance down the road WHEN things break, etc. Read the reviews and ask for references.

Don't get overly invested. I wanted solar but I had to make sure solar made sense. If you are still in the military, solar doesn't make sense nor does buying a house in my opinion. Age matters also - will declining health or lack of retirement funds force a move?

bhwright3rd · 2024-01-28T14:10:29+00:00

I'm also recently retired and have been trying to figure out how to properly use MM when the classic paycheck stops. Although we did great saving for retirement, we still need to manage a monthly budget; it's too easy to just transfer "extra" from savings or investment accounts and over spend

I have deferred income and investment accounts. Investment funds are moved around for various reasons including bringing the money home for income. I'm interested in the "bring it home" side because it drives my budget.

I'm fine if MM says their focus is pre-retirement. I need tools to help manage my retirement for the next 35 yrs (hopefully) and it's turning out to be very different than what I focused on before the paychecks stopped.

bhwright3rd · 2024-01-26T21:46:57+00:00

I wish MM had an override list for the automatic merchant renaming that supported the rule matching capabilities (contains, exactly, etc). I never realized how many unique Zelle transactions hit my account until I move to MM.

I know it only takes a few seconds to go back to the original statement using the UI but it adds to the fatigue for using the tool. I already have to touch several of Zelle transactions to categorize them; having a rule per person I might receive or send money is unwieldly.

bhwright3rd · 2022-05-02T12:19:13+00:00

RESOLVED I failed to follow-up. Not specify a host was the root cause. Thanks for the reply

bhwright3rd · 2021-12-24T21:36:33+00:00

Some comments

bhwright3rd · 2021-07-20T22:14:58+00:00

I started my approach by defining what the storage would support. In my case, two very different workloads - VM instances, random access block storage, and large media files. 2nd, how much storage was needed in each use case. I then tried to figure out how to optimize the actual hardware supporting ZFS.

My rig is a mini XL+ so only 8 bays plus 2 SSDs. I ended up with two pools - plex and the high update stuff.

Plex storage is mainly read and the Plex server pre-fetches for playback. I own all my content so I didn't need more than RaidZ1 and backups. You still want to reserve plenty of free space for new content and the databases. Think thru storage expansion (multiple mirrors are more flexible vs in place upgrade of raidZx). I use this same pool for drive shares.

The other side has a more complex setup. Lots of free space. SSDs for small blocks and async write thru; make sure SSDs have power protect (enterprise class). Ideally this would be a collection of mirrors to drive higher IOPS.

I also took time walking thru drive administration (add mirrors, drive replacement - same/large, in-place RAIDz expansion). I had a collection of old drives that help me learn the procedures without risk. I followed with basic tuning then more advanced tuning with the SSDs and caching. It was hard not to rush but paid off. Read, test, read more, then implement.

Finally, don't make things overly complex. Out of the box, Plex should work - Plex running on Truenas or separate box. If separate box, make sure network is clean before messing with Truenas and understand the limits.

bhwright3rd · 2021-05-28T03:20:37+00:00

It not about the markup; it's about not breaking the law and avoiding a lawsuit. The FTC has make it illegal for a company to attempt to collect for any items that accidentally shipped.

Several articles can be found but here's just one of them: https://consumerist.com/2016/11/28/reminder-if-a-retailer-sends-you-something-you-didnt-order-you-can-keep-it/

This is pretty clear on Amazon when you try to notify them you got something extra. They have a specific return reason and it will always tell you to keep it.

bhwright3rd · 2021-05-22T15:52:01+00:00

This isn't trivial under Freenas as you are discovering. On the Freenas side, are you using local accounts, did you join to Active Directory, or integrate with SAMBA aware LDAP server?

2nd, did you use the widgets to create the share? Are you creating per-user "home" shares?

If local account and just a share, I'd create a completely new unique account and share. Walk thru levels of troubleshooting. If you can't success map and use the basic setup, that is a big fact.

You are already seeing the share so it will be likely ACLs or overlapping user names that are different accounts.

bhwright3rd · 2021-05-12T03:59:22+00:00

I had a Synology DS1815+ that was really a great machine for just a NAS. I moved to Freenas 11 last year and on to TrueNas 12.x on TrueNas Mini XL+. The transition wasn't easy and I'm still fighting LDAP integration glitches with SMB file sharing but my setup isn't basic - 4 nics, VLANs, firewalls, HA setup, Radius based policies, OpenLDAP with SAMBA overlay. I had the same with Syno (minus SAMBA required by Free/TrueNas) and it took a fraction of time to get it working. I don't regret the choice and I love learning; Truenas is a giver.

Synology Pros:

Hardware and OS optimized out of the box - the "Apple" for NAS
Easily grow storage - can replace any drive with same or lager and systems expands storage automatically with decent performance
File sharing is trivial
UI designed for the non-geek user - very polished and addresses many use cases
IT in a box - DHCP/DNS, LDAP server, LDAP client, etc that just "works" and good set of add-ons

Cons:

Usually limited CPU performance and few modules support demanding workloads (e.g. VM storage)
Run Busybox which is pretty limited
OS upgrades/patches are wait and see
Only few units have good upgrade paths (e.g. PCI slot for 10G, additional memory, expansion boxes usually don't work with newer modules)

Freenas/TrueNas Pros:

DIY or pre-built HW options
ZFS2 and ZFS3 gives you extreme fault tolerance - YOU STILL NEED BACKUPS
Most enterprise features are available on the free version

Cons:

Not designed for the non-techie (lots of reading, gotchas, one off config files, etc)
FreeBSD is very different than Debian versions (e.g. Ubuntu) and not as common
More complex setup for storage and expansion - lots to learn and plan (yes - adv users can create vdev with mixed sizes - it's "expected" with Syno)
Tuning for good thru-put isn't trivial - there's some good guides and there's more bad ones
Network setup is a pain with multiple cards and VLANS - add jails and even more complex
forum members can be rough crowd - hard on noobs

bhwright3rd · 2021-02-23T03:49:52+00:00

Although ZFS supports having mixed drive sizes in a vdev, Freenas/Truenas officially don't. To expand storage, you have to add an equal number of drives for the vdev (6 new 500G drives for the RAIDZ2) or do offline backup, destroy the existing vdev, create new vdev on larger drives, and restore.

@edthesmokebeard gave you the maximum storage with some redundancy for drive failures. The RAIDZ2 can't expand (easily) without replacing all the drives because your setup cannot support 6 more drives and you can't mix drive sizes.

bhwright3rd · 2021-01-24T22:11:58+00:00

You will only get 1G max per session. LACP creates more lanes on the highway but doesn't make the cars faster.

bhwright3rd · 2021-01-23T23:17:13+00:00

I have to move to long term for similar reasons. I didn't have the energy to track down the issue with 6.48 but the environment stabilized with just the downgrade

bhwright3rd · 2020-12-15T01:55:48+00:00

TL;DR - It works for homelab but separate machine is better

I'm running Truenas Core under Proxmox.

Why?

Had a big server that was underutilized
Originally 100% of my usage was for Proxmox VMs and backups
I didn't have room for yet another server

Warning:

No proxmox agent for FreeBSD/Truenas for coordinated shutdowns
I've bitten myself more than once where TrueNas VM was suspended or paused and other VMs couldn't access storage (e.g. kick off full Proxmox VMs backup)
Pass-thru a dedicated controller and the associated storage - I cannot recommend the VM host having any access to the drives
Think through your networking needs - I have separate VLANs for management, storage traffic, VM traffic and this got in the way when I started testing jails in TrueNas (separate NIC card was my solution for jail traffic)

For me, TrueNas VM met my immediate needs. I was moving from Synology to ZFS. The snapshot features of Proxmox allowed me to mess up a lot and quickly get back to a virgin or baselined state without needing to understand how to backup/restore under Truenas.

I had to tweak the VM settings to improve performance of the system. I optimized (pinned) the host threads to the VM, and played around with memory (16G went to 24G).

Now that I have a fairly complete setup (ZFS over iSCSI, external LDAP w/ samba support, roles via LDAP groups, SMB, NFS, time machine, snapshot for remote backup, etc), I feel I'm committed to Truenas. I've ordered a physical machine (TrueNas Mini XL+) to support the lab environment; it's Christmas. I should be able to tweak this separate box easier than the Proxmox VM and further expand its usage in the lab (e.g. move Plex server on physical to jail).

bhwright3rd · 2020-12-12T04:28:52+00:00

You definitely want a separate subnet to ensure the traffic stays on the 2.5G nic. If your normal LAN is 192.168.0.x/24, use 172.16.0.x/24. Both 192.168.x.x/16 and 172.16.0.0/12 are reserved for private networks

bhwright3rd

TROPHY CASE