#Thegreatpoolpondconversion - 210307
This was the weekend to move the solar. Of course wanted to do it with as little interruption to the filtration, not that it mattered much.
But we did want to get it done in one weekend.
We had to work around some weekend obligations so we broke the work down into 4 smaller sections of time, 2 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday.
Saturday AM I prepped everything.
In the PM we would disconnect and move the panels to the roof.
Find the best position.
Tar/seal the brackets.
Then drive the bolts.
We figured up to 2 hours what with the awkwardness of a roof, ladders, etc.
At lunch it forecast rain so we went out early to see if we could at least get ‘em bolted down.
In 20 minutes we were done just as the rain started.
Working in the barn we forged on with what would have been Sunday’s AM work.
Connected the now disconnected pump wires to the new sub terminal block at the Jasmine bed.
With the rain still light, we ran the two wires from the controller panel up to the panels on the roof.
No, it’s not pretty, but it’ll get the job done.
We got one connected, heat shrunk the connectors and the heavens opened up. So we quit.
Because as usual whenever we make changes to the solar system it inevitably clouds or gets dark or whatever.
That forces us to wait a day to see if what we did actually works…
Just for fun we connected the battery to the controller to see what would happen. It registered 12v charging - even in the rain. Hmmm… and only one panel. But we’re close (or so we thought).
Sunday we finish up wiring the 2nd panel, rechecked the connectors and after lots of head scratching over several hours, we found out why the pumps wouldn’t run.
When we first kludged the solar controller and panels together and it was all sitting on the deck, one day it started to smoke.
We thought the controller was fried, so we direct connected one pump to each panel and left it that way for like the last 2 months or so.
When we reconnected the controller on Saturday, it all looked fine. But no, something’s wrong because it will charge the battery, but it won’t flow full current to the load circuit. We cross connected and isolated everything we could and determined it was the controller. We already got another one we’ll install today (Thursday).
Meanwhile we ran a second feed wire across the lawn and once again have one pump connected to each panel until we sort this out.
The controller allows us to add more panels and the batteries can power the pumps - for a while - when it gets cloudy.
But if one pump = one panel was our final solution, we could leave it like this as most of the benefits are still obvious.
All sun all the time on the roof, no trees no shade.
Earlier, and later daylight sun vs on the deck.
No AM / PM problem, or winter / summer seasonal.
And the border / deck now looks much much better.
We are loving the little yellow sump pump we hooked up to the waterfall.
One week in. It flows exactly like we originally envisioned the waterfall should.
If it holds up, it will be a much better and easier solution than 3 tiny pumps.
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