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Was at the cabin this weekend and performed more testing of the new system. The primary goal is pumping water, and that's what I focused on this weekend. My criteria for pumping water is that batteries be close to fully charged when starting the pump, while panel output is ≥ 2200 watts.
On Saturday morning I flipped on the pump at 9:30am and continued pumping till 5:30pm. As planned, I shifted the array orientation from SE to S to SW over the course of the day. The array output stayed above 2200 till about 3:15pm, when watts started to drop. Shading becomes a problem after 4:00, and I find that I can actually boost output a bit in the late afternoon by re-aligning the panels directly south, though by 5:00, they are all shaded. Once output started to drop, I started hydrometer monitoring. I decided to finally shut off the pump at 5:30pm when acid density was 1.265 (corrected) which is ~90% charge.
All in all, I was able to pump ~2600 gallons of water in 8 hours, with only minimal battery discharge. On Sunday morning, the batteries were brought to to float before 10am. I continued pumping water on Sunday after 10am, but finished up at ~2pm because the tank was totally full and discharging out the top vent.
To expand on JPM's concern, suppose that I drilled and tapped the 3.5" pipe in-line with the 4" pipe threads. That way, instead of screwing the bolt down onto the 3.5" pipe, I screw the bolt into the pipe. Then it would act as a lock pin. I assume that should be able to resist any conceivable wind speed short of hurricane force. I have center punches, so I can dipple a centered hole, drill it out with a 5/16" bit, then run the tap through the 4" threads into the 3.5 inch pipe. Then it would be perfectly concentric, assuming I don't spoil the 4" threads in the process.
On Saturday morning I flipped on the pump at 9:30am and continued pumping till 5:30pm. As planned, I shifted the array orientation from SE to S to SW over the course of the day. The array output stayed above 2200 till about 3:15pm, when watts started to drop. Shading becomes a problem after 4:00, and I find that I can actually boost output a bit in the late afternoon by re-aligning the panels directly south, though by 5:00, they are all shaded. Once output started to drop, I started hydrometer monitoring. I decided to finally shut off the pump at 5:30pm when acid density was 1.265 (corrected) which is ~90% charge.
All in all, I was able to pump ~2600 gallons of water in 8 hours, with only minimal battery discharge. On Sunday morning, the batteries were brought to to float before 10am. I continued pumping water on Sunday after 10am, but finished up at ~2pm because the tank was totally full and discharging out the top vent.
To expand on JPM's concern, suppose that I drilled and tapped the 3.5" pipe in-line with the 4" pipe threads. That way, instead of screwing the bolt down onto the 3.5" pipe, I screw the bolt into the pipe. Then it would act as a lock pin. I assume that should be able to resist any conceivable wind speed short of hurricane force. I have center punches, so I can dipple a centered hole, drill it out with a 5/16" bit, then run the tap through the 4" threads into the 3.5 inch pipe. Then it would be perfectly concentric, assuming I don't spoil the 4" threads in the process.
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