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  • #16
    Originally posted by bcroe
    I suppose outdoor lights are there for the convenience of the owners, and to discourage those who
    should not be there. I found motion triggered lights do both much better. The average power is so
    low, I can have a lot more of them, than all night lights. You can circle my place, and never be in
    the dark. Bruce Roe
    I have some motion lights as well but I have a flag that, per flag etiquette, should be lit if flying at night. I also want the front porch light on all night. Plus, I want the photocell signal for some HA functions.

    Originally posted by BillSunGen
    My guess is that most internet of things developers are on fiber or just plain stupid when it comes to caring about network efficiency (To name specific ones I am looking at Samsung as the worst in my house). So the geek side of me loves the data and the cool interfaces, reporting, and management but if it can't be done locally it probably isn't for me.
    Is that a Samsung Smarthings hub? My Frontier internet was down for a few days and the smartthings hub was completely useless. I quickly got away from that and only use it for a few inconsequential things now.

    Originally posted by ButchDeal
    Some like SolarEdge have a cell modem option for monitoring.
    Those only report every four hours. Unfortunately, that is what my installer put on mine.
    Last edited by DrLumen; 06-11-2018, 01:32 AM.

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by DrLumen View Post

      Is that a Samsung Smarthings hub? My Frontier internet was down for a few days and the smartthings hub was completely useless. I quickly got away from that and only use it for a few inconsequential things now.
      Wink Hub 2 has some local control capabilities.


      Originally posted by DrLumen View Post
      Those only report every four hours. Unfortunately, that is what my installer put on mine.
      Yes but if you read the comment i replied to, he only has cell phone internet and wanted a LESS chatty monitoring option. This IS that option.
      OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

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      • #18
        One item you haven't mentioned is surge/lightning protection. Barns seem to attract a fair share of hits as they are usually tall without a lot of trees around them. Nothing is guaranteed if there is direct strike but its definitely worth spending the bucks to try to get protection in place. I am impressed with the specs on the Midnight Solar SPDs and the construction seems to be step above others I have seen. If it was my system I would have one on at the combiner box on the roof and another, between the inverter and the subpanel in the barn. For good measure I also suggest one on the main panel but that is not as much PV related as general good practice to keep utility surges out of your panel.

        Also look around for the recommendation on how to ground the wiring on the property. Sunking and others are the pros and have opinions on what is code and what is right and suggest you do some searching on older threads to get the latest and greatest. I think it involves putting in ground rod at the barn connected to the main house ground point via #4 copper laid in the conduit trench but as I said its worth doing the searching.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by DrLumen View Post
          I have some motion lights as well but I have a flag that, per flag etiquette, should be lit if
          flying at night. I also want the front porch light on all night. Plus, I want the photocell signal for some HA functions.
          I have a photocell light control for the 3 W LED light in my phone booth. A similar size might work for a
          porch light, I switch on a bulb for reading. Bruce Roe

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by DrLumen View Post
            Is that a Samsung Smarthings hub? My Frontier internet was down for a few days and the smartthings hub was completely useless. I quickly got away from that and only use it for a few inconsequential things now.
            That is the crazy thing. It is just a TV, a 'Smart' TV but I don't have anything setup on it. Just how it came out of the box. I had to connect it to the internet to get it to turn on but then blocked it at the router the next day as all my other devices were operating at a crawl. It is amazing how many of the new devices have to have an internet connection to do something local. You want your doorbell to ring? Needs internet. Want to view your security camera? Needs internet. Want to read your newspaper? Needs internet (oh wait I still get the paper so that one works...) Same with the home automation stuff. It is neat, takes a lot more time than I have to setup, but all breaks if the internet isn't available. Makes it a bit fragile. Being able to configure something on a local subnet just isn't something that comes up in regular marketing materials but it is probably out there somewhere.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by bcroe View Post

              I have a photocell light control for the 3 W LED light in my phone booth. A similar size might work for a
              porch light, I switch on a bulb for reading. Bruce Roe
              also speaking of this we have a light sensor and motion sensor combination in our light post in the front yard. It has three candelabra lights. I put three LED bulbs in it and the thing wouldn't work at all. I had to switch one of the LEDS to a low watt incandescent for the sensor to work.
              OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by peakbagger View Post
                One item you haven't mentioned is surge/lightning protection. Barns seem to attract a fair share of hits as they are usually tall without a lot of trees around them. Nothing is guaranteed if there is direct strike but its definitely worth spending the bucks to try to get protection in place. I am impressed with the specs on the Midnight Solar SPDs and the construction seems to be step above others I have seen. If it was my system I would have one on at the combiner box on the roof and another, between the inverter and the subpanel in the barn. For good measure I also suggest one on the main panel but that is not as much PV related as general good practice to keep utility surges out of your panel.

                Also look around for the recommendation on how to ground the wiring on the property. Sunking and others are the pros and have opinions on what is code and what is right and suggest you do some searching on older threads to get the latest and greatest. I think it involves putting in ground rod at the barn connected to the main house ground point via #4 copper laid in the conduit trench but as I said its worth doing the searching.
                I will be including lighting protection. We do have lots of tall trees around too but that seems like the opposite of protection! The plan will be to use the midnite products, they have sold me with the comparison tests and seem legit. I don't understand the sizing but am sure I can figure it out from the internet or old posts. I was really surprised that it seemed like each combined array (set of strings?) required protection plus all the inputs downstream. My house actually has a full lightning protection system built in with rods through the eves and grounding wires presumably buried appropriately deep. We haven't had any issues but the owners before us (per stories from the neighbors) lost a lot of electronics to lightning. (They also stored chlorine in the unconditioned (read damp) basement like space that houses the electric panels and guess what, they rusted! so one of the first things we did was to replace those panels and inspect the house wiring and we added surge protection to each panel at that point as well. The lights are still on so i guess it is doing its job. And there is no more oxidizers stored there and it is now de-humidified too!) My concern is with the lightning system on the house has always been that it would attract the lightning to the house by giving it an easier path to ground.

                Reading through the recent post on grounding I think this is the relevant point:
                Originally posted by Sunking View Post
                So what I am telling you is treat the panels as Air Terminals and take the Down Conductor directly to the GES bypassing everything. A straight dire route to EARTH good ole dirt. If you drive a rod to accomplish that, then it must be bonded to all other electrodes so as to make a common GES. It can also be routed to the GEC and bonded below the Meter Can just above or below grade. It comes down to how everything is laid out. A good layout will bring the Lightning Down Conductor straight down to the AC Meter Box so you do not have to drive another rod and go that extra expense and trouble.
                Since I am adding an outbuilding, the barn, from a grounding standpoint I will probably need to treat the panels like lightning rods and connect them all directly to a new driven rod at that location. BUT like you said it will be important that I tie the barn grounding to my existing lightning and meter grounding at the house too.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by BillSunGen View Post
                  That is the crazy thing. It is just a TV, a 'Smart' TV but I don't have anything setup on it. Just how it came out of the box. I had to connect it to the internet to get it to turn on but then blocked it at the router the next day as all my other devices were operating at a crawl. It is amazing how many of the new devices have to have an internet connection to do something local. You want your doorbell to ring? Needs internet. Want to view your security camera? Needs internet. Want to read your newspaper? Needs internet (oh wait I still get the paper so that one works...) Same with the home automation stuff. It is neat, takes a lot more time than I have to setup, but all breaks if the internet isn't available. Makes it a bit fragile. Being able to configure something on a local subnet just isn't something that comes up in regular marketing materials but it is probably out there somewhere.
                  Right. It's crazy huh? My TV's phone home to check for software updates. My ST hub still phones home or gets commands down from the internet. If Samsung wants to know when the cat water bowl pump gets triggered or I raise and lower my garage door, they will have that info in spades!

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                    Wink Hub 2 has some local control capabilities.
                    I use a UDI ISY994i/ZW Pro. It is all local processing unless I want to use Alexa or Google home or a phone.



                    Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post
                    Yes but if you read the comment i replied to, he only has cell phone internet and wanted a LESS chatty monitoring option. This IS that option.
                    He also said he wants more robust local monitoring so a 4 hr delay and pulling from the internet makes that problematic.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by DrLumen View Post
                      I use a UDI ISY994i/ZW Pro. It is all local processing unless I want to use Alexa or Google home or a phone.
                      OK but you stated before that you had:

                      Originally posted by DrLumen View Post
                      My Frontier internet was down for a few days and the smartthings hub was completely useless. I quickly got away from that and only use it for a few inconsequential things now.
                      Thus prompting my comment

                      BTW, the Wink2 is local processing if you use a phone on the same wifi as well as other local equipment


                      Originally posted by DrLumen View Post
                      He also said he wants more robust local monitoring so a 4 hr delay and pulling from the internet makes that problematic.
                      no he didn't. He stated :

                      Originally posted by BillSunGen View Post
                      as I expect minimal shading, and monitoring single panels was interesting but I didn't give it much value (and will probably be proved wrong but that is just Murphy)
                      Last edited by ButchDeal; 06-11-2018, 01:40 PM.
                      OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by ButchDeal
                        no he didn't. He stated :
                        And you should read...

                        Originally posted by BillSunGen View Post
                        On monitoring, any system that allows direct access to the data is a plus for me. My internet connection is through 3g/4g on a cell phone and most 'smart' devices are EXTREMELY chatty with their network traffic. My guess is that most internet of things developers are on fiber or just plain stupid when it comes to caring about network efficiency (To name specific ones I am looking at Samsung as the worst in my house). So the geek side of me loves the data and the cool interfaces, reporting, and management but if it can't be done locally it probably isn't for me. (emphasis added)
                        Your 'solution' just introduces a 4hr delay in an already bad monitoring system.
                        Last edited by DrLumen; 06-11-2018, 01:50 PM.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                          Thus prompting my comment

                          BTW, the Wink2 is local processing if you use a phone on the same wifi as well as other local equipment
                          I got away from the Samsung and replaced it with the UDI.

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                          • #28
                            I haven't dug in too deep but there may be a way to access (hack) the solaredge data locally:
                            https://github.com/jbuehl/solaredge

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by DrLumen View Post
                              Your 'solution' just introduces a 4hr delay in an already bad monitoring system.
                              the most detail and widely understood to be the best monitoring solution in the industry...

                              Oh and even in the quote you have, he is complaining of the monitoring being TOO chatty on his cellular connection. The Solution that I mentioned is to
                              ONE reduce the chatter, and
                              TWO completely remove it from his cellular connection and put it on its own dedicated connection.
                              Thus completely solving the issue. You are off in never never land on some other topic or other.


                              Originally posted by BillSunGen View Post
                              So the geek side of me loves the data and the cool interfaces, reporting, and management
                              Last edited by ButchDeal; 06-11-2018, 02:31 PM.
                              OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                                the most detail and widely understood to be the best monitoring solution in the industry...

                                Oh and even in the quote you have, he is complaining of the monitoring being TOO chatty on his cellular connection. The Solution that I mentioned is to
                                ONE reduce the chatter, and
                                TWO completely remove it from his cellular connection and put it on its own dedicated connection.
                                Thus completely solving the issue. You are off in never never land on some other topic or other.

                                Well, that is up to him to decide now isn't it? I would think he would be willing to sacrifice some bandwidth for more robust and near real time reporting. At least, until he sees what to expect for production and an idea of how changes might affect output. All a cell modem does is reduce the outgoing traffic. He still has to access the SE portal to get charts and the like with an added time restriction.

                                You are really just ticked because I complemented Bruce and didn't say anything about you. That is really what you are upset about isn't it? Come on, it's ok. You can admit it.

                                I said my piece, you gave an option. It is up to him to decide what is best for him. Us bickering over minutia does not help him, you, me, the thread or this forum.
                                Last edited by DrLumen; 06-11-2018, 04:49 PM.

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