Because I was working a full-time job and had just acquired (rather traumatically) my first 10 bison, I never had the opportunity to properly install all of the solar equipment. Now that I am ranching full-time, I've finally gotten a chance to do a better job. The following pictures illustrate these improvements.
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My improvised outdoor housing for the batteries,
charge controller, and inverter. A truly sad arrangement, but
it did keep the equipment dry. A wooden pallet was stacked on
top of the containers to keep them from blowing away in the wind.
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The batteries and other equipment with the covers
taken off.
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The permanent housing was made from pieces of
aluminum welded together. Each housing consists of a bottom and
a top piece. In this photograph I've installed the bottom portions of
each housing assembly.
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The completed installation. Each upper
housing element includes screened side vents to allow circulation,
but keep out the rain. Each upper element is held down snugly
by a length of cable attached to the bottom element and tightened
with a turnbuckle.
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This is the way I initially installed the panels.
They are litterally on the ground and leaning against posts.
Very bad. The growing grass constantly had to be trimmed back
and the panels needed to be cleaned often.
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The new solar panel rack after I had assembled it
at my home in northern Virginia. Like the housing, the rack was
welded together from aluminum. The base and standing arms are
attached to the rack with hinges, which allows me to adjust the angle
of the panels during different seasons. The photograph at the
top of this post shows the new rack fully installed.
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