seth’s Man Handles
Stuff I have done, thinking about doing, or Anything Else
- It’s a Bagel morning
Sourdough of course. Mixed them up on Sunday and put the dough straight away in the fridge until Monday night. Shaped and left out on the counter for 4 hours, and a 2am this morning placed in the fridge. 6am boil in water + malted barley syrup, then baked off. Easy.
As you can tell, I’m not the most experienced bagel roller.
- Adam Torrres
Austin based singer songwriter, but also from Albuquerque. this is a song that ended episode 10 of the Pitt.
Check out Juniper Arms.
- Solar Upgrade Results
Well that was fast. The new microinverters arrived in a few days, and so did the special tool needed for disconnecting the AC and DC cables.
Enphase microinverter being removed The hardest part was actually removing the single mounting bolt, you can see the in the photo where on the silver bracket it attached. But I was glad I had pretty easy access to the units without needing to remove and lift the entire solar panel. This saved a lot of time.
Once detached from under the solar panel, I used the disconnect tool to pop off the three cables, then plug them in to the new microinverter. Then remount using the same bolt back under the panel.
Then comes the software bit. For each unit, you go into the installer app and “retire” it from the system. Then you add the new unit by scanning the barcode printed on its side, and assign it to a specific panel. This is done in the “Array Builder” inside the app. Because of the need to barcode scan, I actually added the unit logically first before physically mounting it.
All 9 ended taking ~90 minutes to complete. It cost only one bleeding cut on one finger, since I stopped wearing the gloves as I was going in and out of the app so many times.
Here’s the result with the upgrade. No more clipping! A nice mountain not a mesa. Getting peak output of 3.3kW vs 2.6kW before.
P.S. I sold all 9 of the used IQ8+ uinverters on eBay already. The ROI of this project is now achievable faster. Everything on eBay is now “buy it now”, the days of the auction are over?
- Time to upgrade the solar array
Our solar system was recently commissioned. The company had a special deal on the inventory they had, which was good stuff but not perfectly matched electronically.
The panels themselves are Hyundai 440W (HiN440NFBK) but the microinverters were only rated at 300W max (Enphase IQ8+). The effect is at peak sun the output would clip “a little“, so I was told. Sure enough that is already happening big time:
Output of the array showing obvious clipping. We are getting 2600W at peak, which is 289W per panel. So we are missing out on ~150W per panel. Instead of a ‘mesa’ on that plot we could see more of a mountain.
To upgrade, am thinking of DIYing this. I think I need:
- Installer level access to the Enphase system (via an app)
- New correctly sized microinverters from Enphase (9 of them) that can deliver more power at peak
- Time to go in the roof and swap out old for new
- Reconfigure the array in the Enphase app
This is a good man handle project. I’ll go get started and report back, but accomplished two giant steps already.
I registered in the Enphase University and completed the certification for microinverter installation. All online, free, and on my phone. Took a couple of hours.
I got installer access to my system by going on my existing Enphase owner app and chatting with support. They looked up my training certificate and I’m in! Great company, love the ecosystem they built for owner support.
Second big step was I found and purchased the new inverters on eBay (IQ8HC-72-M-DOM-US). Max power is 380W, so in theory we’ll see 3400W (30% boost).
My expected boost in power output. Economics? Ok fine. $1300 upgrade, $.19/kwh, blah blah blah blah.  if we add the cost into the original system and factoring the added production we shorten the payoff period by a only couple of months. The whole system pays for itself in about five years! The best part is, we got the main system installed before Trump could take away the federal tax credits for Solar 
- Sourdough Pretzels
Sourdough pretzels and buns out of the oven Lisa and I were home all day with colds. Great opportunity to make sourdough since the process can span an entire day. During the Covid shutdown I was part of a baking collective (very East Austin) and sold a dozen pretzels a week. I donated the money to Integral Care (very East Austin). These above are 50% whole grain spelt. I like to buy AP and bread flour from King Arthur, but specialty grains from Central Milling. If we were still in Austin I’d pick up a bag of Barton Springs Mills flour, but with shipping, it’s crazy expensive (~$5/lb). That’s one thing I miss about Austin, ok two things, if we include HEB bbq sandwiches.
Seth's Man Handles 