Okay, my system is up and running making power.



I have 44 sharp panels wih 4 string of 11 and two GT 3.3's. Here are some photos that I posted real quick and dirty.

http://www.marshalloldham.com/Solar

Make sure and use a capital "S" on the word "Solar"

The installer tied both inverters together via the Xantrex bus. I want to hook them up to my computer and run two copies of Solar-Guppy's software so that I can log the data from each inverter so I have a few questions.

1) Can I leave the inverters tied together and use the RS-232 ports on each of them to run Solar-Guppies software to log data to my computer that has two serial ports?

2) Should I leave the two inverters connected to each other?

3) After reading Solar Guppy's posts, I understand that I need to use an optoisolator on each inverter for protection. So I need to buy two optoisolators, one for each inverter?? Is this right?


Thanks

Marshall

GT-View and Xantrex GT inverters do NOT require and special isolation, any PC with as serial port will do.

Yes, leave the two GT3's interlinked as this is how system totals are computed by the inverters

You can either run one or two copies of GT-View, if you run with one copy, you will have detailed information from the inverter that you have connected to the PC/RS232 AND system totals(if the two are interlinked with xanbus). If you want both inverters detailed data, then you two RS232 lines (one to each inverter) and run two copies of GT-View (they need to be in separate folders)

I suggest you read thru the Xantrex forum, some people are monitors as many as 7 inverters with 7 copies of GT-View ... Thats allot of data!

When you get some pictures, please upload a few for all to see!

Solar Guppy,

Thanks for the quick reply!

I can't wait to get the software up and running.
That is the first thing on my "To Do" list for tomorrow.

I will post pictures as soon as I figure out how to do that!

Should I post the pictures here or some other location?



Marshall

More

I can post more here or some other location on your forum.
If you want to see more let me know. I would love to share them as I have a ton of photos!

More pictures on this site.

http://www.marshalloldham.com/Solar

Marshall

Nice racking system !

Looks like you will have some shading issues with your plumbing vent, with the price of PV, you should have a plummer move the stack, might be able to do in in the attic and tie into the other one ...

Well actually my roof is facing southeast. It was my only option. So, I have more of a problem with the lower chimney in the early morning hours for about 30 minutes two months out of the year. The installer used a tool that he brought up on the roof to show me what months and what time one of the lower solar panels would be slightly shaded by the chimney. I can not remember the name of that tool but it was a cool tool. Anyways, thanks for the information of the vent pipe. I will look into that as well.

Marshall

I must admit, that these Xantrex GT 3.3's appear to be made of very good quality. The finish and appearance of these inverters are great. I am very happy that I went with the Xantrex GT units. Just seems like they did their homework when they designed these units. The install was super clean, everything butted up together nicely so there was no need for conduit from inverter to inverter.

hey you do have a nice system in place there. while looking at the pics i saw a few antennas so i figured i'd look you up and sure enough there you were pcv. do you do any 1.2ghz there? my call is n3ghx btw. i noticed you have over 5600 lookups. is there a reason for so many? i don't do packet anymore.
niel

Niel,

Nice to meet you. Yes I do use 1.2Ghz on occasion. But mostly 440Mhz. The excessive look ups on QRZ are probably because I help maintain this 440 linked repeater system which covers a great deal of California and consists of 18 linked repeaters. I have help build a good portion of the system. The name of the system is Calnet. You can check it out.

http://www.cal-net.org

Been doing alot of APRS stuff lately as well as maintaining 10 or so repeaters throughout California.

Nice to meet you Niel.

Marshall