BullwinkleII's system

BullwinkleII

Yay me!

My $50, 230 watt solar panel works.

I finally got around to unwrapping it and putting the metre on it.

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120 Things in 20 years - Solar voltaics - voltage reading.JPG [ 380.23 KiB | Viewed 1047 times ]

To reiterate...

Yay me!

Now all I have to do is encase the entire thing in a block of epoxy or pull off the glass and drop a sheet of clear plastic over it.

rsevs3

Why not just put the sheet of clear plastic on the glass?

Much less risk to the panel :dontknow:

BullwinkleII

yeah I'm leaning towards that of the two options.

It only has to last a few weeks, and being light weight will be a good thing. I can always drop some glass onto it when I get back from my epic murray river adventure and connect it to my aquaponics system of whatever it is I'll end up doing with it.

BullwinkleII

Do the actual cells corrode or anything. I'm just wondering if the glass is vacuum sealed on or anything. I should be able to remove the glass without touching the cells just by drilling out the rivets on the frame and shaking.

It looks like this, so it should come out easily enough.

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120 Things in 20 years - Solar voltaics - the damage.JPG [ 519.55 KiB | Viewed 1045 times ]

BullwinkleII

Looks like the glass might be glued on to my panel.

Or perhaps the other way around.

The panel is a flimsy light weight thing that looks like it sits on a single layer of the kind of plastic coreflute signage is made of. The glass is really the only rigid structure.

BullwinkleII

it's got fish water and bubble so it must be on topic.

Some pretty coot footage of humpback whales feeding...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hfiFfJH ... AAAAAAADAA

BullwinkleII

Interesting crystal growth on expanded clay media in my system from Adelaide hard water.

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Charlie

thats wierd :think:

green troll

Awesome photo.yeah I had this aswell.

TCLynx

More surface area!

BullwinkleII

I think it's because we saw some cooler weather allowing the water to wick up the porous media and then a day of a bit of sunshine which dried it out.

It tastes of nothing in particular, perhaps carbonate of labcoat, and all the plants and fish are having a fine time, so I doubt it's anything important from an aquaponics point of view.

I've noticed rings on the top of the topmost media, but nothing like this before. Normally slow is best for crystal growth so it will just be because of the weather, and the fact that there is no surface water raining down to wash it back into the system.

I would take this as perhaps a hint that the clay balls have a larger surface area than scoria. The scoria never did any great amount of wicking, and I think wicking is a function of capillarity, where the size of the surface texture is everything. Tiny texture means more surface area, but of course the superior shape of the scoria comes into it as well, but I'm a bit undecided as to how much more surface area glassy, irregularly shaped scoria has compared to micro textured clay spheres.

I'm tending toward the side of who cares.

DrLuke

Stick a few fractals in ur grow bed....that will solve ur sleepless nights worrying about surface area.

BullwinkleII

DrLuke wrote:

Stick a few fractals in ur grow bed....that will solve ur sleepless nights worrying about surface area.

Ahh that made TC's comment make sense

Thanks

TCLynx

BullwinkleII

I don't know why I didn't understand it. I figured I'd revisit in the light of day and see if it had meaning then

Backyard Aquaponics
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