The time has come... well almost...
There are a couple of connections left to complete the path from our handy dandy nuclear furnace and my battery bank... Physically however, it's pretty much done.
I present to you 800W of Uhaulized power.
The design zigged and zagged a couple times here and there, but fortunately there were no expensive mistakes (if you exclude what happened with the classic... that's another thing entirely).
A little elaboration on the bust that was the original 3 tier layout: Nutshell version of that is that it was too wide to fit properly on top of the truck (I believe that part I already mentioned). How the hell I ever got to the point of ordering the rails with that slipping thru the cracks is beyond me... but I was at least very insistent on not making the first cut in them until I was absolutely sure of the final design. Damn good thing, because that would have been one hell of a hit. At over $100 a pop, 22 ft sticks of this stuff isn't just growing out of the ground, and I would have made all 3 of them useless to the project. Whew!
So some more brainfarting err um I mean storming... My step-dad saw it in the numbers and called it (those that know me know that me and numbers just... suck)... and the two tier layout was born.
We figured out how to get length and width within useful limits... but then came the Z axis, and the design took another turn. This one wasn't so bad, but was (is?) frustrating because it raised the profile of the roof line by inverting the brackets on the panels. This proved necessary because when sliding the pieces around on the ground, it became apparent that there was going to be a clearance issue of some sort... Which tinkering around on the roof then confirmed. So the whole thing lost it's nice smooth recessed finish and stealthy appeal. Could have been worse... It didn't mean re-doing any parts, and the layout didn't need to change (couldn't, actually), so it worked out. The entire project so far has been a series of these "oooh, so close" scenarios; I almost don't even feel the stings anymore
Another notable component of the experience of putting these things up there was the need for constantly moving... everything. It reminded me of those little puzzles where there's a "big picture" and all the pieces slide, but there's only one free space to move them. Granted, it wasn't quite that bad, but it just wasn't practical to keep raising and lowering panels up and down every time it was time to go on to the next part. I kept one full "side" up there the entire time, with the tools taking up one "square" and me taking up another...
It got particularly interesting toward the front where I was dealing with smaller spaces, and an increasing number of clips on the rails that had to be avoided to keep from damaging anything you can think of...
All of that said, I can't really complain about the way it worked out. There is one spot in the front where the two sets of 50W panels share very close quarters on the center rail, and I almost had to trim one of the clips to get clearance. I probably should anyway, the clip in question has a distortion in it from my ignorance of methodology for cutting aluminum... I trimmed the buffering material instead (a rubbery form of PVC), and they just make it into place.
For the penetration, things got strange and creative... there's debate as to the suitability of some of the materials, but I think construction method made up for it. The seals rely on sandwiching 3M 5200 between any two given materials, with plenty of margin to help prevent leaks. There were all kinds of ideas tossed around for going thru the roof, what you see below is the call that made it into the wild.
The ground is brass all-thread that was taken from one of the pass-thru's used in the van's battery connections. It is in direct contact on both sides with the aluminum, with copper anti-seize between. The lugs are "crimped" and soldered... Hi Rover!
On the inside, it looks like this...
Somewhere I mentioned "best effort"... I know this isn't the ideal way, but was what ended up being, all things having been considered. The design overall was a bit laborious to create and implement, but it serves it's purpose... The goal was to allow them to float around a bit while still being restrained and secure. Overall, I'm happy with the final result - simplicity and elegance (even if the brackets had to be inverted).
A couple other pics of the assembled array...
It's a difficult thing to capture in a single frame...
Up next is some weather... the usual 3 day waiting game... so I've set up to finish the connections and such while the sun is playing hide and seek with this noreaster that's looming on us.
Also on the table is re-figuring the air dam for the front, and likely some covers for the 2 gaps in the middle... This thing needs all the help it can get to make it past gas stations...
Until then...
Steve