₦airaland Forum

GeorgeD1:
north facing panels. work begins...

we attempted to use adjustable tilt legs but had to discard the idea when we noticed instability
and realized that the panels would be subject to severe wind forces...

WOW!... Congratulations on that massive upgrade GeorgeD!! You keep on amazing us by your trailblazing endeavors, Solar truly works and highly ADDICTIVE i most say too.


Quick one, I understand you choose to mount your combiner box inside your ceiling to be away from prying eyes but wouldn't it be much of a hassle to get inside your ceiling, then crawling to where its mounted just to turn off the breakers when you need to service your setup or in cases of emergency?? Or maybe you have another breaker between the box and CC?..

kaboninc:
I can buy your bitcoins at 415/$

Minimum of $200 units please

WhatsApp me and lets deal

You are buying $520 from H.C A...

Yaungdee:
100$ Amazon Gift Card available @340...check signature for contact

Thanks for the very smooth and quick transaction.

sodiq961:
I guess it is general naija I mean not sure of other countries

you are correct... its down here in 9ja it appears.

bigrovar:
This set a gold standard for setting up a smart and energy sustainable home. Massive congratulations and thanks for sharing.

I never knew Amazon echo would work in Nigeria (does it have to be always internet connected ) also how did you setup your 10terabyte hard drive array? Are you use a turnkey device or built one? I hope to setup a media server with 10 tera but my aim is to use disk arrays setup to raid 5 for redundancy...That's will eat lots of 2 terabyte disks and would require a server with 10 disk drive bay. Kindly share.
FYI currently use kodi (formerly xbmc ) as media center. It is the project which Plex is based. Running for over 5 years now.

Thanks for the nice words @ Bigrovar, Yes, the echo/echo dot works very well for home automation and other things, however Since the Echo is officially only supported in the US (and lately UK), naturally, it only accepts timezones and locations that are inside the US. If you want to use the device outside the US, you can use it without changing the timezone, but with the caveat that it will tell incorrect time, and your alarms and reminders will not go off on time but there are still some workarounds on the net to put in your own time zone. Yes, you need an always on Internet to get the best out of it...

My Media server is a Late 2012 MacMini ( late 2012 cuz its the last mini you can easily upgrade the ram, came with 4gb, i upgraded it to 16Gb) with 2X 5TB WD external USB3 HDD plugged into the usb ports, then running the server/client ends of plex off the machine. I had initally planned to go the NAS route but some factors made me think twice, for one, I would still need to point the NAS to a system that will be able to handle multiple, on the fly trans-coding as most midrange NAS cant do that on their own. 2, Power comsumption, My Mini takes 8W idle, 24-28W heavy load and about 2W when sleeping, this isnt too bad compared to a NAS power consumption to power all those drives! 3. the cost of buying up plenty HDD's for a NAS! The only thing I miss is the redundancy you will hv in your Raid 5, but i have used those my WD drives going to 3 years now no issues plus i have a couple of friends that i have cloned my drive's content for, so na dem be my redundancy

Kodi is an awesome media player, however, I prefer PLEX for the beautiful layout/organization. I use Kodi only for Live streaming using some awesome add-ons.

electromagnito:
I think AIICO.... You can buy E-insurance

Ok Thanks.. I iwll check them out.

electromagnito:
You could have just bought it online

Please can you reference a site to buy the insurance online? Thanks.

chris81964:
Way to go baby brother. It is a wonderful feeling. Enjoy the world you have created

Thanks again Mr.Chris, couldn't have been easier w/out you.

mcci:
To say I'm amazed or impressed is an understatement.

Welldone Bros, I hope to learn from your experience.

I wish you more success and enjoyment of the fruits of your labour.

Solar is indeed a viable option for Nigeria to free herself from the "demons of darkness", we need to decentralize power production and embrace the "Angels of Light" that smile on us everyday without fail.

Thanks bro.. I am really enjoying the full power independence Solar Power is offering me.

Javid4me:
This is magnificent Bro. Enviable and quite inspiring. Good job n May God bless ur hustle.
Diligence, planning and preparation. Enjoy Bro.

Thank you and Amen to your prayers sir. I am just following your able footsteps Blessings.

Barezzi:
Chuckdee! Very inspiring setup... when i grow up, i wanna be like thee

Boss... I have already been following your wonderful full steps tee tee o! You are a great inspiration here sir.

DMerciful:
This is inspiring! I nor fit shout! kudos(hmmm, making our system look like child's play,looool)

@ DMerciful, Thank you sir. Your contributions here are highly appreciated and helped in the realization of this project. Gracias.

obiageIi:
Chuckdee, when I grow up, I hope to be like you. Amazing setup.

@obiageLi, Thanks lol, of course you can do better and I see you are on the right path already... kudos.

.

GeorgeD1:
chukdee!
i couldn't help nodding my head in silent amazement while going through your
extensive list of equipment. by this, you have indeed proved to the house that knowledge
gained over time can be converted into concrete infrastructure.
your set-up has raised the bar several steps further by incorporating various wifi solutions
rivaled only by best-in-class first world installations.
i'm sure most of here have a thing or two to learn from your experience.
keep the flag flying!
you know you can!!

Thanks Chief for the encouraging words! I thank you more for being the initial person to fan the flames of this drive to energy freedom ab initio!
Your selfless service on this forum has been wonderful... God bless you BIG.

efuro:
@ Chuckdee

Congrat. You've done well. Your setup meets YouTube standard, be proud of it as we are, in the face of dollar scarcity you pulled a feat. In my usual words "enjoy ur sweat" let's tell Nigerians solar has come to stay.

Finally, I love those USA batteries. Men you've got quality we preach.

Thanks for the kind words Efuro, we are all enjoying the sweat o. Infact this is one project that the wifey supported 110% from the time she heard the freezer was gonna be on 24/7 LOL!
Solar is the way forward, it has come to stay, even the most developed parts of the world with all the nuclear power plants they can run have realized this and going forward, we will keep seeing huge revolutions and drops in price.

DUNKA:
Excellent set up So proud you finally made it despite the dollar hike. I know it was not easy. More grease to your elbow. Congratulations

Thanks again Dunka, it wasn't easy at all but we finally triumphed. I hope your setup is firing good on all cylinders as well?

kiekie1:
Its not been easy I must say BT WELCOME ON BOARD my man .. You wer indeed lucky to have contacted me earlier for the supplies of Magnum 4348,300w×15 pv array,USB L16 premium flooded batteries, pro solar roof mounts,improvised pv combiner box as i tweaked for Dunka too etc , all before the hyper inflation tho.. I admire your courage kk... I also want to use this medium to thank DUNKA , ID SOLAR, ABUNAFIU, SAIPRO, DURODEE, GEORGE D, BODEJOHN, EFURO, BODE4REAL, RICHMOND, CHRIS AWPS, KONNEKTION and so many others on this wonderful platform my humble appreciation all this years .. Remain blessed, Amen !

Thanks man... Just keep up the good work. Blessings brother.

Empiree:
Good job bro. Honestly, i cant do this by myself. Too complex for my schedule to work with. From installation from the pix shows they are 15 solar panels. How much is each locally (Nigeria)?. How do we determine quantity needed to facilitate my needs or AS DESIRES?.

Thanks

Hi Empiree, Well, this forum actually is a DIY but there are also alot of professional installers here who you can contact and they can work out something for your needs since you can't dabble.

..

More pics...

Hi all,

I want to share my setup with the house so as to serve as a source of motivation to new DIYers that would come across this thread because it's the same way i got the needed info to do mine. I have read, watched and studied so much in the past years as regards to solar and renewable energy that I was able to design, procure and deploy my setup all by myself and with help of a couple of friends. I did make use of some carpenter guy to help mount the panels on the roof following my instructions through, and also got my electrician to run load separation cables for me. However, there are members of this forum who have been immensely helpful to me by answering my plenty questions and worries, I am very grateful to Mr. Chris of AWPS Renewable Energy, your love n passion for the job is unquestionable!, Dunka, your motivation is next to none, Frankie the able supplier and a brother, George_D da boss!, thanks for the emails! and all the contributing members here, y'all are the best. it has been a very wonderful experience and I thank God for the opportunity.

My rig consists of:

15 X 300W yahSun Mono Panels (4,500W)
8 X USL16EXC2 6V L16 360AH USA Flooded Batteries
1 X Midnight Solar Classic 150 96A MPPT Charge Controller
1 X Magnum Magnasine 4300W Pure sinewave Inverter
1 X Magnum MERC Advanced Remote
1 X Trimetric 2030A + 500 Mv Shunt
1 X 48V BLS Desulphator
1 X 6Ft Earthing Rod
2 X Midnightsolar MNSPD Surge protector (1 for AC side, 1 for DC side)
1 X 10KVA Servo Stabilizer ( Pre-owned for about 4 years now)
4 x Complete galvanized aluminium Roof Mount
Various quality Breakers, Fuses and Accessories.

EXTRAS:

1 X TP-Link AC750 Dual Band WiFi Range Extender, Extends WiFi to Smart Home & Alexa Devices (RE200)
2 X TP-Link Smart Plug w/ Energy Monitoring, No Hub Required, Wi-Fi, Works with Alexa, Control your Devices from Anywhere (HS110)
1 X TP-Link Smart Wi-Fi Light Switch, No Hub Required, Single Pole, Control Your Fixtures From Anywhere, Works with Amazon Alexa (HS200)
1 X Amazon Echo dot 2nd gen.
.....More on those later.

It is important to state that these items were acquired over a long period of time, infact, it took me one year plus of self disciplined money management, savings and forfeiting so much to make this happen maybe because of my taste in quality but from experience, i have learnt to go hard and go once! at a point i was sending money monthly to Frankie so as to secure a price point on the panels when the dollar was climbing like crazy. The most expensive item to get were the batteries as you had to buy them once. My candid advice to anyone is to start small, make a checklist of needed items and bit by bit, you will be striking off the ones you get as time goes on.

Panels were run in series/parallel strings of 3X5 to a combiner box with 5 breakers. All panels, inverter, CC and Combiner box were Grounded. 6MM ammoured cables from panels to combiner box, 10MM from combiner box to CC. Battery interconnect cables, CC to battery bank, Inverter to battery bank all 50MM Extra fine stranded Welding cable. Although a little more expensive, these cables handle any load comfortably and have never felt a tad warm to the touch at all and trust me, i have pushed them to the max all in the name of testing.

Seeking to achieve an 'almost' off grid setup, I went for that much number in panels and the result of having an array sized to cover the worst time of year, is that you get quite a bit of spare power at peak sun times. Therefore it makes sense to divide your loads up into base loads and opportunity loads. My base loads are 1 large Refrigerator (on a timer running 7AM-5PM daily), 1 always-on 24/7 Freezer, water pumps, computer gear, chargers of all sorts, lighting, security lights consisting of 8 X 15W energy saving bulbs (looking to change them to LEDs of less than 10W if i find them), an always-on Apple MacMini I use as my media server running a PLEX server serving movies to all TVs and smart devices like Roku box, Amazon fire Tv stick, and one Xiami Mi Android TV in the house, 2 standing fans, as well as sundry occasional appliances,power tools and other usual stuff; washing machine, iron, juicer, blender, microwave and hair blowers.

Most mornings, I wake up to a battery bank that is between 68-75% except on days i play the PS4 pro or xbox1 all night, i have seen 66% in the mornings, still under 50% DOD so not too bad and I know that my batteries have not yet been broken into very well. By 1-2PM batteries are already in float so the excess power are dumped into opportunity loads like running ACs, boiling water and cooking using the Induction cooker running at max power till like 4PM. I have seen max PV output of 3600W+ and my area in Abuja is very dusty, so many untarred road around my hood, panels were covered in dust from the next day after installation! and we have not seen any rains yet so i believe there is tendency for better output when the rains come.On average i harvest around 14-18Kwh daily. I have been running the system TOTALLY off-grid since the 10th of March.

I used the Wifi extender to extend my WAN and use the Ethernet jack to plug in the Midnight Classic CC to my home network, so i can monitor from PC and phone w/out having to run a long lan cable to my router inside. Got for less than $20 on amazon and works like a charm.

I use The smart plug to plug in my fridge and set it on a timer so it automatically comes on @ 7am and shuts off by 5PM daily. I also use it to monitor energy consumption in real time or over a period of time, very helpful to calculate all your energy consumption.

The smart switch i use to automatically turn on the whole security lights @ 7pm and turn of @ 6:15 am daily. and just like the smart plug, they both can be controlled from anywhere in the world from the app as long as u have internet and i have tested this, it works perfectly.

I am a geeky kinda guy so I love me some home automation and i have had some Phillips Hue lighting in the house, all devices in my Home theater setup are controlled using just a single remote-- The Logitec Harmony elite and all these devices can be controlled via voice with Alexa on amazon echo dot, pretty neat and works for the TP link switch and smart plugs too. I hv 10 Terabytes of Movies, TV series and Anime all in HD and running perfectly on the media server 24/7 with the beautiful interface of PLEX (guys u need to check it out, its simply your own NETFLIX @ home) For internet i use the NTEL unlimited package so everything is always ONLINE... I share my home wifi for my neighbors and they can watch movies on their phones and tablets as the media server can comfortably handle multiple media streams at once without issues. All these are possible because the sun gives me free Energy!

I cannot state how lovely it is to have uninterrupted power supply, something people in other countries take for granted. I think going solar is the best way forward for us here.

Ok!Sorry guys for the long read , however, Your comments, criticism, corrections and questions are welcome..

suretx:
$200AGC available @360

Very Smooth and speedy transaction. Thanks.

Hi Justwise,

Just want to take time out and say a big thank you for the good job you have been doing here. I went through this thread and was able to use all the info gathered to successfully apply for a visa for my wife and she was granted 2 years multiple.

Application was submitted on 1st of February, got a mail from UKV1 that decision has been made on the 20th (But visa has a start date of 15th February though), got another email that it was ready for collection on the 21st.

Once again, thank you for your time and I wish everyone success.

Yet another sweet tasting battery tech that may not see the light of day? Just wish it becomes a reality, it will be a no-brainer for RE

Liquid battery could last for over 10 years
It might be an ideal form of energy storage for solar and wind power.

Modern batteries aren't hampered so much by their capacity as their long-term lifespan -- a lithium-ion pack can easily become useless after a few years of heavy use. That's bad enough for your phone, but it's worse for energy storage systems that may have to stick around for the long haul. If Harvard researchers have their way, you may not have to worry about replacing power backs quite so often. They've developed a flow battery (that is, a battery that stores energy in liquid solutions) which should last for over a decade. The trick was to modify the molecules in the electrolytes, ferrocene and viologen, so that they're stable, water-soluble and resistant to degradation. When they're dissolved in neutral water, the resulting solution only loses 1 percent of its capacity every 1,000 cycles. It could be several years before you even notice a slight dropoff in performance.

The use of water is also great news for both the environment and your bank account. As it's not corrosive or toxic, you don't have to worry about wrecking your home if the battery leaks -- you might just need a mop. The safer materials are also less expensive than the polymers you usually need in flow batteries, and wouldn't require exotic pumps and tanks to withstand harsher chemicals. It needs less maintenance than other flow designs, too.

There's no concrete roadmap for bringing this battery tech to the real world. There's definitely a market for it, though. Renewable energy is becoming increasingly cost-effective, and inexpensive, long-lasting batteries would only help that. You could install solar power at home knowing that the cost of energy storage won't wipe out the money you save on your electricity bill.


https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/12/flow-battery-lasts-for-10-years/

Deal or no deal?

creativeness:
$1445 btc available at 493

Very legit...

CAVEAT: However, do your due diligence to make sure you ain't dealing with a clone of the original

revenant:
Hello House, Goodday All, I want to do deal with Efuks. Is he Legit?

$2000 BTC needed @ N480.

At least its the brave action of one of them that covered the incident with a camera which has brought their brutality to light and hence they will suffer the consequences now. Sometimes you need wisdom and not violence to respond to everything. The main question is, YOU, what have you done lately to make a difference in the world around you??

omenkaLives:
Good one. I hope they get the punishment they deserve for bringing the force to such dishonour.

My greatest surprise in the whole episode was that people stood by only to watch and take pictures and made no attempt to stop the men from doing what they were doing; yet the way these people sound on social media you'd think just a single one of them could take on an entire batallion of the Nigerian army.

Smh.

richmon74:
Hi guys

It's been a while.
Good to see a lot of good stuff happening in this thread.
Obviously this is one thread that spells the future. I have tried to scan through most of the pages though unable to get into details. I've come across some very interesting discussions and some very funny ones as well. Some of them which i feel like responding to but when i look at the date i just think the sleeping do should lie.

The most interesting thing to me is that many have become renewable energy owners through this thread. God bless the founding fathers.
I'll be making my contributions as usual very soon and introducing new products as time goes on.

Over the years we've experimented on various designs and materials and i think its time to share the knowledge with the great people of this thread.

Congratulations to most people who have become solar power installers with the help of this thread.

Welcome back!...Looking forward to all you got to share from your wealth of knowledge!

Like are you for REAL??

Ochillary:
my friend doesn't have a nairaland account so he uses my my account to sell most of his gadget without my knowledge. This happened when I forgot to log out my nairaland account from his phone when I was in lagos. I wanted to insult you before, but its not your fault you won't understand. I have sold my ps3 & ps vita on nairaland here for 20k when the price was around 45k for second hand.. If you think I am one of those poor broke dude you see on nairaland then you must be silly. If you have problem with my friend I can give you his number so you can chat your problems with him. Anybody that buys this ps4 from me would be fucking lucky.

still available?

Barezzi:
Chai! I'm "green" with envy... lol
What's the brand? Is it something one can purchase off konga/jumia??

For the pots, they don't really have to be that very expensive types, Induction cookware must be made of a magnetic-based material, such as cast iron or magnetic stainless steel so the trick i use when going shopping for pots or pan for use on my induction cooker is to take along a tiny magnet, any pot that the magnet sticks to works..100%.

Nice dealing with you today... enjoying the GTA V all night long

Thanks for the Smooth Transaction of $940.... Keep keeping it real man.

valencia25:
$2590 Sold to PiuniMan

About $4,500 more available at 500/$

Please don't come and bargain, that is the last rate.

Call/WhatsApp: 08082862125

$750 Skrill also available at friendly rate. Get in touch

Good day all... Please what is the current visa fee for a 2 year Visit (standard visa)?

spiich007:
UPS's claim I mean. The first macbook you shipped to me convinced me your service is the best and affordable but you lack a good customer care 100%. You never met me u dey tell me I no be your mate? Any item I shipped to you are my personals I no be some low life street dealer o. Once your clients realise no be favour u dey do them then dem go wake up and see you lack respect and Good customer care! Nigerians are so pathetic it disgust me fa.

W.O.R.D!

Like i said before, I just couldn't deal with so much insolence from him... i never went back after 1 shipment. So many better options out there.. you just have to look.