*Clean The Glass Outside!*
I've been trying to track down an intermittent problem in my Alt Power System's Secondary Solar Panel Bank for better than a week. Luckily I hadn't gotten that group of 12 Solar Panels onto the roof of the new house yet, so they were sitting in their racks on the ground, which made the problem MUCH easier to find... and when I finally found the problem it was one of those one-in-a-zillion freak occurrences that couldn't possibly happen, but that did...
But, OK, "I found it"... Problem Solved... Except that I was still missing some significant Amperage over all.. a little more than should be expected just because it's the middle of Winter.
I realized the Panels hadn't been washed since they were at the old house... I have "Washing Glass Outside" down to a science... I have an old Sponge Mop (the kind with a handle used to wring it out without bending over or touching the water) and a bucket that I use specifically for cleaning Glass outside... I pour JUST A LITTLE Windex Glass Cleaner into a bucket of warm water, and then I scrub everything down...
Cleaning the Panels got me EIGHT extra Amps out of the Solar Panels!!! That's over 200 Watts that was just being wasted due to a THIN coat of dirt over the panels!
And I LOVE freshly washed Camera Lenses! At night it feels like you can see forever, with no visible external lights, with no moon under cloudy skies!!! During the day clean lenses allow the pictures to display so bright and vividly on High-Definition Monitors that at times I feel like the Double Rainbow Dude of Internet fame! "WHOooOAA! CLEAN LENSES! IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL! IT'S TOO MUCH (sob)! What does it mean??? I don't know what it means (sob)!!"
(It's PITCH BLACK outside in all of these pics taken from a few of the Security System's "Zero-Lux" Night-Vision Cameras. What light you "see" in the pictures is from the Infrared spotlights, and it isn't visible at all to the human eye)
Ask your Significant Other to save the old Sponge Mop for you the next time they buy a new one.. it makes it MUCH easier to reach across Wide Solar Panel Arrays on the Ground, and to reach down long panels when working on a roof. A Sponge Mop for these tasks allows you to safely scrub off even the worst grime build-up in literally just a few minutes total time, WITHOUT scratching the Glass/Lexan/Polycarbonate/Whatever Covering!
It's also a snap to reach Security Cameras WAY up under Eaves at "The high corner" of the house WITHOUT a ladder... Give it a try, you'll thank me for the tip ;)
Warlord
www.alpharubicon.com
All materials at this site not otherwise credited are Copyright © 1996 - 2012 Trip Williams. All rights reserved. May be reproduced for personal use only. Use of any material contained herein is subject to stated terms or written permission.