i got to belmont by 11:30am. my mother made some wonton soup for lunch. while that was going on, i went down to the basement to wash the two guest room blankets i brought over yesterday. sunny days are the best times to do laundry since electricity is free as we get power directly from the rooftop solar panels. the only cost is water. one reason why i recommended the LG impeller washer was the ability to wash large loads because it doesn't have an agitator spindle. this was my first time washing blankets in this machine and i was impressed by just how much it could handle (5.5 cu .ft.). it wouldn't be hard to fit a (flexible) person inside of the washer. i also added a bunch of towels i could find, the more the merrier.
it was time to try out our new 10A MPPT controller. to do that we needed to find a way to connect the solar panel to the controller. one problem: the solar panel uses MC4 connectors while the controller uses SAE. i figured we'd need to make our own MC4-to-SAE adapter, but my father said it was easier to make a SAE-to-2-pin-t-type adapter, since our outdoor cable connecting the solar panel to the battery ends in a 2-pin t-type connector. this t-type connector doesn't really have a name (i've seen it referred to as the OEM-T connector), but it's commonly found in automobiles and used extensively in the ham radio field.
it gave me father a chance to use the KOTTO helping hand tool i got him back in april. he clamped the provided SAE pigtail connector using two (of the four) arms before crimping and then soldering two t-type male pins onto the other end. he used a bit too much solder and the pins wouldn't go into the plastic t-type housing. after unsuccessfully trying to desolder the pins, he had to use a dremel tool to cut off a bit of the excess solder.
we tried charging one of our LiFePO4 batteries using the 10A MPPT controller attached to a 50W solar panel. we were removing the solar panel from our rain barrel pump setup when i discovered it wasn't working anymore. was the solar panel damaged? or were the connecting cables no good? i went and got our 100W WERCHTAY 10-busbar solar panel from the sunroom, where it'd been sitting in its box ever since we bought it back in september 2022. we connected the 100W panel to our basement battery setup and it worked, so we knew at least the wires were okay. i ended up taking down the 50W solar panel and putting it somewhere sunnier, as it was sitting behind the wall of bean and squash vines all summer, only getting a trickle of sun. that seemed to work better, and the 50W panel seemed to be working again.
we returned to our 10A MPPT controller project. we connected the 50W panel. everything seemed to be working, but it wasn't charging the battery. we then connected the 100W panel which worked fine, charging at 13.3V with an amperage of 3.8A. that meant the 50W panel was still broken somehow, or at least didn't work with the MPPT controller. so we left the 100W panel charging our lithium battery for the time being. i went outside to clean up the cable and felt something burn my hand. the wires were burning hot. my father disconnected the charge controller while i disconnected the MC4 connectors from the 100W panel. turns out the wires were damaged. they'd been sitting outside since last year, and some rodent had chewed through the middle of the cable. we ended up cutting the cable in half and adding a new 2-pin t-type connector to the end.
my father did a better job soldering the pins a second time. these were female pins going into a plastic female housing. we tested the MPPT controller again with our new shortened charging wire. 100W panel worked, with an additional 1A of charging power. we then tried the 50W panel, figuring maybe it didn't work previously was because the cable was bad. no go, still no charge, so the 50W panel definitely has some issues. i even measured it directly: it has voltage (18.4V), just no current.
i decided to put the 50W panel back onto the basement battery setup, since it worked before. but once i hooked everything up, the voltage meter and the controller but showed zero charge. my father came to investigate. we discovered that the 50W panel does work; only it doesn't work in direct sunlight. direct sunlight seems to cause it to overheat, at which point it won't charge anymore. but in the shade, it will start working again, though at a few watts of power.
while messing around with the 50W solar panel, i spotted a monarch butterfly caterpillar in the pot of milkweeds. it was actually on the inner wall of the pot and not on the milkweed. later when i looked for it again, it was gone, before i found it back on a milkweed stalk eating a leaf. i've grown milkweeds for a few years and have never had a monarch caterpillar until now. this year's milkweed isn't even particularly good, but apparently good enough to feed the caterpillar. it's hard to tell what stage it is, i'd say 4th or 5th instar, soon to become a chrysalis. when i came back to look for the caterpillar, it'd disappeared once again. took me a while before i found it, hiding underneath one of the lower leaves.
one thing we discovered with the 100W solar panel is it will drop production if even just a little bit of the panel is in shadows. just casting the shadow of my hand in one corner dropped the amperage from 4A to 2A. and if a person should walk across the panel, the amperage will drop down to 0.5A. i don't know if this is normal or not, can't remember ever testing our old 100W or 50W panels like this.
since we now only have one functional solar panel for multiple batteries that need solar charging, my father and i went online to look for a new one.
up to this point we've been using flexible solar panels: 100W and 50W. our flexible 100W panel broke last winter, and now it seems our flexible 50W panel will soon join that panel in the dust heap. maybe there's a way to repair the panels, but we don't know how. these flexible panels have a design flaw in that the controller box sits in front of the panel instead of the back (this is so people can mount these panels flat). this exposes the controller to the elements, whether its the intensity of the sun or rain/snow. these boxes are technically supposed to be waterproof, but in our experience that hasn't been the case. the first 100W panel, when managed to open the controller box, didn't seem like there was any waterproofing. the 50W controller box, at least the manufacturer filled the inside of the box with silicone, so it lasted a bit longer than the 100W panel, but still failed in the end. the new 100W panel we got last year, it's a solid frame design which is more durable, but it's not as convenient as a flexible panel. one good thing about the flexible panels is they were light, and we could simply hanging them up against the side of the house with wires. with these solid frame panels, you can't do that.
so i wasn't sure if we should buy another flexible panel, given two of them have already failed on us. that's when i saw a sale on a newpowa 100W 9-busbar solid frame solar panel. originally it was $88, but was on sale for $70 (20% off). additionally there was another 20% off coupon, making the final price to be $56. 100W solar panels are getting cheaper these days, to make way for large capacity panels like 200W+. for our usage, 100W is more than enough, and we can always connect them in parallel for even faster charging.
i did some yard work around 4pm. the lawn needs to be mowed, but before that could happen, i needed to weed out all the crabgrass i could find. i spent about an hour on the front lawn, digging up all the crabgrass. i was sweaty and because i kept bending over to weed, sweat was dripping on my glasses so i could barely see. i'm happy to report that i managed to remove nearly all the crabgrass on the front lawn. hopefully we can mow tomorrow, and then i can start thinking about seeding some bare batches on the lawn.
i then started watering the garden. i mixed 3 gallons of high acid fertilizer and watered the jasmines, gardenia, and osmanthus. i also used the same fertilizer on the backyard orchids. that one orchid that managed to lose all its leaves (but one) from sun scalding is still very much alive and appears to be making some new leaf buds. it's roots all seem very healthy, so there's a good chance it'll survive. maybe not flower next season, but hopefully the second after that once it managed to make some new leaves.
my mother made some fried rice for dinner. she ate quickly before bolting to her bedroom to watch her shows.
i returned home a bit after 8pm. i brought home my two blankets, properly dried, like new. even though there's street cleaning tomorrow, i managed to find parking close to the house (normally i'd have to park a block or two away).
i replaced all the rusty metal shower curtain rings with plastic ones that came from temu a few days ago. they work okay, not as smooth as metal rings with ball bearings, but they won't rust. maybe one day i can find truly rustproof metal curtain rings, if they even exist. i've spent way too much time thinking about curtain rings at this point.