This was our first event during the winter and it presented me with some unique challenges. The flexible
solar panels would glide over the snow like a sled so I had to find a spot that was reasonably level and make
a little mound of snow on the lower end to keep the panels from shifting. It was also very easy to kick up
the powdery snow when working with the panels and have to remove the snow from the panels.
There wasn't any precipitation, but I didn't want 80vdc loose in wet snow so I got out the ziplocks again to
protect the combiners from the snow trying to create a short.
I wasn't planning on staying overnight, so I packed up the solar around dusk. Batteries were pretty low by
morning when I got there, and I quickly set things back up and kept them from going flat. Lesson learned:
don't tear it down for overnight. Despite being 100% overcast the entire event, we collected a very large
amount of solar power. There were a lot of trees in what would normally be very inconvenient places, but
they'd lost their leaves for the winter and I don't think they had any noticeable impact on solar production.
Total solar production for the event was 813Wh.
1 keeping the batteries fully charged
2 solar panels deployed (sorry for the poor focus)
3 Saturday evening power total 479Wh
4 evening solar total indoors
5 Sunday teardown power total 813Wh
highest resolution images
last updated 03/16/2025 at 15:58:09 by make_www_index.command version 2025.03.04.A
