Solar installation Day 2

Posted on February 10, 2016

Our morning began with continued work on the solar panel installation. Holes were drilled through the helm bimini to thread the solar panel lines down, and then silicone applied to fill up the holes. Plastic cord holder thingys were screwed in to hold the cords in place.

  

  

Screwing into the hard top is tricky because the clear coat can crack and spider out, so it is important use a counter sink first.

  

We used clamshell vents to cover where we had applied silicone, which tidied the holes up nicely.

   

The panels came with MC-4 connectors but we decided to remove them and hard wire directly to the panels in order to cut down on the chance of corrosion.

We spliced the cables together and then used an extra layer of plastic shrink protector for added protection.

  

In the few hours of cloudy skies from when cables were finally hooked up around midday until sundown, we had already produced 105 amp hours of energy.

  

The finished product looks really good. We did use small black zip ties to further tidy and brace the stretches of cable between the screws.

While Danny was finishing up with the final touches, I installed a new toilet seat to our head, which turned out looking pretty spiffy.

I peeked in on the creatures through the day and after they were done with school work, I found Emma in her natural habitat…reading on her kindle. That girl is a readerholic! She just completed the Divergent series, and did this to a box of Borax..

  

She cracks me up.

When all the work was done, Danny and I borrowed bicycles from the marina and rode in to get a bite of eat to celebrate. I tried escargot for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised. My Dad used to eat it, and I thought he was nuts, but if you get it out of your head that you’re eating snails, you will enjoy the buttery garlic taste.

  

Tomorrow our inverter will arrive, and we will install that, which will take us one step closer to having Tanda Malaika the way we want her to be. I’m so grateful for all that I’m learning, and for a husband how knows so much.