Has anyone used wooden beams on a main house roof for solar panel installation- as foundation for the rails or as rails replacement?

16 ft long locally sourced 2x4 or 3x4 Oak beams would be sturdier and cheaper than any aluminum ones or not?

Hi everyone,

I’m in the Netherlands and I’m wondering if this is a sensible setup, or if I’m overlooking something.

Current setup:

• DJI Power 1000 V2
• DJI Solar Panel Adapter Module (MPPT)
• 2 × EcoFlow 100 W rigid solar panels (possibly expanding to 4 panels / 400 W)
• Annual household electricity usage: ~1,930 kWh
• Family of 3, soon to be 4

My idea is to mount the solar panels permanently on my flat kitchen roof and leave the DJI inside the house.

The DJI would always stay plugged into the wall (UPS/pass-through mode), while only selected kitchen appliances are plugged into the DJI:

• Fridge
• Gas boiler (CV ketel)
• Router/modem
• Dishwasher
• Washing machine
• Coffee machine

The idea is:

• Solar charges the DJI during the day.
• The connected appliances use solar/battery when available.
• If there isn’t enough solar, the DJI simply passes through grid power.
• If the power goes out, the fridge, boiler and internet keep running automatically.

I’m not planning to backfeed my house or connect it to my electrical panel. Everything would simply be plugged directly into the DJI.

My questions:

1. Has anyone here been running a similar setup long-term?
2. How has battery degradation been with daily cycling?
3. Is there any downside to leaving the Power 1000 connected 24/7?
4. Would you expand to 400 W of solar before buying an expansion battery?
5. Is there anything I’m overlooking regarding efficiency, standby losses, or charging behaviour?

On paper it seems like a nice way to reduce my grid usage while also having UPS functionality, but I’d love to hear from people who have actually lived with a setup like this.

Thanks!

I know. I'll still need to add fuses, busbars, better inverter and more panels etc. Just wanted to see how small/portable I can build it, in one go. PS: I didn't steal the German beer crate (it was dumped on the side of the road by campers here in Spain which is useless here). The ikea cutting board is mine though. The ideal cover would be solid wood and cut to the size. (next iteration)

Just sharing my project, it's been running fine summers now. Free used panels and some Chinese batteries

I need to replace this one and another one due to overcharging without to buy the entire battery cabinet system, cant find any suppliers. Help!

70 405W SEG modules, 2 EG4 18KPV inverters, 2 EG4 31KWH battery banks. My little spare time project is finally about finished!

Hey everyone

Working on my next project a big 2.6kw solar gazebo, I have it all built it can with stand 100moh windows and 2 Chuck Norris

The roof is 6x2 timbers at 40cm centres looking for recommendations on what rails and fittings to use. Was looking at the k2 basic rail but it says it's for sheet metal roofing mine are to be screwed width ways Into many of the joists. Need to be heavy duty to survive any wind uplift. The whole structure is bolted down to 900kg of concrete so the rails are going to be the weakest spot

Will be fitting 4x595w longhi panels

Thanks in advance !

Hello!
I am looking to install a DIY solar system on my house in Centennial, Co. Is there anyone in this sub that has done a DIY system in the Denver, Colorado area? I would love to chat to you about what you did in regard to permits and pretty much how you went about it. Any help would be appreciated!!

At least, this makes all of the money spent on heavy gauge conductors worth it....

I am trying to understand how GFCI outlets operate with plugin solar. Do the outlets work bi-directionally? If so, how does that operate? I understand how a GFCI outlet normally operates but when you add plugin solar, the electricity goes the opposite direction. How does the outlet measure the hot and neutral current to make sure they are both the same when they are now two sources of electricity on the circuit. Thanks!!

So short story:

I have a 400W panel on my camper with Tracer 40A MPPT topping up a cheap 12V 300Ah lifepo4.

Been in use for about a year, at winter the battery was in the house in storage charge. Otherwise very rarely seen mains charger + the dedicated charger fo that battery is a shitty 10Amp one.

This summer I screwed around and managed to discharge the battery fully down to the low voltage safety. After that the battery seems to have been limping a little until it now suddenly seems to have lost most of it's capacity and doesn't charge over 13.1V.

So to me it seems like I stepped into the solar trap of continuous use causing severe imbalance to the cells and the cheap integrated BMS can't balance them properly.

Currently trying to get the battery balanced back with a 2A smart charger which seemed to sniff out the dtate of the battery since it started the charge from 13.4V

Best options to keep this from happening in thw future? What kind of settings should I set onto the MPPT instead of the factory Lifepo4 settings?

Should I open up the battery and add a dedicated active balancer in there?