PV Window Box

[Jacob Petersheim]

We use solar light strings, too, but mostly as summer decorations in the yard, and not for holiday colored lights like you have, @Jacob Petersheim . I think that the colored lights is a great idea, and we probably get enough sunshine most days that they would light up for at least a little while.

Though I am taxed for street lights, there isn't one near my house and the closest one is almost completely blocked by a tree except in Winter months. As a result, things are black as pitch on my end of the street all the way to the corner where there is a light at the intersection. Grr.

But I get enough Summer sunlight out front to power=up my under-hedge string pretty brightly all night long most weeks. That saves me paying to keep porch lights going all year for illumination and crime deterrence.

I keep expecting the utility companies to get together and take that big old street tree down once and for all.

 

[Don Alaska]

Not enough light to even charge the solar cameras. I have 4 but only one is still working.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

Not enough light to even charge the solar cameras. I have 4 but only one is still working.

Yeah, we don't get much direct sunlight now. Of course your days are far shorter this time of year.

Today was a pretty rainy, low-light day so my lights only came on for a short time. Bizarrely warn now, but flash-freeze incoming as "normal" returns overnight.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

A lot less activity in Winter, of course. Short days, low Sun angles, and cloud cover pretty solid most of the time.

However I did have an event with my Bluetti Elite 100 V2 unit. Somehow or other I bricked the thing a couple of weeks ago and feared I might have to deal with the shipping for warranty work. Power button did nothing, nor anything else for that matter. Grr.

Nothing I found online was helpful, not even trying the dodge of waiting for a day with sunshine and dragging it outside with two 17 volt solar arrays in series to try to wake it up by delivering 15+ volts of DC power into it.

I'd tried a few times later to awaken it using the 12V DC output of another Bluetti device, hoping for the best, but no dice.

Tonight I took one of my motion-sensor lights I use for night lighting and plugged it into the smaller Bluetti device for charging. After getting that going I stood up, looked down, and the Elite 100 V2 stacked beneath it had awakened from the dead!

I had left the 12V DC cable in place, too lazy to keep putting it away and getting it out again to try another stab. So by sheer luck somehow "the planets had aligned."

The Elite 100 V2 was at 45% charge and charging via DC from the other unit (Bluetti AC50B). I plugged in AC power to get the revived uni9t charging faster. Checking, there were software updates available for all 5 processors in the device. Yes, appliances are getting "smarter" (i.e. more complicated and software-intensive) all the time.

Updates completed, I'll have to read the notes for each one to see if they address my symptoms.

I had gotten a good deal on this thing, but $350 is $350 and I am not going to let this go without reporting it. I'll have to watch and see how stable things are from here.