FCC issues a Notice of Violation to Solar City for RFI Inteferance

Methinks cheap digital devices are multiplying like mosquitos and knocking out one noise source device at a time is a losing battle in the end, sort of like wiping out the little biters with a flyswatter. If you can even locate them. Occasionally I have had line noise problems that even radiate into the VHF spectrum, so that I can track them with a beam ant. and receiver, but sometimes you get to the strongest point and the source becomes vague and then you are stuck with "I know about where it is, more or less".

 

OK then how 'bout a 3D Fractal - Hyperbolic Encabulator? See vid link below. I'm tryin' to decipher if that's a secret message embedded in Morse through the patterns ...

 

..the secret is...

FRACTALS ARE THE DEBIL'S PLAYGROUND!

STOP DAT U DEBIL!

the HORROR! the HORROR!

 

Close up of the snake that gave you 'snake oil': the world's most overused phrase in ham radio.....

 

I haven't found any announcement of this. Is there a link to the N.O.V. issued to Solar City?

 

What frightens me is that you caught the secret message... You are now allowed to see the next level:

Next level

Click above to be promoted to the level of Psyctronic mind control rays from HAARP!

 

I used a MFJ-1025 I think it was (the one without the preamp) for a while. It worked quite well in the end but took a lot of fiddling with the noise receive antenna. I modified it because it doesn't cover the full 360 degree phase shift. The null for me often seemed to frustratingly be in the gap.

Note that those devices can be useful for nulling out a single noise source but they won't help if you have multiple noise sources in multiple directions because the levels and phase shifts will be different for the different sources.

 

THIS IS BETTER MATERIAL FOR "APRIL FOOL'S DAY"!!! :-(

 

I run 4 12 volt panels in series(lighter so my bad back can lift them) so about ~80 volts to the charge controllers in the house. Some panels do not have built in blocking diodes and that can cause issues with trying to series or parallel them.

 

My panels are renogy. It is more like when they begin to swap roles from source to sink based upon available solar energy that is variable (shadows that cover/partial obstruct individual panels,etc.). I am with you on total series connection, that does make the most sense.

 

W0AAT - maybe you had issue's with the keyboard , or ? , but your math is incorrect - 4 x 12 = 48 , not 80 ?
The voltage in solar panels do not make for weight [ at least directly ] wattage is more directly related to weight .

WF9Q - Just to inform others & trying to stay closer to the facts on solar , inanimate object - can not like or dislike .
Any panels sold without a diode [ to keep the panel from discharging at night ] are almost by definition cheap chineeze junk ,
this seems to be getting close to a new norm [ because of the importation rules being ignored ] , before generally all the American manufacturing gave up to the chineeze , I never found a solar panel without a diode .

On the other hand , with most manufacturing coming from China [ China can & does make quality , when we are getting screwed I use chineeze to label ] , as an example high end products like Honda eu2000 generators have been made in China , but then the chineeze steal the idea , make cheaper garbage , same with many other brands .

Just trying to keep some of facts back in the alternative energy subjects , solar does work , along with other sources , even in snowy winters .
Having been in the field for some number of decades , I am a little frustrated at the lack of addressing RFI in the industry , I have inquired from my sources and the options have been mostly they do not know and only one brand [ doggy dew , do not remember ] as having a quite product , generally speaking there is no such thing as noise coming from a solar panel .
I say generally because of over time there have been so many changes and I have not checked on each , some manufactures even made an inverter that was very small and attacked to the back of solar panels , haven't seen these in some time .
A lot of complaints [ if not most ] come from people trying to cheap out , buy from amazon , harbor freight , etc.
One way to help find quality , is to shop for inverters with terms - off-grid almost always has a battery charger , on-grid has grid disconnect , a battery charger is an option .
Most of the stand-alone inverters are not the quality units .
Most of the places I use to shop , no longer are out there , or at least buy the same name and finding the known quality brands of solar panels [ can not say , not enough time to prove ] there may be good China made [ only time will tell ] but the pricing is so low - this is why you can not find non-chineeze brands .
Here is just one of the sources for good pricing https://www.wholesalesolar.com/power-inverters funny how there is very little competition with inverters , most of the inverters on this site are of the quality type .
One thing I have found & suspect with the China / chineeze stuff is , they sell everything under one brand and in such a way that you have to convert at least the connections , and maybe more to combine other products - they sell systems and made & sell in such a way that there there is no option to mix & match different components to build a system .

 

Any idea where on the FCC web site we can see the notice of Violation, I was looking by some times the FCC site is not to friendly.

 

It does work, however it is not viable and is more of cool novelty instead of solution. Not going to argue with you out about the lack of diode because I have no knowledge about that. One thing I can say for fact is the mono greatly outperforms the poly. In regards to the Chinese, if our government subsidized manufacturing and jacked with the currency exchange rate Americans would be doing the same thing.

 

Yes, that is an understatement, just flat out junk..........The only one that I found that is good is made by GoPower and actually has a true sinusoidal shaped waveform.

 

I have a Solar City installation and was having troubles with RFI from the optimizers. When I called the rep to complain, they were very responsive. They ended up sending out an RF engineer from a few hours drive away and he spent the day with me with his spectrum analyzer and other test equipment. The issue I was having were with interference with my garage door opener (remote transmitters wouldn't work during the day) and other devices that rely on ~433 MHz were affected. He returned the next day with a different set of optimizers that were running at a different frequency and replaced them all. That solved those problems. My HF noise floor is so horrible in my location that I can't tell if my PV system is having any additional effect on my noise.

As I understand the purpose of the optimizer, it's a small switching supply that takes whatever voltage the panel is producing and bumps it to the nominal panel voltage (36 VDC?) so that any shaded panel doesn't just show up as a resistor in the series chain of panels. They needed these because I have trees that shade one or more panels during various parts of the day. A shaded panel in a pure series chain would bring down the whole chain otherwise.