borderline: To my good friends,George,sammu,olason and others who have been frontiers of the satellite industry for a long time,i say welldone.its been a while but i have taken my time to be up to speed with this thread. Many new and good developments has taken place since i last visited here.It is however sad to see a certain 'Mr i hacked' post obscene and offensive pictures all in the name of promoting a new box. I don't know you or what you do, but i feel you are going against the rules of this noble forum. I hope seun and twinstaiye haven't abandoned this forum to rot away to the extent that obcene pictures are now being posted freely with impunity. In between,i wish to say i have also missed this thread and all you good people. I greet you all!!!

@borderline,
Its good to see you back after such a long time. Yes, FTA has moved on since its early days and we now have a lot new members in the house. One of them is 'I hacked' which you mentioned. He's been one of the Ghanaian frontier members pushing the limits of FTA at that end. I must say though some of his posts are at times less than savory but we've learnt to put up with them.

Now that you're back, I hope you do take time to visit more often. Together we could return the forum back to what it used to be. VIVA FTA!!!

spyder880: Yes, I love this one and so it stays on the wall

careful spyder!

i hope by this design, you've not unwittingly provided an easy means for the 'friends of the night'
to gain access to your abode?! what i'm seeing there looks more like a ladder on the wall - and
you know what i mean!

(just joking though )

liverpoolfc,
i'm afraid the guy you called to install that your dish didn't do a good job. most likely that dish is badly aligned
hence the tendency to go off and on at will. try and check the dish alignment yourself and adjust. if you can't do it
call another installer who knows what he's doing.

most of these so-called installers are just charlatans going about looking for where to rip off innocent people.

yeah, with the recent launch of bb10 looks like it will no more be all that 'shameful' for anyone to
carry a bb handset around anymore!

bodejohn,
congrats to you! in terms of payment to phcn, your solar harvest may appear very insignificant
but when you factor the convenience and not having to listen to all that deafening gen noise
coupled with the knowledge that you're now independent from frequent power outages, the gains
quickly add up.

more:

all,
pictures of stacked charge controllers and inverters from across the world:

hello bodejohn,
yes, you can estimate the state of charge (soc) or depth of discharge (dod) of a battery using its
open-circuit voltage. however, depending on the internal cell conditions of the battery, it may not
be a very reliable way of determining the battery's residual capacity. for this you need other means
of calculating amps in and out in real time. this is achieved by incorporating gadgets such as
a battery charge monitor (bmk) or the trimetric.

odilibe: George_d..up-to 8M dish .....anyone could do house roofing with 8m dish!!!

@odilibe,
Ha, ha, ha! Yeah, you can roof on 8m.

The shortcomings of ASAS!

ile-naira,
still on the subject of stacking, i want to chip in a quick note:


even with a well-planned forward looking system, stacking of charge controllers and inverters is never
out of place. this is so primarily due to the huge advantages it affords.

assuming i have a large household which needs about 6kw of power to run it. but this 6kw is only needed
at peak hours of the evening when everybody is at home. it would be wiser for me to install 2 sets of
3kw inverters stacked, such that in the mornings or during low power demands, only the master inverter
(the first 3kw inverter) will be on duty while the slave (2nd inverter) will be on standby mode waiting
until there was peak demand before it can swing into action. this helps to conserve much needed power
that would have been wasted if i had a single large 6kw inverter running all the time.
still following the example above, 2 sets of 3kw inverters stacked together will enable me continue to enjoy
power even when one of them is taken out for service. and then imagine if you had a single large 6kw inverter
that suddenly went bad! you'd be out of power for as long as it takes to get it fixed or maybe you'd switch
over to noisy generators for that period. but with 2 stacked 3kw inverters, the two cannot get bad all at
once.

same goes for charge controllers. if i had a single large 90a charge controller and it was affected by
lightening that will mean no more solar charging until it was repaired or replaced. but if i were to stack
2pcs 45a charge controllers even if one of them were to malfunction, i would still have one left to do
the charging.

so, as you can see apart from having no choice but to stack when you want to increase power, stacking
still has other advantages and is highly recommended when dealing with renewable energy.


another quick note: not all inverters or charge controllers can be stacked. it is very important to read
oem manuals for whatever brand you're installing so as to get a handle on what steps need to be taken for
proper and safe stacking and what accessories are needed to achieve this. this is so that you don't
endanger yourself and your property.

deeplo,
congrats on the successful installation of your 3.5kva inverter system. now you will be free from the clutches of
generators for a while.

@odilibe,
You keep teasing us with these effizzy German channels knowing fully well they're out
of our reach. The way things stand, some of us may get so angry to the point where we
decide to root for 8m and above dishes just to have a bite of these goodies!

ok. check your mailbox

so how does this policy differ from what was already in place?

symbian03: Hell nooooo!!! I don't do that sh!!!t. Skinny Jeans are feminine stuff. I rather prefer straight or even the old baggy Jeans. I laugh whenever I see a short/fat butt guy on skinny Jean, they just look like a drama king.

i thought so too. skinny jeans should be mostly for girls who want to expose their cleavage.

topeby,
still i called you yesterday but you didn't pick. i guess i'm always calling at the
wrong time.

lyonck5,
thanks man for the clarification. since it's not original then maybe i'll just just forget it.

no use buying something that is fake only for it to go bad within weeks.

ile-naira,
i just finished checking the apollo t100 charge controller and i must say it's a tempting piece of equipment to have.
looks like they upped the game from t80 which used to be their flagship:

http://apollosolar.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=3XtF1cd6dRs%3D&tabid=143

still, if you're building your system from scratch, you have the luxury of choosing from these high end offerings
especially if you have an eye for future expansion. however if you're already on the renewables bandwagon like myself,
its plenty difficult switching over to something not quite tested yet, and again when you consider that the product
you happen to be using presently is one of the best industry-wide.

stacking of controllers may not be as 'dreadful' as you make it sound. even with the higher output models, a time comes
when you just have to keep adding like for like if you want to increase power output. same goes for inverters - well i
mean the high end types.

please do let the house know when you eventually succeed in putting your system together. i'm sure we all want to learn
a thing or two from you.

Topeby:

I am sorry. I pick all calls. even when i am busy on the other phone, or doing something i will still
call any missed call number back. I don't have your phone number. You can call me. Sorry about that.

ok, no problems. let me call you again.

are skinny (pencil ) jeans still in vogue?

its the same even with dstv.

bad signal - happening right now!

hello ile-naira,
i admire your courage in going the import route to get these items directly. truly this is the best option
for anyone hoping to get the best bargains on renewable energy products.

unfortunately i don't have info on clearing charges but i'm sure any clearing agent you contact can furnish
you with this.

for now the highest amp you can get from mainstream domestic charge controllers is 80a. the only increase is
on the open circuit voltage in which xantrex has come out with a 600v 80a model.

http://www.soligent.net/uploads/products/29403_3.pdf

most others like outback, tristar, steca, apollo, bluesky, midnight solar, etc all max out at 150v with varying
outputs up to 80a (however the midnite solar classic 150 charge controller can output up to 93a at
12v system voltage but drops to 83a when used with a 48v system).

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products.folder/controller-folder/midnite-classic-lite.html

if you're looking for charge controllers that can output up to 90a and above i'm afraid you may have to look
at grid tie/modular types. for these you'll be looking at phocos, solatteck, sunnyboy, etc.

as for paralleling two charge controllers being expensive, i think you have to look at in another way. if you
already had a 45a charge controller of a particular brand and you're looking at increasing your solar array to
accommodate another 45a capacity set of solar modules, won't you rather pay extra money and get another 45a
charge controller of same product which would be cheaper than buying a single 90a charge controller of a
different brand? i leave the question for you to answer.

we are watching closely.

lyonck5,
which of these beats headphones have built in memory card slot for listening to mp3?

redcliff,
please tell us more.

i'm about to pay for this tunnel guru stuff and don't want to be taken for a ride.

na wao! where are we going with all these regulations?

spyder880,
you are very correct. it almost happened to me too with my first house.

topeby,
i tried calling you yesterday but seems you were too busy to answer calls

ok, we have already discussed this on phone.
thanks.

ha, ha, ha! my brother. you know you can always have some - through the usual source.

williams85,
he doesn't want to call an installer. he wants to be the installer
and that is why he's asking us for help.

let us be more considerate in our replies. peace.

ok. let me call you.