Wandering Adventure Party

@pfriedma Yeah that's still coming back around to "trust me bro" on something that's getting plugged in downstream of all circuit protection and provides an energized male plug.

@creideiki @f4grx @balkonsolar @derdo

@creideiki Realistically that thing's never going to ever see direct sunlight before 10 AM or after 7PM in the middle of summer, and in the winter it's only gonna get thick overcast light from about 8AM to 4PM, and it's still powering all that. And this isn't a new install, that's like, 2006.

@creideiki That said, solar's been good enough for long enough now that you might be able to at least cover vampire power with solar with an east-west exposure. I mean, look at the tropical paradise of Portland, Oregon: The light rail trains, rail/foot/road traffic signaling systems and the street lighting on the central transit mall (several kilometers long and two blocks wide, a couplet) is powered exclusively by a single SW-into-a-hill solar array and battery station.

@creideiki OK, good, so it's not just me and my NEMA-style wiring idea of electricity that's making me squeamish to this idea, since I need a little more than "trust me bro" on "things that'll kill me faster than an Oklahoma ambulance shows up"

@f4grx @balkonsolar @pfriedma @derdo

@pfriedma Yeah, the system my neighbor used was similar but the back feed generator interconnect was to select the locally generated solar and wind resources, fall back to the grid power as a source, or use grid power as a sink, and that was *mostly* automatic, and using contactors. Knowing how that system worked is why I'm looking at this plugin PV and thinking the only saving grace in terms of fire safety is that it's 5A.

@pfriedma That's considerably less terrifying but everybody is seeing why this just screams unsafe to me right?

@f4grx @balkonsolar @derdo

@sheddi OK, but where's the breaker that guarantees that?

@pfriedma @f4grx @balkonsolar

@derdo OK, so can't use 'em in an outage because there's nothing stopping the power escaping the house back up grid... so what's protecting the circuit you're plugging into? Is that also nothing? At least in NEMA world, this would be the case, which would mean it's also a fire hazard and electric shock hazard for the user...

@pfriedma @f4grx @balkonsolar

@pfriedma That's what I'm saying,you'd need to have a cutover interlock at the breaker box, AND you can't just plug panels into any random outlet (since you would be bypassing circuit protection). I know that much from living someplace where my neighbor generated all the power for like 3 households and dealing with that, and still have capacity left over and still had a cutover to sell back power to the electric co-op.

Or is this just explaining modular solar badly?

@f4grx @balkonsolar

@f4grx The part that I'm concerned about here is the graphic that seems to imply you can just plug this in to backfeed a wall socket that you'd normally use to plug a lamp or TV into, and that's the part that's specifically dangerous, since you're being a power source downstream of all of the safety systems, and people upstream can't guarantee their own safety from you when repairing downed lines as it works here when you just plug into a random wall outlet with a power source.

@balkonsolar

@f4grx I'm trying to work out in my head how this isn't a "suicide cord" situation. I realize we're talking about differing electrical systems but to folks used to the power systems in use in North America and Japan, this just sets off all kinds of safety alarms in our heads so I'm wondering what's different that's making it safe?

@balkonsolar

@balkonsolar Yikes! How are you preventing backfeed to the grid and not defeating the whole point of a breaker box? Backfeeding from an outlet kills people!

@ysbreker Speaking of, was it @TechConnectify that bought the Coda?

@Coihue Sorta. @TechConnectify isn't quite consistent about it yet.

@TechConnectify Nice!

@ShadowJonathan I 100% would go door to door updating OpenStreetMap fulltime if I could afford to, socioeconomically.

This obsession spawned out of maps not updating fast enough in Portland 20 years ago to reliably run a courier service and kinda getting screwed by that, ultimately leading me to learn about and start contributing to OpenStreetMap just to have accurate navigation in a city that was changing the street grid daily.