Field Notes

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West Pond: 2017-05-18 09:40:00 (DOY 138)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others: Daphne

Summary: Upgraded solar system, new panels, new batteries, more scaffolding, 24V system

West Pond
2017-05-18

I arrive about 9:40 with Daphne. It was clear sunny and warm, dare I say hot, with little to no wind. The tules are going like weeds!

This site has been losing power overnight. Every night in the last week. We were here to check on and upgrade the solar power system sn BB-WP.

We stopped at the old Rice site and picked up a half-height scaffolding frame set and an extra boardwalk. At West Pond we tested the solar batteries. All but one tested â€œweakâ€ or â€œreplaceâ€ with the load tester. We decided the batteries needed replacing and removed them all. Then we removed the existing 12V solar panels (sn 11ZV0M0855, sn 11ZV0M0856, sn 11ZV0M0836) 420W total. We got the junction boxes wet in the process but left them open in the lab to dry out. We then installed the half-height frame set on the top of the scaffolding and moved the existing boardwalk and the new one higher.

We went back to the Rice site thinking we would use the batteries from there, but those batteries were almost as old as the ones we removed from West Pond. I decided to go buy new batteries. The Napa Autoparts in Rio Vista had plenty of deep cycle marine batteries and we traded in the old cores for the new batteries. Back at West Pond we installed the new batteries and installed two new 24V 265W (530W total) solar panels sn 158APW4M0000189 and sn 158APW4M0000188. The batteries were wired in pairs to be a 24V system. We had to drill a hole in the bottom of one box for the power line from the tower to reach the higher location. And we had to drill holes in both boxes to get a shorter battery cable to reach between boxes for the new 24V configuration.

At the tower we disconnected the power before powering up the new 24V solar system. We moved the 7500, 7700 and sonic to a new 24V screw terminal and used a power converter to step down the voltage for the old 12V screw terminal where the met equipment still gets power.

Daphne downloaded the met data for a look but did not collect the rest of the data.

The 7500 read: 404.7ppm CO2, 304.5mmol/m3 H2O, 28.1C, 100.9kPa, 99.2SS
The 7700 read: 1.9ppm CH4, 39.5 RSSI.

Daphne reset the auto cam after the power outage.

2 photos found

20170518WP_NewSolar.jpg ( 2017-05-18 14:47:40 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Upgraded the solar system: new batteries, new 24V solar panels, an additional layer of scaffolding

20170518WP_NewSolarDaphne.jpg ( 2017-05-18 12:45:36 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Daphne in progress of upgrading the solar system: new batteries, new 24V solar panels, an additional layer of scaffolding