Uppsndowns from the Start

G’day Guy’s,

Uppsndowns is a 85 acre farm situated in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. We bought the farm in 2003 fulfilling the agreement if we moved back to SA we would find a small farm and get out of the metro so our kids can have the best life away from the riffraff of today’s society. We knew the place was off the grid and with the paltry system in place I thought well lets take advantage of the govt rebate and put a new off grid system in place.

As I was working on a major mine site construction project doing 3 on 1 off (weeks that is) we went and looked at what was available. We ended up going with the SolarShop and getting a 25K package which after the rebate cost us 18K. Well thats when the fun started I got home from work to find when they put the remote where we asked they just put some white conduit external to the building. When they came out for the quote I told them the wiring WAS to be in the wall and I did show them the point of placement and explained how easy it would be. They did come back and do the job properly and while they were there I asked them about the whole setup and the problem I had found. The batteries 2 volt 600AH Sonnensheins have a max charging voltage of 29 volts and I found the voltage going over 30 volts when charging.

This got me thinking and with my spare time I started researching off the grid living and with only a 56K modem it was slow with big downloads.

Well the boss came out with his tech to look at our system and the boss in my opinion a total asshole (after phone conversations). He opened up the 80 amp charger and turned a trim pot a few turns and said that will fix it when the tech turned around and said lucky I counted the turns and get out of the way and I’ll fix it properly. The boss turned around and said I am playing golf and we are leaving in 5 minutes to where I told him he aint leaving until I’m happy it’s fixed.The tech guy said we can’t leave until the batteries are fully charged so I can set the parameters and by the way it’s charging it will be under the hour. Thats when the boss put his foot down and said just set the F’ing thing as we are going.

Well everything seemed fine for 3 years until the maxuim power point tracker started showing problems like I saw some magic smoke and it wasn’t charging the batteries. I got to talk with guy who knew the MPPT’s and said to me get it off line now as these things will catch fire. Well with that news and me getting back home from work, first off I rang the insurance guy (Elders) he said to go find one and we will cover it. So I went back to the solar shop and asked. Well got fobbed around then the tech guy that came out that day walked thru a door and said we don’t do off grid instals anymore and the boss said not to deal with you so we can’t help you. I went over to to a place in Propect whre I got to talk with the guys and get at a Outback FM 60 MPPT, I rang the insurance guy and said well mate the exact replacement is over 2K and is prone to catch fire and the guy who designed it is dead but I found a newer one that is half the price. He told me to grab it and email the details for payment. The main problem was my system was still offline so we had to run a genset and charge the batteries that way. The insurance paid for everything which was petrol for running the genset, loss of food and the main thing the new Outback.

Well the above is a personal account on dealing with the owner of the solar shop which he sold for millions and left 100’s of people worse off. I’ll leave that one there.