Thread 2954955

Project started in June 2024 at this house/location. prior to that, it was installed and in service at our old house since October 2020. we removed it when we sold the old suburban house in June 2023, it sat at the new house in storage while we built the equipment shed and just generally got settled in. reinstalled the original 2440w Qcells (seen on roof) & FLA Trojan T-1275 (750Wh usable) setup in June 2024. October 2025 I had finally saved up enough cash to purchase the upgrade: 10 additional Canadian Solar 445w monofacial panels & 3x Pytes V5 LiFePO4 (15,530Wh usable) storage.

installation was done in stages. 1st weekend in October 2025 I installed the LiFePO4 batteries. over the following 2 weeks I built the 1st array ground mount frame structure out of reclaimed wood. I used unistrut for the actual mount rails. 3rd week of Oct. I ordered panel clamps and MC4 cable, wife and I installed the panels on that Saturday. first full solar day was Sunday 18th. on Friday 24th I began installing the 2nd 5 panel array mount, this time out of steel tube recovered from an exterior remodel at an apartment worksite. I cut and welded optimum solar angle steel plates on the posts & embedded in concrete. unistrut was used for rails, again. still had clamps from 1st install & ordered another set of MC4 cable to connect in series with the 1st array. today, Sunday November 2nd was the first full solar day with the complete 6890w array.

this project is officially complete. PV array provides 5x our typical hourly load. Batteries cycle from 100% SOC to 35% taking us from 17:00 to 2:00 off-grid. we purchase Grid power for ~7 hours between 2:00 to ~8:30 totalling ~7 to ~11kwh nightly. our seasonal usages varies from ~20Kwh winter to ~50Kwh summer. I estimate that our system will cover ~85% of our annual usage. 85% reclaimed materials.

pardon the rubbish in the initial project photo. I had to remove all everything in the shed to access building materials and installation supplies.

>>2954955 (OP)
If I wanted to piece together solar stuff to a small DIY array in my backyard, what would you recommend I buy piecemeal over time?

>>2954980
always go 48v if you want real world load support and long term expansion and versatility. for increased flexibility and ease of setup & operation I would reccomend a hybrid inverter... but i am biased by my narrow field of experience. seperate component (inverter, charge controller, MPPT) builds require more knowledge and confidence. I tried that route right before reliable all-in-one units hit the market. as soon as high performing units hit the market, I switched. Look into Deye and EG4 all-in-one. they are quality units, but less expensive than my sol-ark. Deye is (was) the software/hardware twin to my Solark at probably 20% less cost. don't waste a penny on FLA batteries. get LiFePO4 from the start. with hybrid inverters, you can grid tie (export or non), you run them with or without batteries, you can grid-tie with or without export, or run totally off grid. final bonus it takes much less learning since you don't have to buy and tie all those components together or make final decisions on how your system will run on day one.

I'm not an expert, just well read and focused on my specific setup and system.