Annnnnd We’re Back! Near Miss Power Failure At Solar Sphere

One of the, shall we say, ‘exciting’ things about living with off grid solar power is that you never quite know when problems will crop up.  Last night I noticed our propane generator was turning off and on about every minute then timing out with an error.  This was a little disconcerting since we were definitely running low on power (that’s why the generator was running anyway, we’ve had about a week of cloudy and snowy weather). 

After some real head scratching last night we decided to go ultra-conservative on power (no laundry, dish-washing, or tv) and start again on it this morning.  Upon further review it was simply a breaker switch that was tripped from the generator to the inverter.  Apparently I had tripped it this weekend while doing some battery maintenance.  It is in a hard place to see and actually looked like it was on, but needed to be cycled fully off and then on.  After that, no problems. 

The best part is that’s clear as a bell here today so we’ll hopefully fill those batteries with sunshine.  Crisis averted, we’re back in business!