Week 12: Presentation 2 on April 11th (4/12 - 4/18)

Presentation 2 was delivered by the solar team on April 11th. CFD results and its hand calculation was advised to be modified. A number of angled cuts of c-channels will be conducted over the weekends. 16Ga sheet metal, which was purchased at Acosta sheet metal manufacturing, will be ordered in the quantities of 24 in the dimensions of 10" by 10". Batteries, charge controllers, parallel y-connectors, extension cables, and MC3 to MC4 converter have been purchased. Wires, gutter, and wooden fake panels will be purchased as well.

Week 11: Electrical Components Configuration & Gusset Plates Option (4/5-4/11)

Electrical components have been configured with different iterations. It will be finalized by the end of the second week of April. Fuses will be purchased on Renogy. Batteries, Charge Controllers and 12 AWG copper wires will be purchased on Amazon. Solar panels extension cables with 12 AWG will be purchased on general solar supply. The configuration is shown below.

Acosta Sheet Metal Manufacturing offered reasonable pricing options as well as custom sizing options using laser cutter upon our needs with extra charges. Two different sheet metals were purchased and tested: 16Ga and 18Ga. Since 16Ga is more rigid than 18Ga due to its thickness, it has been selected as the gusset plates materials. 24 of 10" by 10" 16Ga galvanized steel sheet metal will be ordered by the end of the second week of April.

Week 10: C-Channels & Solar end clamps handling & Cutting C-Channels & CFD(3/29-4/4)

Throughout the spring break, multiple tasks have been completed. On 3/26/2018, 20 of 26-feet-long U-Haul truck was rented to load and unload the 20-feet-long c-channels from Lord&Sons, Inc. Also, gutter and gutter guards/covers were purchased at Lowe's. On Tuesday, the solar extension cables and solar end clamps were purchased. For the rest of the spring break, the spare scrap metals in the shop were used for practice cutting. Few of straight sections of c-channels have been cut as well. Also, the CFD was conducted using Ansys on solar panels regards to the wind lift encompassing the lift and drag coefficients.