Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'll venture two guesses.

My first guess is the wiring was wrong. Specifically, the power feed for the battery/solar regulator/mains switch was being supplied by the batteries, not main. When they failed, the system didn't know it was in "low battery state" and stayed there until 8am the next morning when the sun came out and the battery were charged a bit. This would explain why it wouldn't switch over, but it doesn't explain why the batteries were drained.

My second guess is that there was a physical switch that someone hit and it once it was righted, the system could continue to operate normally. Either that or a pump that was shorted?

The symptoms point to the fact that the solar was providing the power during the day but at night it was off completely (fish dead in the morning).

Warm Kwieland.... but not quite for the reasons you raise...

Nobody performed any physical reset on the system... and no pumps or other equipment had shorted...

Any other thoughts...

I'll give you another pointer... the modem/router in the main house, which still had mains power active... kept flaking in and out...

And the power in the studio did keep flicking back in and out.... momentarily...

He forgot to connect the red wire?

Hmmm. What would be draining the power at night? They can't have forgotten the blocking diode thingy so the power doesn't bleed out of the system right?

Nicole charging something at night?
Someone get their AM & PM screwed up?

Come on Rupe..... We give up !

now that you have mentioned the modem router several times, I`m thinking it has to do with that... but I havent figured out how it would use so much power... unless its stuffed

Mains power was out, and the solar was supplying the whole lot instead of just the AP?

That is my guess too....but come on Rupe....we are waiting!

I don't think mains was out. If it was, the house would have been out as well, and Nicole only mentioned the router was in and out.

AM/PM screwup sounds plausible and interesting, but why would you rely on a hard schedule for solar? Don't they just monitor the current and kick in when the current starts to take off?

I don't see what role the router plays in this whole thing. Is the studio communicating with the outside or with sensors via the router? Was the "is mains live" logic coming from the router?

Maybe the system was configured to send an email when it went into alarm state, but since the email couldn't be sent, the system waited, instead of just switching over? Specifically a software bug? Rupe doesn't seem to indicate it was a hardware problem (other than the router).

Eureka! The key clue is this part, I bet:



I bet Grant either wired it up wrong or put the software in a state that didn't let it function as it should. I bet the system was on batteries from that time forward, and the batteries could hold the system for only a few days.

The situation described (cloudy for several days) seems like the first test of the switchover from solar/wind/battery to mains system. Is this the first time it was tested? Probably configured wrong in some way. That's my final answer!

I'm still going with he didn't connect the doovalcki to the thing-a-me-bob, which caused the what's-a me-call-it to not not switch over!

Couldn't have been simpler!

And for some reason imagining that with an auzzie accent makes it even funnier!

So come on, tell us the answer

Got to duck out for a few hours... I'll post the explaination up later this arvo...

Now that's just mean!

yeah come on Rup, i was thinking vandalism since i have had some suspicious activity going on with my system lately, but its all getting more and more complicated.