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Kevin Keinert's Solar Electric Project
Brought to you by: www.Keinert.com    

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SMA Sunny Boy Inverter Solar Panel Rails Here are a few pictures of the grid-tied solar electric system that I installed during the summer of 2010. It uses an SMA brand Sunny Boy inverter and thirty three solar panels. Each panel produces 230 Watts of electric power. The entire system can produce 7kW maximum.

As seen below, I left space between each row of panels. This allows me easy access to any panel for maintenance in the future. Gray underground-rated PVC conduit runs between the rows, to protect the solar panel wires. The wires enter the conduit by 90-degree elbow connectors. I filled these elbows with silicone sealant to prevent water from entering the conduit.

If you have any questions about my installation, please send me an E-mail.


Solar Panel Conduit Solar Panels


SMA has a good web-based performance monitoring system if you want to buy their extra add-on networking equipment. I wanted to monitor my system locally and not have to depend on my network connection or my ISP to deliver my performance data to SMA's internet archive server. So instead, I bought SMA's Sunny Beam unit, which is a portable Bluetooth device that gathers performance data from the inverter, displays it on an LCD screen, and saves the data for each day as a CSV file in its memory. A great little device, but SMA does not provide any software that allows you to display the CSV files. They leave it up to you (the owner) to decide how to use the files.

MACRO'S FOR SALE: I created three macro programs using visual basic and Microsoft Excel 2007. All three macro programs come in one Excel 2007 Template. These macros will generate graphs of the daily, monthly, and yearly power that is produced by SMA Sunny Boy solar system. Examples of these graphs are shown below. These macros exist in a single Excel 2007 template, which I sell for $20 USD. I accept paypal, checks, and money orders. When payment is received, I will email the Excel template to you.

IMPORTANT: These macros only run on Excel 2007 and they will only read CSV files that were created by specific versions of Sunny Beam firmware. So far, these macros have been tested and proven to work with 1.07.06.R and 1.08.00.R firmware. SMA has been known to change the layout and structure of their CSV files when they release new firmware. I have not tested these macros on other firmware revisions. If you have a Sunny Beam and want to know if my macros will generate graphs for you, send me several of your CSV files. I'll run the macros and send you back the results. That way, you can be sure my macros work before you buy.

Graph of Daily Power Daily Power Graph.


Graph of Monthly Power Monthly Power Graph.


Graph of Yearly Power Yearly Power Graph.


Solar Power Graph User's Manual On the left is a YouTube video that shows how to use my Excel Macros. It takes you through the steps required to generate graphs for daily, monthly, or yearly power production.

Also, I have uploaded an Adobe .pdf version of the User's Manual here for your convenience. You can view and download this file by clicking HERE. Please let me know if you still have questions after watching this video and reading the manual.


Please contact me if you have any questions,
or visit my main webpage at http://www.Keinert.com for information
about my other passion, which is coin operated arcade games.
Thanks for your visit.

Kevin R. Keinert
4351 Beverly Dr.
Santa Maria, California
93455   USA
(805) 937-8881

email animation    keinert@sbceo.org