Shop Truths, Phrases, Tales; and Outright Lies

[Toolmaker51]

"...one has the biggest and fastest gun that you sign with. And never give up intellectual property rights to any of them. make them pay to lease those." Frank S.

Yes Sir. Don't recall being hunted down before the internet. Did some work, by referral, making projects for folks that I couldn't discern the connection. When you have a lathe.....apparently it gets around.
Yes, intel property won't be given away anymore; have to figure out the pitch BEFORE all the non-compete agreements these days.
Leads internet-wise are one of two flavors; hot or cold. I think due to 'keyword search programs'. A frequent email list pulled 'tools' and 'NSF' [national sanitation foundation] into Line Chef in local supermarket's buffet operation.
You can imagine my response to posting site. Distilled "machinists like Tool Makers make tooling using machine TOOLS" and one company I did "mold work for catering supplies adherent to NSF standards". The brand name, certain to be in the buffet area, was never mentioned. Guess that would have prompted offer for regional supervisor!

[C-Bag]

C-Bag;
Nope not been 'caught' by worthy new boss yet. Think I forgot typing 'search' as in '.....middle of'. All the same sometimes. Nice leads, a gamut of places, and two I tried very seriously 4 years back. Guess they picked the wrong guy after all.
Could've told em' that.
LoL

a twofer???

Hang in there buddy. I'm rooting for ya.

At my age and situation, work, finding a job, illness, moving etc are vicarious situations for me and anybody in the pack going through it makes me project myself into it. Funny, when I was young I never stayed anywhere for more than two years because they always made me mad. But it would really suck to have to find a wage slave gig. Especially after being on my own for over 10yrs.

[Frank S]

"Did some work, by referral, making projects for folks that I couldn't discern the connection. When you have a lathe.....apparently it gets around."
Yep had that problem since if got my first lathe at the tender age of 15 it was a little Southbend 9" with only 36" between the centers. we set it up in a corner of the Blacksmith shop. Then I had to literally teach myself how to use it when I wasn't busy in my regular work. Neither Clarence the Blacksmith nor his son William the welder had ever used one. It wasn't long before Clarence my boss was taking in work that required some machining. To be sure I ruined a lot of HSS cutters and more than my share of stock in my learning curve when trying to teach myself how to single point thread or cut tapers but learn I did, and I most likely still do a lot of things wrong by Machinist standards but my methods have worked for me for over 45 years, I guess it would be hard for me to relearn procedures to do things according to Hoyle now.
I traded the lathe to William for an old Hobart gas drive welder when I figured it was time for me to break out on my own just before I went into the Army

[C-Bag]

Frank, if I may, on orbit #8 of the HMT CdS(cul de sac) you mention a building that a customer wanted built with inferior material, did it get built? And along about that time cleaning/servicing solar panels was mentioned.

I didn't realize it would be such a cluster of disinformation but our solar co. Only recommends spaying them with a hose, from the ground for our roof system and if more than that is needed hire a professional cleaner. And no cleaner or especially brush should be used. There is a plethora of clowns who can't believe you would ever need to clean a PV and meanwhile a study was done of whether the cost of cleaning the panels is cost effective compared to the loss of output in a solar farm. Bottom line it cleaning won.

We live in basically a desert and have a constant breeze that carries dust from the sand dunes. Add to that a heavy morning dew that obviously contains salt from the sea about 3mi. away as the crow flies. And we had a forest fire that dropped all kinds of ash. So in less that 2mo. those panels were visibly filthy. I did a little test noting the output of the 5 panel array on one side of the garage and then hosed them down from the ground. Basically the output almost doubled and they were nowhere clean as they as they were originally.

I know you are a ground based advocate, but what do you use to clean PV's with?

[Frank S]

the building was finally built with several changes to the structure
Just like you my array gets quite dirty at times. DEW with dust if left to its own will eventually build up to the point where very little output can be had, even very light rain can leave enough dusty water spots to reduce the production of energy. Heavy drenching rains on the other hand if they last long enough can clean the panels pretty good,
On my array I use a pump sprayer with a mild solution of free rinsing dish soap and water. The important thing I have found is there is no such thing as TOO much water versus not enough soap Never use anything with ammonia or bleach in it. I've never tried it but I am told that these can break down the the sealing bond of the panels to the glass around the edges under the frame.
I have used a micro fiber squeegee on a long pole while keeping a spray of water flowing over it

[C-Bag]

Thanks Frank. I knew I could count on you to give me a common sense answer. To my mind I'm treating the idea of cleaning as I would my cars. I use dish washing liquid, a nylon bristle brush for the front end to get off the baked on bugs and one of those really soft brushes that telescope and water is fed into the head through the handle for the rest of the car. I tried it on the panels making sure to run the water at all times through the head and not swabbing the panel until it was throughly wet from spraying with the head beforehand.

The head is so soft if it can't remove bugs and won't scratch paint which is for more fragile than glass so I didn't see how it could scratch the panels if there is plenty of water on the panel before and while swabbing. It did the next step above just hosing it off cleaning wise. But just like with a car it needs a little soap to get the surface truly clean. So next go around I'll do just a little squirt of dish soap for each panel.

I wish it was possible to treat the panels with Rain-X or this new Miguiars liquid wax I've been using on the cars. Rain-X is some really nasty smelling stuff so I'd be really scared but the Miguiars is really gentle non toxic smelling. And you can use it on everything including glass and it doesn't streak. It's really easy to use and it's been amazing at keeping our cars from getting nasty from the dew and even bugs. You can even put it on while the car is wet and just dry and buff to a shine. I've been done with paste wax for a while but this is as easy as it gets.

[Paul Jones]

C-Bag,
I have a house with a LOT of windows and French doors and each window and door is subdivided into 8"x12" panes. Each window is approx. 4'x5' so lots of panes of glass to wash. We now put off cleaning the windows as long as possible becasue it is too time consuming for something that will get dirty again. We did find a technique that worked well in the hot Southern California climate. When washing the exterior sides of the glass, we get up at the first light of dawn so there is no direct sunlight causing rapid evaporation. We do one window at a time before moving to the next window. We jet spray (not pressure wash) each window to remove most of the dust, use a small amount of dish washing liquid and soft nylon bristle brush on a long handle. In the final rinse step, we use the old Mr. Clean, water deionization system for rinsing the glass panes. You have to do this way before there is a full sun and the deionization water leaves no streaks and no residue behind as long as there is just natural evaporation. I think I will consider purchasing a water deionization unit when we finally run out of the Mr. Clean refill filters because I think they have stop production.

This method works well for us. Cleaning the inside side of the windows is far more difficult and way too expense to hire someone to do this.

The deionization water may work for the PV panels.

Paul

[C-Bag]

Thanks Paul, cool tip on the deionized water. Never heard of that and I'd always wondered how the pro's get no streaks besides the right squeegee. And thanks for the headsup about not being able to get the Mr.Clean filters anymore. Lots of people scrambling online trying to buy them up. The cheapest deionizer elsewhere I saw was $250. Too rich for my uses right now. But great info.

[Frank S]

For last year and this one we have had frequent enough heavy rains to pretty much keep our panels reasonably clean. Its those miserable drizzle days that will make the panels dirty.
It seams the smaller the rain drop the higher the dust and contaminant content.

[C-Bag]

Yup, agree 100%. I gauge everything by our cars that are outside all the time. It hasn't really rained here for going on 5yrs. And like I said the heavy nightly dew IMHO is the worst. The amount of crust buildup on the hoods won't wash off.

Instead of using polishing compound I found on the hot rod sites they use this special clay. Feels like play dough, but works great. Just make sure the area is wet and just rub gently. Somehow it removes all that stuff without scratching the paint, but I haven't tried it on glass. Even glass gets pitted by this fallout so that's why I wish I could treat the panels to keep the glass from getting pitted.

What's been interesting is its been crazy hot and clear here the last couple of days. I have been eyeballing the inverter and meter between the PG&E meter. The inverter tells me the output of each 5 panel array. Like I mentioned the array that was directly in the early sun was putting out .475kvh. After spraying it down from the ground it was putting out .890kvh. I waited till the sun was almost down to rinse and swab both arrays. Today we looked on the website monitor app they we signed up for and the last couple of days it was putting out the 3kvh+ it's supposed to put out. But the day I cleaned the array was at the end of the day right before the sun went down and by their graph it was putting out the same. Either I don't know what I'm reading or I have no idea what's going on.

We should be getting our first full month PG&E bill soon and I can't wait to see what it says.