ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,103 
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Post by ericn on Feb 21, 2023 13:54:03 GMT -6
The best panels are DC. And you use a solar controller and ideally batteries to store to manage it. It's not cheap to do up front. But, depending on where you live and your local utility provider, you can make it back with net metering. Don't know what Eric is using as he hasn't shown us that in his videos. My dads system though uses a Solark controller/inverter to manage it all. It's expensive but a very cool piece of kit. He has his set to run the house and shop off of batteries during peak metering hours so his bill gets no extra charges. But if you have a good inverter and such, power should be very clean. www.sol-ark.com/sol-ark-15k-all-in-one/I can get solar for "free" - as long as I commit to use a particular company for 20-25 years. But almost NONE of them are using batteries. (Will check out your link - thx!) I can't say "none", cause you can request it at great cost (and at that point it's no longer "free", or they up your monthly charge dramatically). There's precious little about studio's running on Solar that I have been able to find. I wouldn't mind doing it cause we have crazy sun coverage here, and plenty of S/W facing roofline, but I can't seem to get any straight answers other than - "should be fine". Right now, I've got the absolutely best and cleanest AC I've ever had in any studio. Hey Bill start with talking to your local utility, then some of the solar companies in your area. What it really comes down to is what you can get and who will pay for it. Some utilities are very upfront some are not. Some will recommend solar companies based on their own issues vs yours, so as usual it’s all about sorting through the BS. |
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Post by drbill on Feb 21, 2023 14:08:09 GMT -6
Yeah, I've talked with several companies. The sales guys know zip. Duh.... And they are generally not a service first industry. Plus, re: the hardware - they may quote you one system, and install a different one.
As for batteries and the whole systems - the game is still rigged to make the companies money.
I was quite surprised to see that they can shut your entire system down with the flick of a button - batteries or no batteries. The only way around that is to buy the entire system yourself ($$$$$), go with a huge battery backup for nighttime and cloudy days, disconnect from the grid entirely, and not sell any over production back to them. The bottom financial line is that electricity is still cheap enough that you are mostly breaking even. However, given inflation, etc., they will probably be a good idea in 5-10 years and you WILL be saving money then.
They make sure to sell the scare that electricity is going up 3-6% a year, but the fact is that it isn't. Sometimes it even goes down in price for a few years. It's certainly not keeping up with inflation.
For me, the service aspect is the most important cause I need the studio up and running 24/7/365 - and that's an area that most rate pretty poorly at. Reading the complaints about it taking days to weeks to get problems fixed is horrible, and pretty much a deal killer for me. And they all have problems. It's a baby industry. I'd still love to hear of a studio running 80-100% on solar, what hardware they are using, and how it worked out for them sonically / noise wise.
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 21, 2023 16:30:53 GMT -6
I mean thats just silly I think to think you could only run on just solar. Although I will say there are plenty of off grid folks around here living just off of solar and wind. Not even cause they want to but because they have to. But for your situation, having options is great. If you can run most your space off of solar most the time, then huzzah. But I would never give up the grid ties. For power you want as many options as you can.
At our place, we have solar, grid, and generator. UPS for the buildings, and ups's for the racks. But we are super remote and power drops are frequent. But due to the options, I literally never know when the power dies. Not even a flicker.
Now thats on the extreme end, I could never afford a setup like what we have here. But Solar and batteries? It's possible and the batteries can do it.
I personally would not want the utility company to own my stuff or control it. I'll be doing it all myself so it's mine. I want batteries but again, thats due mostly so the place doesn't die when the power goes down.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,103
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Post by ericn on Feb 21, 2023 22:12:04 GMT -6
Yeah, I've talked with several companies. The sales guys know zip. Duh.... And they are generally not a service first industry. Plus, re: the hardware - they may quote you one system, and install a different one. As for batteries and the whole systems - the game is still rigged to make the companies money. I was quite surprised to see that they can shut your entire system down with the flick of a button - batteries or no batteries. The only way around that is to buy the entire system yourself ($$$$$), go with a huge battery backup for nighttime and cloudy days, disconnect from the grid entirely, and not sell any over production back to them. The bottom financial line is that electricity is still cheap enough that you are mostly breaking even. However, given inflation, etc., they will probably be a good idea in 5-10 years and you WILL be saving money then. They make sure to sell the scare that electricity is going up 3-6% a year, but the fact is that it isn't. Sometimes it even goes down in price for a few years. It's certainly not keeping up with inflation. For me, the service aspect is the most important cause I need the studio up and running 24/7/365 - and that's an area that most rate pretty poorly at. Reading the complaints about it taking days to weeks to get problems fixed is horrible, and pretty much a deal killer for me. And they all have problems. It's a baby industry. I'd still love to hear of a studio running 80-100% on solar, what hardware they are using, and how it worked out for them sonically / noise wise. I know a guy who was looking into it and pretty much came to the conclusion, his exact words “ Elon Musck is the stable guy in all this and that scares the crap out of me”. The thing is if these companies want the big properties to invest in solar they have to quit acting like drug dealers and start acting like drug companies ( still going to take you for every penny but you will actually get what you paid for😎). |
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Post by matt@IAA on Feb 22, 2023 15:42:09 GMT -6
Bill, talk to Tesla. Or give me a call, I went pretty deep down the solar rabbit hole a while back before I bought a system for my house.
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Post by drbill on Feb 22, 2023 15:55:55 GMT -6
Bill, talk to Tesla. Or give me a call, I went pretty deep down the solar rabbit hole a while back before I bought a system for my house. Matt - thanks!! Will try to do that when I dig out of the work load I'm under right now. Cheers, bp |
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Post by Quint on Feb 22, 2023 16:30:23 GMT -6
Bill, talk to Tesla. Or give me a call, I went pretty deep down the solar rabbit hole a while back before I bought a system for my house. Since you're in Texas too, I might have some more specific questions to ask you.  We're getting ready to do a huge remodel in the near future, and solar is being considered. |
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Post by Omicron9 on Feb 23, 2023 10:31:17 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing this; I am always fascinated watching someone build out their studio. As much as I enjoy seeing it all happen, my one recurring thought is "I am SO glad mine is done and I don't have to do this again." I've been through it twice, tho not on Eric's scale, but still I never want to have to build out a studio ever again.
-09
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Post by Bat Lanyard on May 23, 2023 19:47:30 GMT -6
Bringing it up to date, JFYI the treatment approaches and challenges Eric's moving through in the latest videos would help just about anyone trying to make their room better. Great stuff.
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Post by sparky on May 24, 2023 0:41:13 GMT -6
EV's videos are a must-watch around here. I have been following Eric's career since the T-Ride days and remember being in my late teens trying to work out how they got those crazy sounds. His YT vid on the T-Ride stuff is insane.
Loving the current crop of studio build/acoustic treatment content. He certainly goes down the rabbit hole but still keeps it entertaining and the content isn't too dry. As someone who will hopefully be going down the same hole on a much smaller scale later this year, it's certainly inspiring ideas.
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Post by Bat Lanyard on Aug 15, 2023 7:52:33 GMT -6
The latest episode is about 90 minutes of room measuring and trying different things. I'm not sure why he went the route he went when building from scratch, but it's a fascinating watch as he tries to tame his control room.
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Post by mcirish on Aug 15, 2023 8:11:06 GMT -6
I watched it over the weekend. It's always interesting to see what others do. Fortunately, he is pretty deciplined in taking notes and logging the changes. Started making me think about tube traps after watching that. My room is pretty under control with treatment and Sonarworks, but I can always try to make it even better.
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Post by bikescene on Aug 15, 2023 10:55:20 GMT -6
I was inspired to build some tube traps from his older videos. It was nice to see a video going deep into their effectiveness.
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Post by christopher on Aug 15, 2023 11:25:03 GMT -6
That was an incredible upload he did. I skimmed a lot of it, he spent a fortune of his own time and resources for some actual experiments. My fav part is when he realized he accidentally left the door open and the FR improved by a lot! So he starts thinking ditching the door.. Stuff like that is priceless, and proves even with money and math and tools it’s always a huge challenge.
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