Solar Flippin' Gardens

Concept

The Solar Flippin' Gardens ™ journey began on a dark rainy British evening, as most British evenings tend to be, I had been enjoying counting the failed LEDs in the Sandpoint SR3 install, I'd listened to Thunderf00ts latest YouTube about the installation, I'd read the EEVBlog forum posts discussing it. Two things kept coming up: No data, lots of cash, well actually their were lots more issues but that's another story.

And then I began to think...

We need data, how can we get that when SR won't publish sh...
The next deliverable from SR is not till "November" and then it's SR4 panels.
What's the betting the fresh out of R&D SR4 panels have different problems causing no data to be published, this is frustrating and I didn't even back the project!
Dave should make a panel like the SR3's and make a video demonstrate just how bad they are.
Dave has better things to do with his time and money, maybe I shou...
These things are big, but what if I made a smaller version.
I can get acrylic and aluminum easily.
I've got access to laser cutters, 3D printers, electronics, hammers and lots of junk from eBay.
I need a fun, silly project.
I hate gardening and I've got a few ideal spots for these.
My beers empty, this is not good.
I've got a box full of Particle Photons, what better for an internet connected solar system!
If SR can deliver something so bad, after $x00,000's and years of research, just how stupid could my bogged up panels look?
They budgeted HOW MUCH for the Sandpoint install ($500,000)
What if this was totally open, open source firmware, hardware and all that...
It's a stupid idea, go to bed Steve your drunk
Maybe if it's open, something useful could come from it, even if it's just a circuit board that somebody else could use.
Something, something, dark side...
Then I registered the domain name and github account. So let the silliness begin...

The Real About Us (well me) and Reason:

Hi, I'm Steve [or variations of names ending with Steve like "WTF are you doing now Steve"] and I like making things, mainly stupid internet connected things such as Role Pole The Internet connected toilet paper pole. I also make other not so silly things:

Tinamous.com, an IoT platform for makers to get their Thing on easily.
ThingySticks.com, (work in progress) open source hardware stick like internet connected things for the Particle Photon or Electron.
Dollars2Pounds.com, for those who want to see how badly the pound is doing, move along, nothing to Brexit here.
Various Hackster.io projects.
Bottle Buddy, my second latest crazy, internet connected bottle monitor.
Kitchen lighting controller, Internet connected low voltage lighting controller.
Humidity controlled boxes, for 3D printer filament.
Ultimaker Lid, a laser cut acrylic lid for Ultimaker 2/2+ printers.
Form Keep, a UV box and Form 1/1+/2 tray store.
Jedi Light Switch, Prize winning Jedi wave operated internet connected light switch.

By day I'm a consultant software developer dealing with connectivity solutions for medical devices, forex and other fun stuff. Yes I'm available for hire, if you can find me, maybe you can hire me. My skills include

Windows and Web development in C#
Continuous integration, build and configuration management.
Continuous (and not so continuous) deployment.
Cloud and on-premise ops.
Training and mentoring junior developers (and not so junior devs).
Telling clients when something is a bad idea or if will cost them a lot for little return.
Connectivity solutions. RS232, USB, GPIB, Rest, SOAP, custom protocols - you name it.
TDD - Testing, unit testing, more testing, and always testing the thing.
BDD - Beer driven development ;-)
Lots of other stuff.

By night I run Tinamous, an Internet of Things platform for makers to get their thing on easily, I also make silly stuff, play with 3D printing and occasionally relax.

Why Solar Flippin Gardens? Well after several million dollars of funding via the public and tax payer money SR still have not demonstrated many of the claims of their panels. A recent install at Sandpoint failed even before installation. Of the 30 panels only 12 were "working" and many of those died shortly after. Even the working panels generated no actual electricity and worked only as far as showing a few dimly lit LEDs (as of 13 October 2016).

You may ask, why set the LEDs on dim and then complain when naysayers say how they can hardly see them from the best angle possible at 3pm on a gloomy wet day? Me too. If you know they are better than that then just turn it to 11 and don't let us naysayers have anything to go on. Or, if you know they are bad, then, hide that fact, set them to dim and complain about naysayers don't have anything to go on...

Much has been posted by Mr EEVBlog and Thunderf00t on YouTube to show what a bad idea this really is, yet tax payer money continues to fund this project. One major stumbling block for both SR and us naysayers is the lack of hard data from working panels, just how good or bad are they at generating energy? How well do they melt snow and ice? How visible are the LEDs in bright daylight from a drivers seat? How will the cope in the real world when a fully loaded truck thundering over them?

I figured it would be fun to build a similar version of the SR3 panels, and even more fun (and maybe even useful) to share this, in good detail (unlike SR) with the wider community. Please join me on the journey!

I don't have the knowledge or skills (or expensive equipment) to make glass panels, but I've got access to laser cutters to cut acrylic, I can get solar cells and 3D printer bead heaters from eBay and have NeoPixels to hand, what more could I possibly need.... Obviously my obsession with internet connected sh** makes me need to connect whatever I actually make to the internet. You'll eventually find the data over on the SFG Tinamous account.

Here's some great videos from EEV Blog and Thunderf00t showing us all why this is silly. Enjoy!

EEV Blog #632