ground mount solar panel diy

How to build a ground mount for your solar panels.
My four requirements...
-Tiltable. In new hampshire we are 70 degrees from vertical in the summer and 24 degrees in the winter. That is a huge swing!
-mostly made from home depot materials. The cross members are not but I'm pretty sure that superstrut could be used in its place.
-mount hardware is under panel to protect from elements
-cheap (the whole setup less than $276) not including panels etc.
The cross members were purchased on craigslist but are available from renogy-store.com.
My panels measure 39.5" x 66" and are 245 watt panels.
I had to take about 1/2 dozen trips to home depot to figure this out. It ends up that I didn't use the 1/2" hole that is 24 " from the end of the pipe.
A drill press probably will work just as well as the bridgeport mill for drilling the holes
Make sure that you get the 2" galvanized schedule 40 pipe and NOT the 2" galvanized conduit. The conduit has a thinner wall and will be less stable.
Superstrut is awesome. I have never used it before but if anyone watches this video I will document making many more creations out of this material.
Please ask questions! I want to help.

[@anythinguploads2161]

Nice detailed video, thanks for sharing! I was going to mount my panels on my roof but am seeing too many future problems that way with the roofs condition and structure. I decided to mount on rack. After the roof upgrades , I will consider adding more. Here I am looking at everyone's videos so I can better plan. Looking forward for my project. Thanks.

[@patriotprepper6915]

Nice job. I wish I had a mill with a vice lol. Your video provided me with a lot of good ideas; thanks. The commercial mounting systems are sure proud of themselves $$$$ I will be fix-mounting my panels since I will be mounting more panels than needed. I will weld the two sections of super-strut at 45 degrees, then mount the two (four) ends to the poles. I'll use super-strut for the cross supports as well. Thanks again for the video; great job.

[@DementedPiXi]

I am in love with your voice!~!!!

[@MartyHuie]

Thank you, very nice simple design well thought out thank you for sharing

[@mariabenabdelouheb6867]

Thank you very much from Algeria very good job .good Luck .

[@paulsholar9356]

You're in New Hampshire, so you get your share of snowfall on your panels each winter. I'm surprised that you don't try to design to avoid squeegeeing snow off your panels. The rig could allow the panels to be flipped over at any time, thus avoiding any snow accumulation on your panels.

[@mark_osborne]

Very nice @! Now I'm waiting for some solar panel update videos !!

[@thabisomodisane1435]

I love it il make mine bigger ..atlist 12 panels or 8

[@phoenixkepo2743]

Amazing construction! Thank you for sharing. I really like your minimalist approach and $276 you are on to a winner. Question: How does it fair with the wind in your neck of the woods? Have you thought of including a linear actuator to track the sun?

[@OWK000]

Local metal sales places may sell longer pieces than Home Depot, 20ft vs 10ft and they will cut to whatever you needs are so you can take it home safely. Any place you marry steel to aluminum, you might want to do some kind of insulation. Hot glue gun, pieces of cut up plastic laundry bottle, caulking maybe? Aluminum loses electrons to steel when touching steel: it is called "galvanic reaction" and corrodes and weakens the aluminum prematurely, especially while wet. You have to ground the aluminum with aluminum wire, I guess.

[@nyghtmyst5118]

Nice been trying figure out how to mount panels I really don't want put them on the roof snow and such not mention not crazy about poking holes in my roof this is NH AND WE GET A GAMBIT of whether

[@bentedge1]

6 years later, how is it holding up?

[@parvezahmedjalil7310]

9 years later.. How's it holding up?

[@NSNorfolk]

Nicely done.

[@theusconstitution1776]

I am building a 400 lot array with renogy panels....May I ask what size wire did you run to the house and how far away is it? I’ve had two panels up for a couple years and I have them wired in series so my voltage coming in is 24 which allowed me to use smaller wire coming in the house when I add the next two panels I’m not sure if I’m gonna bump it up it depends on what kind of charge controller what kind of voltage the charge controller will handle. And did you ground the panels or is the post in the concrete considered the ground? Nice clean job! I’m in the Hampshire as well.............way over west in Claremont❤️❤️🇺🇸

[@reimagine207]

Great video! Thank you!

[@larsrodbok1285]

Using a Bridgeport as a drill press is overkill, at best. Good video!

[@nitnoid24]

I know this is an older video but I was wondering what the hole was for that you drilled at 24 inches? It looks like you used the 2 inch and 36 inch holes. Was it for added support if needed?

[@mirriulahwaterdog]

G'day Keith, Thanks for the video... it has also given me extra confidence to do my own solar array. I'm building an off-grid cabin in the opal fields of Lightning Ridge NSW Australlia. My plan is to use 3 recycled industrial pallet racks frames - they have a span of 2650mm (about 9') each, giving a total width of 18' where I will mount 6 panels.This is the bit I'm not sure about (span). I would like to know if you have had any issues to contend with since installation and would also like to know what your span between posts is please. I dont suppose you'd have a detailed 'how to' as I've been copying and pasting bits ot the video (hope you dont mind). Regards Chris

[@keithbennett5725]

My panels are about 39"wide. I have three panels that fit nicely on a 10 ft. wide span. I have had no problems with this setup. It is important to bury the posts deep (as shown in the video) and use plenty of concrete. I just sold my house and I took the whole setup with me. I dug out around the concrete then plucked the post out of the ground with my tractor. I broke the concrete from around the post with a sledge hammer. Looking for an even better solar site. Good luck with your project. Let me know how I can help. -Keith

[@verbalart6069]

NICE

[@guyjoly3605]

Well Done.! I like your setup. I already have mine, now I want to add two more panels. So I absolutely need to know where I can find the brackets on top (extruded aluminum) that are holding the panels in place ??? Can I find them at Home Depot?

[@keithbennett5725]

Thanks Guy. Here is a link to the extrusion that I used. www.renogy.com/renogy-5ft-solar-panel-roof-mounting-aluminum-rail/

[@DanSuolo]

Really good job, you gave me a lot confidence to do my own ground mount on the cheap. I'm trying to decide if i should use 4 X 4 Oak or 2" galvanized STD fence pole. I need it to be 10 feet above ground, 3 to 4 feet in the ground. What do you thing?

[@keithbennett5725]

My first comment! good to hear from you. Go for the galvanized pipe. The solar panels act like a sail in the wind. There will be a huge amount of torque produced during a wind storm and you will need all the strength you can get. The galvanized pipe should stand up better to the moisture in the concrete too. Really impressed with the rigidity of my setup. I have since built a very similar setup for two 4x8' solar water panels. That worked great too. Best of luck.-Keith

[@keithbennett5725]

***** hey Rookie, how are you? here is a link to a engineered ground mount solution. www.schletter.us/fs-kit.html. The cost is about $900 and it holds about 6 250 watt panels. That price was too steep for me and I only wanted to mount 3 panels. I want to put my money into panels and not holding them up. $900 = approx. 900 watts! of panels. A ground mount system is pretty ideal in a place that has 110 mph+ winds because you can tilt the panels parallel to the ground prior to hurricanes or major storms approaching to reduce how much force is applied to the panels by the wind. I had home depot cut my poles down to 8ft. but in your case I would keep them the full ten feet. Bury 6 ft. of the pole and still 4 ft would be protruding. Depending on the diameter of your hole you would have an extremely rigid mount for your panels. My hole diameter was only about 8 inches x 4 ft. deep. If you wanted additional support you could use aircraft cable connected from the top of the pole to j bolt anchors in concrete form tubes 4+ ft away.I say that you should go for the Rookie solution! Let me know how I can help.Good Luck -Keith p.s. I just installed two 6 volt golf cart batteries in series in my system. Looking to have a bit more energy storage capacity.

[@pauls0416]

Oh crap.. I just did pretty much exactly what you did Keith, BUT with 4x4 pressure-treated wooden posts.... So you're thinking high winds will tear the whole thing right out of the ground ?

[@keithbennett5725]

If you used concrete on the 4x4's you should be alright. I used a very similar design to hold up my solar water panels and the posts moved over the winter. Not sure if I didn't use enough concrete or if I didn't go deep enough or if the panels just weigh more than the pv panels. The location of my panels is kind of protected from the wind. If you are expecting high winds you might want to tilt the panels so that they are parallel with the ground. Good Luck. Thanks for your comment!

[@keithbennett5725]

Did you end up going for it? Interested to hear how things went. 10 ft over the ground sounds challenging. I'd go for the 2" galvanized pipe. The fence poles tend to have a thin wall from what I've seen. If possible keep it close to the ground to reduce the torque exerted on the posts. Good Luck -Keith

[@benningtoncamper2852]

Why didn't you use the strut as it was intended to be used with strut nuts?

[@keithbennett5725]

Bennington Camper This was the first time that I used unistrut for any project so I'm not suprised that I didn't use the strut nut. If you do something similar to this with strut nuts please provide a link. Thanks -Keith

[@christiankulmann3325]

My Solartracker ➡️ kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmHPnox8rLSkabc

[@samuelrodela2586]

I would like to do a DIY grid tie solar ground mount, but part of getting the permit is to get an engineered plan of schematic. I can not afford one. Is there any other way to do it? I am in Southern CA.

[@keithbennett5725]

Samuel Rodela Hi Sam, sorry I missed your comment. I'm not sure what an "engineered plan of schematic" means. I would try to get a better definition. If what they are looking for is an electrical schematic then you could probably find one supplied with the charge controller that you will be using. If they are looking for a drawing of the mounting solution, maybe you could see if a hand drawing, with dimensions on a piece of graph paper would work. They should be able to tell you exactly what information they want on the print. Please let me know if there is any other info I can provide for the setup that I built. -Keith

[@JasonCarmichael]

5 1/2 years later. How is it holding up? How often do you adjust the angle? Did you drill more holes for more angles?

[@vi67]

Three times per year and no additional holes needed.

[@shannanschisler8485]

Instructions from the Avasva site are perfect for beginners.

[@AJ-ds9xq]

Ninaku Nanni!!!!

[@skepticalmechanic]

Unistruts easer..

[@wadethompson3441]

Way too flimsy. Will never hold up

[@shannongibson325]

You need to make some changes. Check Avasva Solutions if you want to make it right.

[@shannanschisler8485]

I made it by myself. I used Avasva solutions for that.

[@bernadettehusch599]

On inplix page are instructions if you want to learn how to build it yourself just take them

[@romeliapolly9631]

If you want to make it too just use InpliX handbooks.

[@carmelinakatzman1863]

I think you need to take some time and go to inplix website to learn how to make it.