A Small Off-grid PV System

Original
The original timeline was tacked to the bottom of my project proposal and went as follows:

	Week(s)	Work
	1 - 3	Brainstorming & initial calculations of available power. Estimates of system size & desired output.
	4 - 7	Thorough research of design & materials constraints. Meetings with my Dad and Doug to work out a schematic of the system. This will include at least one visit to the barn to decide on exact location of all wiring and system parts and a complete parts list.
	8	Using the list and the schematic, use P-Spice or something similar to emulate the system and look for design flaws.
	9 - 12	Purchase of parts & installation. I am sure to run into plenty of obstacles on the installation so I intend at least two trips to finish it. The first will be most of the work and the second will be to troubleshoot and add finishing touches.
	13 +	Write-up: although I will be taking careful notes the whole time, I will use the last few weeks to compile them into a comprehensive report including photos of the installation. I also intend to build a small website describing the process.

Actual
If I had nothing else to do, the original timeline would have worked quite well but I was a busy guy so the project ran more like this:

	Week(s)	Work
	1 - 5	Brainstorming. Also made one trip down to the barn to discuss locations and feasibility with my Dad. At the end of week 4, I turned in my progress report. [progress_rep_wk4.pdf 76K]
	6 - 7	After quite a few phone calls and e-mails back and forth with Doug Livingston for recommendations and my Dad for his preferences on the system, I performed a load list analysis to determine the needed size of the system. We used winter noon hours to calculate for power needs so our summer production is more than 200% needed output.
	8 - 11	Got pneumonia for a month and spent a lot of time trying to find all the parts I needed separately and making sure they would work with each other.
	11 - 13	Acquired quotes from two different companies for kits that would come with most of the needed parts for the system. We chose the provider closest to home to avoid shipping charges. Despite original guesses of $1000 and then $2000, this kit was $4000.
	13	Realizing the parts would not arrive in time, I took an incomplete.
	14 - 20	Waiting for parts to arrive.
	21 - 27	The parts had been picked up by the 20th week but I had already bought plane tickets and left to travel for six weeks.
	28	Spent close to 10 hours each day for almost five days to install the entire system. This included numerous trips to the local hardware store for parts and much adapting to available parts and problems.
	29 - 30	Spent two weeks making sure this website did a thorough job of reporting on the project. :)