The Overhaul

I’ve been spending the last couple months thinking about and planning how to make this site better and more maintainable, and we are now around 50% through with that plan. Lemme bring you up to speed.

Before I get started, if you’re interested in the nitty gritty, check out the previous post: v2.0 Changelog. It’s basically the scribbles from my notes app, so not super human-readable, but it’s there if you want to check it out.

Overall Site Changes

Up til recently, I’ve been using a system that mostly worked with keeping products tracked and linked on here, but it ended up in a lot of inconsistencies that I’d randomly find and have to fix (like a solar structure would be shown on a listed inverter’s page, but not vice versa). This update was focused on really solidifying how to keep things consistent and repeatable on the backend, which I think has turned out super well.

I’ve also done a lot more specific categorizing of each product and standardizing on the kind of information I fill in for products. This will help surface useful information like voltage ratings and power classes, so that if you aren’t sure what you want, you don’t have to click on every single inverter listing and datasheet to get an idea of what you’re looking at.

Speaking of datasheets, I’ve exhaustively gathered and published datasheets or product brochures for every single product on the site so you don’t have to Google around for a decent product overview. I’ve also redone all the product images so things aren’t inconsistent from page to page.

Also — and this is one I’ve had requests about — you can now see from any given solar structure page exactly how recently the installation addendum was published, and what version of the addendum it is, if applicable. So if you heard that “Ironrac” updated their listing for “NXR” recently but the last posted addendum says “Feb 2023” in the button for the addendum, you can poke me about it!

I’ve also gone FULL template mode on this bitch. Not a single product page is hand-crafted, they are all pulling from consistent custom data sources on the backend. Should make everything super consistent going forward as I add more data points for you to search. If there are disclaimers for a product, they’ll be in the same spot every time. If an inverter seems to be discontinued, I’ll have a badge at the top of the page. Every product model number will be listed.

Product Updates/Changes

I’m not going to go through every single item that’s changed (it’s a LOT). That’s what the previous post is for. I’m instead going to give you some high-level notes and observations:

• Basically everything got updated. If you have a favorite brand or product, go check it out again, I’m sure you’ll find something new.
• Tesla now officially has competition on all fronts with UL 3741 compliance. Solis has a NEW hybrid inverter now listed with Unirac and Enstall structures.
• On a side note, Solis seems to be going REALLY hard at getting listings with solar structure manufacturers. They probably had the listing additions of any inverter manufacturer.
• You can more or less assume going forward that Unirac’s products are all listed exactly the same. This last time they updated the listings with Intertek, they updated ALL of them with exactly the same list of inverters, with the exception of the residential solar structures, which include Tesla’s and Solis’ resi inverters, etc.
• Same with Ironridge and EcoFasten. They submit their listings as Enstall together. That will likely continue into the future, and might even start bringing other Enstall brands into updates as they go.
• I finally added NEP inverters. But that’s a whole thing. For more on that, read this: The NEP Phantom Inverters.
• Other new manufacturers: Preformed Line Products and SunModo. PLP is a CSA-listed “all inverter” kind of listing, and SunModo is the traditional Intertek “identify each inverter and eBOS model” kind of listing.

After reading tons of installation addendums over the last month, I’m starting to think that manufacturers may be pulling from this site to figure out what else they need to list, with the exception of NEP and Solis really pushing to get their stuff listed. Which, I love that, that’s super cool! Everyone is really coalescing around getting certain brands and models listed that other manufacturers have listed.

However, what that means is that there isn’t a whole lot of NEW products in these listings. I’m curious to see if we can get more inverter brands like Sol-Ark or EG4 in here for people that want more energy storage solutions. Even if the inverter doesn’t support Midnite string-level shutdowns via an AP Smart transmitter or something, Midnite DOES have a transmitter you can use. The inverter manufacturer would need to say that it’s supported with their product, but there’s a lot of potential interesting options if we explore those routes in residential.

Regressions

Couple of functionality regressions as I look toward the future of this site:

• Wire management solutions (like EZ Solar) aren’t supported on this site yet. I hope to implement wire management across all listings in the near future, including things like Heyco, Ray-Tray, etc.
• Tooltips are disabled for now. They were kind of annoying (on mobile, especially), and I’m hoping to find a better way to implement them.

The Future

Okay, so I said at the beginning we were halfway through my current plan for this site, right? I’m right now working on a redesign of the entire site. I want to update the theming to work better for what this site is supposed to do, update the branding, colors, everything. The current design was 100% thrown together from the solarboi.com theming, aaaaand it turns out, a blog theme does not super work for a site where I want to pack together a bunch of data in a way that’s readable.

Along with that, I’m starting to ask for sponsors! I do get a very consistent flow of people referencing this site, and I think sponsorship is the most straightforward way of giving me a great excuse to make this even more useful. I’ll be starting sponsorships at $1000/$500/$100 a year for Gold/Silver/Bronze levels, with Gold and Silver having some visibility throughout the site, and Bronze having visibility on the sponsors page. Gold will be limited to two slots, and Silver will be limited to four slots (one of which is already taken), so if you’re interested in sponsoring, let me know soon! That will launch with the new design, because I’m not anything else with this little theme. 😂

That’s about it for now! If you want to keep up with me on the dev journey, I’ve started posting more on Bluesky. Would love to hang out with you there!