a bit over a week one of my 6 255w solar panels on the roof decided to develop an earth fault, the inverter sensed that and stopped power generation altogether.

an inspection indicated that all panels are on the way out, not just one. these 'znshine' panels are clearly not much good; they lasted just 8 years, and the warranty is pretty useless: '5 years for faults and defects' and '25 years for output degradation but only if that's your sole problem'...so for all practical purposes '5 years'. meh.

fortunately the solar sparkie that i talked to (who did a good job for my neighbours recently) offered some second-hand better quality for a very good price, and now there are 7 renesola 250w panels on my roof and i'm happy again.

keith and i spent last weekend on fraser island, setting up two of the new weather stations for fido:

these are located at orchid beach and at cathedral beach;

with four stations most of the eastern, ocean facing side of the island is now covered. two more stations on the western side (at kingfisher bay and wanggoolba) will follow in the next three months.

things worked out pretty well and we did find a few hours for sightseeing, too; here are a few photos.

to capture the size of some of the big trees i experimented with my phone to get a vertical panorama (up, up and lean baaaaaack), and while not perfect it doesn't look too bad :-)