My solar output wires do not enter my load center. Due to complexity of my setup the solar gear is outside of the house. About 15 feet away. Can I extend/ splice the CT wires? Would that affect accuracy?
Thank you in advance
Sense sells official extension cables
Se here - Collections – Sense
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I cut and spliced my “Sense Solar Sensors” on to a CAT5e cable and ran that ~80 feet to a sub panel. It looks to be working well. I won’t know about the accuracy for a few months, I need see how well the solar monitoring software matches up with the Sense. I talked to a few geophysics and electrical engineer friends before embarking on this journey and we couldn’t think of an a priori reason for it to fail. But I can tell you that it looks to work well enough. I have attached a photo showing some of the steps of how I did it.
Good luck and be careful around 120Vac
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Please update this thread with the results of this over time. I know there are many users that have had a need for much longer CT cables than is available directly from Sense.
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@GoldenCO and @samwooly1
We do sell 40’ extension cables and they can be connected directly to get a length of 80’. See this post:
Extension cables are available in lengths of 4’, 12’, 25’, and 40’ should your solar feed be further than 46" from your main electrical panel. These extensions can be combined to achieve larger lengths, but the maximum length should be no more than 80’.
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I would like to know the updated results later on as well. I think it can save some money to DIY and Cat.5 cable is just so cheap and so available. Thanks for the info
mmm… I have to admit I looked a bit to see what was available but I missed this, when I went to the store following ben’s link I didn’t realize that there were multiple products under “Sensor Extension Cables.” I would have just got them with the solar kit and it would have been nice to know that it was going to work before I went and did all this.
In another question @RyanAtSense does the extension cables you sell have shielding and or are they twisted pairs like a CAT5 or a coaxial cable? When thinking about the long length and the degradation of the signal I sort of convinced myself using twisted pairs or a coaxial cable would help.
Thanks for making such a fun product.
Best,
Brett
They are not shielded.
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