Finding parts
Every recipe is in a book, and levelling Electrical never teaches one. Until you find a book, you start with what other survivors left behind.
- Photovoltaic Systems Handbook teaches 9 recipes: salvaged arrays and roof panels, improvised battery crates and wall cells, Solar Array, Roof Panel, Battery Bank, Wall Battery Box, Charge Controller. Look in hardware and electronics stores, bookstores, electricians' and engineers' tool boxes, and garages.
- Advanced Photovoltaics and MPPT teaches 5: the Monocrystalline array and roof panel, the Sealed battery and wall cabinets, and the MPPT Charge Controller. Much rarer than the handbook.
- Knox County Almanac teaches Reading the Sky, a 29-day energy forecast (see The almanac). Look in bookstores and libraries.
| Arrays and roof panels | Battery racks | Controllers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salvaged, improvised | Electrical 2 | Electrical 1, Carpentry 2 | |
| Standard | Electrical 4, Metalworking 2 (roof panel: Metalworking 1) | Electrical 3, Metalworking 3 (wall box: Metalworking 2) | Charge Controller: Electrical 3 |
| Premium (advanced book) | Electrical 7, Metalworking 3 (roof panel: Metalworking 2) | Electrical 6, Metalworking 4 (wall cabinet: Metalworking 3) | MPPT Charge Controller: Electrical 8 |
A Charge Controller is built from a car battery charger; an MPPT controller from a Charge Controller. Metal grades need a blowtorch and a welding mask.
Boxed, in shops:
- Hardware stores: arrays, roof panels, racks, controllers
- Electronics stores: the same, and now and then a premium part
- Car supply stores and gas station shelves: controllers
Used, needs repair:
- Garages and mechanics' shelves
- Barns, farms and homesteads
- Electricians' and construction trucks
- Controllers also turn up in household electronics crates
- 1 in 15 houses has a rig in the yard. Most are stripped: cracked arrays and an empty rack.
- 2 in 7 stripped rigs still have a switched-off controller.
- 1 in 8 rigs still work, with 2 or 3 batteries in the rack.
- Repair the frame: electronics scrap, screws and a screwdriver give an array +30 condition each time.
- Strip it: parts you don't want can be stripped for materials in the crafting menu, with a screwdriver.
- New areas only: loot and yard rigs appear where the map loads for the first time.