My See seems to be acting like a crane of late. I did a wood boiler out of basement about 2 weeks ago (no pictures) and on a solar trailer I was reconfiguring yesterday. The original trailer had two sets of panels that could rotate independently. That probably works in the middle of a field down south but up in northern NH its not too practical when the sun angle starts to get lower and even more problematical when it snows. There is standby Kubota diesel in the trailer and its not normally covered by the panels so it would fill up with snow. I needed to remove one row of panels and set them up so that all the panels faced in one direction. This also means the panels act like a roof over the diesel. Snow will slide (or get raked) down off to the base of the panels. I need to run the generator every couple of months to equalize the batteries.
After modifying the trailer to install two taller new posts, I needed to lift a heavy 20' long beam in place and keep it there so I could bolt it on top of two posts.
So here is the "money" Unimog shot. That beam may not look heavy but I was solo so getting it up in the air so that I could bolt it on top of the new posts required a stable platform. The yellow ratchet strap was needed to "coax" the bolt holes in the new posts to line up with the bearing blocks
So once the beam was in place I reattached the panels and got this
I still have some finish work, stiffening things up and then the trailer gets moved to a short term storage place for the winter. It was delivered to my house so now I need to move it. Its low boy trailer with a lunette ring hitch which matches up with a pintle hook. The problem is the existing ring is about 12 to 18" off the ground and the pintle on both of the Unimogs are about 36". If I tried to tow it with a Unimog the trailer wheels would be off the ground and it would be dragging on the rear bumper. The trailer is just under 10 K pounds. Next job is to finish an adaptor for the trailer frame so I can set the ring higher to be able to use the Unimogs.
Right now its only used to charge my Toyota but once I break down and buy some very expensive copper wire I will tie it into the house. Its got two very large forklift batteries on the trailer and lot of electronics so I can get up 50 amps at 240 VAC.
The trailers were part of legit business that turned into a Ponzi scheme. Berkshire Hathaway and Progressive insurance both got taken for hundred of millions. The fed seized the assets of the company and the owner and auctioned off hundreds of these trailers in several variations mostly in the south and west. The auctions were last year during the peak of Covid and I missed out but bought one of the rarer ones in the Northeast from someone who bought six of them. Its basically a complete plug and play on or off grid power system on a trailer. This version had two crank up light towers to light about 2 acres but I removed one.
The parts are definitely worth more than what the government auctioned them off for. I will leave it portable but intend to use if for building a new house and then stripping it for parts for the new homes solar system.