From first calculation to a useful build record.

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Visiting? Use the calculators without an account, browse public projects, and explore builder profiles. Registration availability is shown on the account page. While it is closed, you can confirm an email signup for launch news.

Already a member? Log in, open your dashboard, and choose a project or saved tool profile. Public calculators and saved account profiles serve different purposes: save a profile when you want to return to a plan later.

Plan with Builder Tools

Weight & Payload Planner: in-depth use guide — visitor and account workflows, project/team imports, layers, exterior mounting, 3D placement, weighing context and printed reports.

1. Battery Bank Sizing: list expected loads and use assumptions that reflect how often you run them. Review daily energy needs and battery capacity.
2. Solar Sizing: use your energy requirement to explore solar capacity under the conditions you expect. Compare your available roof space and charging assumptions.
3. Electrical Builder: examine circuits, cable runs, voltage drop, and wire-size choices.

For members, use each tool's save and manage controls to keep named planning profiles. Where offered, import from a saved profile or project, then review the imported values before saving. Changes in one plan do not mean every other saved plan has been recalculated.

These are planning estimates. Read the tool's assumptions and guidance and check component specifications before using a result in a build.

Save and reuse a power plan

Battery plans can account for AC and DC loads separately. Enter real input watts for AC energy use and review inverter efficiency. Daily recharge demand is separate from the reserve used to size the battery bank. Older saved plans retain their original accounting until you choose to change it.

A Solar plan linked to Battery uses a saved snapshot. If the Battery source changes, review the notice and choose Refresh source when you want to adopt its current recharge estimate. Solar also offers Size a new array, shared sun hours and derate, and individual panel-row overrides.

For project imports, preview eligible components, select the rows you need, then choose to append, refresh matching specifications while retaining usage assumptions, or replace the rows. Missing specifications need your review; a product name alone is not enough to calculate a load.

Electrical plans can start from saved Battery loads or Solar panel names. Importing replaces the circuit rows, so review the result and enter cable lengths, circuit voltage and operating current for your actual wiring. The copper voltage-drop estimate does not establish allowable conductor current, fuse size or code compliance.

Use Manage profiles to filter by tool, project or status, and rename, duplicate, archive, restore or delete a saved plan. You can associate a profile with your project and reopen linked active profiles from the owner's project overview. If another tab has saved a newer version, reopen the current profile before applying your edits.

Create a project that makes sense

1. Open My Projects and create your project.
2. Choose its kind and type, describe the starting point and intended build, and set a realistic build status.
3. Review its audience before sharing. Add the build areas you will use and begin documenting one area at a time.
4. Use the project workspace to return to components, costs, journal entries, photos, and progress.

A title and a short description help visitors understand your goal. A journal entry explaining a decision can be useful even before the physical work begins.

Select the Build Areas your project needs

Choose Build Areas from the catalog to define your current build. An area can be included, excluded from the current build, or archived. Excluding an area changes the progress calculation; archiving retains its record for later review or restoration. These choices are separate from the area's work status.

Record a work status and a percentage for each selected area. Overall progress is the rounded average of included, unarchived Build Areas, with each area counted equally. If none are selected, the project shows No Build Areas selected. Saving an area as Complete sets it to 100%; saving 100% sets it to Complete.

Use Build Area relationships to explain connections with Related To, Interfaces With, or Planning Dependency, and add planning notes. These describe your decisions; they do not automatically change progress or schedule work.

Delete or archive: The builder can permanently delete an unused Planned project component from its Edit Component page after confirming its name. Linked documentation and saved planning references block deletion; purchased, installed or documented entries use Archive. Deletion affects the project assignment and its overrides, retains an audit record, and leaves the global registry component and project slug intact.

Keep components, costs, and decisions together

The Component Registry describes products. Adding a component to your project records how it relates to your build. Review quantities, Build Area, status, and installation details rather than assuming a catalog entry describes your installation. Keep separate installation records when the same product is used in different places.

Use project cost entries for the amounts you want to document and review each entry's visibility before sharing. Visible totals depend on the viewer's access. The Private Cost Journal is a separate place for financial notes, available to the Builder and active Co-Builder. Its expenses, refunds and credits do not change documented project cost totals, activity or follower notifications.

Use the journal to explain choices and the gallery to show progress. Activity, progress and history help you return to recent work and review recorded changes. Archived records remain available through the applicable management and restoration controls.

Work with a project team

A project has one Builder, up to one Co-Builder and three Assistant Builders. The Builder invites existing verified accounts through Manage Project Team. Pending invitations reserve a slot for seven days and grant no project access until accepted. Members can review invitations and current memberships on My Team.

The Builder controls project details, visibility, Build Area selection, completion, project archiving and team membership. An active Co-Builder can help with Build Area work and progress, components, journal entries, costs, media and relationship notes, and can access the Private Cost Journal. Assistant Builders can add and edit components, add journal and cost entries, and edit their own journal and cost entries. Their role does not grant access to the Private Cost Journal.

Use Proposed Project Corrections for changes that need the Builder's decision. Accepting a proposal records approval; the Builder still applies the change through the normal editor. Leaving or being removed ends team access while retaining earlier contributions and membership history.

Choose what other people can see

Project visibility and profile visibility are separate controls. New projects offer Public, Members and Private. Public projects can be viewed by visitors; Members projects can be viewed by active signed-in members without following first; Private projects are limited to the Builder and currently authorized access. Existing Followers projects retain their audience and require following for ordinary member access.

Following Public or Members projects subscribes you to updates. It does not grant access to a Private project. Changing the audience takes effect on existing project links, including shared links, while the project's slug stays the same.

Profile settings let you choose Public, Members only, or Private, with directory and search-engine preferences where applicable. A public skill checkbox does not override your profile's audience. Project cost entries have their own visibility controls.

New project photos use protected delivery that checks the current project audience. Previously public photo-provider links and content already downloaded cannot be recalled by changing NPPSC visibility. Embedded YouTube videos follow the video's own provider settings, so review those separately.

Use a signed-out window to check Public access and a separate ordinary member account to check Members access after changing privacy settings.

Make your builder profile useful

In My Profile, use the separate About, Photos, Skills, Privacy, and Account sections. Each form saves separately, so save before switching sections.

Search the skills catalog, select relevant skills, choose a self-described experience level, and explicitly choose which ones to show. New selections start hidden. Move visible skills into your preferred order and check the preview before saving. Additional visible skills appear under More skills on your builder page.

Experience labels are self-described. A project on your profile does not automatically verify a particular skill.

Find builders and builds worth revisiting

Explore projects to compare shared builds. Members can use the available follow and saved-search tools to return to relevant projects and updates.

In the Builder Directory, search by name, handle, or public project title. Expand the skill browser, choose a category or minimum experience, and inspect matching skills on the result cards. Back to search results keeps your filters and page.

For a public project, use its share controls to prepare a link and introduction. Always review what is public before posting elsewhere.

Keep progress honest

The setup checklist measures documentation: a project summary, a started Build Area, a component, a journal entry and active media. Questions and milestone media are optional. This documentation score is separate from the average Build Area progress and the project's phase.

Use the explicit completion workflow when your build is ready and record your summary and lessons learned. Reaching 100% across Build Areas does not complete the project automatically, and completing a project does not rewrite the area's percentages. A completed project can still receive documentation; use Reopen when you return to the building phase.

Archiving makes project documentation read only until restored. It preserves the record and does not automatically make the project private. Review the audience when archiving; the available visibility choices prevent widening an archived project's audience. Restore it before resuming documentation or expanding access.

Public profiles show public project examples and let visitors page through them. Private work is not included in those public counts.

Get help or suggest an improvement

Contact support to report an issue or share feedback. Include the page, what you expected, and what happened. You will receive a private conversation link so replies can stay in the support inbox.

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