maintenance
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Oops, still no luck with the fallback option to open the attic door.
The charging cable still needs to be unplugged and replugged daily. It's not clear if there's something wrong with the panel (happens with two different ones), or if it's the charging driver, but the usual sequence is this: The sun is shining, everything's nice and there's a current of about 1 A. The sun disappears, as it does, and once it comes back, the current doesn't return. Instead, no matter how strong the sun, there's a current of only 36.8 mA. The only way to start charging again is to physically unplug the cable and plug it back in. I'm tempted to blow air into the plug every single time.
To get enough sun we asked the neighbors if we could hang the panel out of their south-facing attic window. They find this whole setup a bit weird and asked me whether this is some dark web operation, but overall they take it kindly. Still, sometimes it feels like a bother to them, and to make it a bit easier for all of us I tried to get some tool to open the lock that's probably a century old. Unfortunately I cheaped out and the wire it was made from quickly twisted.
Honestly the chitchat with the neighbors isn't so bad after all.