My solar power system (56k build a wind farm) (Page 1 of 3)
Posted: 3/4/2010 4:53:11 AM EDT
[Last Edit: phurba][Edited]
I've been collecting the parts to build a portable solar setup for about 6 months now. Tonight I finally picked up a solar panel and finished putting it all together.
The primary use is power for lighting and ham radios during power outages, plus as a portable power source when truck camping. I have a 5 KW generator for extended blackouts, but this should fit the bill for storms and short term blackouts. The solar panel is made by Sunsei. The panel I have goes for $200 and is rated for 23.3 watts @ 15.5 volts under ideal conditions. The specs for it are here. The panel is extremely light weight and feels solid. The specs say 9.5 lbs. The panel has a couple of neat features. At the top you can see where the cable is attached. This is just a DC barrel connector. There's a second connector on the right side of the yellow plastic that allows you to daisy chain panels. They come with a little jumper for the purpose. In the center of that yellow piece of plastic is a momentary switch connected to a blue LED. When you press the button, the LED lights up if the panel is producing electricity. While I was taking pictures, the flash was enough to make the charging light come on for a few seconds 
The panel comes with a bunch of cables terminating in male and female cigarette lighter sockets, spade lugs, bare wires, and alligator clamps. I used the bare wires to connect to the jumper I already had for the charge controller. The main DC output is a cigarette lighter socket at the bottom of the case while the load output is a cigarette lighter socket on the left. 
The controller is a Morningstar SunSaver-10. It's a nice controller for small systems and is rated for 10 amps @ 12 VDC. I purchased the controller already wired in the weatherproof enclosure. Here is the schematic: 
At critical points in the path are resettable fuses - the brown postage stamp looking things in the blue box. These trigger once 10 amps have been drawn for about 15 seconds and require the power to be disconnected to reset. There are a lot of safety precautions built into the system. The charge controller also has the provision to disconnect the battery once it reaches about 50% capacity (temperature-compensated voltage reading). This will save your battery from being over-discharged. However as it came wired, this only shuts off the main load output once the low-voltage condition is reached. Because the inverter is wired directly to the battery, it is possible to operate the inverter or the main DC out past the 50% point with only the load being shut off. The reason is the controller is only rated to handle a 10 amp load, and an 800 watt inverter can pull a 'bit' more than that. The deep cycle marine battery can supply a ton more juice than the controller can handle, which is why it's wired the way it is. I plan to add a relay on the load line to disconnect the inverter and main output once the low-voltage condition is reached. I'll update the schematic and pics once this is done. The battery is a wet deep cycle marine battery. 
My toughbook likes the juice! I'm planning on adding some PowerPole connectors for my radio gear and battery chargers. All told, the setup ran me about $380. The biggest expenses are the battery and the solar panel. |
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i have been beating around the idea of a mobile unit to use when car camping, at my hunting camp, and during hurricane power outages for recharging phones, radios, shortterm lighting and HAm stuff. my main goal is keeping cost down. but i would like the system to be 1-2 man moveable. and run 1-2 batts ( either 1 large deep cell or 2x 6volt t105's). im figuring i would need panel,charge controller,invertor of sorts, batts and wires/connectors. goal of out put would be 4-6 hours of 1-2 12v lights or 120 CFL lighting. 1-3 hours of radio/dvd play ( in case car campipng with family) and unlimited charging of radios,cell phones, other gadgets. |
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Originally Posted By aejsl:
where did you get the charge controller? I bought it from a local guy on craigslist, but you can get it here for $48 |
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Nice looking setup.
Are you planning on mounting the solar panel on the roof? |
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Originally Posted By protus:
i have been beating around the idea of a mobile unit to use when car camping, at my hunting camp, and during hurricane power outages for recharging phones, radios, shortterm lighting and HAm stuff.
my main goal is keeping cost down. but i would like the system to be 1-2 man moveable. and run 1-2 batts ( either 1 large deep cell or 2x 6volt t105's). im figuring i would need panel,charge controller,invertor of sorts, batts and wires/connectors. goal of out put would be 4-6 hours of 1-2 12v lights or 120 CFL lighting. 1-3 hours of radio/dvd play ( in case car campipng with family) and unlimited charging of radios,cell phones, other gadgets. skip the CFL's and get 12v LED's. yes they cost more but your talking Ma instead of still amps with the CFL AND not inverter loss with the 12v. truthfully, if you dont care about the color, you could just hit up ebay for the 12v LED tail lights that would provide you with more than enough light to move around. plus, you could get clear(white) LED's and red LED's for night time use. you could even get red 192LED's for a night light if need be. if your planing on running a tv/DVD do the same. find one that is designed for car use so it runs right off the 12v. no inverter loss for it to entertain you and the kids. |
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Nice, good going.Looks pretty good.
Used to be a company called Solar Sense that sold a portable Solar pack just like this.All self contained,in a Pelican type container. Here is a Solar Guide for you. Some expensive portable kits ,just for ideas Portable |
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Originally Posted By pyro6988:
Are you planning on mounting the solar panel on the roof? That's ultimately the plan. My house has an easily-accessible roof over the first floor section. I just need to get a ladder and build a bracket. I think I'm probably going to get at least one more panel, probably two, before I permanently install it. Originally Posted By Echo2:
That screams for an aluminum. 2 wheeled dolly with a pole bracket atop to set PV panel. the battery or batteries...would counterweight. The way it's set up right now allows the panel to be leaned against the back side of the board (the controller is mounted on an A-frame sandwich board with a piano hinge) and the battery fits underneath. Originally Posted By ljh824:
If you use the inverter for A/C devices, what do you use the main out, and load out connections for? The DC jacks let you run lighting, battery chargers, laptops, radios, etc without firing up the inverter. Inverters are fairly inefficient, especially if you're converting back to DC again for the device. |
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Originally Posted By phurba: And 1/2 an inch narrower at the top than the bottom for pic, on each side. (the settings are maxed out to try to correct it)Originally Posted By inop: You painted you Coleman stove black too Might wanna check your monitor's calibration... still the factory green  Old pos yellow (now) case 15" from the late 90's Edit: But a new dell tower under the desk to supply pos monitor. New net book for on the go. Just haven't replaced the monitor yet. |
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Originally Posted By MR_JOSHUA:
You need to combine your components & create a mobile power station. Here are some hints: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/mr_joshua/Dollys.jpg haha, i'm actually doing something like this with my stuff... almost finished and it looks ugly but it works. I'm gonna post pics after i modify it a bit. |
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My setup is about 3/4 of the way down. http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=10&f=17&t=632626&page=6 |
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That is completely awesome-thank you for sharing the pics
The Achilles heel of my battery bank at home is my reliance on grid power or a fossil fuel powered genset to charge it. I long for a smaller version of TRKarl's home setup-I have obsessed over his pics ever since he posted them. Hell, he and I even have compatible OCD-so I could completely plagiarize his setup and be quite happy about it  Alas, I don't have the space in my yard for much of anything, and my roof doesn't face southwest-so I need to build a portable setup.
Your pics have inspired me, thanks again for posting them. |
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Originally Posted By CJan_NH:
That is completely awesome-thank you for sharing the pics
The Achilles heel of my battery bank at home is my reliance on grid power or a fossil fuel powered genset to charge it. I long for a smaller version of TRKarl's home setup-I have obsessed over his pics ever since he posted them. Hell, he and I even have compatible OCD-so I could completely plagiarize his setup and be quite happy about it Alas, I don't have the space in my yard for much of anything, and my roof doesn't face southwest-so I need to build a portable setup.
Your pics have inspired me, thanks again for posting them. Sure thing! I do have appropriate roof space, but at the moment my panel is sitting in a lawn chair in the mostly-shaded back yard. It gets a couple hours of full sun per day. If I'm at home I'll move the chair every so often so it gets the most sun, but for the most part it only receives indirect light. However so far that's been PLENTY to keep the battery topped off. I've recharged all of my rechargeable batteries off it as well as running my laptop for a few hours, and so far the indirect light on the panel has been able to exceed my power needs. Even if you don't have SW-facing roof space, you can still get a useful amount of juice from indirect light. But unless you have a lot of panels, you won't have enough to run your whole house. |
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Originally Posted By Keigan:
Nice setup... I am in the process of establishing a setup to power my AC HAM Radio. I have an Optima Blue Top, a 45watt panel, solar controller and a really good battery charger. What I need to complete my setup is a pure sine wave inverter.... What ham rig are you running? Pretty much all of them (including those with built-in AC supplies) actually run on DC. Unless you need AC for something else, it would be more efficient to run the radio directly from the battery. |
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| Very cool! I am in the process of building a similar system. I don't quite understand the the function of the "load out terminals". I assume they are to allow you to run a device directly off the panel. Why would you want to do that if you have a battery? I would just assume run all devices off the battery. |
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Originally Posted By ELHEFEII:
Very cool! I am in the process of building a similar system. I don't quite understand the the function of the "load out terminals". I assume they are to allow you to run a device directly off the panel. Why would you want to do that if you have a battery? I would just assume run all devices off the battery. The load terminals are powered by the battery. But they have the added protection of the discharge sensor circuit - if the battery drops below around 50% capacity, the load is turned off. If you overdischarge a battery, you drastically shorten the life of it. Deep cycle marine batteries (like the one I'm using) can be discharged deeper than SLA batteries and car batteries. The reason I don't have the inverter wired through the load terminal at the moment is that the inverter can draw more than the circuit is rated for. What I will do is add a relay that is energized on the load terminals that can interrupt the inverter. |
Not every pony grows up to be a pegasus.
| How long would this power something like an AC unit. I would love to set something like this up as an emergency back up in case power goes down for a hurricane etc. Could I just add some more batteries and panels to increase my power to run things for a longer period. Sorry for all the questions but I am extremely new to this and would love to put something together like this especially at this price! |
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Originally Posted By anthony20031:
How long would this power something like an AC unit. I would love to set something like this up as an emergency back up in case power goes down for a hurricane etc. Could I just add some more batteries and panels to increase my power to run things for a longer period. Sorry for all the questions but I am extremely new to this and would love to put something together like this especially at this price! You mean like a window air conditioner? It completely depends on how much current the unit draws and what the duty cycle is. While my battery can provide a lot of juice, the inverter is only rated for 800 watts max (and that's not continuous). Something like this requires 530 watts while running. Let's assume that the inverter wastes about 70 watts through inefficiency, so we're drawing 600 watts from the battery while the AC is running. If we assume a 100 amp-hour battery, using the calculator here, we'll have enough juice to run the AC unit for 0.83 hours, or about 50 minutes, until the battery hits the 50% drained mark (you don't want to discharge your batteries past that). If you ran the AC for 10 minutes every hour, you could feasibly get 5 hours of use from the system. If you added a second 100 Ah battery, you could effectively double the run time. You need to make sure your charging system is capable of keeping the batteries topped off. The panel I have would not be capable of keeping such a system topped off. But you can always add more panels. If cooling is your primary objective, it would make sense to look for a DC air conditioner - one that uses peltier junctions. That way you can eliminate the inverter from the system. In the price class that I'm working in, inverters are fairly inefficient so I try to avoid them. That's why DC lighting makes a lot more sense than running an inverter to power a light bulb. Getting a car adapter for your laptop is much more efficient than running an inverter to power it's wall charger (which just converts the AC back into DC again). Hope this helps! |
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Originally Posted By anthony20031:
Yh i was thinking something like that. I guess in the end I would be interested in something that would be able to power my fridge, some fans, maybe a light and radio. There should be a label somewhere on your fridge showing how many watts is draws. When you have that info, you can figure out how often it cycles in an hour and how long it runs for. With that you can figure out how much juice that will be required to suit your needs. You can also do things like keeping 2 or 3 liter bottles of water in the freezer that you can transfer to the fridge when the power goes out. Fans, lights, and radios can all run on DC. In addition to my main wet cell, I usually run a battery charger. I have two chargers, one that does 8 AAs and one universal that does 4 AA, AAA, C, D, or 2 9v. These chargers run on 12 VDC. Look for the battery chargers that come with "wall wart" power supplies. Most likely they convert to 12 VDC. There are battery chargers that are specifically sold as car chargers meant to run off the cigarette lighter, but those are typically more expensive. I run the battery chargers off the cigarette lighter outlet on the charge controller. The AAs go to my Yaesu VX-8 (ham radio that also has a general coverage receiver and AM/FM radio, also covers weather and receives police frequencies) and a flashlight. I use the Ds for an electric lantern and a big LED flashlight. 9V are for the smoke detectors - don't forget those when the power goes out! I can power my FT-897 (HF/VHF/UHF/general coverage receiver) directly from the wet cell. There are handy wingnut terminals on the battery. |
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Another thing, regarding batteries.....
Originally posted from Team Member: TRKarl...... Your best bet is to get a couple of T 105 6v golf cart batteries and wire them for 12v. This would give you app. 225 amp/hrs @ 12v since the inverter is 12v. Find out how many watts your fridge draws while running. For example if it draws 120 watts a/c then it will take about 10 amps off the battery to power it. 10 amps x 12 volts = 120 watts. You could power your fridge for around 10 hrs and draw the batteries down around 50%. Bear in mind ... this does not take into account inverter inefficiency, fridge cycling on and off, fridge going into defrost. Bottom line: Find out the capacity in amp/hrs the battery has preferably at the 20 hr rate which is usually stated as the c/20 rate. Your car battery is out of the question. It is not made for that. The marine deep cycle is so so but still not made to cycle over and over again and again. Golf cart batteries are cheap deep cycle batteries that are made to cycle over and over and won't kill your wallet esp when you are in learning mode. Inverters? You get what you pay for. |
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Originally Posted By MR_JOSHUA:
This is a great thread. If we’re starting to talk refrigerators and air conditioning units, the first thing you need is this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/mr_joshua/DSCN7511.jpg Oh yeah, those are great. I have one telling me right now that my computer and TV are drawing a combined 220 watts. I've seen the computer alone draw over 400 watts when playing COD4 The web browsing and TV viewing current are a lot lower than I expected, considering I have a 24" and a 23.5" LCD.
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Not every pony grows up to be a pegasus.
Get a quality battery tester like the one pictured below. A volt meter can measure the voltage in an SLA or marine battery but cannot tell you how much current is available for use. This means that the battery could fail without warning, just when you need it most. Batteries don't last forever
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Originally Posted By MR_JOSHUA: Regarding laptops – Use a universal power cord like the one pictured below (w/12 volt adapter). Computers don’t like modified sine wave trust me. They are around $100 and worth every penny. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/mr_joshua/DSCN7551.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/mr_joshua/resizeimage.jpg Most laptops, yeah.. toughbooks are a little more tolerant of everything Also, toughbooks run on 15 VDC so I need to build a DC-DC converter for it. |
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| I have a charging question. DOes that charge controller stop all feed back to the panel etc? The reason im asking it we are considering throwing a panel on the roof of the trailer and doing a 12v system in it. So we can also charge the batterys from the trucks pigtail while towing. Id had to nuke a charger or panels because of it. |
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Originally Posted By Badlatitude:
I have a charging question. DOes that charge controller stop all feed back to the panel etc? The reason im asking it we are considering throwing a panel on the roof of the trailer and doing a 12v system in it. So we can also charge the batterys from the trucks pigtail while towing. Id had to nuke a charger or panels because of it. Yes, the charge controller prevents the battery from backfeeding the solar panels. The controller also takes care of voltage regulation. In addition to higher current, the voltage out of a panel is going to be higher in direct sun vs indirect light. The charge controller regulates all aspects of the system. You can't (well, technically you can, but you don't want to) run the solar panel directly to the battery. |
Not every pony grows up to be a pegasus.