Solar Power Stuffs - Questions and Answers

[Ascholten]

you are better off with the 4 batteries over a dozen in series. Anytime you are stringing batteries together, especially in your case where you are going to be doing series / parallel strings, you are going to have a whole other world of issues to deal with.

Flooded cell batteries? First off, No you are not mounting those on your roof, they probably will end up weighing 1000 lbs by the time you get everything you want. FC's will need CONSTANT attention and cleaning. The acid fumes are going to corrode stuff, they WILL need to be protected from the weather and oh, lets not forget one other little annoying issue with lead acid cells.

When you charge and discharge them, they create HYDROGEN. Can you say BOOM ! Hindenburg anyone?

Finally, no matter how good you take care of them, how 'deep cycle' they claim to be etc, those batteries will have a life of 5 to 7 years TOPS.

They cost more, but from a maintenance standpoint, and longevity, and being able to install anywhere in any orientation, Id go with the Lithium chemistries.

Have you considered looking into used fork truck batteries? Often time you can get them VERY cheap. THey won't hold a fork lift for a full 8 hour day anymore, hence why the owner wants to be rid of them,but are PLENTY good still for a house system like you want !! They are built to last longer than a few years, and are heavy as sin, so the dirt bags wanting to steal, they are heavy enough that it'll slow the thieves down enough to give you enough time to get the shotgun and add to your compost pile to keep the taters happy !

Aaron

 

[raingarden]

So I'm wanting to do a solar powered heat system for my chickens so they dont get too chilly.

Would it be possible to use a tank full of water or sand as a heat sink? Maybe a 55 gallon drum. The water or sand tank could be heated directly from a solar panel and heating element during the day. The heat would dissipate from the tank into the coop during the night like a hot water bottle The water or sand tank would, in effect, become the battery.

 

[Ascholten]

Would it be possible to use a tank full of water or sand as a heat sink? Maybe a 55 gallon drum. The water or sand tank could be heated directly from a solar panel and heating element during the day. The heat would dissipate from the tank into the coop during the night like a hot water bottle The water or sand tank would, in effect, become the battery.

you could absolutely do that. id go with water as heat dissipation thru the sand might not be super efficient. Do know that using a heating element is terribly inefficient though. But on that note, they DO make 12 volt / 24 volt heating elements so you could in theory if you matched them properly, hook it directly to the panel.

A heat pump hot water heater is expensive but VERY efficient. A regular water heater from room temp to say 130 degrees F. the heating element is 4500 watts, and may take you an hour and a half to do it. so you are talking 6800 watts of power to do that. A heat pump now, depending on the temperature, if you are not at the extreme low end of it's operating range, would run maybe 600 watts full load, it's a bit slower, it might take 2 or even 2.5 hours to heat that same water, but now we are talking MAYBE 1500 watts to do the job. Another option, get like a 300 gallon tank, and a small recirc pump.water heater heats up, cycle water into bigger storage tank, bring in cooler water, heat, put in big tank. It could be a closed loop system. another possibility. ok so now you have this big 300 gallon tank of warm water. instead of it sitting in the middle of the room just dropping off heat, which the birds may or not get right. get a small radiator and a small fan, and use that same circ pump now to run the water thru the radiator with a fan blowing on it, like how your car does. Now you are blowing that hot water's heat directly into the room, and can even set a thermostat on it if you want.

Aaron

 

[raingarden]

The birds could huddle around the tank is the weather was really severe. But, the weight of the tank would become an issue with many existing coops. You can't plop thousand(s) pounds down on a floor designed for a few hundred pounds. So, putting the tank on the ground and pumping the water would probably be best.

There is waterproof heating cable that can handle any voltage.

 

[chickengr]

I found this battery but have no idea what it is for:
24V 3200mAh rechargeable Lead Acid Closed type battery

it is cheap and maybe too good to be true. sorry for my ignorance, I know nothing about batteries.

 

[DParker75089]

I found this battery but have no idea what it is for:
24V 3200mAh rechargeable Lead Acid Closed type battery
View attachment 3297243

it is cheap and maybe too good to be true. sorry for my ignorance, I know nothing about batteries.

That's very little capacity. mAh = milliamp-hours...or thousandths of an amp-hour. So 3200mAh = 3.2 amp-hours. At 24 volts that's 76.8 watt-hours of storage. But you can't discharge an ordinary lead-acid battery like that below 50% of a full charge without reducing the useful life of that battery. So you're really looking at 37.4 watt-hours of use before it needs to be recharged, which would be enough power to run a typical 1,200 watt blow dryer for about 112 seconds before it needs to be recharged.

 

[Ascholten]

That battery looks like something out of an alarm system or something. Id not trust it for what you need, and that small of a capacity, it's not really good for much. Running an emergency light or something. Another thing I have seen, those very small batteries like that. tend to not last long at all. They seem like a few cycles and they are dead.

You will need something that is about 100 ah or so not m ah

Aaron

 

[DParker75089]

I use this guy for step by step videos. Plenty of good how to solar content.

https://m.youtube.com/c/WillProwse

He has a website linked from the video descriptions with diagrams for various sized systems.

I'll second this. Don't let his high school looks, voice (and sometimes demeanor) fool you. He knows the subject matter well.

 

[Ascholten]

Looked at some of his stuff, he puts out good info.
One thing you ALL need to remember, the electricity itself is dangerous ! You can easily start fires by the electrical current if you short something out. Also, if you are running panels in series like I am, you get caught up on 150 VDC, you are going to feel it and DC clamps, it won't shake you down like AC and potentially let go. IMO it can be much more lethal. when you are working with power at the battery level, arc flash, arc blast becomes a real thing. yes there may be some fuses or BMS systems but in the few tenths of a second it may take for this to quench the power flow, thousands of amps can vaporize bus bars and all kinds of horrible stuff and ruin you for life.

always be careful, even with a small, the size of a car battery can ruin your day.

Aaron

 

[dsalling]

Hey Aaron,
Thank you for your willingness to share your knowledge. I wish I had come across this thread sooner. I recently purchased two 100 Eco solar panels, Giandel 12 volt inverter with built in solar charger (I believe it's 1200 watts), 100 ah lead battery. We've got them properly connected an powered up. The problem seems to be one with the load and the battery. Here's what I'm running into the inverter via power strip and outdoor extension cord: 100 watt heated drinker, one 12 volt automatic chicken door opener, two liter heated drinkers (15 watts, 120 volts, 0.125 amp each). All runs fine until evening at about 9:00. I hear the inverter buzz. I'm suspecting I need more battery power. So, I reduced the load - removing the 100 watt drinker and just leaving the automatic door and two 15-watt drinkers plugged in. I came out the next morning and found the inverter buzzing again. Someone said at least 240 ah. However, I don't want to invest in anymore batteries until I can get some additional insight into how to best set up the system I have. Thank you in advance for your help.