Solar Power in the Chicken House

[cutlass1972]

Quote:
Lighting is easy. A 20W panel, a couple of high output LED's, a charge controller, and a car battery would do the trick. What Scott is trying to do is make enough heat to keep his water from freezing, which will take exponentially more power.

 

[Scott]

Quote:
Lighting is easy. A 20W panel, a couple of high output LED's, a charge controller, and a car battery would do the trick. What Scott is trying to do is make enough heat to keep his water from freezing, which will take exponentially more power.

I hope your wrong. Time will tell. I'm glad I was able to the ditch the inverter with your help. If I have to go for a larger panel and put two deep cycle batteries in parallel, then that's what I'll do.

 

[Scott]

Quote:
Chieftan, I got the solar panel from UL Solar. I'm not sure if they have a web site, I bought it from them on eBay. It was actually part of a kit that included the solar panel, the solar controller, and a mounting bracket. The heating strip was purchased from McMaster-Carr online.

If you are thinking of using those standard stock tank heater, that would take a lot of solar power.

 

[cutlass1972]

Quote:
Chieftan, I got the solar panel from UL Solar. I'm not sure if they have a web site, I bought it from them on eBay. It was actually part of a kit that included the solar panel, the solar controller, and a mounting bracket. The heating strip was purchased from McMaster-Carr online.

If you are thinking of using those standard stock tank heater, that would take a lot of solar power.

yes, stock tank heaters START around 1500 watts. You would need a small solar farm to run one of those.

 

[RAWR]

oh wow..thats a really good idea

hope it all works out for you!

 

[cutlass1972]

hey Scott one more thing I wanted to throw out here that someone else touched on is that you need to keep your cables as short as possible. One downfall to using low voltage DC is it doesnt carry through wire very well. the lower the voltage the higher the resistance of wire, this is why the electric company steps their voltage up for the top line on power poles for long distance power running. You should probibly try to keep your cables down around 10'-15' at the longest to avoid having major power losses.

 

[Scott]

Quote:
Makes sense.

 

[Scott]

Alright, the heat strip arrived in the mail today. Looks just like ones in the photo above but smaller: 1 inch by 2 inches. Hooked it up to a riding lawn mower battery to try it out... worked like a charm and heated up immediately. Now all I need to do is find the right deep cycle battery for this application. I read an article on gel cell batteries that turned me away from them. Cutlass, what do you think? Have a recommendation on the battery ill need? Am hour rating? etc? I don't know much about what would be best for this set up. There a bit more expensive but those "yellow-top" batteries seem like they might be best or perhaps a deep cycle battery specifically for solar applications.

Oh, and I think I'm going to order that thermostat instead of using the light switch.

 

[Minniechickmama]

I have yet to figure out all the logistics of this, but my idea for the coop we started last fall are such:
The design of the coop is that with a clestory in top that faces south. In that high clestory I am planning to run black PVC tubing or pipe so that it can absorb the sun's heat and heat up the water which will be run down through a closed loop system. My hope is that it will naturally flow a current and I can use it along with my watering system through radiant transfer to keep the waterer warm.
For those of you who don't use or read much on solar this is based on passive solar principles. If it works like I hope, it will eliminate the cost of batteries and the other components that are needed and added cost to my project if I can avoid them.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Quote:
Take a good look at the bigger picture with that, especially in your region. The problem isn't having enough solar

it lies in maintenance of the pv cells and keeping the whole array clean enough to obtain optimum collection. Research has shown that though it is a great way to take advantage of solar, you are still dependent on fossil fuels to produce the pv's and all the other parts required for a system. The sand and dirt that collects on these arrays quickly reduce your collection ability and some people have really been turned off of the idea of solar array who have had them in your region because of these problems.
Just a thought. We have looked at several approaches to wind and solar for our house when we rebuild, but none of the options are all they are cracked up to be at first.
Good luck.