Solar Power Stuffs - Questions and Answers

[Cannot Crow]

What exactly do you mean by solar generator? The portable power packs where you throw up a few panels and make electricity?

Aaron

so, i was told that i could make a portable solar pack. the panel would stand alone but the battery and the float would be in a crate with a dolly type carrier. readyto be hooked up to a 100 amp panel. i so not know how to so any of that. Do you have any suggestions. thank you

 

[DParker75089]

That is a question that is going to vary from each place. How big is your area, how dark is it? weeds around? How about YOUR eyes, what might be fine for me, is dark ass tripping hazard for you !

Yes, which is why I worded it the way I did. They have to determine for themselves how much illumination is needed for their use case.

 

[Ascholten]

Ah, so it's inside? I don't mean fully-enclosed, but covered overhead so as to preclude the use of off-the-shelf solar LEDs with integrated motion sensors. It sounds like you only need the area illuminated for short periods at a time rather than all night, so it sounds like you'd need just 2 or 3 100W-equivalent LED fixtures (or thereabouts), which typically draw around 13W). That should be very easy to power with a single 100W solar panel and a 50Ah lead-acid battery. You can find DC versions of those that would eliminate the need for an inverter, though you'd still need a (relatively inexpensive) charge controller. If you want it lit for more than an hour per night then you'd need more batteries, or a single bigger one.

LED's by nature are DC. If you can get them and run them DC that saves you the trouble of converting to AC to then re convert to DC to run the LED. If you can go direct DC, and take the power right off the battery, panel, etc, that's the best way.
Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

so, i was told that i could make a portable solar pack. the panel would stand alone but the battery and the float would be in a crate with a dolly type carrier. readyto be hooked up to a 100 amp panel. i so not know how to so any of that. Do you have any suggestions. thank you

Well. If you have an inverter that will do grid feedback, then yes it can. I actually have something similar on my truck. I have panels on my truck that charge batteries I have in the truck. It also has a 3.6 KW, I think it is, inverter. the batteries power the inverter that gives me AC to run tools and stuff. I can plug the grid into it, and can either charge the batteries off the grid, OR sell it back to the grid if I want.

in your case, yes it sounds like the battery is portable on the dolly. You will probably have an inverter on there too, and a charge controller for the batteries. You wheel the hardware to where the solar panels are. Plug the panel into your unit, the DC from the panel goes through your charge controller, and charges your battery. From the battery it goes to the inverter to be turned into AC, and from there, it can probably run some local equipment AND if you have it plugged into the grid, can either feed a sub panel, or put it back directly to the grid. that part gets a bit complicated, if you want to backfeed AND run stuff, or just run stuff or what.

The main take away from this, yes very possible. BUT. Pretty much everywhere, if you are going to connect YOUR power station to the grid, (which is THEIR power station) you'll need permission to do so. So if there is any chance you will feedback. (which means you are paralleled to the grid, and not a 'point between grid / load' you'll need your power company to give you permission to do it, if you want to do it legally.

aaron

 

[DParker75089]

LED's by nature are DC.

Well, yes...the LEDs themselves are DC (though there are AC-powered LEDs for some specialized uses), but the form in which they're sold to consumers for these sorts of lighting applications (LED bulbs, LED fixtures for household use, etc) are more often than not AC-powered devices that contain miniature conversion circuitry. That's why I'm careful to differentiate between products that take an AC power source vs those that take a DC source.

 

[Sally PB]

Thank you, Aaron.

Our goal with solar energy is to get off grid. Since I'm 60, we probably won't recoup the cost. The plan is self sufficiency. Power goes off? Oh, I hadn't noticed. It goes off at least twice a year, and sometimes for 3-4 days at a time.

We have to be able to run:

Fridge, well pump, freezer, lights, oven, computer(s). I bet DH would say room AC in the summer too. The furnace and water heater are propane, but electric something, because when the power's off, the furnace and water heater don't run. (Electric blower on the furnace; not sure what else.)

We also have an electric dryer and DH wants to get into welding. Both power hogs, I know.

We have a wood stove and use it a lot.

Our electric stove is about 43 years old. I'm debating replacing it with propane when it's beyond repair; natural is not an option out here. Our fridge is about 35 years old, and it doesn't owe us a thing.

I could adapt to "rationing" how I use electricity in exchange for being off grid.

 

[Ascholten]

I have always been interested in solar but never had the time to really dive in. I'm realizing that I have a similar area to illuminate at this other poster.... I don't suppose we could expand on this 2-lightbulb project or do a small tutorial post, for the greenhorns (which I definitely am!)?

Well. One could do a small tutorial but it IS electricity.
If you don't know what you are doing you can kill your self, or burn something down.
Even a small 12 volt battery can burn the barn down.
another problem with solar. Depending on where you are in the circuit, .. that sob is HOT until the sun goes down. So you get caught up in something you don't belong in, and nobody is around... your ass is cooking until sunset.

With that though.
Here is a simple walk through.

Get solar panels, face them towards the sun.
The panel has 2 wires coming off it, a positive and a negative.
Pull these wires into a charge controller, the controllers job is to keep you from over charging and cooking your battery.

Take the output of your charge controller and hook to your battery.
This takes the power from your panels to the battery.

now we need to get the power from the battery to your lights..

the very first thing you will need is a fuse block, you ALWAYS PROTECT your load. If something goes bad, this cuts the power off hopefully before you start a fire.
Put an appropriate sized fuse in there.
From here run the wires to some sort of battery 'minder'. You do NOT want to over drain your battery, you will damage / destroy it, so the battery minder will cut the power off if the voltage drops to a certain level. Many charge controllers will ALSO do this for you. if you can get an all in one, great, if not, then two separate devices.
From your battery low voltage device... you go ...
From there, run wires to some sort of controller.
how do you want to work them? do you want them to turn on with motion, turn on at a certain time, or what? your controller will take care of this.. from the controller ( your switch really) it goes to your lights, which you will run in parallel. this way if one quits, the other is still working.

when the sun shines it charges your battery(s).
once the battery is charged, it stops charging to prevent damage.
the battery powers your lights, which turn on and off as you direct them to.
if there is enough use that the battery is drained, the controller turns OFF the lights
so you don't kill your battery.
the lights stay off until you charge the battery up enough to be usable again.



aaron

 

[Nyhillbillies]

Thanks for starting this @Ascholten !

I was just pondering using solar for a coop and run I have in my school's garden. There is no electricity, yet water must remain in the liquid state throughout the winter.

My problem has been sizing panels to generator, and also feasibility. There is an open lean-to facing south, so the roof would be perfect for panels, but I worry about cloudy days. It's in New York City, so there will be spells of below-freezing weather for days at a time, and I can't risk having the girls' water freezing.

I remember reading in another thread about an power-free way to keep water from freezing! You might want to use the search engine here!

 

[Ascholten]

Thanks for starting this @Ascholten !

I was just pondering using solar for a coop and run I have in my school's garden. There is no electricity, yet water must remain in the liquid state throughout the winter.

My problem has been sizing panels to generator, and also feasibility. There is an open lean-to facing south, so the roof would be perfect for panels, but I worry about cloudy days. It's in New York City, so there will be spells of below-freezing weather for days at a time, and I can't risk having the girls' water freezing.

given your unique situation, I honestly can't say, oh this or that will do the trick !! id need to honestly do a study of your area, see the temps, the solar it's called insolation, how much sun you are getting etc.
heat via heating elements uses a ton of juice and can get expensive to run.
I have been doing some research into hybrid heaters using freon. not as efficient in some instances but overall uses a LOT LESS electricity.

yes winter will be terrible, your best route will be insulation around the water vessel. and a small heater may work. you don't need to keep the water at 75 degrees, just really at say 35 degrees. They are drinking, not skinny dipping !! Another idea, a heater like is used for fish tanks, may only suck a hundred watts or so but would be plenty to keep the water liquid.

Heating elements work fine with just DC as they do AC. Check the controller if it has one but if you ran it DC it'd be a bit more efficient. If you can get away with one panel,put TWO up, that way in cloudy crappy days, you are still producing power. with a charge controller,on days where you have plenty of juice, it turns it off when battery is charged.

id rather have 3x the power generation I need, because remember, it's ONLY making that 3x in near perfect conditions !! that way when it's raining, cloudy, just a $hi343y day, those 3x panels working together, just might give you 1x out to keep your battery up!

Aaron

 

[Nyhillbillies]

Aaron,
How do you feel about wind power? Does it work just like solar? Can it work in tandem?