| |
31. Posted: 20 Feb 2016 14:09 - Off-Grid Living / Seems solarific (WindyNation kit)
You get what you pay for. While I was specing out a system with a friend who knows this stuff, (Canadian 305 watt solar panel, Blue Sky Energy 25 amp MPPT controller) he told me a friend of his is on his 6th El-Cheapo controller because they just don't last.
|
32. Posted: 20 Feb 2016 03:09 - Off-Grid Living / Wood stove, pellet stove, wood-burning furnace?
Quoting: Coyote Flatsdays are short when your as far north as I am. So my solar doesn't charge batteries a lot of the time What latitude are you? I'm at 65 degrees North Latitude. Less than 3 hours of daylight on December 21st. Solar ...
|
33. Posted: 19 Feb 2016 14:55 - Off-Grid Living / Seems solarific (WindyNation kit)
...ce isn't so bad now. Best case scenario with PWM controller is only 60% of the panel's output makes it into your batteries. Often, it's less than half. Those are "battery" solar panels - designed to work with a PWM controller into a 12 volt dc system. "Grid Tie" panels have higher voltages, and wi...
|
34. Posted: 18 Feb 2016 22:50 - Off-Grid Living / Wood stove, pellet stove, wood-burning furnace?
...US! For maybe half the year you don't use it. The weather's too hot so it just takes up space. AND all you get is space heat from it - what about heating water? A lot of people think "solar" for hot water, but when you really want hot water it's usually the middle of winter and the solar panels don't work that well. Or th...
|
35. Posted: 16 Feb 2016 13:59 - General Forum / Break ins/cabin security
...o alkaline 6 volt batteries in series for 12 volts are good for 13 amp hours. Lead acid batteries can have even more capacity. You could go 2 months between lantern battery changes. A small wattage solar panel with rechargeable battery/batteries could be self sustaining. This is a simplified approach, batteries won't deliver .007 amps all the way down to 0 vol...
|
36. Posted: 14 Feb 2016 11:46 - Cabin Construction / Solar Cistern?
... I tried using SketchUp to make a little model but the version I was using seemed very buggy and I got frustrated and reverted to pencil and paper! This drawing is a cutaway of the east side. The solar air heating panel slopes and faces south naturally. The main limitation of this design is that you need a building site that drops off sharply to the south or else ...
|
37. Posted: 14 Feb 2016 00:08 - Cabin Construction / Solar Cistern?
Actually my drawing might not show it very well but I did mean that the solar collector is an air heater that heats up the shed through air convection. The collector is two layers with the front being glass. The tank itself is in the dark. You can look up desi...
|
38. Posted: 13 Feb 2016 10:19 - General Forum / Break ins/cabin security
...#039;s 9-volt backup battery will last 15 hours. My goal is to figure out what size 12V battery I need to power it using the buck converter for at least two weeks. I'd prefer not to hook it to a solar panel to keep the battery charged.
|
39. Posted: 12 Feb 2016 12:50 - Off-Grid Living / Portable washer
...d and how many watt hours do they use over the whole cycle? Would they run off a basic 900 watt MSW inverter or would they require a pure sine wave inverter? I have only a very small basic off-grid solar power system (100watt panel, 114amp hour deep cycle batter, 900watt MSW inverter) and I'm curious as to whether or not it could handle running one of these mach...
|
40. Posted: 12 Feb 2016 11:44 - Cabin Construction / Solar Cistern?
...the tank heavily and then setup a small system to heat the water directly. You could make this a passive thermosiphoning system if you want to avoid dependence on a pump. To do this you would put a solar water heating panel below the height of your tank and then connect it to a vertical copper coil which is inside your tank by using through-wall fittings. Here'...
|
41. Posted: 12 Feb 2016 09:15 - General Forum / Why are you here?
...s to sit for a year until it's able to become manure. I have no idea what a weekend is since I've lived in the country my whole life it's pretty much I plan on in the first year going solar panel will be the must in the spring , no later than 4 I need to get a fire stove I live in northern Canada so by October it starts getting pretty cold by November i...
|
42. Posted: 10 Feb 2016 21:20 - Off Topic / I think the site needs a few more categories
Thanks for the input, However the list of categories can be endless, constantly evolving and some posts may belong to multiple categories (for example, a solar setup post will have batteries, panels, etc.)... I think it will be too difficult to manage. Also, the forum software is not setup to easily add such categories. If...
|
43. Posted: 9 Feb 2016 19:31 - Off Topic / I think the site needs a few more categories
I've noticed that a lot of information and requests for information seem to be posted on here in cycles. There will be a lot of posts about cook stoves, then laundry solutions, then solar products, then batteries, then wood heating stoves, and so on. The type of post seems to cycle with the seasons. Since a lot of the same questions and products keep getting mentione...
|
44. Posted: 5 Feb 2016 17:38 - Cabin Construction / Solar Cistern?
... drinking water. But...to prevent freezing, I would either need to drain the cistern in the winter or bury it and go to a pump system...except for the bedrock. So I came up with an idea for passive solar heating for a 500 gal above-ground cistern that could provide year around liquid water, as opposed to the hard kind. The area (WA state) has winter high temps in the 20s and 30s and...
|
45. Posted: 3 Feb 2016 23:27 - Cabin Construction / Generator to Breaker Box
...installation. The NEC would consider the generator to be a "separately derived system". By definition, a separately derived system is a "premises wiring system whose power is derived from a battery, a solar photovoltaic system, or from a generator and that has no direct electrical connection to supply conductors originating in another system." That is a quote from...
|
46. Posted: 1 Feb 2016 18:10 - Off-Grid Living / Pitcher Pump as backup for a well?
... on the end of it. I marked 20 foot increments on the line with a permanent marker. There are also sonic machines that tell the depth by echo. There are numerous electric well pumps made to work off solar. Grundfos makes one that will work off DC or AC, and will accept a wide range of voltages. So it could be run by solar or 240 off a generator or utility. $2000....
|
47. Posted: 31 Jan 2016 09:40 - Off-Grid Living / What's the best way to power 9-volt or 5-volt electronics off-grid?
... to consider when setting up a small basic off-grid system would be to choose a battery charge controller with builtin USB charging ports. I have the VicTec Intelligent LCD 30A 12V/24V 360W/720W PWM Solar Panel Regulator which has two builtin USB ports. It's a rather lowend inexpensive device but it works ok for my simple system made up of a 100 watt pan...
|
48. Posted: 29 Jan 2016 17:00 - Off-Grid Living / Looking for advice---12 volt vs 120 volt for cabin
Durk: My system is solar powered. I have 318 watts of panels and a 110 AH AGM battery. I usually only have 128 watts of panel mounted on the roof, with another 190 watt ...
|
49. Posted: 28 Jan 2016 21:29 - Off-Grid Living / Looking for advice---12 volt vs 120 volt for cabin
We do phones, tablets, water pump, lighting with 12volt system. genny for tools. Our solar system is 1 100 watt panel and 2 small batteries, less than $200. we easily go weeks without firing up the genny .
|
51. Posted: 22 Jan 2016 01:29 - Off-Grid Living / So Bosch has premium lithium solar storage
Just That's great! I've read that when the sun peeks out, the reflection off the snow increases solar production. So, I do hope for happy surprises in the winter! I was told by someone who had a pretty large PV system near where my land is to expect and plan for a lot of densely cl...
|
52. Posted: 21 Jan 2016 21:32 - Off-Grid Living / So Bosch has premium lithium solar storage
...se blocks in the freezer should help keep the temperature extra cold and my freezer from cycling as much, too. Yeah, I am going to have the cabin wired for 120 volts. It will be simple enough for my solar guy to do and I want it wired in case more people build on my road and Pacific Light puts in transformers and poles at some point. Power isn't far now but, dang, is it expensive...
|
53. Posted: 20 Jan 2016 23:23 - Off-Grid Living / So Bosch has premium lithium solar storage
Just No, I've found a solar ceiling fan with its own panel. The only things I'm running on electric are a small chest freezer, a Shur-Flo water pump, a small flat-panel T...
|
54. Posted: 8 Jan 2016 10:09 - Off-Grid Living / Attaching solar panel to corrugated roof?
I did something similar as SEOhio. I attached my solar panels to a post at the back of my cabin. I used a log as my post and built a platform on top to place my two 40 watt panels. I routed grooves in ...
|
55. Posted: 3 Jan 2016 16:36 - Off-Grid Living / Attaching solar panel to corrugated roof?
...your neck of the (north) woods, I agree you'll probably get good value from the adjustment. My panel runs LEDs for a few hours and a stereo all day, that's all. IMHO, pilferers don't seem to go after solar stuff very often. My neighbors panels have set down low for years. They did lose a gas grill once. I wouldn't dare leave a ...
|
56. Posted: 3 Jan 2016 13:20 - Member's Projects and Photos / Southeast Ohio Cabin
...o gap. My oldest often recluses in the loft, and leans way over the rail, raising his mother's stress level. A new higher rail was added. He'll be disappointed. Got new higher wattage solar panel installed. My Harbor Freight solar setup is now like George Washington's "original ax, only the handle and ax-head have been replac...
|
57. Posted: 29 Dec 2015 02:28 - Off-Grid Living / battery bank with grid trickle charge
...reciated. Everyone in my neighbourhood is off-grid. About half the homes here are on this larger micro-hydro system, a couple of homes have their own smaller micro-hydro systems and the rest are on solar/battery-banks. As you thought, this larger system is capable of dumping about 8 to 10Kw via baseboard heaters to "burn off" unused power. Kind of a waste, but it's j...
|
58. Posted: 28 Dec 2015 20:15 - Off-Grid Living / battery bank with grid trickle charge
...o net out to 6 KWH or less in this scenario. Totally feasible, but tight. (Fridge + lights + stereo) -- all possible, but you are going to need to invest in energy efficient components. Adding a few solar panels to a system like this would really work well... or maybe see if the folks running the hydro will let you take a little more... like 300 or 350 watts... or tak...
|
59. Posted: 28 Dec 2015 08:45 - Off-Grid Living / battery bank with grid trickle charge
...at he is making available power wise) then some components could be recommended. For comparison: At our place we have a median output of about 250 watts from our microhydro. This is combined with a solar array to charge a single battery bank, which then provides all the AC power for the property. On cloudy rainy days the hydro can often be turned up (doing about 500 watts right now~ ...
|
60. Posted: 27 Dec 2015 16:49 - Off-Grid Living / battery bank with grid trickle charge
...ere isn't enough extra amps/watts in the system to run my home, but certainly enough to keep a battery bank on constant trickle charge. Most information on battery banks is about charging via solar panels or wind mills. I've not found any information regarding putting together a grid-charged battery bank. Any help out there?
|
|
