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241. Posted: 26 Mar 2015 15:13 - Off-Grid Living / Off Grid Solar at $0.16/kWh
Quoting: creekyhi electrodacus. i have followed your build for some years now. since you started your home build. your solar controller / bms for lithium. I am looking at 4 700 amp winston cells for my off grid home. i use about 2.5-4 kw daily depending on how much sun I get (1.5 when it's really dark...
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242. Posted: 26 Mar 2015 11:44 - Off-Grid Living / is your system "separately derived"?
... An important point comes to mind. Your system will be different than my own, but to describe my system and give an example, my system is this: I have a battery bank, inverter with charge controller, solar panels, and a generator. I have a double pole, double throw switch I integrated into my system to power my electrical panel, switching power between...
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243. Posted: 26 Mar 2015 10:54 - Member's Projects and Photos / rmak's pond
...ly enjoy sitting in my chair at the pond. Saw a mayfly spilling eggs in there Friday....a good thing!!! I have a automatic fish feeder I made from a deer feeder to feed daily fish pellets. I bought a solar panel yesterday to keep the batter charged on the feeder. $$$ well spent at camp was the pond....so much enjoyment from it. My 3 GRANDboys will be cat...
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244. Posted: 25 Mar 2015 16:43 - Off-Grid Living / Off Grid Solar at $0.16/kWh
.../kWh is a bit misleading because that is the amortisation cost for all the equipment but not for installation. I moved offgrid about two years ago and I was searching for solutions to power my house. Solar PV was an easy choice but battery was extremely expensive (I'm not referring to initial cost but at amortisation cost). My house (also build that one) is small you can even call...
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245. Posted: 22 Mar 2015 08:02 - General Forum / power source
Solar panels for the beginner How to Part one Missouri Wind and Solar simple instructions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyxWu2RVQYo
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246. Posted: 19 Mar 2015 20:00 - Off Topic / Give away contest for a Wind Turbine.
Missouri Wind and Solar is giving away a wind turbine as first prize in one of their contests on youtube. This is their 10th contest and they tend to have one every couple months. In the past I myself have ...
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247. Posted: 16 Mar 2015 13:36 - Off-Grid Living / Recommendations for 12v LED lights?
...heatsinks and attached the lights to those with some JBweld in between. The lights operate flawlessly and I run them off a 100ah sealed deep cycle battery in the attic with cheap small trickle charge solar panel. Works great for weekend visits. URL
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248. Posted: 15 Mar 2015 13:49 - Off-Grid Living / Considering re locating charge controller to reduce line loss
...our charge controller. That'll cut your line loss in 1/4. Warning: you must be using an MPPT controller to turn the high voltage back into amps to charge your batteries. AND the controller must support the max voc (as seen on the back of the panel) times 4. Plus temp. compensation. For the additional voltage cold weather creates: that's the degrees your solar...
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249. Posted: 15 Mar 2015 12:33 - General Forum / power source
...stay away from the cheap chinese components, especially if you're depending on them 24/7 Figure out exactly what you need to power. I think some good sites have been recommended here for basic solar understanding maybe someone can post a link for you. There's a lot to take into consideration...Size and types of panels, charge controller, battery bank, wir...
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250. Posted: 15 Mar 2015 11:06 - General Forum / power source
...you need is a hair dryer (sadly, that's becoming less and less of a need for me) or a small microwave that you use only to warm things up for a minute or so, my guess is you could get by with a solar panel, a couple of batteries, and an inverter big enough to handle those items.
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251. Posted: 14 Mar 2015 08:58 - General Forum / Break ins/cabin security
...6;50 in parts. Add some wire and a box for the controller and that's it. I'm sure you can even do better than this for cost as I just quickly searched. I will add that, depending on your solar power system, you might find that the draw from a standard alarm system is really not going to make an impact. I know our house system (bunch of door/window sensors, glass break, mo...
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252. Posted: 13 Mar 2015 14:36 - Off-Grid Living / Solar power equals freedom
...rns to rain. If you build a cover, its taxed by county. Have you looked into "park model" cabins? No taxes. How about north central WA, plenty of sunlight, over 300 days per year, great for solar panels. A realator specializing in North Central Wa is http://www.dirt-cheap-dirt.com , no one around for miles. Be ready to rack on lots of miles, nothing is a shor...
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253. Posted: 11 Mar 2015 10:33 - Properties / Should I buy this? (Ontario)
...lately. The Cabin looks pretty nice from the pics you posted. It certainly looks like it's wired for power but I could not see a power line running to it... Underground line ? Generator ? Solar ?? IF there is Hydro running to it, that's a BIG dollar saving as OPG & Hydro One have gone somewhat mental on costing to run power up to a property... and they try to ma...
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254. Posted: 11 Mar 2015 09:48 - Off-Grid Living / Cheap charge controllers
...I may decide to live in the cabin full-time in which case I would want a bigger system than if it's just for weekend use. My building site is also in the woods so it's hard to tell what my solar production will be per day. I cut down trees strategically so that I maximized direct solar gain in winter but the path of the sun changes and leaves come out in su...
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255. Posted: 11 Mar 2015 06:41 - Off-Grid Living / Solar Panel Charging setup
would these solar panel setups work to control an automatic gate at the entrance of a property or to run an aerator or fountain in a pond?
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256. Posted: 9 Mar 2015 19:45 - Off-Grid Living / Solar Panel Charging setup
I am open to getting more batteries and solar panels. The coffee is kind of crucial to have for me and being able to make it fast is a big plus for what I want. I'm a commercial fisherman and its really nic...
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257. Posted: 9 Mar 2015 18:26 - Off-Grid Living / Solar Panel Charging setup
Hello guys, First time posting. I don't know where else I can post to ask questions about solar panel charging and battery setups because I am new to this. This set up will be for my fish camp i use only in the summer time. I have a honda generator, but I'...
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258. Posted: 7 Mar 2015 16:02 - General Forum / Sold my cabin- lessons learned for the next one
Quoting: Vince P1. Smallish, trickle charge solar panels rarely work well for very long and in some cases they actually discharged the battery (!) With snow covering them least 5 months out of the year, the winter c...
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259. Posted: 3 Mar 2015 19:48 - Member's Projects and Photos / Our little offgrid cabin in Nova Scotia
The cabin is powered with two 175 watt solar panels and a bank of 5 110 amp hr rv batteries. This is a pic in front of the cabin
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260. Posted: 28 Feb 2015 15:05 - Off-Grid Living / Final off-grid wiring
... basic rule of thumb about 5 years ago. When I did my initial research I noticed that off grid, either full time or RV boondocking, the folks who were happy with their systems typically had 1 watt of solar panel per 1 amp of battery capacity (measured at 12v). The rest grumbled about "genny time" and worse. with lead acid over discharge & under charge = ...
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261. Posted: 26 Feb 2015 14:51 - Cabin Construction / Foundations
...oad the container off my trailer. I have 2 x 5 ton winches installed one on either end of my truck so I'll be using them to lift anything I need to lift above my knee height. Even thought of the solar panel to recharge my truck batteries. Got same panel for skidoo,quad,tractor and sawmill. When I say I have 4 load I mean 4 32 x 12 x 12 foot contai...
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262. Posted: 23 Feb 2015 17:10 - Off Topic / better day today.
Here is my red,white and blue picture for the week and the snow covered barn.The solar panels have stayed pretty clear of snow due to the angle of the panels and the fact that the panels face south and the wind blows f...
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263. Posted: 23 Feb 2015 16:41 - Cabin Construction / Foundations
...night which is a further energy cost all the time. but theres something to be said for wiring the cabin for 120vAC its simple and sensible and if you want that go 24v or 48v if the cables from your solar panels are longer than 30 feet, 12v can give trouble with voltage losses. its more complicated than that but many are using higher volts like 24 and 48 because thei...
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264. Posted: 20 Feb 2015 18:29 - Off-Grid Living / Tracer MPPT charge controller vs PWM
...limit how much energy can be put into them at any one time; how many watts in total. Those batteries will require the same number of watts to recharge, no matter where the energy is coming from; PWM solar, MPPT solar or a grid tied charger. When comparing PWM and MPPT solar the MPPT should charge more quickly. The greatest difference may be seen at ti...
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265. Posted: 20 Feb 2015 16:28 - Off-Grid Living / Tracer MPPT charge controller vs PWM
...troller regarding voltage and battery amperage input in identical conditions the winner is.........both, that's right, it was a dead heat, neither held an advantage over the other on my 400 watt solar system. The only thing I can think of is on a larger system the Tracer may have the advantage and it does have more battery conditioning features than my PWM, and we need to remembe...
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267. Posted: 20 Feb 2015 14:28 - Off-Grid Living / Partially frozen batteries... need advice.
If it was only frozen to slush you are likely okay. Hard freezes can/will damage the battery internally, maybe even split a case. Does your solar charge controller have temperature compensation? If not that can be problematic as the voltage won't be high enough for a full charge at that kind of temperature. Thaw the bat...
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268. Posted: 20 Feb 2015 11:17 - Off-Grid Living / Partially frozen batteries... need advice.
...here in northern MI have got down to as low as -27. Batteries were good for the first day or 2. Just not getting full capacity because if the temps. We have 2 6v 210ah golf cart batteries and 400w of solar panels. Have a generator for back up but that went out on our 2nd night here. (Just replaced it yesterday under extended warranty... whew). The batteries just got d...
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269. Posted: 19 Feb 2015 21:40 - Cabin Construction / On demand water heaters...again.
...built a water tower(have a post about it here) hoping to use the pressure from the tower to run the shower. Alas, there is not quite enough pressure so we are using a gasoline powered pump. Moving to solar panel/pump in a few years. We have excellent water pressure in our cabin kitchen sink( don't have hot water). Edited to add, outdoor shower,summer use,off g...
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270. Posted: 19 Feb 2015 16:30 - Off-Grid Living / Tracer plug in Meter
... explanation for the erronious power readings for the meter made just for their own charge controller under Operation Instructions: it explains what MPPT is and then goes on to say this amazing thing...."So the solar panel charging current may not equals to the sum of battery charging current and load current" in other words, because of MPPT this meter will ...
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