The Professor’s Podium is continued from here
Hillbilly Bill – at 21:25
After a full day of sun, my battey bank was back up to 95%. I didn’t use any other power from it. I have it on the battery charger now to get it back up to full.
I am seeking a source for 2 volt 1000 amp deep cycle batteries local to Washington DC. Eccles? Anyone else?
LMWatBullRun calling Eccles – at 13:21
Well at least you aren’t looking for anything out of the ordinary….
Well, at least I’m not asking for anything that nobody makes anymore….I know these are available and I can run ‘em down eventually, but I thought either you or Eccles would be able to save me some time looking. You guys had a good tip on the NH solar panels; I bought 24 for my backup site.
I don’t have nay inside line on batteries that large. I would suspect that those are such a specialized item that you would need to search out a dealer. Sorry. :-(
intent is to put together a bank for about 48,000 VAh to supply a reqmnt of 12,000Wh demand for the house. Intend to power w/ 12 120W panels and a slow speed diesel for topoff at night.
I also am going to price out buying a forktruck battery. Giant makes ‘em and they have a MD distributor.
Eccles or HBB do you have any recommendations for batteries (smaller size)at all?
LMW - Up until now, I have been content to run on Yuasa batteries or Dekka batteries (East Penn Mfg). I have not yet gone to any major battery capacity, so I can’t really give much advice once you get above the SLA class.
I have an AT&T Lead/Calcium battery that I bought surplus about 12 years ago which is still going strong. i think they used it to power central station equipment, and I suspect it was massively overspec’ed.
Sorry. there are others who frequent this thread like Will who have had much experience with flooded batteries for solar installations. They may have more input on the subject.
How many cycles have your Yuasa batteries sustained?
interesting side note- 1/4″ diameter copper tubing has 50% more copper than 6ga wire and is half the price. Takes fittings nicely, too.
Further note-
I’d love to find a good source for surplus phone company batteries but haven’t lucked into that yet.
Since I’m new to this and I bought my batteries at Walmart, I don’t really feel qualified to make a recommendation.
anonymous – at 11:42
on somebody else’s machine….sigh
LMWatBullRun calling Eccles – at 13:21 I am seeking a source for 2 volt 1000 amp deep cycle batteries local to Washington DC.
You might try contacting your local phone company and ask them who their supplier is. IIRC, the Central Office I toured in 2000 used a series of very large 1.5V cells.
Thanks, Dennis I may do jsut that and will report back if I hear anything worthwhile.
“HBB – at 11:42 Since I’m new to this and I bought my batteries at Walmart, I don’t really feel qualified to make a recommendation. “
I got my deep cycles at Wally World too. Hope to get a couple more as soon as I can scape enough pennies together so I can do it without the wife noticing. She just doesn’t understand. :(
MK Battery makes a line of VERY good Absorbed Glass Mat, gel cells, and sealed lead-acid batteries.
Warehouses all over the USA. http://www.mkbattery.com/locations.php
We use them as emergency backup power at mountain top repeater sites.
REALLY happy with my AGM batteries so far.
LMW - I haven’t really kept track. Since they are mostly stand-by applications, I don’t think my experience would be indicative of what daily deep cycle users would experience. What I can tell you is that I have on Yuasa that has finally gone south on me after about 10 years of service. that seems pretty OK with me.
SAFT makes some monster batteries. All flavours; NiMh, NiCd, and lead-acid in various configurations.
Above a certain size, an off-grid power system could become a full-time job to operate, IMHO.
Above a certain weight, you will need to have a loading dock and a forklift or the companies will not deliver the batteries to you.
AVanarts – at 16:15
My DW has trouble grasping the importance also. I have found that 80lb batteies are difficult to sneak home.
I think on one of the major brand battery sites where I saw they offered custom battery configuations. Try Concorde, Dekka, Trojan, MK.
LMW wrote: I am seeking a source for 2 volt 1000 amp deep cycle batteries local to Washington DC.
That’s a hefty battery! I’ve focused on batteries that I could carry, because my battery bank is in a basement that is not a walkout.
Concorde has an AGM SunXtender 2volt PVX-6480T that is rated at 518 amps at a 2 hour draw. I use a smaller version of this battery (PVX-1380T) in a bank of 12 that I’ve been using for about 6 years (primarily on careful float) and they show no apparent signs of aging.
I see you are looking at forklift batteries as well; can I ask why you want such large batteries, and how you plan to maneuver them?
Bump
what the heck…bump
Will-
Moving heavy things is easy when you have a extendahoe. I am looking to set up a permanent offgrid system for my abode, and my calcs show I need about 48,000 VAH of storage. I had thought to use 24 2 volt 1000 AH deep cycle batteries.
I have considered doubling up using the Concordes, too; I could go half and half on the bank then.
Eccles (and anyone else), I know you’ve posted before the links to places where you buy good quality, low cost NiCad rechargable batteries, but I can’t seem to find it now. Would you kindly re-post the info? Thanks!
Kim -
my usual supplier is MCM Electronics. Their main website is ww.mcminone.com.
Here is a link to their Rechargeable Batteries
In getting the link for you, I notice they are really down in stock on lots of their rechargeable batteries. I don’t know what’s up with that, but it is certainly interesting.
Eccles-
A question regarding rechargeable NiMH- What is the longenvity difference between the lower AH rated ones and the higher rated ones? do the more powerful battteries have shorter lives?
Are computers (laptops) fussy about the type of power that charges the battery? I have a Vector “Power on Board” 100W inverter and would like to use it, with the car cigarette lighter socket, for our iBook. DH said he wouldn’t use it to run the laptop, just to recharge it. Does that sound good or is it risky? I suppose we’d have to recharge while driving to avoid draining the car battery. I’m guessing here. Thanks for your help!
Jane – at 09:57
You may have to contact the manufacturer to make sure, but most laptops have a power conditioner built into the wall cube. If so, there are no problems using, or recharging, your laptop from your inverter. I have run my Dell laptop for many hours on trips using a cheap Walmart inverter with no problems.
To eliminate running the car, you might want to invest in a storage battery and a solar panel or two.
Ditto what Hillbilly Bill said. The bigger question is that instead of going:
Car > Inverter > Power supply > laptop
If you buy the 12V power supply for the laptop you can go
Car > power supply > laptop
This will use less energy. Also, having the 12V power supply will let you run MUCH more efficiently from the storage battery and solar panels Bill recommended.
Some of the solar panels I ordered arrived damaged and after I called the company, they said they would replace them and that I could just pitch the damaged panels. Since they still work, I have no intention of pitching them, but the question arose of how best to utilize them. They are cracked on the backside and therefore need to be kept dry to continue working.
I’m considering buying one of those yard and garden carts that roll around easily on infaltable tires. I could fit a battery or three in the cart and mount the panels on an adjustable frame over the top of the cart. This way, I can move the cart around in the yard to keep the panels oriented toward the sun, (plenty of time when we SIP right?), and also bring the cart inside at night. This would make a handy charging station and also provide a little power for some nighttime illumination. You know, I bet there is a market for something like this…
Hillbilly Bill – at 14:20
How about mount them inside a south facing window? You may not want to move them around since they are more ‘fragile’ than the good ones.
ANON-YYZ – at 14:25
You mean duct tape won’t hold them together?
Seriously, all my southern-facing windows face trees. In fact, ALL my windows face trees.
Hillbilly Bill – at 15:29
Duct tape might work, but I would be concerned about sudden shower and water damage, if the panels have cracks.
If it’s 15W, you won’t fill more than half of a 20Ah battery(something like Xantrex 400 so you don’t have to buy a charge controller, inverter). Alternative to moving around: panel facing south and add reflectors on both sides to extend sun-hours without moving. Reflectors could be steel wire frame with aluminum foil.
ANON-YYZ – at 16:26
I really want to push the cart around the yard. Between that and my tarp rainwater collectors I’m sure what neighbors I’ll have left will consider me totally bonkers.
Hillbilly Bill – at 16:31
Good excercise too …
Repairing Broken Solar Panels- this guy knows what he is talking about.Kelly
I’m sure what neighbors I’ll have left will consider me totally bonkers.
Just ‘splain to ‘em that you’re practicing for the next Mars landing…
Eccles, refresh my aging memory here. Increased sunlight intensity increases current, not voltage, right? So if HBB’s reflector scheme works and say results in a 50% increase in sunlight, it would also increase current by 50% too, n’est pas? This is an intriguing thought…….
LMW- That’s essentially correct, except for one boundary condition which I won’t pontificate about too much.
The solar panel converts incident photons (particles of light) to photoelectrons, which are what creates the current. The more photons, the more photoelectrons, and therefore the greater the current, as current is defined as the number of charge carriers (electrons) per second.
The boundary condition I refer to is when the load resistance is very low compared to the internal resistance of the panel. First, you should be aware that the solar panel looks electrically like a voltage source in series with a resistor. You can easily determine the internal resistance of a panel by measuring the open circuit voltage and the short circuit current. Without going into a network analysis, basically, if you measure the short circuit current of the panel, the voltage across the short circuit will be zero. therefore, the current produced is determined by the ohms law product of V(cell) / R(cell) where V is the characteristic voltage of the cell and R is its internal resistance. And so in light starved conditions, with too low a load resistance, the voltage expressed across the load will increase with increasing light. But that’s not the conditions we hope to be operating under.
Comment to purists - I know this was an over simplification, but without introducing much more math and physics, we are fine just as we are.
Additional note to LMW - The one problem you may encounter with adding reflectors as light concentrators is overheating of the panel and subsequent loss of performance. Solar panels do not like to operate hot. SInce they are very inefficient devices, most of the light you feed them gets converted to heat, rather than electricity. First of all, the efficiency will actually go down with the temperature of the solar cells. Thus, adding additional light is not always a very profitable venture. Additionally, due to the extra heat introduced by the additional light, it is possible to actually cause physical damage in the structure or wiring of the cell. So be aware, and proceed with caution.
Eccles, thanks. That’s what I thought I recalled.
I do have the P vs T diagrams for both the new Kyocera panels and the BP panels, so do have some handle on that. As a budding codger, I’ll cogitate a bit. Much will depend on how the panels I get are cooled. There may be an opportunity for some supplemental cooling; I have a 55 d F water source above the location of the panels…….
Also, what I was thinking was that perhaps a properly set-up reflector system could stretch the effective hours of insolation at my location especially in the morning when temps are lower anyhow.
Higher voltage conditions in PV panels occur during cool/cold weather, hence that’s when http://www.solar-electric.com/charge_controls/mppt.htmmulti-point power trackers are most effective.
Higher voltage conditions in PV panels occur during cool/cold weather, hence that’s when multi-point power trackers (MPPT) are most effective.
LMW - An interesting thought. If you have fixed panels, then you could indeed have supplementary reflectors which would operate for a small portion of the day to supplement the insolation. The mechanical aspects of that would mean that your array would now need to be physically much larger as you could not then just have a continuous surface of panel, but would need space between each one for the reflectors and mounts.
Np1 – at 16:45
Thanks for that link Kelly. I’ll definitely keep that for reference. Oddly enough I did notice that even the panel that looked like it had been smashed on the front by a baseball was still working. The two panels that were cracked on the back were working perfectly and I did not notice the damage until I had them on the roof ready to mount. I definitely will get some use out of them somehow.
I am looking into building an insulated solar closet to attach to my back south facing wall to act as a passive solar heater in the winter based on some design work by nick pine and barra for an inexpensive low thermal mass heat unit and I am looking for some thermostatically controlled vents to use to make the convective loop more productive. Does anyone have a favorite store for such things?
LMW wrote; my calcs show I need about 48,000 VAH of storage.
How many days of storage are you calculating for?
one day at 12 KVAH per day for all household loads
We have a energy-miser plan so that if we are in a situation where we could lose power, we would cut almost everything off except for spartan use of the well pump, CFL lights and a couple of other minor loads. Our 15kWhr battery bank could last us well over a week with absolutely no sunlight (though even in most cloudy weather situations, we still generate at least 1–3 kWh/day with our PV array). With our stock of non-perishable food, we would use up the refrigerated food first, then turn it off (door ajar to preclude mold growth). We have solar/crank-powered radios and flashlights that require no additional power to charge. Any excess energy generated during the day (when the battery bank is full) will go towards frugal clotheswashing, dishwashing, baths, and other secondary needs.
Will, what sort of panels do you use? I’m leaning toward Kyocera but have an open mind.
Just bought my batteries.
Two. Interstate Powercare DCS-100L AGMs.
$220 each including tax and core charge.
12v 100AH @ 20 Hr Rate.
Seventy pounds each.
This is within my budget but oh it hurt to hand over the dough.
Three 50watt GE panels, MPPT controller.
Just pieces, but finally mostly all here. Not connected. No AC charger yet. No panel mount, no cable, no inverter, no extras at all.
Tis expensive indeed to be even a small portion of your own power supplier.
I took advantage of a special buydown when Solarex thin film panels came out, 43Watts each, 72 volts. They have since been replaced by later models. My system is 48 volts, so the MPPT charger works wonders on capturing the full capability of these panels.
Before discussing specific panels, have you completed a thorough design? Not to be picky, but there are a lot of considerations, including the specific charger you have in mind. In addition, what is the projected size of your array in peak watts?
bump
Will-
No, I have not done a complete component level selection yet. The MPPT technology is interesting, but I do note some downside to it. I am planning for a 1500 to 2000 watt array initially with plans to eventually double that. The balance of the power will be provided by a slow speed diesel running at night driving both a generator and a compressor for an ice storage system compressor.
Will and Eccles-
I am considering an eventual transition to a 30 hp steam turbine or dual cylinder steam engine with a wood fired boiler plant, but that time is at least 5 years down the road. For the mid-term the lister diesel looks very good; we’ll see how it does on the long haul.
bump
The more I consider how unpredictable a pandemic may be, the more I think it wise to keep my alternative energy plans flexible. I do have some panels mounted on the roof but I will also have some extras that can be moved around. My focus this fall is going to be on buying more batteries so I can have seperate charging and power “stations”. In an extreme situation, I want to be able to pack some of my equipment in my truck if we have to move to a more defensible position.
Pi Tainer – at 21:10
“Tis expensive indeed to be even a small portion of your own power supplier.”
Ain’t that the truth!
Sounds like you bought some really nice batteries and panels.
The only thermostat controlled vent i have been able to find that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg is on ebay called an intellivent- i guess they aren’t made any more— thinking i could wire one to work with a small solar panel to power it— but would still need a cheap thermostat- (trying to build this passive solar heater for under $100.00 using materials around the house, garage)
has anyone else built a passive solar heater from scratch?
LMWatBullRun;
If I might ask, what loads do you have that require so much power? Conservation measures can greatly reduce the cost and complexity of the solution.
Eastern Shore Prepper, here are some 12–24 vdc axial fans ($20) that move 100 cfm
http://kansaswindpower.net/fans,_coolers.htm
Here’s a place called Sustainable Village that sells dc fans, but I can’t figure out their shipping policies (do they sell only to developing countries???)
http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/servlet/display/products/byCat/11/30/all/
Here is a dc snap switch that turns fans on at 100 degrees, off below that temp
http://www.hollysolar.com/html/fans1.html
This outfit also sells fans and thermostats
http://www.orientalmotor.com/products/fan/index_html.htm
I can’t vouch for any of these companies (except Kansas Wind Power, who I’m VERY happy with) because I’ve never dealt with them before.
Will-
Appreciate your concern. I have allowed for significant conservation and load flattening in the design, thanks.
I’m jump in in part 7 with a newbie question. I want to get a small stand alone freezer for the basement and run it by solr power. Possible? Where do i start?
Okay - don’t everybody jump right in… :-)
“a small stand alone freezer for the basement and run it by solr power”, asked amak.
Well, can we choose the location for the basement? Permafrost areas have a very low power requirement (like zero) for freezer-cabinets built below the ground-depth freezeline.
If we can not choose the location of the basement, then sure, it is fairly easy to build a system that will power a freezer in the basement.
First choice, a propane powered freezer run off a buried 1,000 gallon propane tank. Not very solar but the cheapest “quiet” option (other than changing your mind). Less than seven grand installed.
I lived with a battery / inverter / freezer-refrigerator for a half a year, powered by big wind generators but this is same/same with solar pv panels. In today’s cost that system could be put in your hands for a measly …. pause here while I think about cost … which is connected to the size of the freezer and its load … I’d go fourteen grand to start … depends on if you have the housing necessary for the batteries. Just a wild acs guess.
I just spent two grand on a system that would power the LIGHTBULB in your freezer.
Not being too funny …. run the numbers.
Pi
http://www.affordable-solar.com/nova.kool.rfu8000.6.8.cu.ft.fridge.freezer.htm
24vdc freezerator $2,000 delivered and installed.
24 amps per day at 24vdc. I do not understand this … amps per day.
I need daily watt-hours to figure the load.
24 amps times 24vdc per day is about 600 watt-hours per day.
To be safe, let us say one thousand watt-hours per day, i.e. 1 KWhr/day.
So if this is close, and I do not trust my numbers, others will jump in with much more expertise, and we figure days without much sun, say a five day cloudy situation, we gotta store 5 KWhrs. Put a different way, we gotta store 5000 watt hours.
Holy Batman, we got a problem. My system can store 200 watt hours, the batteries cost $410. Twenty five times that gives me ten grand in US dollars for batteries. There is a factor of scale, so let us say half that, five grand in batteries. Plus a house to store the batteries … say three grand.
Now, we gotta put the juice into the batteries. I do not know, off the top of my head, how to do any of this, it takes time to get it right, and this is just a short guess. So …
eight 150 watt panels, I am gonna need an abicuss to figure all this … Say twelve grand installed. Just a guess here, like I said. And we need a charge controller, another grand.
Plus all the cables and little bits and pieces.
Like the fellow said, “What you mean I’m out of money, I still got checks in my checkbook.”
I by passed the battery input requirement (how may 150 watt panels needed to make about a KW per day) because I do not know the particulars. A fellow on another board makes 4000 KWhrs a year on a 20,000 dollar system (todays cost before tax rebates) and he has NO BATTERIES.
I will be interested to see how close these numbers are when figured from those folks who know how to do this.
Eccles? Will? The numbers please.
Pi
LMWatBullRun;
If I might ask, what loads do you have that require so much power? Conservation measures can greatly reduce the cost and complexity of the solution.
Eastern Shore Prepper,
A far easier solution is a solar window box, which needs no thermostatic vent (cool air falls to the bottom, where it is trapped). See [http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm | simple solar projects] for one solution (and google for others).
LMW,
Ignore last repeat.
We live very comfortably on about 1500 watts solar input to a 1800 amp hour battery bank.The battery bank is 12 volt feeding into a 3600 watt Vanner sinewave inverter. We have a few 12 volt loads. I have a small backup battery bank and 2500 watt square wave inverter( backup) and a 5000 watt Honda generator to equalize the batteries and help with cloudy days, welder, deep well pump,ect.We have three networked computers that talk to the outside world via satellite( Earthlink)Lots of lights, stereo,TV(DVD and VCR only as I do not much care for TV and it lives in a cabinet most of the time ).
We pump water mostly with solar,600 watts to an LCB to a jack pump. From 300 feet . Can get about 1200 gallons on a sunney summer day.
It is kinda hard to say how much we have into our system because it grew with us. We built a earthship so our heating and cooling expense is low. I would say maybe 15,000 in panels, inverters,batteries,switches, monitors,ect. Our refer is propane.
Life is good and I like not being hooked up to society for these things. But it is a lot of responsibility being my own power and water company. Kelly
Amak - Without trying to start a fight here, the first thing I will tell you is that some of the calculations you have seen here are not the best to use for your situation.
But the first thing, before we start throwing numbers at you and dollar figures is to ask some very simple questions.
Once we have gotten the answers to these questions, we can begin looking at your own location and situation to see what the best way to proceed would be for you.
Well… I was looking to get a small freezer just cuz the kitchen one is so small. And throwing it down to the basement since that’s the only place I have space. I’m supposing it would need to be running all the time to keep stuff frozen.. I don’t really have any details on it - just been looking at them at the store. What info do I need to knw about it?
TRULY, I’d like to power that and be able to charge and/or run a laptop, portable dvd player. (Sanity saving devices to keep the kids busy in between crayons and playdoh if we’d lose electricity - I know that sounds silly as there would be such greater issues, but if the s never htf, then I could be powering my stuff without running up my monthly bill). Whereas I wish I could totally go off grid, that is not a reality so I thought I would look into a few toys powered with solar if possible.
Amak- The first two things you need to understand is that first off, creating large amounts of electricity using a solar system usually entails a sizable initial outlay of green, and generally, the standard consumer grade freezer consumes large amounts of electricity.
If we seperate out your desires, it would be fairly straightforward to put in a system which could charge your laptop, your cellphone and run a portable DVD player or even a modest TV system. But those demands are actually rather small against what you need to feed a freezer.
Lets back one step further away from your answer to explore your vision of running a freezer in the basement. If you assume that the electrical grid will be running sporadically, if you can get a few hours of power in a row every day or two, you won’t need a solar system to run it. If you expect the grid to go down for long periods, then what exactly is it you think you will be storing in the freezer. Under the conditions in which the grid is offline for a long time, you and all the rest of us will be in a survival situation in which a freezer will be a luxury that will be very difficult to support, or even to justify.
I know this doesn’t sound like I am answering your question, and I am fully capable of just dictating to you the pieces you will need and what they will cost, but it sounds like you really need to understand what this freezer represents to you, and whether your vision of what conditions will be like in the event of a serious pandemic is realistic.
So again, the small stuff is easy. The big stuff, like a freezer is harder to justify. A number of us literally discussed this for months and came to only marginally acceptable solutions.
“So again, the small stuff is easy. The big stuff, like a freezer is harder to justify. A number of us literally discussed this for months and came to only marginally acceptable solutions.”
The conclusion I came to is that I will keep a LOT of bottles of water frozen in my freezer by running it a few hours a day with a generator if the grid is down. I can use the frozen bottles in a camping cooler to provide rudimentary refrigeration. This will provide cold storage for some time, but not really function as a freezer since my field tests show that the internal temp of the freezer goes up to 35 degrees F between run times. If the grid stays down, I will have enough gasoline stored to do this for 3 months. However, as Eccles pointed out, in the event the grid is “broken”, this is just postponing the inevitable.
http://www.firemountainsolar.com/refrigerators.html great webpage with specs and prices on propane / DC / AC refers and frzers.
Blizzard-10 chest freezer propane 1.7 gallons/day, $2000 delivered.
http://www.gasco-propane.com/Files/residential.html underground tank prices.
underground 500 gallone propane tank $4000 installed including full tank of propane. Say $500 for extras and the total for 235 days of a working freezer is $6,500. With underground 1000 gallon tank, total for 470 days of working freezer is $7,750.
Pi (popsicles for a pandemic? not my thing, but for vaccine/med storage, or for some other lifesupport reason, the underground propane tank and Blizzard refer/frzr is an option.)
AMAK -
I do hope you are not thinking that buying a lot of frozen food is a reasonable way to prepare for a pandemic, or for any other disaster. There are threads here about dried foods - raw whole grains, dehydrated fruits and vegetables, dried and canned meat - for very good reasons.
The cost of an off grid freezer would be enough to buy long-term-storage food to feed a family of four for several years.
The collective wisdom here is that there is no easy way out of this one.
nP1-
I noted you mentioned a jack pump for your well. Where did you get it? I have been looking for one for years, and had resigned myself to designing and building my own. This is OK, I have the tools and the expertise, except there are only 168 hours in the week and I’m running short on sleep. If I can buy one at a reasonable price I’d do it. Help?
LMWatBullRun – at 16:30 This has been around for a long time, but it is for mostly shallow applications http://tinyurl.com/pbyjj
Retro kits for Jensens http://tinyurl.com/q7d3q
This is a picture of a Jensen, very simular to the one I use( mine is not as pretty ).Jensen is still in business but I do not know just what they produce. There are many old Jensens around, they weigh about 600 lbs and are not difficult to refurbish. http://tinyurl.com/hqonh
Lots of luck, Kelly
LMWatBullRun: Look at what I found. Probility not affordable, but would work really well. Kelly
well, when you all put it that way… scrap the freezer. While I am not depending on the freezer for pandemic food, it was a thought for more food now. (I am already doing the canned, dehydrating , etc way). Now maybe this seems silly, but what would it take to power some of the other things I mentioned - dvd player & laptop ( homeschooling programs, education things actually, not just my viewing pleasure during a pandemic!!) and an electric hot plate (alot of my cooking may depend on just some boiled water - and after our minimal propane is gone or the kelly kettle doesn’t work out, would like another fall back. And I say minimal on propane becasue we live in a development - homeowners association, .25 acre at most - we don’t have the land to install huge tanks underground and frankly we’d stand out like sore thumb where we live if we did something like that. And that is major to me- NOT standing out in a crowd if this happens. Notice I did not say to power lights… I don’t want to advertize by being the only house in 250 here all lit up like a Christmas tree when the power is out - too much of an invitation for others to come lookin’. Maybe just have the power to charge our batteries for the flashlights we’ll use at night like all the other neighbors… I’m not thinking I have to have all these things simultaneously being available 24 hours a day - I was just thinking of having a renewable way of getting through this with some “luxury” items.
amak – at 21:38 --- Rather than rehashing all that again, considering we now have 7 very long threads about how to create and store electric power for smaller items, I really would suggest you go back and read those threads. Go to the first in the series here and start reading. Follow the links through until you find your answers. Honest…they are there. Solar panels can be installed on the south-facing part of your roof to give you some electric power.
gotcha
LMWatBullRun – at 16:30
Have a look at this pump , it may be what you are looking for. Do your own research as I do not own one as of yet but am looking into it. If you get one and like it please let us know.
bumpity bump
I’d like to offer the following suggestion for connecting solar panels to a charge controller. You will need one 10-foot 12 gauge outdoor 3-prong extension cord per 50-watt panel, one 3-prong multiple outlet if you have more than one panel, and one more cord to bring the power from the panels to the charge controller. For each extension cord, cut it more or less in half, and crimp the appropriate lug connector onto the white and black leads, leaving the ground lead unconnected (bend over and tape down with electrical tape). Then put the lugs on the panels, white negative and black positive, and attach the lugs on the panels. Now you have an idiot-proof way of quickly plugging together the system, and getting it to the charge controller. Plugging in more panels is as simple as using the multiple triple outlet connector. Watch and measure polarity carefully, and connect the lugs to the charge controller first, before plugging in panels.
Great Idea!
There are two things tow watch out for. The first is to make sure that the charge controller is connected to the batteries first to prevent damage or problems with the controller. the othe thing is that the extension cords that you use MUST be 12 Gauge. Anything lighter and you will be wasting a portion of your energy just heating up the wires.
Thread getting long, and Perfessor Eccles yearns to speak ;-)
Continued here
Last relevant post copied to new thread