What components make up your system?

[Bossrox]

Wanna brag on your setup? Go for it & even better would be some youtube video's you can post here as well.

As I start this site, my system is yet incomplete & will journey thru how all this evolves. Still pondering what charge controllers to get. So far tho, I've got 6 40 volt 320 watt polycrystalline Jinko panels for about 2kw output which looks to be enough to cover my typical idle house demand with some left over for charging the 2 barely used Cat 190 a/hr industrial batteries I ran across.

Then a Chinese Reliable Electric brand 4kw sine wave inverter with a 3rd party extended warranty since Chinese stuff has a dicey track record. I think now I'll be going with an 80 amp Epever brand MPPT charge controller so I ought to have everything I need to get it up & running within a couple weeks. Stay tuned for the results. Update: Adding another 6 panels to double my output to nearly 4kw.

Update: I did get the Epever 80 amp controller & it's working good so far. It will be fed with 12 panels, 3 sets in parallel of 4 panels in series & for 160 volts @ almost 4kw.

I got the inverter mentioned above tied into the house & tho it powered up everything, my lights were flickering so this crap inverter got sent back & instead, a Solinba brand 4kw with 12kw surge will be on it's way shortly. also added a batteryminder desulphator for the batteries.

The new inverter is here now & testing ok under a light load so far.

Intrestingly, I found my panels will start charging the batteries at sun up, way before they get hit with sun exposure & the same in late afternoon to sundown, then even under totally overcast skies & raining to boot, pretty surprising to me.

Other nifty gadgets I got are a kw meter to tally my inverters cumulative kw production, a home made automatic transfer switch so when the inverter is turned on or off, it switches between the inverter & power company, then another home made low battery voltage switch is in the works to kill the inverter when the batteries reach a 25% discharge since most inverters low voltage cut offs will drain them down to near dead, an early death sentence for battery longevity.

The low voltage switch was abandoned, not really necessary as I'm now with plenty of battery power & visual meter monitoring works good enough.

Another gizmo I'm putting together now is a photonic switch that can differentiate between full sun & cloudy skies that'll kill the inverter & switch to utility power to send full charging to the batteries while cloudy then back on when the sun returns. The switch is working out great & eliminates the batteries going into discharge mode when clouds block the sun.

This switch can also be used to save you from buying another charger if you already have it maxed out with panel power, that can kick in a relay to connect some extra panels to a charge controller during low sun.

With the small battery bank I have at present, I can produce about 1.25 kw using 25% of the batteries capacity which will just about cover 3 hours of my typical before sun up morning usage but when the panels start getting direct sun later, I can kill most of the grid power except for the 220 volts appliances.

These outboard gadgets I'll be mentioning are discussed in greater detail in the gadgets thread.

For those wondering what I'm spending for this system, the initial cost clocked in at around 3 grand so far but just decided to add more panels & will need more battery capacity that could push this project into the 5 grand range.

6 - 320 watt 40v panels, $200 ea / just added another 6 panels for another $200 ea equating to a cost of 63 cents per watt, not too bad.
2 - used 12v 190 a/hr batteries $250 that load tested with like new capacity.
Battery desulphator $55
80 amp charge controller $375
4000 watt inverter $920
Misc wiring/hardware & gadgetry materials $400

Update: It's now been about a year & moved to my own piece of dirt & the system has evolved nicely since the start of this post. Still 12 solar panels but 6 panels got moved to a new set up that pivots to track the sun & another 6 or 9 panels are coming soon. I ditched the Epever 80 amp charger for a Victron 100 amper, got a 2nd 24v 4000 watt sine wave inverter now & a 48v 8kw sine wave model also on the horizon.

The Victron 150/100 charger can handle up to 5800 watts & now have 20 - 200 a/hr & 6 - 120 a/hr batteries housed in it's own shed now for a whooping 4700 a/hrs of battery capacity with another 1200 a/hrs in batteries coming along later for a 6300 a/hr bank & it looks like a 1000 watt wind turbine will be a part of all this eventually.

Then on top of that, 2 solar furnaces, 1 for each building & 2 solar water heaters, 1 for each season & all kinds of gadgets controlling everything pretty much by itself.

Here's my original panels after I had just put 'em up before I moved then my original solar air furnace & solar water heater. See solar heating section for video's of them..



Youtube video

The solar furnace



The solar water heater



Now over a year later at my new place, I'm now getting back to making more vids of my evolving system & created a playlist to see all of them in the same place @ www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxe7rNRJaRKUbfEEJqNC1FZKB6WI0RNGL

[Bossrox]

Moved to a new place & back on track

Well now that I've moved, the system is back up & running but has evolved a bit more, added 6 more panels that'll crank out about 3800 watts in peak sun, swapped out the Epever 80 amp charger with a Victron 100 amp & added another 6 AGM batteries, totaling 1100 amp/hr capacity & upgraded my solar water heater into a better frame

I'll be building a new solar furnace for my new mini house but not until the fall & will get into pretty good depth of the set up when it's finished with a video.

I added a cheap chinese tankless propane water heater for back up in case I lose both solar & utility power. It works good but it's not a no fuss plug & play, requires a lot of tinkering to get it working just right.

Here's my new setup with the solar water heater on the right of the power pole. Starting the beginning of May, I'll be recording my kilowatt generation & give a report at the end of each month how much I was able to produce vs utility power usage on another thread.



See the power pole shadow on the panels? I didn't know it at the time but that little sliver of shading robbed my panels of immense power & as you'll see further in, I did something about that.

I now have a collection of video's all together in a playlist on youtube that covers all my projects from my beginnings to now & to come here @ Link

[Bossrox]

What Luck!!! Got a new 4kw split phase 230/120 sine wave inverter dirt cheap!

I was on ebay looking at an 8kw inverter & ran across a Solinba 4kw up for auction & won it for $162 plus $100 for shipping. It's about a $1000 inverter! Can't get any luckier than that, 'ey? I already have a Solinba 120v 4kw inverter that cost me about $800 & so far it's been doing ok so I'm in great shape now if I ever need a back up but my I got my sights set on getting 1 of their 8 kw's in the near future. Ordering direct from them rather than from ebay will save me about 10% they say so I'm looking at around a $1200 for that toy.

[Bossrox]

New pivoting panel array on the way

With my power requirements higher than I can produce with fixed panels, I was thinking if I could find a way for the panels to be moved to track the sun, I should be able to squeeze out some more power. How much more is still a mystery til my new pivoting array is finished & an expensive experiment to find out if it'll make a notable difference.

My plan is to build a frame to hold 6 panels balanced on a 2" 20ft steel pipe pivoting on 4x6's at each end. Then 2 winches mounted on each side of a 4x4 center support to move them & hold the it steady from gusty winds & guy wired the 4x6's to each other along with ground anchors to keep everything steady.

My guess is the panels & the wood frame is going to clock in somewhere around 1000 lbs so I'm not taking any chances with wimpy hardware. Guy wires along with just about all the other hardware will be heavy grade stainless steel.

I'll post some pics soon in it's stages of progress & eventually a video so stay tuned.

Update: Now that I've got them up, it's rather spooky how much weight is pivoting on those 4x6's. Not that they can't support it, but now that I've thought about it some more, 2 eye lag bolts are at the top of each 4x6 to pull them together, otherwise the weight would force them apart & to the ground it all would come. There's a chance the stress on those eye lags could be enough to rip them out of the posts & I should have used eye bolts going all the way thru each post so I'm going to add that to what I already have for more insurance but I wish I had thought of it sooner.

The cradle frame & guy wiring done.



Frame to hold the panels roughed in.



Winches strapped to both sides of the frame to hold it steady.& obviously to pivot it.



There ya go, all done & didn't come crashing down. I took the panels off my shed roof for this due to that pesky power pole shadow that robbed them of power & instead of the measly 270 watts I was getting @ 8am, now it's doing 1000 watts. My best power total from my inverter on a good solar day was 12.9kw, today with the last 3 hours of solar potential lost to total overcast, I did 14.7kw. It looks like I could get about 17-18kw on a strong solar day. & I guess right, I just recorded a day with a bit over 18kw. Anyways, it turned out a worthwhile experiment. BTW, I have another 6 panels that are in a fixed position in case you were wondering how I was getting all that power.



What did it cost to build this contraption you ask? I didn't keep tabs on it but I'd say it seemed like it was around $500. Eventually I want to figure out a scheme to motorize it to track the sun on it's own.

[Bossrox]

System is now fully automated

With what I got now, I'm generating less than half of what I'm consuming during the summer months so to best ration the power for the best balance of usable power generated while limiting excessive battery drainage & since I can't be around all day to babysit it & manually ration out power, I had to come up with a scheme to automate everything that was flexible under varying solar conditions & here's what I came up with.

Still waiting a few components to arrive to totally automate the system but here's what it will do when completed.

I had been switching power manual with a transfer switch until I found a cheap high amp DPDT relay to transfer power from solar to utility which was required to design an automated system. With that, I could now move on to do the following.

A timer turns on the main inverter in the morning & switches off utility power over to solar then shuts down at 7pm & switches back to utility power.

My 2nd inverter, dedicated to only the shed A/C is also on a timer but starts at 1130am when the panels are nearing full power, at the same time a photo sensor is monitoring the solar intensity & if it falls below a set threshold, it switches the A/C back to utility power until the sun comes back in full force to prevent the batteries from going into a discharge mode.

Many times there may be an abundance of scattered clouds the sun dodges in & out of frequently & would cause the photo switch to go into convulsions, so to limit it's cycling, a delay on switch was incorporated to ignore switching back from utility power when there's short spurts of full sun going in & out of fast passing clouds & if it looks like it's going to be a strong solar day, I can hit an override switch to go full solar power.

Paranoid that either the shed A/C could die or the inverter running it do the same, a fail safe circuit was made to monitor the shed temp. If it goes above 90 degrees it shuts down both inverters & switches to utility power. The shed could easily get 120 degrees or more without the A/C running & not taking a chance on roasting the inverters.

Then if my main inverter fails which the fridge, freezer & everything but the shed A/C is running on, another relay switches it all over to utility power.

On days when it will be fairly cloudy & the panels can't deliver enough to run everything & keep the batteries near topped off, I'll have a current sensing relay I can engage to monitor the main inverter & if it senses the current from my cabin A/C running, it'll take the shed A/C off solar & switch it to utility power then back when the cabin A/C quits to save the batteries from excessive drainage.

Extended periods of low sun can be pretty tough on the battery drainage when 2 A/C's are running along with all the other stuff that will pull over 100 amps off the batteries & the best output I can get from the charger right now is a 100 amps max.

For the winter, my battery bank was moved into it own insulated shed with 8 - 17 1/2 watt heating pads under the batteries with a temp sensing thermal switch that so far, even with temps in the 20's, has kept them at around 70 degrees so they don't lose the efficiency of charging & discharging that occurs in real cold temps.

I have a kilowatt meter coming off each inverter so I can see what usable power I made each day compared to what my panels did & I'm finding, for every 10kw of usable power the inverters put out, the panels put out about 3kw more which looks to be about a 30% loss to inverter & battery charging inefficiency.

Except for making some minor adjustments for the type of solar day that's expected, It'll pretty much run itself without very much intervention & with peace of mind every possible fail safe was addressed to protect the system & keep power up no matter what happens.

Update: I just increased my battery bank from 1100 a/hrs to 2700 a/hrs so now with that abundance I can now eliminate any need for utility power during the 3 hours of the expensive peak hour rates & a timer was added to switch everything over to solar power for those 3 hours which will cut about $15 a month off my utility bill.

Scratch that update, bank is now @ 4700 a/hrs with 6300 ultimately aimed for.

There's a bit more to the gadgetry involved in this set up but it would get long & drawn out to explain it all so sometime in the near future after everything is completed & been tested, I plan on doing a video of it all in better detail. It's quite a complex union of electronics & was a wiring brain twister to figure out as you'll soon see, the control center looks like a plate of spaghetti was thrown on the wall & here's a glimpse to see what I mean.

[Bossrox]

New battery shed built to house a 6300 a/hr (75kw) bank

Well with my battery bank is soon to be massive, I had to make another space to house them & I don't think my old shed is built tough enough to hold almost 2 tons of weight without collapsing it or mangling up something & my hydrogen sniffer is always going off even with an automated fan to blow the gas buildup outside, so I needed to get the batteries away from all the ignition sources in the shed that might destroy it.

So I'm building a shed just for the batteries with everything screwed together with extra sturdy supports to hopefully house them safely & get better protection from a possible hydrogen gas explosion.

It will be on the other side of my current shed wall about a foot apart from where all my solar electronics are located to cut down on excessive wiring runs. It will be fully insulated with thermostatically controlled heating pads under the batteries to keep them from getting too cold for winter along with gas heat that can be piped in from the main shed if I choose, on really cold nights & it will be under a run of solar panels protected from the sun in summer along with a blower fan piping in A/C from the main shed for summer to keep them from getting too hot along with a hydrogen sniffer that will engage a more powerful booster blower to force any hazardous build up of gas out a dryer vent when needed.

I'm using 24v inverters right now but a 48 volt is on the horizon so to save the pain in the ass of rewiring all the batteries, I'm configuring them into 8 - 24v banks so all I'll have to do is jump the 24v banks in series then parallel them together for 48v & also allows me to still use my 8 - 24v desulfators rather than buying new 48v versions, then if I need to go back to 24v, just reverse it with no fuss!

After all the shelves are filled with batteries, I'll have around 4700 a/hrs @ about 1 1/2 tons weight with 20 - 200 a/hr CAT size 4d's @ 115 lbs each & 6 - 120 a/hr V-Max AGM's @ 70 lbs each, all tightly packed in a 4x4 shed. About $10,000 worth of batteries if bought new but thanx to craigslist, I snagged it all for less than 3 grand.

Well I couldn't stop there, after figuring out my summer nite time demand, to keep from draining my bank more than 25%, even with all those batteries, I would still need more, so another side pocket to my new shed is in the works to hold 8 more 200 a/hr batteries that'll give me a whopping 6300 a/hrs or about 75 kw capacity for which a 25% drain would be almost 19 kw & more than enough to cover my typical sundown to sun up winter usage, for summer, it's yet to see, so except for system breakdowns, I'll essentially be energy independent except with that humungas battery capacity, more solar panels & maybe another charge controller is in the works to feed those hungry beasts.

At 1 point I had a hankering for getting a hold of some Tesla car battery packs. I can't remember the kw stats for those but Tesla's powerwall made just for solar use has a max output of about 13.5kw to full discharge but given the price is around 10 grand & I'll easily have 18kw @ a 25% drain plus some hefty reserve if I want to dip in past that for about 3 1/2 grand, I'd say I did pretty good. You think?

The battery shed is now full. Just added 6 more 200 a/hrs batteries with the other 14 plus 6 / 120 a/hr AGM's, jacking me up to 4700 a/hrs. Now I'm in the comfortable range of having 14 kw of energy I can draw off the bank & keeping the drain to under 25%. With my typical sunset to sunrise drain of about 10 kw, I'm pretty content for now but looking forward the next 8 / 210 a/hr batch I will hopefully be acquiring in January to bring it up to 6300 a/hrs with a 25% drain of 18 kw.

Here's some pics & a video coming in the near future to show it off, stay tuned.

Triple locked door


With 4 levels, 2 batteries per shelf on the sides or 8 per side, 4 in the center & 6 on the floor.


Each shelf lit up with led strip lights when door opens

[Bossrox]

New, bigger solar water heater in the works

My current heater is about 43x40 which does great in summer but not very good in between so I'm getting started on a new 1 that'll be around 76x36, almost double the size of the other & hinged just like the other for tracking the sun.

Instead of copper pipe, this time I'm going to use pex. Pex is the best water pipe that's in use today however this will also be a test to see how long it can hold up under UV radiation but it may not be much of an issue 'cuz the pipe will be painted black which may possibly protect the pipe from UV but only time will tell on that.

This new version will have quick dump valves to drain it if freezing temps are forecast then refilled after it's above freezing. The backing like the other, the backing is cement board, waterproof & a good heat sink but to keep cold from the backside bleeding thru to the inside, a double layer of reflective foam boards shielding the backside should take care of that.

I have no idea yet how well it'll perform with outside temps down in the 40's but from my experience with a solar furnace I just built, I saw cabinet temps in the 140's in winter temps. If this does the same, I should be able to make some decent hot water even in the depths of winter.

Since my original heater was adequate for summer, this 1 will certainly be overkill & make a tank of hot water in no time but since it'll be hinged, once I get the tank heated up to temp, all I'll have to do is hinge it away from direct sunlight.

At it again! This heater isn't even done yet & another heater is in the works now, but this 1 will be a combo inside a new solar furnace for my shed since the 1 for the cabin is working so well. See that project further on down.

Anyways, some pics will be forthcoming soon & test results when there's good sun with temps down in the 40's, so stay tuned.

New heater in progress. With almost 100ft of 1/2" pipe. Projected cost, about $200 for the plumbing & lumber, not counting the glass cover, winch & hoist I already have..... Grrrr, scratch the free glass, went to get a slab of glass I have cut to size & it was tempered, not cutable & it'll be 175 to get a piece of tempered made. Not gonna to get away with this frugally after all. So for someone to do something similar & had to buy all the materials, it looks to be more like a $400 project but even more if you hinge it like I'm doing with a winch & hoist.

WARNING! If you endevour to build something like this, use only tempered glass. Glass sellers advised me that regular glass would not be able to handle the heat stress in solar applications.

[Bossrox]

2 new solar furnaces getting built & 1 will be dual purpose to heat water as well.

I was going to put off building a solar furnace til I added an addition next year but couldn't stand the wait & pissing away all the free heat I could make use of, so it's going up now & besides, I already have most of the materials to get it built except the lumber & paint so this project won't cost me very much & the gas I'll save for heating this season will pay for a good chunk of it if not most.

Here's the beginnings to finished pics of it taking shape, blower motor is under the cabin, ducts have been connected & the intake comes from up under my bed to keep the suction noise muffled down, just have to finish the frame, glass it & wire it up. Will be a pretty quickly done project. A video covering this is planned sometime soon.

You can see the forced air duct that'll feed the box coming from underneath. The output duct will be on top of the box at the other end, with it entering the house just below the ceiling. Finished size will be 10ft x 45" for my 12 x 12 cabin.

As you'll see further down, this furnace has way exceeded my expectations for heat output & since that turned out so spectacular, the shed is getting 1 made for it too but also with a coil of pipe inside the box to heat water at the same time. How that performs should be an intresting topic you'll hear more about after it's tested.



Blower motor under the house.



Frame done, black paint & glass next, wire it up & it'll be ready to go.



I finished it this morning with a full sunny day ahead to test it. Fired it up for the 1st time @ 10 this morning & 35 degrees outside & it's cranking out a rock solid 115 degree heat. This is way better than I ever imagined & in short order has gotten very warm inside, so now I have figure out a scheme to attenuate it if it gets too hot in here, but for now I'm having to open a window & crack open the door. I'm finding out this size furnace is way more potent than I needed for this 12 x 12 cabin & would likely heat a cabin 4 times the size nicely.



115 was the temp 1st thing after it was fired up, I had to leave at noon & shut off the blower but before I left, the box temp rose to 150 degrees. When I returned at 3pm, the outside temp was 51 & the box temp was 175. The blower wasn't on but the convection of the heat rising out of the box thru the duct into the cabin was all it took to keep the cabin really toasty. It's apparent I'll need to find a scheme to vent the excess heat outside when needed. Just have no plan yet how to do it on it's own without manual intervention.

Got a probable solution to attenuate the heat. Found a electrical-mechanical butterfly valve I'm going to T into the suction side of the duct where I can draw colder air from outside thru the furnace plus drilled another hole in the top of the box to bleed off more excess if needed & can be capped off if not. Will see how those works out.

Day 2 of testing & the sky's are getting a thick dose of chemtrails today obscuring the sun pretty good but the furnace is still kicking out decent heat @ 110 degrees so it appears the box size isn't overkill after all for days like this & or partly cloudy.

The heat output has far exceeded my expectations to where I'm starting a 2nd furnace to heat the shed which is sparsely insulated & takes more gas to heat it than the cabin, needed to keep it from freezing inside & it's already in the works, you'll see & hear more about it as it progresses.



This blew me away. It was about 65 degrees outside & full sun & caught this reading around noon, 195 degrees, WOW!



Here's the new shed solar furnace/water heater taking shape & have most of the materials already, including the glass, for an out of pocket expense of just a couple hundred bux for the lumber & plumbing.



Plumbing roughed in, wood strips under the pipes are to keep them from drooping so it'll drain fully without standing pockets of water that would freeze. Will have about 110 ft of 1/2" pipe when done.



Paint job done. Blower motor for the furnace not in yet but ready for the glass to go on for the water heater testing for now & tomorrow will be sunny, test details to come.



Here's the finished heater but compared to the other furnace, this isn't even coming close to the heat output. At the same time I'm getting box temps in the 190's from the 1st furnace, the new 1 stays mostly @ 110 degrees til after 1pm then struggles up to 120 for a few hours. & forget my hope of it making hot water & air at the same time. Not gonna happen in it's present state.

If I run the blower to send hot air into the shed, with it drawing in upper 40's air from inside the shed, the box temp never gets hot enough to heat water, much less any decent hot air from it & if I don't run the blower, it will make hot water but only at around 115 degrees. Not at all impressive results!

I'm miffed why there's such a difference. The only thought that comes to mind is the 1st furnace is on an insulated wall where the 2nd is just 1/2 inch plywood with the back exposed to the outside cold air & that may be why it can't build up more heat than it does, so I guess I'm gonna try to sandwich a sheet of reflective foam between another sheet of thinner plywood behind it to see if that helps any.

It's apparent it's not big enough to get the job done tho, so I have another piece of glass the same size & it appears likely I'll end up having to use it & double the size of the box.

Update: It was in the 60's today & the heater made a substantial amount of hot water in the 130 degree range so that's telling me, I am losing a good bit of heat from the backing when it's exposed to frigid temps. Will see if sandwiching in some reflective foam behind it solves the issue & get back to y'all.



The doubling of the shed heater combo, total size, 13 ft x 4 ft with a loop of about a 200 ft of pipe & combined with the other water heater is about 300 ft of pipe. Testing results to follow. Testing results: Doubling the size made a big difference but with issues running both the furnace & water heater at the same time. It's complicated so I'm doing a separate post on this issue in the solar heating thread..





For the time being & testing, I connected both water heaters to the same pump but kept them separated with ball valves & switched the valves back & forth as each came up to temp just to see what they could do & man, it's smoking! I had a cold tank of water heated up nicely in an hour, then I got distracted & left the big heater cooking water for awhile & when I finally got back to it & ran it into the tank, it got to 175 degrees, steam was coming out of the faucet.

But switching the ball valves all day is a pain in the ass nor can I be here all day to do it, so another pump was ordered so each coil can run independently. Then each coil has 2 sensor switches, 1 each for the morning for about an hour when the suns intensity isn't at full steam & are set to send 105-110 degree water to the tank to get it kick started, then when the sun gets stronger, a timer & relay switches over to another set of sensor switches to send 130 degree water to the tank & another relay only allows 1 pump at a time to run to prevent backfeed into the other coil.

[Bossrox]

Replaced my battery shed with a new cabinet

I rushed too fast in making my 1st battery shed. After it was done & the batts in, I realized it would be a major hassle to inspect the fluid levels of the batts & couldn't get any more batts in if I wanted to expand, so another had to be built & here's the new 1 that will hold 24 Cat 190 a/hr batts. With 10 heating pads for winter & blower motor to pipe in the A/C from the shed & a hydrogen sensor to flush out gas buildup.