04-10-2009, 05:06 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Hotzcatz
A Kill-o-watt meter or some such, isn't it called?
If you have any appliances which make a lot of heat for rather a long time - stoves, clothes dryers, etc., then try not to use them at all. Appliances which make a little bit of heat for a long time such as electric blankets, small incubators, etc., are fine. Appliances which make a lot of heat for a small amount of time such as a popcorn popper are good for limited use such as when the sun is brightly shining.
We ran our house on four 150 watt solar panels for seven years before we doubled our solar array to eight 150 watt solar panels. Some of the panels may be 160 or 170 watts, I think they don't exactly match, but they are close. Much more power now so we don't have to run the "iron sun" (Honda generator) very often and we can plug in more things such as a freezer and that second incubator now. At the moment, there are eight 150 watt solar panels, eight 6 volt batteries wired in series parallel to feed 24V to the inverter which can put out 15 amps max. We do have a new inverter which will be able to put out more amps with a pure sine wave but haven't hooked it up yet. We may increase the battery bank size to twelve batteries pretty soon, too. I don't know if it was that we were so limited in power before that the new array seems plentiful but we like it. There is a constant awareness of power usage when you are off the grid, though. I would suspect if folks on the grid were as aware of power usage as folks off the grid there would be a lot less power used.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
Thanks Hotzcatz,
Yep, meter is a "Kill-A-Watt EZ". It set me back about 30 bucks. Sounds like a "1 battery per panel" ratio is a good idea.
Is there a reason why only 6v batteries instead of 12v? First thing that comes to my mind is that the 150w panels were 6v. Or am I totally missing something? Maybe they're just cheaper.
I'll have to go back to my old shop books for series-parallel diagrams but I'm assuming that' the purpose is either for the sake of redundancy or to build up your volts to a level that the 24v inverter needs?
On a rainy day like today (I'm in Pahoa at the moment), would I have enough sun/batteries to run a fridge, my laptop, catchment pump and a few cfl bulbs based on your 1st seven year system config? Oh man, the dreaded "dryer". Wasn't there a time when our parents dried cloths without an electric drier?? [
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