DIY My small home solar power system
Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at
10:14 pm
A brief layout of my solar system that I installed in my small house
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Filed under: Solar Cost
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this is a good system man. makes a good back up system after (or possibly during)
a storm when the power is off in the house. when the suns out, it’ll charge the batteries while powering anything in the house. how much would something like this cost because I would love to have something like this during hurricane season.
Thanks for the very helpful information. A+
So as of right now my solar panel system is working perfectly. I do have light at night. But there is still on problem. On a fully charged battery, i was only able to run 1 14watt cfl blub for about 30mins. I have a 18ah battery. How many hours am i suppose to get and how do i fix this?
@zmet68 this system does more then u think,and saves money over time,more batteries more storage and the more u can run at longer times
Hi, great video, thank u!! I’m outside US and I’m not familiarized with the first component (10 gauge solid copper wire). What kind of component is that? Thank u
Neat stuff man! That’s awesome! But you forget to put an L16 (or probably L17) connector (or some kind of grommet) on your gray wire coming out of the disconnect box!!!! Ahh, sharp metal on the wire insulation = no good!
Are you freaking KIDDING ME!?! That TINY little solar panel powers almost your entire house? Where do you live, Arizona? That’s ridiculous! Why aren’t more people doing this? lol. I live in Oregon, and it’s not uncommon for people (who can afford it) to have an entire 6′x12′ array on top of their house, haha. We have a lot of clouds up here though. I love clouds and rain though, so I feel at home!
@omose14
that is about right for the time frame, for a 18 ah batt. You do not want to run the battery down to more than 50% discharge! Their is a lot of “power loss” from converting DC -> AC. In a “nut shell” …..For every 10 amps of DC, it will produce 1 amp of AC……..That was just a nut shell of it, But if you wont to get to the nitty griddy of it, do the math, But a lot of people use that figure as a rule of thumb.
@alulema
As in the 10 gauge solid copper wire, the gauge is the measurement of the ” thickness of the wire it self, and as in “solid copper” it is just 1 strand.
“What kind of component is that?” It is a electrical conductor to transfer or carry a electric current from one place to another.
This is the coolest system I’ve seen yet. I think you should add some wind turbine generators to it. Where did you buy the thing that stores all of your info? I forgot what its called. I would like to get that for my system when I get it.
Hey, do you run that inverter 24/7? If so do you find that it consumes electricty that runs your batteries down?
Hello,
I see you use 4 – 6 V batteries. Why can you use 2 – 12 V batteries to save space? Is it because of the cost? Thanks.
we do not have all that modern stuff in PNG
but i am on the computer now from solar power
Why not use 12V batteries instead of 2 of 6?
about how much did all that cost,and about how much do you realy save?
so how much all it cost you? thanks..
@xSeriox4 Nope, your taxes get lowered thanks to obama’s solar plan i think its 20% savings, i forgot.
hi i was wanting to put a system togetheir and was wonderring about how much you have into yours and can you run a fridge is it a sign wave?
Well Done Mate!!
I’ve been a single Mom since 1987. It’s time for Mom to fly the coup to RV living and let my grown boys become the men I hope they will become w/o Mom’s consent intervention and purse strings. LOL Can you do a how to video or work sheet that would work on an RV Class A Motor home so I could be pretty self sustaining w/o always having to be at the mercy of the camping sites? Any help would be of great help.
@guerrette funny you should ask. I have been meaning to make a vid of the rv I picked up last fall that has a sweet solar system in it . It has two 75 watt panels on the roof and it is like cutting the umbilical cord to ground or generator power. I’ll make up a vid soon, so stay tuned
@fencekid OMG that is so great. I will totally forward to it, with pen and paper in hand. (warm smile) Does the 2 75 watt panels take care of running the a/c unit as well or do you have one for everything on the RV and the other panel just for the a/c unit? My biggest electricity draw would be TV, A/C, Satellite system and Laptop. What can I say, I have to stay connected even in the woods. LOL
Can I ask one more ?, is the solar panels you use on a home or RV different than the ones used for to heat a pool? There are several people selling their pool solar panels here in town for dirt cheap.
The reason it doesn’t run the vacuum is because the output of the inverter is a “modified sine” wave, which is really a two stage staircase waveform. It is fine for running computers which have DC-DC converters for power supplies and can use modified sine wave with no problems. You can not run rotating machinery well because the staircase waveform has too much energy in the higher harmonics which heat the motor but don’t turn it much. You could burn the motor with that inverter. I am an EE.
You could purchase a “true sine wave” inverter to run rotating machinery, such as vacuums, but these inverters typically cost more. I would also add that it is not safe to connect lead-acid batteries in parallel for long periods of time while powering loads. One battery is usually higher in volts than the other, which will get discharged and possibly overheat or even leak. Unless your charge controller is designed for paralleled batteries, I would redo this so that they are in series.