Quote:
Originally Posted by Kravchenko
You use your solar panels to charge a battery bank along with a charge controller. The charge controller keeps track of how depleted the battery is and allows more amps when depleted and fewer amps when closer to full. This prevents the batteries getting cooked by the current (amps).
Since you are running off of batteries, you need an inverter to change the DC power of the batteries to A.C. power like you get from an outlet of your home. It is not practice to run air conditioning from this. You would require a giant battery bank of 12 or more 6v batteries and thousands of watts of solar panels. My uncle has 6 6v batteries and 1000 watts of solar panels at his backwoods cabin. If he knows he is going to get a lot of sun, he may briefly use the microwave in the morning. It does not take much to run those batteries down...
If you wanted to run some LED lights, run your fridge on LP mode (always drawing power due to the computer board, charge your phone... maybe watch a movie on a small DC TV or hook up a small inverter to the batteries... You could get away with my system which is 240 watts of solar panels with a 30 amp charge controller and 2x 6v true deep cycle batteries. At peel sun, I get about 11.8 amps into the batteries if they get run down from a rainy day. I dry camp exclusively and do not have a generator yet. If I get multiple cloudy and rainy days, I can find myself in trouble. Lowest I got down to was the batteries reading 12.3 volts after running the furnace, lights, L.P. detector, water pump as needed. That was one cold night of near freezing temps preferred by a rainy day. I was happy to see the sun the next morning.
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Ok I'll try to help. I just installed a 1,200 watt system on my 5'er.
You basic Solar System......
Starting with the Panels then from the panels to your solar controller then from the solar controller to your batteries then from your batteries to your inverter.
Panels info:
Always use Monocrystalline Panels. Dont use Polycrystalline Panels because of lower silicon purity, polycrystalline solar panels are not quite as efficient as monocrystalline solar panels. Lower space-efficiency. You generally need to cover a larger surface to output the same electrical power as you would with a solar panel made of monocrystalline silicon.
Solar Controllers:
Always use a MPPT solar controller. You get more power out of your panels then you get with a PWN solar controller.
Inverter's:
Always use a FULL SINE WAVE INVERTER! You will get less interference.
Batteries.
This will be the most expensive part of a Solar Syatem. I suggest you use a DEEP CELL AGM battery. You dont have to equalize the batteries and they are maintenance free!
Here is how you find out how long you can run a device depending on your system:
Calculating Run Time
The following formula can be used to determine run time in most applications using a 12V battery or bank:
10 x (Battery Capacity in Amp Hours)
(Load power in Watts) = Run time in hours
Example:
How long will a 100 watt TV run with a PW150 from my car's engine start battery (60 Ah)?
The load is well within the PROwatt inverter's maximum power rating, therefore the inverter itself will not limit the run time.
Calculation is --> 10 x (60 Ah battery ) (100W) = 6 hours maximum run time before the battery is completely discharged, or 3 hours run time before the battery is 50% discharged.
Remember never take your batteries lest than 12.5 volts. You can damage
your batteries.
Hope that helps!
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