Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Posted ImageWelcome to the all new Geo Metro Forum. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are features you can't use and images you can't see. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Join our community!




Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Solar Panels; Home backup power
Topic Started: May 14 2015, 07:30 AM (1,560 Views)
bkelly
Member Avatar
Gear Head

I would never expect to replace the central air, cook stove or drier.

Everything else would be nice. Did you have a full size refrigerator?

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
PTA2PTB
Member Avatar
I'm totally awesome! I swear.

I've been toying with the idea of adding a supplemental solar system to my house, too, for quite some time now. I just haven't found a system that makes enough economic sense to spend the money on. If it won't pay for itself in 7 yrs, I'm not interested.

I drove over to Asheville, NC, about a month ago, to attend the Mother Earth Fair event there, with the intent on gathering info on solar. They had 3 or 4 lectures on DIY solar. The first one I sat in on, was a father & son team, who took DIY solar to whole 'nother level than I was envisioning. They actually bought the little, approx 5"x5", solar cell wafer panel thingies, by the hundreds, and spent weeks assembling and soldering them into panels. Screw that! All I want to do is: acquire the panels, throw them on the roof, and hook them up to a controller.

About a week ago, at my work, some scrap metal scavenger guy comes around the back of our warehouse, looking for metal scraps, and he has pickup truck bed slam full of power inverters. He had several: 1000w; 1500w; 3000w, and 5000w. I don't know a whole lot about them, but I was pretty sure that the 5000w units must cost upwards of $500 or more, when new. I was really tempted to buy one of the 5000w inverters from him, with the intent on using it if and when I ever acquire a decent array of solar panels. I could, pretty much, run my whole house on 5000w. I had no idea if they even worked, or if they might have been stolen. He wanted $100 for one of the 5000w inverters. Something he was going to take to the scrap yard and get maybe $5 for in scrap alum and copper. In the end, much as I was seriously tempted, I decided to pass. It's not like it would have come with a warranty or anything.

While researching, however, I did stumble onto this website. Looks like it might be a good place to buy the components to go solar.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
rmcelwee
Member Avatar


Just a data point - the last time I checked on solar it the cost was around $140,000 to get my house off the grid. The A/C in summer was the largest factor in needing the 2nd $70,000 "unit".
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sphenicie


for reference, I have a 3000 watt inverter hardwired into my 95 (Barney) with only the single battery. this is capable of running an 1100w microwave. sometimes several guys will heat lunch without any problem starting the car at the end of the day. hope that gives an idea of what can be powered off a single, metro size battery.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
evmetro


rmcelwee
May 15 2015, 07:07 PM
Just a data point - the last time I checked on solar it the cost was around $140,000 to get my house off the grid. The A/C in summer was the largest factor in needing the 2nd $70,000 "unit".
Lol, this is why you have to DIY. It sounds like you were talking to contractors.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
evmetro


bkelly
May 15 2015, 02:30 PM
Did you have a full size refrigerator?

Not for the first several months. I always had the fridge, but did not have enough solar to run it in the beginning. This was one of my bigger hurdles since it cycles on and off 24/7. When my system was smaller and I could not afford more panels, I tended to add more batteries for more storage. This allowed me to save up two days worth of sun for a laundry cycle, or to run my vacuum cleaner. The fridge is different, because you can't save up energy to run something that always needs power with an undersized system.
Edited by evmetro, May 15 2015, 10:23 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
bkelly
Member Avatar
Gear Head

EV, would there be any benefit running higher voltage banks. Like 24 - 36 volt banks.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
rmcelwee
Member Avatar


evmetro
May 15 2015, 10:08 PM
rmcelwee
May 15 2015, 07:07 PM
Just a data point - the last time I checked on solar it the cost was around $140,000 to get my house off the grid. The A/C in summer was the largest factor in needing the 2nd $70,000 "unit".
Lol, this is why you have to DIY. It sounds like you were talking to contractors.
Of course I was talking to contractors (actually, I was on a website - never made it to the point of calling someone). I am not going to spend the next year getting on and off my roof to install something like that. I know too many people who have fallen and I am getting to old for that kind of pain.
Edited by rmcelwee, May 16 2015, 04:27 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Stubby79
Member Avatar


sphenicie
May 15 2015, 08:39 PM
for reference, I have a 3000 watt inverter hardwired into my 95 (Barney) with only the single battery. this is capable of running an 1100w microwave. sometimes several guys will heat lunch without any problem starting the car at the end of the day. hope that gives an idea of what can be powered off a single, metro size battery.
You're sucking around 100 amps out of a small starting battery for a few minutes at a time? The longevity of your battery will come in to question pretty quick.
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
evmetro


Stubby79
May 18 2015, 12:05 PM
sphenicie
May 15 2015, 08:39 PM
for reference, I have a 3000 watt inverter hardwired into my 95 (Barney) with only the single battery. this is capable of running an 1100w microwave. sometimes several guys will heat lunch without any problem starting the car at the end of the day. hope that gives an idea of what can be powered off a single, metro size battery.
You're sucking around 100 amps out of a small starting battery for a few minutes at a time? The longevity of your battery will come in to question pretty quick.
Yea, that is a bit longer than you would need to crank the engine over. 1100 watts divided by 12 volts is 91 amps, plus losses equals more than 100 amps over a duration that is probably more than the continuous rating. If it is in fact more than the continuous rating, you will probably be shopping for a new battery sooner than you otherwise would.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Stubby79
Member Avatar


Well, I too got excited a month or two back...I found 30 watt panels at a major retailer nearby on clearance, and I had "points" to burn with them, so I bought a couple.

Well, I tested them, in full, direct sunlight...I was getting maybe 1 amp at 12v out of them -- 12 watts, not 30. I was not impressed.

I looked in the manual, and they actually explained how they came to the 30-watt rating. They took the max no-load voltage and multiplied it by the dead short max current. :ermm: :smackface WTF. How did these guys manage to pass that off as not being false advertising?! Yup, you can get 2 amps out of them....at almost zero volts! Yup, you can get 18 volts out of them, at zero amps! OMFG! That is not how it works!

So, they were succinctly returned the next day. And by some screw up on their end, my "points" got turned in to cash back, so I wasn't too annoyed about it all. But the point of all this is to take a dang good hard look at what you're getting for all that dough.
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Woodie
Member Avatar


Stubby79
Jun 24 2015, 04:53 AM
I looked in the manual, and they actually explained how they came to the 30-watt rating. They took the max no-load voltage and multiplied it by the dead short max current. :ermm: :smackface WTF. How did these guys manage to pass that off as not being false advertising?! Yup, you can get 2 amps out of them....at almost zero volts! Yup, you can get 18 volts out of them, at zero amps! OMFG! That is not how it works!
That sounds like the way they rate car stereos, no regard for reality whatsoever.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · The Geo Metro Lounge · Next Topic »
Add Reply