Solar Stuff...

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Originally Posted by Great-Kazoo

Grant, thanks for the nice write up. This project seems more reasonable for the entry level person.
Knowing you barter or buy used when possible. What price point for those who don't know how to barter [Beer] would one be looking at for your finished project ?

Then there's weight of unit vs portability, or will this be a stationary one ?

Of course the final item would be footprint. Working with limited space could be (for some) a deal breaker.

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I'll have to pull a few things together for pricing, but size is pretty easy for me to get you. Weight will be something I can get later today. The box and panel are on the roof to charge with what sun is available today.

The end game with this as a portable unit, will be to put a bracket on the solar panel and lid of the box that allows the solar panel to fold down flat when stored, and then hinge up, and have a prop/support to hold it at a 45° angle when in use, thus making the foot print of the whole system smaller and one unit when in storage.

The box is 13"x11", and with the unistrut on the back is 7.5" tall. The panel that I have is 16"x10.5"x.75", so it's not terribly large. As you can see in the previous photo, there is plenty of room for more batteries to make it a larger capacity, but this was just to keep these batteries tended for now, and proof of the concept.

Weight will be 2 very different numbers between the lead acid batteries, and the super caps once I try them. Super caps are significantly lighter than normal SLA batteries.

This picture is sort of my concept of the hinged panel, but this is just temporarily set on the roof.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4192/3...15d0fce1_c.jpg0519171039 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

If you make it portable I would suggest 2 panels so that when you fold them the glass is protected. You may need to add another cover on the back of the out facing panel to protect whatever is back there. (Diodes, wiring, whatnot)

Very nice.

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Originally Posted by gnihcraes

@ Grant H,

any recommendations of DC/AC Inverters? I need a good pure sine wave one. Difficult to find anything that seems decent yet reasonable in cost.

800 watts minimum, yet I don't need much over that. (startup requirement is 800 watts of a device, run time is much less than that I believe)

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I've been doing a lot of poking around and reading about reasonable chinese inverters, and it seems like a lot of them are decent machines, but they are less efficient than high end gear (Outback Power for instance).

I don't know if you want the hassle of creating 220V then using a breaker panel to drop to 110, but the EPEVER inverters actually seem to be pretty decent from the reviews that I have been seeing/reading.

I know that the EPEVER MPPT solar controller is actually a good value if it supports the battery voltage you are running.

Samlex and Aims are also relatively decent as per the reviews I have been finding, and they have a lot of different models that should fill what you need.

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Originally Posted by Grant H.

I've been doing a lot of poking around and reading about reasonable chinese inverters, and it seems like a lot of them are decent machines, but they are less efficient than high end gear (Outback Power for instance).

I don't know if you want the hassle of creating 220V then using a breaker panel to drop to 110, but the EPEVER inverters actually seem to be pretty decent from the reviews that I have been seeing/reading.

I know that the EPEVER MPPT solar controller is actually a good value if it supports the battery voltage you are running.

Samlex and Aims are also relatively decent as per the reviews I have been finding, and they have a lot of different models that should fill what you need.

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Thanks. Not looking for a panel, just a portable inverter large enough to run the wood pellet stove and a 12 volt deep cycle shown in my previous build^. More of an experiment to see how long it will last. Might build up a battery bank to support it for a longer duration.

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Originally Posted by gnihcraes

Thanks. Not looking for a panel, just a portable inverter large enough to run the wood pellet stove and a 12 volt deep cycle shown in my previous build^. More of an experiment to see how long it will last. Might build up a battery bank to support it for a longer duration.

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Makes sense. I would go browse through Samlex and Aims offerings and shop the part number you want around for the best price.

Side note, do you actually need pure sine?

What, I suppose the pellet stove needs pure sine wave for timing purposes?

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Originally Posted by Grant H.

Makes sense. I would go browse through Samlex and Aims offerings and shop the part number you want around for the best price.

Side note, do you actually need pure sine?

What, I suppose the pellet stove needs pure sine wave for timing purposes?

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Not sure it needs pure sine, but it does have some control boards that I'd rather not fry. Auger motor and blower motor can't take much power, it's the igniter that chews up the initial load. thus why it says 800 watts required.

Looks like there might be some Aims on amazon used for reasonable price.

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Originally Posted by gnihcraes

Not sure it needs pure sine, but it does have some control boards that I'd rather not fry. Auger motor and blower motor can't take much power, it's the igniter that chews up the initial load. thus why it says 800 watts required.

Looks like there might be some Aims on amazon used for reasonable price.

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My backup for my pellet stove had 240 Ah of AGM batteries tied into a 700 watt UPS. the load running the blower and auger was 120W running the blower and another 55 or so for the auger. I ran it once for 5+ hours on battery and it was above 50%.

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Originally Posted by jerrymrc

My backup for my pellet stove had 240 Ah of AGM batteries tied into a 700 watt UPS. the load running the blower and auger was 120W running the blower and another 55 or so for the auger. I ran it once for 5+ hours on battery and it was above 50%.

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awesome. good to know. Someday I'll quit being lazy and measure it all while running. :)

Saw some solar shingles for the first time today. Snapped some pictures for you guys. This is over in the new Midtown development over at 60th-ish and Pecos-ish. Special note: That is about 1" hail spatter you see. Totally destroyed the roof (mostly) but the solar shingles looked perfectly intact.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tX...=w1634-h919-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/eJ...=w1634-h919-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Os...=w1634-h919-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5o...=w1634-h919-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cS...=w1634-h919-no

You'll need to be Spider-Man to walk on those roofs. Looks slicker than owl poop on a wet rock.