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Step 9After the Panels are Built.
Now that you have built and tested your panel/s you need to harness all that Free electricity you're suddenly producing.
Solar Controller.
The Controller is the brains of the system.
Your panels charge your batteries through it and it supplies that power to your appliances.
It controls the amount of charge that goes to your Battery Bank and protects your batteries from damage.
In my case I use 12v controllers and appliances but 12v panels can also be used to make a 24v, 36v, or 48v system.
Choose one of a voltage that suits your application.
You also need to calculate the total amp output from your panels and buy a controller rated to handle at least that amperage (keep in mind that you may wish to add panels to your system in the future).
The Battery Bank/s
I started with 1 x 12volt 85amp hour Deep Cycle battery and added another 5 from Alco Batteries in Wagga Wagga as funds allowed. They are joined in Parallel (positive to positive).
This gave me a 510amp hour bank which is being charged by 210 watts of panels.
eBay struck again and I found myself the new owner of 6 x 2volt 225amp hour batteries. These are joined in Series (positive to negative) to give 12v.
They're ex telecom style deep cycle batteries out of a communications system UPS (emergency power supply).
These batteries are a great starting point as they're cheap (or should be) and still have a few years of life in them if looked after properly.
Mine had some Sulphation on the plates but that disappeared after a few days of charging from my panels.
Sulphation occurs when the batteries are left flat for a long period of time and is frequently reversible but not always.
To charge this set of Batteries I built a 90watt Panel and bought another controller and now have an emergency backup power supply for the 12volt appliances.
Connecting Wire.
You might think that only being 12v your system need only use thin wire (ie: speaker wire).
Not True.
The thicker the better.
Because 12v doesn't have much "push" to get it along the wires you need to spread the effort as much as you can when any distance over 1 meter or so is involved.
If you don't the resistance will cause serious voltage drop and will cause the wires to heat up.
Several house fires have been caused by wires overheating to the extent of short circuiting.
Once again it's a case of doing your research then, keeping safety in mind, buying the best you can afford.
I used "Molex" connectors (recycled from old PC's) and 2.5mm wire to join my panels to the system.
The appliances connect to the controller Load output through very very thick car "boomf boomf" subwoofer cable (I had to solder a small length of 2.5mm wire to the end so it could attach to the controller)..
Solar Controller.
The Controller is the brains of the system.
Your panels charge your batteries through it and it supplies that power to your appliances.
It controls the amount of charge that goes to your Battery Bank and protects your batteries from damage.
In my case I use 12v controllers and appliances but 12v panels can also be used to make a 24v, 36v, or 48v system.
Choose one of a voltage that suits your application.
You also need to calculate the total amp output from your panels and buy a controller rated to handle at least that amperage (keep in mind that you may wish to add panels to your system in the future).
The Battery Bank/s
I started with 1 x 12volt 85amp hour Deep Cycle battery and added another 5 from Alco Batteries in Wagga Wagga as funds allowed. They are joined in Parallel (positive to positive).
This gave me a 510amp hour bank which is being charged by 210 watts of panels.
eBay struck again and I found myself the new owner of 6 x 2volt 225amp hour batteries. These are joined in Series (positive to negative) to give 12v.
They're ex telecom style deep cycle batteries out of a communications system UPS (emergency power supply).
These batteries are a great starting point as they're cheap (or should be) and still have a few years of life in them if looked after properly.
Mine had some Sulphation on the plates but that disappeared after a few days of charging from my panels.
Sulphation occurs when the batteries are left flat for a long period of time and is frequently reversible but not always.
To charge this set of Batteries I built a 90watt Panel and bought another controller and now have an emergency backup power supply for the 12volt appliances.
Connecting Wire.
You might think that only being 12v your system need only use thin wire (ie: speaker wire).
Not True.
The thicker the better.
Because 12v doesn't have much "push" to get it along the wires you need to spread the effort as much as you can when any distance over 1 meter or so is involved.
If you don't the resistance will cause serious voltage drop and will cause the wires to heat up.
Several house fires have been caused by wires overheating to the extent of short circuiting.
Once again it's a case of doing your research then, keeping safety in mind, buying the best you can afford.
I used "Molex" connectors (recycled from old PC's) and 2.5mm wire to join my panels to the system.
The appliances connect to the controller Load output through very very thick car "boomf boomf" subwoofer cable (I had to solder a small length of 2.5mm wire to the end so it could attach to the controller)..
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Apr 9, 2010. 4:55 AMmatse9999
says:
how do you measure the charging time?
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Jul 10, 2010. 6:00 AMCameronC
says:
At a guess, total battery bank capacity (Amp hours) * Amps input. Amps * Volts = watts and Watts / volts = amps, therefore for a 12v system with a 1200 watt output (100 amps) , it would take 2 hours to charge a 200 A/h battery bank. Methinks.
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Apr 9, 2010. 8:12 PMmatse9999
says:
i mean how do you compute for the charging time?
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