Run your Shed off grid!

Ever wanted to Be Green? Well now you can! This Instructable will show you how to Run your Shed, on a solar panel!

I Hope you enjoy my Instructable, This was one of my most enjoyable Projects! and I had good results from the little cost it has cost me.

Disclaimer:

I am not responsible for any damage to yourself or others from this 'instructable'. It is your decision to make this project. I would strongly advise to get an electrician or some in the 'know' to check out the all of your wiring.

Update: I will be hopefully showing how to install the 'ground' or 'earth' in a few months.

Step 1 Parts List

1 X 10w (or above) Photo Voltaic solar panel   £33
1 X Solar Charge controller   £15
2 meters of 15amp cable ( Already had)
1 X 15ah battery   £20
8 X Spade connectors   £1
1 X Power Inverter ( Above the wattage of the the equipment you use )   £30
2 X 13amp switched fuseways   £4
1 X RCD   ( Already had)
2 X 13amp wall sockets £ 4
5 meters of 23amp mains cable   ( Already had)
1 X Energy saving lightbulb and Brakcet   ( Already had)
Wire connectors (I used like 20!)   £1
Other Items   £5

Total £110

Comments

[ton ton]

Cool dude,,, i also have that,, but my panel is only 5w,, and the battery is 12v 7amp, only,, in case i will use inverter,, how long it will take if i use, about 100w?

[oscarthompson]

If your battery is fully charged, And you Bulb uses about 1amp. I would think around 6 hours

[falconrk]

Great Instructable. I did this for my shed and some outdoor "as-needed" lighting a few years ago using 2 10w panels, a small charge controller, 400w inverter and an old car battery (it would no longer hold enough charge for my car, but works fine for running my lights). In the future I plan on adding more panels and upgrading to deep cycle batteries. I've done all the installations myself to learn more about the best setups before eventually adding panels and a wind turbine into my home system. Of course I'll hire an electrician then to verify my work and make the final connections.

[JoeAconite]

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-bottle-brighten-millions-poor-homes.html

A few of these bottle lights could help light your shed without electricity during the day.

[noobduino]

can someone convert this to canadian dollers

[oscarthompson]

173 Canadian dollars

Oscar

[EARTHFORSOLAR]

Very good,Simple is fun!
I think the most you can go on a 12 volt inverter is about 14 volts
so 18 volt may not work the inverter will go in safe mode
very nice Instructable thanks for sharing this idea
David
at www.solarcells101.com

[thenickp]

Forgive my obvious ignorance in this area, but I have a question regarding the battery. I assume it is a lithium-ion battery used in cordless tools. I have two such batteries that do not seem to hold a charge. Is it possible to use these batteries in this application and if so, what would need to be done to "rekindle" the batteries? This 'able' convinced me to become a "pro" member of my favorite site on the Internet and I look forward to "lighting up" my dark shed. Thanks for any input and thanks for a great "able'... Nick

[BlackHatCracker]

Depending on who the manufacture is of your batteries for your power tools, you can always do one of two things... I have done this a lot with the cordless tools. Saves on money, and saves the environment too... Either go to a local hardware store and order new ones, which is usually inexpensive, or do as I do, and go to your local electronics store and get some replacement batteries for them. It may look expensive in the beginning but your going to save when you get them in bulk. You can also use the old batteries for something else or get them recycled and they use the carbon in new batteries. Its a win - win situation for us all.. Also saves on the plastic in the landfills.

[oscarthompson]

You could use those batterys concidering you will not be running any big tools through an inverter, as those batterys tend to be small.
You will be able to run 12v LED lights for a conciderable amount on time with those batterys though.

About your batterys charge:

If your batterys were drained until they were dead, You might need to buy new batterys. Although there are methods on the internet but they require special tools to revive them.

Or you might of left you charger connected to the battery when it had finished charging a number of times, which can cause the battery to not hold a charge. You may also need to buy a new battery

Thanks

Oscar

[munymuny200]

thanks but im using a 45 watt system

[musors]

Interesting idea!!!
http://www.musor-spb.ru

[iApple guy]

grat idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jimmydean1232]

Very NIce! Electricity in the shed is very useful for cloudy days and dreary nights. Don't forget to seal those holes in the roof with tar. If I may I would like to recommend a few changes for future installs if the users only needs power to run lights.

*Don't install the inverter - These are expensive and use additional power to cool the internals. Normally there's an internal fan running to cool the inverter,

*12 V Light Bulb - You can purchase these at you local hardware store.

*Automobile battery - provides larger storage of accumulated electricity.

[mishap91]

You can usually get used semi-truck battery's that are free around truck repair shops.

[albinoraven]

Okay.

First you need a deep cycle battery, or a boat battery. You put a car battery on that you'll be replacing it every six months.

The inverter is needed to convert the electricity from DC to AC.

Goes like this Solar panel, battery array, inverter, plug.

I run a similar setup in my shed 250w panel on top of the shed, six deep cycle batteries and a 1000w inverter. This allows me to run power tools and keep the mess out of the house and since I'm in Canada I can run a little ceramic heater in there to putter around for a couple of hours.

If you are going to build a solar setup, build it so it's useful. Spending $500 to putter around with it is fun, but completely useless. So scale the system so you, the owner of it, can actually use it for something handy.

[mcleesedesign]

So right! I wish more people used common sense like this and just did things right from the start. Has to be a deep cycle, has to have an inverter and allow for growth, in your case the addition of a heater.

[HeWantsRevenge]

no ground?

[oscarthompson]

At the moment yes I waiting for a friend of mine do to it so its up to regs. Every thing should work fine as long as it doesnt short and become live.

Oscar

[electric_piano_5k]

I don't think you need the ground. If something shorts out and becomes 'live', and you grab the 'live' tool while standing barefoot on the ground, nothing will happen because your power source is floating, it is not connected to ground, there is no complete circuit for current to flow. It is even possible that having the system grounded is slightly more dangerous.
You do need to connect the ground pins of all the electrical sockets together though, otherwise you could grab one 'live' tool and one grounded tool and get a shock that way.

[wobbler]

Electric_Piano is right, you don't need to ground it and it's safer not grounded. You shouldn't even need to connect the ground pins together either although it potentially stops you getting two faulty tools, one with a live fault to chassis and one with a neutral fault to chassis, which could hurt and the RCD won't protect for this though. So maybe it is good to join all the earths together after all!

[jomac_uk]

May i comment on the above? I am a qualified electrician with my test and inspection certificate (Technician) and i am also a co-director of a company manufacturing Solar PV panels.

Sheds, by their very nature, especially in the UK are damp, and tend to be full of condensation. Lets take a situation with a very damp shed (you dont always feel the damp..its there!!) so somewhere along your installation, moisture has got into the electrics, doesnt matter if its affected the live, or the neutral, as its a floating supply, if you come into contact with the opposite conductor, its you thats going to light, up and not the bulb. The situation is even worse with the really cheap inverters or home made inverters that generate square waves instead of sine waves like the grid, often they emit spikes reaching several hundred volts higher then the mains voltage, which makes it easier for the electric coming to look for you!!!

Unless you can guarantee a 100% or reasonably near to, dry shed, i would earth the installation and fit an ELCB socket (Earth Leakage circuit Breaker) These devices cost less then £10 in the uk, add an earth rod outdside. You may have to connect the neutral to the earth (as the grid does) BEFORE the ELCB for the system to work, and ALL earth points need to be connected together.

If you dont have sockets and lights permanently fixed and your system is effectively portable, then there is no need for the earth or ELCB

[electric_piano_5k]

Good to have someone knowledgeable comment on this. My comment stemmed from the fact that my power box is not grounded, and does not even have any means for grounding if I wanted to, and it's legal. But now that you point it out I can see the difference between that and an installed system, where you have much more opportunity for unintended connections.

[oscarthompson]

I agree, I did consult a qualified electricion who is going to install the ground rod. He also supervised the build. Funly enough I installed insulation in to the walls of my shed about 2 months before I began the project. But anyway I agree.

Oscar

[tulsa_jerm]

Correct. Ungrounded system. This has been covered in the NEC for years. No ground rod, do not connect either lead to earth! :)

[electric_piano_5k]

I did a much simpler approach, I have a portable power pack unit (about $100, includes the battery, charging circuit, and inverter) and a 10W solar panel on the roof, and just hooked the panel to the power pack unit. This eliminates the need for any wiring except between the solar panel and the power pack. Not as powerful as your setup though, I'm sure, and it really would be nice to have plugs in the wall instead of plugging into the power pack. One tricky thing, the power pack does not like to have an input voltage less than 15V, which happens in the evening when the sun is not directly on the solar panel, it starts beeping and wasting charge, so I had to build a circuit to disconnect the panel when the sun is not shining on it. A pretty stupid flaw in the power pack in my opinion, it should be able to deal with a low charging voltage, just don't do anything, no need to complain about it.
I also have a separate solar lighting system in my shed where I hacked a solar powered house number sign, disconnecting the built in LED's and running wires to some battery powered LED 'puck' lights on the ceiling, you can get those lights at discount stores for about $1 or $2. No batteries in the lights, I soldered the wires onto the battery terminals inside so they run off the rechargeable batteries in the sign. I have a real light switch on the wall to turn on the lights in the shed, but it is only switching the 4.5V battery voltage.

[jomac_uk]

Well to be fair electric, you are using your inverter (power pack) in a way it wasnt designed to be used, the inverter that you have is designed to be used with a battery, and not directly connected to a solar panel as you have done, the beeping sound you are getting is the sound the inverter emits as a battery is going flat, and usually not long after this, it shuts down to prevent deep discharge and damage to your battery.

Adding a battery across the inverter will cure this, even if its a small one with a regulator.

[electric_piano_5k]

My power pack includes a charging circuit (charge controller), battery, and inverter. The solar panel is connected to the charging circuit, and it is this circuit that is giving the error condition.  See it here

[oscarthompson]

My solar panel isn't directly attached to the inverter. It goes through a charge controller then to the battery. Then the battery is connected to the inverter.

Oscar

[jomac_uk]

In your system, you wouldnt need the charge controller at all, you are using a 15Ah sealed lead acid battery, and its nominal charge is 10% of its rated capacity, which in this case would be 1.5 Amps, your solar panel outputs 10 watts maximum on a really sunny day, 10 watts is less then an amp

[oscarthompson]

Thanks for the comment.
Your setup would be really good for camping! I might build something like that, as I'm quite into the outdoors,

The Lighting system seems quite good. Im still using 230v energy saving lights. A bit silly really. For two reasons

They use more energy than 12v energy saving lights and If I wanted to just use the lights I have to power up my inverter to use them.

Thanks

Oscar

[hintss]

they use more power? whats the wattage on each?

[oscarthompson]

11watts, but they have to go throught the inverter which takes alot more.

[RockmanAU]

...so I had to build a circuit to disconnect the panel when the sun is not shining on it.

I for one would like to see an 'ible on that!

Ideas I have had using diodes steal a volt or two but I am no electronics specialist. I recently found out germanium diodes 'steal' less voltage.

[electric_piano_5k]

Here is the circuit.  I don't think I'll do an instructable on this, not many people likely interested as it's pretty specialized.  It doesn't eliminate the diode, that is still needed (not included in this circuit since there's one in the power box).
R1 is a CdS cell which senses when the sun is shining, the CdS has to be oriented in the same direction as the solar panel.  +15V and ground connect to the solar panel, "Load" connects to the power pack charge input. 

[RockmanAU]

Nice ! Thanks very much. (what is the diode you are using btw?)

[electric_piano_5k]

I didn't need a diode because the power pack unit already has one inside. But something like 1N4001 would work. Just be sure to check the current rating of the diode (1N4001 is 1A) vs. the current capability of the solar panel (10W is about 0.8A). If you really want low voltage drop, use a Schottky diode such as 1N5817, but I think Schottky diodes have higher leakage current than silicon pn diodes so while you might save some power on charging, you could lose it again through leakage when the sun is not shining. I don't think you should really worry about the power lost in the diode, the current of the solar cell is pretty much dictated by the intensity of the sunlight so the charging current won't change much with the diode in the circuit, until you get to marginal sunlight conditions.

[Ugifer]

I know very little about these things, but some garden lights use a jule-thief type arrangement to boost the voltage of their solar cells above that required to charge the battery. Could you have something like that which switched in under low light conditions so that you don't waste that evening charging current?

Just a thought.

[hintss]

diodes work, but suck power when there is sun

[RockmanAU]

Yup, but at least they stop voltage loss back to the solar cell when there is no sunshine. It's the small drop in Voltage across the Diode I am trying to reduce.