GOON

| My solar air heaters | My drain water heat exchanger | My solar setup | My biofuel experiments | My wind turbine | My lighting projects | Links to information | Home |

This page contains information about my solar setup.

This is just a little information about my solar setup. At first I bought a Unisolar US-64 panel and just leaned it up against the side of the house. Then I decided it would be better for it not to be on the ground so I mounted it to my solar air heater.

Then I decided I should mount the panel on a pole I have

Then I got another panel and decided to mount both panels on that pole.

I used pressure treated 2x2" deck railing material to make the mount. I would have used non pressure treated 2x2" stock but I couldn't get any. The bottom support for the mount is attached to a "U" bolt that can be loosened and moved up or down to adjust the panel angle throughout the seasons.

Here is a picture of my battery and inverter arrangement. There is 305 amp hours of battery. The large meter to the right in front is current in from the panels. The center black block is an inexpensive charge controller. This makes sure the battery is never over charged or under charged. I has a temperature probe to adjust charging for the temperature conditions. It also has a low voltage disconnect to shut the load off if the battery voltage gets too low. The little meter to the left is a current meter for the output. The bucket contains 2 current meters that will read up to 200 amps. One is for the battery in/output and the other is strictly for the inverter.

This is the circuit I use to control my landscape lights. It senses light and turns the landscape lights on when dark and off when light. This circuit is available on my links page.

This is my current solar battery setup. I have purchased Nickel/Iron batteries which are much more robust and able to handle the rigors of absorbing and dispensing energy in the way mother nature doles it out and the way it needs to be used when you use it. This is a 500Ah bank. On the board mounted to the wall behind the batteries is the solar charge controller, DC-AC inverter so I can make power to use in the house, some DC circuits on the right and an Arduino based controller to run the whole thing so I don't have to be there to flip switches and monitor voltages. I also now have 6 BP175 panels out for a total of 1.05kW of solar panels. On good days I have made more than 5kWh.

Home

Please send any comments or questions to:

© 2005-2008 B. McGowan