Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Finally building our off grid small home/cabin, newbie to solar have some questions

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Finally building our off grid small home/cabin, newbie to solar have some questions

    Hi all, I am building an offgrid cabin and am currently starting to buy the components i need to get the solar and solar powered water pump system going. I spoke to a few local folks and have started to design what i think is a good starting point but i wanted to check with some experts first. So here's my plan and if something doesn't sound or look right please let me know.

    My situation is this year (before snow hits) I want to get the solar water system up and running. That's my main goal and I'm hoping that the items i buy will be able to be also used for the final full house system.

    I will be pumping to a cistern from a shallow well. The trick is the well is 1000 linear feet away and 120 feet in elevation below the cistern. Since i'm on a poor man's budget and am doing all this without using credit or going into debt I need to find inexpensive solutions to some issues.

    For the pump I'm sticking with a diaphragm pump due to cost and power usage. I have a very long run so to keep the cost of cabling down i need to keep the pump power low. I don't really need a lot of flow since I'll be using a cistern and a separate pressure pump for the house. I was going to go with a shurflo then found out about the Nemo 115V solar pumps that are based of the flowjet but are 1/3 the price of the shurflo and I don't need to install a 115AC to 30VDC converter as the pump already has it in it.

    the only item I have already purchased is a Trace DR1524 Inverter. I was recommended it by a friend and got it for $480 which i hope was a good deal. So my future battery system is now set at 24V. I also am under the impression that i can link two DR1524s up to make up a 3kw system which is my end goal.

    For the battery charger I'm trying to see if i can afford a MPPT controller and since my end goal is a 3kw system and I live in the north I think I'll eventually end up with 6.4kw of panels. I believe the Tristar MPPT 60 charger could handle a 6400w @ 96V input during the summer months even if it's only putting out 1600W @24V to the batteries. then during the winter when the array is putting out a lot less that full power it should be able to still put the full 1600w to the batteries. Is that the way these work?

    For batteries, I'm going to go cheap for this year. I'm only going to chain up 4 6v golf cart batteries to 24V and that should be more than enough to run the water pump. I have a friend here that says he expects to come into some big 2V batteries that I could get cheap so maybe next year that will come together.

    For panels I'm leaning towards Kycera 120W panels, they seem to be everywhere and i can get them for under $1/w shipped to me UPS. I will start off with only two or four this year for the pump.

    My plan for next year is to get 3.2kw in panels and a decent battery bank.

    The following year is another 3.2kw for a total of 6.4kw and a second DR1524 inverter. and I hope that will mostly do it for this system.

    Please let me know if something doesn't look right or if i'm missing something. I'm very new to this so everything I'm learning is from spec sheets and online reviews.
Working...
X