Powering my garage entirely with solar.

[outspoken]

I have a detached garage and wanted to get a few things going on solar power.

Mainly a Craftsman 1/2 HP Garage Door Opener. This has a 6AMP draw and is an AC unit with 1,400 starting watts and an average 745 running watts.

My experience with solar is zero. I have been reading and watching videos but still am not 100% on what kind of setup would work well. I live in the north east and there is a good amount of light shining through to my garage roof which has a 45 degree angle and faces east.

This is a list of items I thought might work:

10 Amp Charger - Sunforce 60031 Digital Charge Controller
18 Amp Battery - Odyssey PC625 Powersports Battery
30 Watt Panel - Instapark Black Mono-crystallin​e Panel
1K Watt 120V Inverter - Cobra CPI-1000 Power Inverter

Forgive my naivety, if this is completely wrong please let me know what needs to be changed.

[Beanyboy57]

I have a detached garage and wanted to get a few things going on solar power.

Mainly a Craftsman 1/2 HP Garage Door Opener. This has a 6AMP draw and is an AC unit with 1,400 starting watts and an average 745 running watts.

1K Watt 120V Inverter - Cobra CPI-1000 Power Inverter
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"Some induction motors used in freezers, pumps,
and other motor-operated equipment require very high
surge currents to start. The inverter may not be able
to start some of these motors even though their rated
current draw is within the inverter’s limits. The inverter
will normally start single phase induction motors rated
at one-half HP or less."
From what you have written your inverter may or may not start your motor, my experience is that you will need a larger inverter that has a surge capacity above the 1400w. It looks like the manufacturer has not stated the surge capacity of that particular inverter.
Your battery looks like it is used for starting a motorcycle, maybe you should look at dedicated deep cycle batteries, then look at the solar panel that is required to charge that battery in a reasonable amount of time during the time of the year when you have the least amount of useable sunlight. You need to plan for the worst case scenario when setting up a solar powered system.

[outspoken]

From what you have written your inverter may or may not start your motor, my experience is that you will need a larger inverter that has a surge capacity above the 1400w. It looks like the manufacturer has not stated the surge capacity of that particular inverter.

Your battery looks like it is used for starting a motorcycle, maybe you should look at dedicated deep cycle batteries, then look at the solar panel that is required to charge that battery in a reasonable amount of time during the time of the year when you have the least amount of useable sunlight. You need to plan for the worst case scenario when setting up a solar powered system.

Thanks for the info! I figured there needed to be a higher surge capacity but couldn't find it anywhere. Now I've found it, it has a 2,000 Watt Max Surge.

Batteries I'm really quite lost on. I did read up on the long term cost vs initial costs and I definitely want to get a quality battery that I can take care of without much maintenance.

You're absolutely right, I need to plan for the worst days out of the year.

Still on the hunt for batteries and solar panels but I think the inverter and controller mentioned above are what I'll be going with. Also need to figure out the fuse situation and cabling needed.

[Beanyboy57]

[QUOTE=outspoken;59352]
Batteries I'm really quite lost on. I did read up on the long term cost vs initial costs and I definitely want to get a quality battery that I can take care of without much maintenance.

QUOTE]

Go to one of the major battery wesites (maybe Trojan but there are several ) and check out their range of batteries for RE (renewable energy). AGM and Gel batteries have lower maintenance requirements, FLA are more 'rugged" but there are other alternatives depending upon how much you want to spend.
These type of batteries do not like to be discharged more than 50% (DOD) so when you work out the energy requirements of you system your battery needs to only use 50% of its amphour rating over a 24 hour period and your panel needs to be large enough to charge the battery back to full capacity during the useable daylight hours.

[outspoken]

These type of batteries do not like to be discharged more than 50% (DOD) so when you work out the energy requirements of you system your battery needs to only use 50% of its amphour rating over a 24 hour period and your panel needs to be large enough to charge the battery back to full capacity during the useable daylight hours.

This is a huge piece of information I was missing. It makes much more sense now.