Wife is pushing (and I'm very curious anyways) for solar for my storage barn, a 40x40x10 that I'm using for storage. It's new construction this year and doesn't have any electric currently. It's about 300' from the house so running power would be a bit of a project. My loads would be minimal. I'm looking to power the following:
Garage door opener - The one I have doesn't have battery backup so to use it would probably require a hefty inverter that would have a lot of parasitic draw so I'm guessing it would be much easier to replace it with one with a battery backup. Or from reading is the parasitic now low enough that it's not an issue to keep the inverter live all the time? The rating plate on the opener is 6A but I'm pretty sure that's peak draw. It would be used most of the time only 2x per day.
Trickle chargers for 10 cars. I don't anticipate having to charge anything, mainly it's just to keep the parasitic draws from running batteries dead. From the research I've done I'm anticipating the float function would be sufficient and would probably only need to be on a few hours a day.
Lighting - I have translucent panels on the east wall so it's all I need in the daytime but nights get long in the winter. I don't anticipate working, more along the lines of being able to have the lights on for 10 minutes to check things or grab parts off of the shelving I have.
Air compressor - Mainly to be able to pump up tires. With my minimal usage I'm probably going to be generating excess energy so I thought it would be nice to have a 50 gallon compressor with a 12v compressor to fill it. As I doubt I would use it very often if it took it a week in the summer or several weeks in the winter I would be fine with that. I would configure things to run this only when I'm generating enough power to run it from the solar.
I realize it would probably be cheaper to run electric out but I want to learn how to make it work. I'm guessing a couple of panels mounted on the roof, an MPPT controller and probably a battery for the lighting. I'm an electrical engineer but know enough to know that probably makes me more dangerous. I did most of the wiring in my shop by myself and have a local contractor who has been very helpful when I need it.
Any comments or suggestions? Specific equipment or methods to control the loads?
Garage door opener - The one I have doesn't have battery backup so to use it would probably require a hefty inverter that would have a lot of parasitic draw so I'm guessing it would be much easier to replace it with one with a battery backup. Or from reading is the parasitic now low enough that it's not an issue to keep the inverter live all the time? The rating plate on the opener is 6A but I'm pretty sure that's peak draw. It would be used most of the time only 2x per day.
Trickle chargers for 10 cars. I don't anticipate having to charge anything, mainly it's just to keep the parasitic draws from running batteries dead. From the research I've done I'm anticipating the float function would be sufficient and would probably only need to be on a few hours a day.
Lighting - I have translucent panels on the east wall so it's all I need in the daytime but nights get long in the winter. I don't anticipate working, more along the lines of being able to have the lights on for 10 minutes to check things or grab parts off of the shelving I have.
Air compressor - Mainly to be able to pump up tires. With my minimal usage I'm probably going to be generating excess energy so I thought it would be nice to have a 50 gallon compressor with a 12v compressor to fill it. As I doubt I would use it very often if it took it a week in the summer or several weeks in the winter I would be fine with that. I would configure things to run this only when I'm generating enough power to run it from the solar.
I realize it would probably be cheaper to run electric out but I want to learn how to make it work. I'm guessing a couple of panels mounted on the roof, an MPPT controller and probably a battery for the lighting. I'm an electrical engineer but know enough to know that probably makes me more dangerous. I did most of the wiring in my shop by myself and have a local contractor who has been very helpful when I need it.
Any comments or suggestions? Specific equipment or methods to control the loads?
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