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Cordless tool chargers aren't a large draw item. You might want to add all the power draw in watts fo all them if you anticipate needing all of them running at the same time. From the sounds of your minimal needs you would do just fine with a 12 volt Morningstar Suresine 300 watt PSW inverter. Very well regarded and will easily handle surges to 600 watts. Should you decide on a 24 volt system you will need a 24 volt inverter. Samlex, Exeltech and Cotek come to mind for small wattage, quality inverters.
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Last edited by littleharbor; 09-15-2018, 12:07 PM.2.2kw Suntech mono, Classic 200, NEW Trace SW4024 -
I read your initial post. Twice. As for my expressing opinions which you call passing judgement and criticism, in your case, take what you want and scrap the rest.
As for advice: Since you ask, here's a respectfully offered piece of advice from someone who's been on the planet and also been around power and energy production a lot longer than you:
Learn about PV and it's drawbacks, particularly with respect to non grid tied use before you get your thin skin bruised by opinions that that don't conform to what may be your preconceived and apparently uninformed ideas and notions.Comment
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J.p.m Thank you again for your reply. As per your advice that is excatly why I am here. Trying to learn from you professionals. I I derstand you are a retired engineer and I respect that I am a retired law enforcement officer. And I am not very thin-skinned and I don't get bruised very easily. I was merely trying to explain to you that I understand manual labor perfectly capable of still performing it. What I don't understand is solar power. So as I try to educate myself I am seeking advice from those such as yourself where to start with what I have. Or do I throw it all away and start over? If what is already here is usable for anything of of value instead of throwing it away I would rather use it.Comment
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Nothing more dangerous than ideas. Come back in two years and tell me how your battery is. Nothing to feel bad about, you will destroy it. I use energy wisely and only have only a car battery. I have PV hot water, refrigerator, dishwasher with heated dry, etc and its been going for years. It is unlikely you or anyone else here could do that. That doesn't mean I know anything because I never worked at Disney World. One final word, get a low voltage disconnect. Don't rely on the inverters 10.5V cutoff. That is just to protect the inverter.Comment
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You're welcome. Thank you for the honest communication.
As an opinion only, this is the wrong place to begin an education/understanding of alternate energy on a residential level. After some self education as to the basics, this forum may have some usefulness to fill in the gaps/blanks created or not filled in by the self education process. Any self education will also make the questions you then pose here or elsewhere, as well as the answers you may get back, better, with more meat on them. More opinion: you'll learn more, faster and better by making the effort to answer your own questions. My first engineering boss had all the time in the world for answering questions, but woe betide any one of his subordinates who asked him a technical question but could not demonstrate that they had first expended all possible effort at finding the answer on their own before asking for help. I learned more and asked fewer questions of others after I got thrown out of his office once or twice, sporting a new balloon knot for walking in there with my lazy and presumptive sense of entitlement to demand to be spoon fed what I could very well find on my own and not wasting his time.
Take what you may want of the above. Scrap the rest.Comment
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J.p.m. thank you for the very polite way of saying figure it out for yourself. As it sounds like that's what you had to do. So yes with this information I will do just that. I don't need to be thrown out of anyones office or group to get it. So I figure this out as I have many other things in my life. I wish you a very happy and positive eventdul day.Comment
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Wilseya you have a heck of a challenge, and what I think JPM and others have implied, and I observe is you jumped off a cliff into water without knowing how deep it is or how to swim first. Been here a few days and one thing I have noticed is a lot of folks come here because they bought something, and now want to know how to make it work and meet their expectations. Unfortunately I would say 95% or more of the time comes up grossly short of hitting the mark. I cannot answer if you can get by living on roughly 2 to 2.5 Kwh per day or not. We are talking Hermit levels in a very dry state without much or any refrigeration or any modest conveniences. All I can tell you is with what you have to play with will not support much, but at least I can tell you how to make the best with what you have.
Fist let's get rid of what is pretty much useless and not worth the money to use it or put in service.
Harbor Freight, keep the box it came in as you might find some use for it someday.
Bogart Battery Monitor.
All you really have to work with is 2 x 320 watt panels.
At 740 watts with an eye on future growth you want to run a 24 volt system. Doing so will save you money now, and later when and if you figure out you need more power. 12 volt systems are limited to 1000 watts or less, and cost more than a higher voltage system.
First item you will need is a good quality Charge Controller, one with at least 150 Voc input and 60 amp output @ 24 volt battery. That will allow you to grow to 1500 watts. An 80 amp model woiuld allow you to grow to 2000 watts. At a minimum you would need 30 amps. FWIW if you used 12 volts would require the same 60 amp controller, but no room for growth at 12 volts. A 60 amp controller has the following input power limitations vs battery voltage.
800 watts @ 12 volts
1600 watts @ 24 volts
3200 watts @ 48 volts.
So do not make the 12 volt car battery toy mistake so many here often do and have advised you to do already. A good 60 amp controller is a Morningstar. Plan on spending at least $400 on a good controller of 60 amps.
Next you will need batteries. Since you have no experience, buy store brand inexpensive 6-volt golf cart batteries. You will destroy your first set. With 740 watts of panels you can only support 4 x 6-volt 200 to 250 AH golf cart batteries. Once you learn how to take care of batteries and ready for replacement in a year or two, then you can use more expensive longer lasting batteries of 5 years.
Last thing to make it work is a good True Sine Wave Inverter and here is the best advice you will get. Use the smallest wattage unit you can use. Wanna do something stupid? Then buy the largest wattage unit you can find. So let's start with limits, reasonable limits based upon you battery capacity, Using say 4 store label golf cart batteries with a capacity of 24 volts @ 225 AH, the batteries can only support up to 1000 watts. But even 1000 watts would be ill informed on a such a small system or 740 panel watts. Nothing you have said so far remotely indicates you would ever need anything larger than 500 to 600 watts. With just 2 to 2.5 Kwh-day usable power further indicates you have small loads. There are plenty of good 24 volt inverters offerings like from Xantrex, Morningstar, and Samlex. Not only will a smaller good quality Inverter cost you less initially, but much more efficient than even his big brothers of much higher power levels your batteries are not capable of running at full power.
Last comments. The right way to do this and know it will work is to know how much energy you need in a day. 95% of the time buy and wish fails miserable.
Good Luck.Last edited by Sunking; 09-15-2018, 10:42 PM.MSEE, PEComment
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Sunking
first and foremost thank you for the reply. Thank you for actually answering my question along with giving great advise. I understand enough to know that I need to have an idea of what my power consumption we I'll be daily .as of right now I charge a cell phone in my pickup while driving. My RV refrigator runs on propane I cook outside open fire or on my grill if you will. I use a couple solar powered portable laterns for night lights. So yes o ce I complete the small 500 sq ft home that was started and install lights water tank and pump along with hopefully a swamp cooler and a fan or two. I will gain the necessary watage usage that I will likely be using. I have not had a power bill on the last 10 years as I have been full time rving across the United States and I found this place in the desert and well here I am. So again thank you for your advice and answers
. Maybe I will try to figure out if I can connect my RV to the pannels I have .I have seen many others do that. And just build a complete system from the beginning when it's time.
WilseyaComment
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As suggested many people come here looking to live a mainstream lifestyle on a stand alone power system without needing to consider what is being used and when.
To do it on a smallish system is doable as long as you understand it is a lifestyle, and very different to living with mains power. But it seems like you are the type of person who would be happy to live this way.
We have been living on stand alone solar for 12 years now in a hot climate so I will throw in some thoughts of my experience.
Refrigeration is a key factor as it needs to be on all the time. We have a full size fridge only and smallish deep freeze. They use approx 1kwh a day each here. Work out what you need in refrigeration and it power consumption baed on your climate and your requirements.
Water is another must, best option is if you can set up gravity feed so you are not using power for water when there is no sun. Again what are your requirements for washing, shower, garden etc etc.
If you dont work and are home most of the time you can have a smaller system as you can make use of the good sunny days to pump water to the gravity feed tank, do clothes washing or anything else that needs power but does not need to be done at any special time. You can also set up timers to take advantage of sun if you are not home.
As also suggested really working out your needs and consumption before purchase of items, and buying quality products will allow you to buy once and have a system that works for you.
You need a generator big enough to run what ever you need including charge the batteries. If your system goes down the generator needs to run it while you get it back up and running.
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You are welcome. Just take some time and think before you lay down your money and take your chances. Example once you decide 12 or 24 volts and buy an Inverter, you are married to it. Hope you are at altitude in AZ, gets hot at lower elevations there. Have a few relatives there and use to own a vacation home in Prescott. Northern AZ is beautiful country.
MSEE, PEComment
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Thank you again. Well at at 3000 ft but it still gets to 105 + a few days many in high 90s low 100s I am between Lake Havasu and Kingman . From everything I've gathered in read a minim 24 volt system. I can't make up my mind on batteries weather to go to the AGM or lead acid. I have no problem with maintaining and checking the batteries that doesn't that doesn't sound all that difficult. Obviously the main goal we spend the least amount of money over the long run.Comment
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Sunking so from what I have just read with as small as my solar array is for now I will stay with the trimetric in the boggart 2030 charge battery monitor. I will just four six volt batteries wired to a 24 volt system and purchase a 24 volt five to seven hundred watt power inverter. Again I want to thank you for your input.Comment
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Yes I would like to know howComment
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