Solar Project 2011 (From Panels To Batteries to AC Power)

[DanielBrown89]

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[GK007001]

Great video, its informative, and latest, i liked it.

thanx for this

[drewshock]

Thanks electrodacus, your right. The vacuum would only run about 2 to 2.5 hours to half depletion of the batteries. My mistake was calculating everything based on AC power. That's why it's always nice to have someone else check the numbers.

[electrodacus]

You calculated for a 120W vacuum cleaner.

Not sure what vacuum cleaner you have but is probably more closer to 1200W than you can use only about 2 hours for a 50% discharge.

Good video.

[drewshock]

electrodacus - Our vacuum cleaner is 9.3A running at roughly 118V therefore (9.3A * 118V = 1097 Watts). Using only the recommended 50% of our battery capacity (420Ah * .50 = 210Ah), the 9.3A vacuum would last (210 / 9.3 = 22.6) roughly 20 to 22 hours given that there would be some loss due to the inverter inefficiencies.

[electrodacus]

@drewshock Your battery is approximatively 12V and half the capacity is 210Ah so 12V x 210Ah = 2520Wh

That will be 2.5 hours to run the 1097W vacuum cleaner again not including the inverter efficiency.

The way the DC to AC inverter works is that if you need 1200W out of it it will be 120V 10A at the output but on input the battery side it will be 12V 100A both are round numbers and assume 100% efficiency.

[DaMenaCe3]

@drewshock I am slightly confused about the Ah logic. would you be able to tell me whats the point of gettin the Watts Mesure (i.e 9.3A * 118V = 1097 Watts) when what you are basically doing is divide the Rating of the load (vacum cleaner in this case 9.3A) By Half of Ah rated for the Battery Bank. Sorry i am Very new to this and i m trying to figure out...Wat exactly am i going to need to generat enough juice to power bulbs, tvs, washing machine and an automated garage door opener.

[FUNNYTOM10]

@drewshock I have a battery bank of 400 amphours on 24 volts my AC is 230 Volts. If i draw 200 Watts on 230volts constantly: how long will my batteries last to 50% discharge? I have gel cells btw. Please help me out on that.. how low can i draw them ? i have a voltmeter on my inverter so i can check the battery voltage there

[drewshock]

@FUNNYTOM10 200W @ 230V is a .8 Amp AC draw, which is 9.5Ah DC. So 400Ah*50% = 200Ah/9.5 Ah = 21 hours. That's with an inverter efficiency of 80% since there is some loss in the DC to AC conversion. Voltage measurements are approximate and with no draw or charge on them for a few hours a 24V battery bank should read 25.4V when full and 24.12V at 50%. Try not to go below 50% . How did I come up with 9.5Ah? I input your numbers into this site: bdbatteries,com/acdcsolar.php

[FUNNYTOM10]

@drewshock Thanks for your very helpful answer!

[Cede225]

So u have 24v going in to the charge controller charging a 12v battery bank that's not going to over charger the batterys

[drewshock]

That's what a charge controller does, it makes sure the batteries are charged correctly and not over charged. We have a MPPT charge controller which varies the ratio between the voltage and current (Amps) delivered to the batteries in order to maximize the power. If there is excess voltage available from the panels, is converted to additional current(Amps) to the battery. We just had to input on the charge controller that our battery bank is 12v, and our array was 48v.

[MrJohn196741]

good video please make more

[doudson1]

nice vid :)

[ditmar11]

great setup and vid. thanks

[GardenDavesProjects]

Hi, great video. I do have 2 questions. Do you have a moment to answer please?

Would I be able to use several batteries to act as one, maybe by connecting one battery to the other so that when one is fully charged, the solar power continues on straight to the next?

Also, you mention you would be able to run a vacuum for 12 hours, is that ONLY the vacuum? Or could you maybe use a music system at the same time? Can you use the electric at the same time as it is charging?

Cheers pal

[drewshock]

When multiple batteries are connected they act as one. If connected in a series (positive of one battery connected to the neg of the other) the voltages of the batteries add to each other and the amp hours (Ah) stay the same. Connected in parallel (positive of one battery to the positive of the other and the negative connected to the other negative) the voltage stays the same and the Ah are added together. They are all charged at the same time. You can run whatever your inverter can handle. :)

[robojo100]

Nice very clean work good job! . I hope my jb will be that clean

[matt420740]

Very nice setup. I need to do this to my shop.....