Solar Powered Workshop Part 1

My solar power setup uses two marine batteries and one 130 watt solar panel. This will provide all the power for my workshop, or I hope so anyway. The rest of my set up is capable of expansion, so if what I have so far doesn't provide enough power I can add batteries and/or another panel.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• solar panel
• solar power
• workshop
• environment

[pinetar100]

cool setup..... what zone are you and how are the winters where you live.......i am going to start a setup myself.....and was worry about where to put the battrey bank....have cold winters here..i would like to put them out side but was think it is too cold for them..thanks

[therealvirginiawind]

@pinetar100

I'm on top of a mountain about 2 hours west of Washington DC. It gets pretty cold here, but there's not much weather that's below 0. My batteries are outside behind my workshop and i have a small roof over them, and 2 sides. The back side is my workshop, but there's plenty of room for air flow behind the sides. No front. They sometimes get wet when it rains, but i've had no problems so far.

Kent

[gumby511]

Do you think the 1750 was overkill or min? for what you are using it for?

[therealvirginiawind]

After using this set up for several months I'd say it's about right. My wife can run her stained glass grinder and a lamp, and I can run my mini drill press and charge my circular saw battery all at the same time without a problem. The 1750 also lets me run the fish pond pump too. One thing I can't do with the 1750 is use the variable speed control on my scroll saw - it just runs at full speed. To get the variable speed to work I have to switch over to the small clean power inverter.

[therealvirginiawind]

@gumby511

I have two 25 watt LED lights inside, a halogen motion detector outdoor light, she runs a glass saw and grinder, I have a little hobby type press and a few other like tools, battery chargers for my portable drill and circular saw, bench lights, a small fan near the ceiling, and maybe a few other things. Of course everything isn't running at once, but sometimes near so. The 1750 seems to handle it fine. I had a small chest freezer running on it too once, but not enough solar.

[therealvirginiawind]

Thanks for the comment Philipx2, but I don't really understand why it would matter. I have both positive terminals connected together, and bot negative terminals connected together. It seems I could tap power from anywhere on the connection and reach both batteries equally.

[themassinfluence]

really nice



[js111410]

you onely need one breaker.

[davettalashley]

Why don't you get a solar-powered fan? That way it'll run independent of your main solar system.

[Lanny615]

Very nice setup, but stay away from marine deep cycle batteries, they are only good for 300 cycles=1 year if cycled every day. Real deep cycle/golf cart batteries will last 5+ years if maintained properly.

Greetings from sunny Jamaica.

[MrJetjoe]

if you use a fan use a d/c fan its more eff. than a/c same with lights don't run lights off the inverter there is a lot of wasted power converting to a/c. rember the words of Tomas A Adison d/c power is more eff.

[hooptejoe]

@therealvirginiawind Your fine hooked up like that, it eliminates a set of wires. Mine is the same and been in use for almost 2 years. Nice job on your system