Solar power supply

My solar power supply that I created, three 12 watt panels charge two 12Ah sealed lead acid batteries to power a 750 watt inverter that I use to charge my laptop, charge my phone, power my 5.1 surround sound and many other things. All self contained in a wooden box (except the solar panels of course!), two 12V 12Ah rechargeable batteries (maplin), a 750 watt inverter (Black&Decker), all relevant cables, switches, sockets and fuse holder (Maplin), 10A ammeter (Virtual Village), 20V digital voltmeter (Virtual Village), 20A digital ammeter (Virtual Village), 6 amp solar charge controller (maplin), bits and bobs from around the house and of course a pc cooling fan for air flow (maplin). Batteries are separated from the inverter due to gas that may build up from charging and theres plenty of holes drilled in the box for air to flow in. (Just though I'd put that in because I know someone would complain about gas accumulation and air flow in a box with an inverter!)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• solar
• power
• supply
• clean
• energy
• diy

[dazinull]

nice vid but peek inside would be good

[48lewi]

Would do but I'm currently making a better one, with 5x the battery capacity and built in car stereo and speakers =)

[JohnSmith18989]

Commercial Solar Panels are too Expensive

Your Only Option is to Build Your own Solar Panels

Just go to Google and search for

"Top DIY Solar Panels"

Select the First Result (Skip The Advertisements)

You will get a great resource....

[48lewi]

@AussieHomestead Haha! :), I'm just looking forward to building it now, using a nice mid end charge controller instead of my current on-off crappy 10A one, my two RC Turnigy meters to display realtime solar and load watts, amps and volts etc arrived today and look much better than version 2's 3 led displays. I'm only a student studying geography at university with only my termly loan funding my hobbies, i've currently spent around 900AUS Dollars on parts for my new one :).

[48lewi]

@AussieHomestead Thanks :), This was version 1 of my solar power boxes, from ages ago, the needle on the amp meter went below 0 for amps flowing into the battery. Since then i've built version 2 in another video with a 125 amp hour marine battery but it didnt live upto expectations, even with 3x 80 watts and 4x 12 watts of panels. Right now im waiting for deliveries of new parts for another, this time with a morningstar ps30m controller and two 6v Trojan T105's :)

[coooooperman]

I am currently gathering parts and knowledge to build something similar. Please check out my video and if you can advise me on my plans. Thanks John.

[MegaDeathwarrant]

show us what's inside the mystery box

[MRacer001]

thats amazing! seriously lewis i would buy something like that, i just need a solar panel :) an idea for an addition. add some kind of expansion so it can charge different types of battery, then i would definetly buy it. the battery for my ipod dock remote keeps dying everytime i buy a new one, they barely last acouple of months each