Current Solar Electric Setup
Here is the current setup of Panels, Controller, Batteries, and estimated costs.
- 2 Deep cycle Marine Batteries. (Battery Warehouse $80.00 each). Tip: see if blemishes are available (have scratches). while writing this I called around and found some for $39.99 each.
- 4 5v 350mAh solar panels (harbor freight for $34.99 ea @ harbor freight)
- 1 7amp/100Watt charge controller (so the batteries don’t overcook, fry, or catch fire) ($12.99 @ harbor freight)
- 2 grounding bars (found at hardware store in electrical, used for circuit breaker boxes)
- 1 Terminal bar, to make connecting, and rewiring, testing easier
- 1 AC Anywhere modified sine wav inverter (DC to AC). It is something I had laying around. If you are going to do this, make sure you get a True or Pure sine wave inverter. It’s better for electronics, and motors. See previous blog post about it.
Solar panels mounted on a board, before mounting on the roof. There are no wires that is connected later
Before cleaning up the area. Notice the block of wood on the left, where the neg/pos connections from the solar panels goto. It worked, but I fixed it as shown below.
- PV Electrical panel after changes
I just had to clean up the area. Blocks on the far left are from a hardware store. The are actually grounding bars used for electrical panels. It just needed to connect all the leads together. Notice I have more room for expansion :):):):)
- 2 12v deep cycle battery bank
Battery bank, 2 12v hooked in parallel. The smaller battery is not connected, I charge it once and a while from the solar panels.
While working on this post, I called around and found Battery Plus has some blemished (scratched) batteries. 12v (24, 31) not sure what the other numbers are, must be amp hours or something. Anyone care to explain? leave a comment 