Adding solar to an old on grid homestead

[Hardcalibres]

I had some folks come out and talk about a solar system. Nice set up, but no batteries. Total grid tied. Told him to hit the door

Many of those they market to, don't know what grid tied means.

 

[viking]

Pretty bad when the only advantage someone gets is a lower power bill and nothing else. When I worked for a local school district one of the teachers had a solar system, asked him if he had batteries for grid down situation, nope, in reality I consider those systems a rip off. We have another friend that had a really big array, high quality panels and of course, no battery backup, in considering these type of systems I would recommend a little shed behind his home to have a large amount of storage batteries and a high wattage inverter/ charger, at least he could use some of that solar power to charge his batteries along with selling power back to the power company, which should have been thought out before he got the extremely expensive system that will take years to pay for. I believe the biggest problem people have is not doing the deep research, they just listen to the sales BS and think they are really getting something that's going to save them money on their power bills, wonder if they even think about grid down and not having electricity after the sun goes down.

 

[Supervisor42]

Pretty bad when the only advantage someone gets is a lower power bill and nothing else. When I worked for a local school district one of the teachers had a solar system, asked him if he had batteries for grid down situation, nope, in reality I consider those systems a rip off. We have another friend that had a really big array, high quality panels and of course, no battery backup, in considering these type of systems I would recommend a little shed behind his home to have a large amount of storage batteries and a high wattage inverter/ charger, at least he could use some of that solar power to charge his batteries along with selling power back to the power company, which should have been thought out before he got the extremely expensive system that will take years to pay for. I believe the biggest problem people have is not doing the deep research, they just listen to the sales BS and think they are really getting something that's going to save them money on their power bills, wonder if they even think about grid down and not having electricity after the sun goes down.

I'll touch back in even though I will get in trouble.
In the other hand, you have people with expensive panels and batteries for only backup purpose.
Every day the sun shines, the batteries are fully charged, so the expensive panels do nothing.
A simple circuit to allow the system to be able to 'sell' power back to the house during full sun would be priceless.
The high-dollar systems do that. (I do not recommend that one except for people with a bottomless wallet.)

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today I finished my additions to my solar energy system. I added an 800 watt array above my basement walkout/greenhouse and made an air collection system under the panels. It was very overcast and each array was only putting out about 25 watts, that's 3% of capacity. Each array has 2 diode isolated 400 watt parallel strings connected by a Y connector to it's own 60 AMP charge controller controller. I placed a wireless temperature gauge in the plenum under the new array, there are 2, 3" collection points connected to a 4" 100 watt blower that goes to the diffusion plenum under the floor of the greenhouse.

According to my kil-a-watt meter I have used 10kW-hrs of solar generated electricity this week and my battery bank never dropped bellow 11.5V. I do not believe it was a full week, but this week I will start the meter over and see what we end up with.

The only sad part of this story is that I used to have 800 watts of "backup" emergency solar in boxes, that is no longer the case.... Unless I start saving for replacements....

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today we are seeing heavy overcast and the solar is not generating a lot (~100 watts), but because I am using it to provide supplemental light in the greenhouse (4 hours pre-dawn and 2 hours at sunset) it seems to be just keeping the batteries up... Not a lot, but the system is harvesting power even on a dark cloudy day.....

I am following @Neb 's approach and recording the data at different times of the day. When this is all over I should have a lot of useful data.....

 

[Neb]

Just talked to a Generac sales guy for solar plus batteries. $81k fully installed for 25 panels and their largest battery. I still need to review the details 30% in tax credits state kick-back and electrical savings and credit for excess energy fed back into the grid. Could take 10 years to pay for itself when the warranty on the batteries expires.

Lot of thinking to do.

Ben

 

[Supervisor42]

Just talked to a Generac sales guy for solar plus batteries. $81k fully installed for 25 panels and their largest battery. I still need to review the details 30% in tax credits state kick-back and electrical savings and credit for excess energy fed back into the grid. Could take 10 years to pay for itself when the warranty on the batteries expires.

Lot of thinking to do.

Ben

$81,000

C'mon man, I know you are gifted in math!...
To break even in 10 years, you would need a $675 per-month electric bill.
(10yrs x12mo = 120mo $81,000/120 = $675)
You use that much electricity? or are the kickbacks much bigger than I think?

 

[Neb]

$81,000

C'mon man, I know you are gifted in math!...
To break even in 10 years, you would need a $675 per-month electric bill.
(10yrs x12mo = 120mo $81,000/120 = $675)
You use that much electricity? or are the kickbacks much bigger than I think?

Federal government is offering a 30% tax credit for solar. $24390 in federal credit. State of PA is offering $417 per year.

Based on my last year usage and the electric bill and the solar ( including air conditioning mind you) will I would get 77% ($177 / mo) reduction in electric bill. If I don't use AC the solar would cover 100% of my electrical needs.

Lumping it all together over 10 years ( warranty of batteries) $31470 ... $ 3147 per year ... $262 per month for 25 panels batteries inverter automatic transfer switch copper to connect it all new meter to charge back excess to the grid and installation.

I am still researching the storage capacity of the battery and how long it will run the house.

After ten years no electric bill and battery backup as long as the batteries survive. With the cost of energy going up the deal gets better. Property value of the house should also increase.

A lot of factors in play. My gut is hesitant but The Princess may be of another opinion.

Ben

 

[Neb]

Federal government is offering a 30% tax credit for solar. $24390 in federal credit. State of PA is offering $417 per year.

Based on my last year usage and the electric bill and the solar ( including air conditioning mind you) will I would get 77% ($177 / mo) reduction in electric bill. If I don't use AC the solar would cover 100% of my electrical needs.

Lumping it all together over 10 years ( warranty of batteries) $31470 ... $ 3147 per year ... $262 per month for 25 panels batteries inverter automatic transfer switch copper to connect it all new meter to charge back excess to the grid and installation.

I am still researching the storage capacity of the battery and how long it will run the house.

After ten years no electric bill and battery backup as long as the batteries survive. With the cost of energy going up the deal gets better. Property value of the house should also increase.

A lot of factors in play. My gut is hesitant but The Princess may be of another opinion.

Ben

Count me double hesitant now.

The spec for the Generac battery cabinet indicates it will NOT power my place for an average day without the solar panels producing energy.

So I am now looking for another option.

Ben

 

[UrbanHunter]

After I did the install of my panels we have only had rain and overcast. The battery bank was 100% on day 0, but by day 3 it was down to the point that the low voltage alarm on the inverter went off (11.2 V) the dang inverter low voltage alarm will not self-reset and it was a PIA to get it to shut off. Tomorrow is expected to be our first partly sunny day and I took off so I can clean up around here. Even with the overcast I was seeing between 50 and 150 watts going into the battery bank (<10% of installed capacity), but when you are drawing 3 or 4 times that it does not take long to drain everything. It is something to keep in the back of your mind when doing emergency planning....

 

[Biggkidd]

I am and have been of the opinion the only way one comes out ahead using solar is by putting it all together themselves after hunting for and finding the best deals available at the time of install.

It's neither hard or complicated work these days.

 

[Hardcalibres]

I am and have been of the opinion the only way one comes out ahead using solar is by putting it all together themselves after hunting for and finding the best deals available at the time of install.

It's neither hard or complicated work these days.

I assess that doing it yourself is about the only way you are going to avoid being scammed.

If there is a "salesman" involved in you acquiring solar power, then there is a >90% chance you are being offered a scam.

Unfortunately the government subsidies actually attract scam artists to the industry, in much the same way raw meat attracts predators.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Last night I ran a dehydrator using the inverter and greenhouse battery pack. The pack was fully charged when I started but by 07:30 this morning it was down to 11.5 volts (at which point the low voltage alarms go off). I had checked the draw when I hooked it all up and I estimated that it should have been okay. Based on the draw rate and the time before I got the alarms, the usable energy storage of my battery bank is only 60% of what I had expected. I think I could re-design my battery box in the space that I have to cover the additional batteries required, but then I would be having to mix and match new and year old batteries... On my budget it would take me 3 months to buy the batteries I need to make the upgrades, plus I would have to disassemble all of my existing setup.

Yesterday I saw something that I hadn't expected. It was the first truly sunny day since I installed the extra solar array. The batteries started the day at 12Vs and some load <300 watts, the second array was shaded until 13:00 and the inverter load was increased to about 600 watts. By 17:00 the batteries were fully charged 13+V and the first array quit charging the batteries. I infer from this that I would be better off drawing as much power as possible during the middle of the day while the solar is available. So to make everything more economical I would need to have useful way to utilize my power and some way to monitor and control it all.

The controls are the complicated part, what I need is some simple way to use battery bank voltage to turn loads on and off.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Update, today the battery pack started out at 11.5 volts. The sun has been on both arrays for just over an hour and the battery pack is at full capacity and the controllers are charging at just over 1000 watts. I have turned on everything (but a heater) and I am drawing just under 1000 watts, the greenhouse is very warm ~90F, it is 60F outside. I do some see some ripple in the lights from the interaction of the fans/blower and a cheep inverter, but the voltage is holding and I am getting more power out of my solar arrays. As I applied load I saw the charge wattage at the controllers increase a little, maybe jumping up to 1200 watts.

I found a 200 amp battery isolation switch and a voltage controller so I think I can wire a control circuit to cut off power to the inverter if the batteries get below 11.7-V, if I couple that with a 30-Amp single circuit automatic transfer switch I can have the whole system jump between solar and grid. The next step would be to figure out how to utilize some of my extra power in a wise manner. The best that I can hope for is to use as much solar power as possible all day and have the batteries fully charged at the end of each the day.

 

[viking]

We had a little test of our back up solar system yesterday, a very short outage, power company always gives us an automated call. We were just sitting around taking it easy, no bad weather going on, when a light we use as a grid down indicator went out, neither my wife or I saw the other lights blink when the solar system kicked in, the transfer is quick, 1/16th of a second. The outage didn't last but about 15 minutes, the power company called again saying the power had been restored. These little outages occur frequently, usually it's from a tree branch or tree falling on the wires, years ago the wires would sag from snow or ice but the power company upgraded the poles and enlarged the size all around in our area. Anyway, we are glad had we just replaced all of our 9 year old batteries in August, plus we added one more bank for a total of 24 batteries, 6 banks of 4 batteries each for 1,260 amp hours. The old batteries were still working but were getting weird, some were expelling electrolyte so that the to of the batteries were always wet, sometimes to the point of electrolytes going down a drain I had set up in front of the battery deck, I used pieces of an old corrugated plastic pickup bed liner for that deck, works great for cleaning batteries after servicing them.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Well I have ordered everything I think I will need for my battery setup, I have the programmable controllers for the voltage based load control, I have the transfer switches (I already had them for another project), PV disconnect switches and box, fuse box, primary wire, relays, fans, and thermostatically controlled switches. I have more than 1 inverter so it will be easy enough to have multiple loads on independent circuits still debating on having a very small inverter for work lights.

So here is my logic plan based on a 12 volt battery pack:
<11.7 Volts, only work lights powered < 200 watts
11.7 V- 12.7 Volts, greenhouse load up to 1000 watts
>12.7 Volts, Greenhouse load plus indoor growing station load, up to 3,500 watts max

Today at mid-afternoon I checked and found the charge controllers delivering about 1,500 watts and the batteries were at 13.1 volts, so I switched the dehydrator to inverter and then turned on all the growing lights and the fans, it didn't take long to pull the voltage down a bit. After about 4 hours I off loaded most of the load and the batteries were still at 12.6 Volts. So if the control circuits all work right I should be able to use almost all the power the solar array can provide and still keep my battery bank in a fairly narrow window between 11.7 and 13 volts, while providing me with almost fully charged batteries at the end of each day.

The controllers I found have a built in by-pass rocker switch, so in an emergency I could switch on the inverter that is setup to provide emergency back-up power for critical loads.

I have 2 extra batteries that are the same size and rating as my battery bank, but they are older and I don't know if I can add them in parallel without jeopardizing the other batteries in the array, they are all less than 1 year old and I would hate to create a problem. I might be better off to just buy 3 more batteries and add 1 to each string... I hate the thought of spending a dollar trying to save a dime....

 

[Hardcalibres]

Well I have ordered everything I think I will need for my battery setup, I have the programmable controllers for the voltage based load control, I have the transfer switches (I already had them for another project), PV disconnect switches and box, fuse box, primary wire, relays, fans, and thermostatically controlled switches. I have more than 1 inverter so it will be easy enough to have multiple loads on independent circuits still debating on having a very small inverter for work lights.

So here is my logic plan based on a 12 volt battery pack:
<11.7 Volts, only work lights powered < 200 watts
11.7 V- 12.7 Volts, greenhouse load up to 1000 watts
>12.7 Volts, Greenhouse load plus indoor growing station load, up to 3,500 watts max

Today at mid-afternoon I checked and found the charge controllers delivering about 1,500 watts and the batteries were at 13.1 volts, so I switched the dehydrator to inverter and then turned on all the growing lights and the fans, it didn't take long to pull the voltage down a bit. After about 4 hours I off loaded most of the load and the batteries were still at 12.6 Volts. So if the control circuits all work right I should be able to use almost all the power the solar array can provide and still keep my battery bank in a fairly narrow window between 11.7 and 13 volts, while providing me with almost fully charged batteries at the end of each day.

The controllers I found have a built in by-pass rocker switch, so in an emergency I could switch on the inverter that is setup to provide emergency back-up power for critical loads.

I have 2 extra batteries that are the same size and rating as my battery bank, but they are older and I don't know if I can add them in parallel without jeopardizing the other batteries in the array, they are all less than 1 year old and I would hate to create a problem. I might be better off to just buy 3 more batteries and add 1 to each string... I hate the thought of spending a dollar trying to save a dime....

The risk of mismatched batteries in a bank, getting hot enough to ignite is real - I have an acquaintance whose garage burned down due to batteries in a bank that were of different models/specs/ages.

 

[viking]

Well I have ordered everything I think I will need for my battery setup, I have the programmable controllers for the voltage based load control, I have the transfer switches (I already had them for another project), PV disconnect switches and box, fuse box, primary wire, relays, fans, and thermostatically controlled switches. I have more than 1 inverter so it will be easy enough to have multiple loads on independent circuits still debating on having a very small inverter for work lights.

So here is my logic plan based on a 12 volt battery pack:
<11.7 Volts, only work lights powered < 200 watts
11.7 V- 12.7 Volts, greenhouse load up to 1000 watts
>12.7 Volts, Greenhouse load plus indoor growing station load, up to 3,500 watts max

Today at mid-afternoon I checked and found the charge controllers delivering about 1,500 watts and the batteries were at 13.1 volts, so I switched the dehydrator to inverter and then turned on all the growing lights and the fans, it didn't take long to pull the voltage down a bit. After about 4 hours I off loaded most of the load and the batteries were still at 12.6 Volts. So if the control circuits all work right I should be able to use almost all the power the solar array can provide and still keep my battery bank in a fairly narrow window between 11.7 and 13 volts, while providing me with almost fully charged batteries at the end of each day.

The controllers I found have a built in by-pass rocker switch, so in an emergency I could switch on the inverter that is setup to provide emergency back-up power for critical loads.

I have 2 extra batteries that are the same size and rating as my battery bank, but they are older and I don't know if I can add them in parallel without jeopardizing the other batteries in the array, they are all less than 1 year old and I would hate to create a problem. I might be better off to just buy 3 more batteries and add 1 to each string... I hate the thought of spending a dollar trying to save a dime....

Sounds like you are on the right path, I've added new batteries in series to our motorhome solar system 12 volt system and I thought about doing that with our solar backup system for our home, as it worked out those batteries were doing some strange things, a couple of batteries were getting large amounts of electrolytes on the tops of the batteries, sometimes to the point of needing way too much distilled water to top them off, the batteries were still giving fairly long inverter power to our home, anyway I was able to replace the 20 existing batteries and add one more bank of four, all with the same manufacturing date batteries, Since getting the new batteries I have noticed that they are retaining their electrolyte levels far longer than the old set did even when they were new, could be that the new batteries being 210 AH over the old batteries being 205 AH might have made a difference, or the quality of the new batteries is better. I have found that as long as you add new batteries evenly to series-parallel banks and the older batteries have the same charge levels it works good, this is my experience on flooded lead acid batteries, that's all I've ever used and I've been pleased with their performance, the old set of batteries were heavily used, really put to the test, sometimes ran until the low battery cut out of the inverter shut down the system, the last time was after 7 days of running without a lot of sun time to recharge them.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Okay, I had a free day that they set the clocks back so I got an early start. Now before you start saying, oh that no big deal, think of doing it in a walk-in closet that is 90F and 100% relative humidity( because it's raining). That is how the day started out.... Ho yes I forgot, you can't move anything out of the closet...

Step 1) I totally dissembled my solar charge controllers, battery box, and inverter connections

Step 2) Build an new battery box that can hold 1/3 more batteries,

Step 3) Assemble 2 automatic load transfer switches to enable the greenhouse to always have power even when the batteries are low and be able to carry some of the house's load when I have sufficient battery charge.

Step 4) Build a low voltage control system to be able to turn multiple inverters on and off based on the battery voltage

Step 5) Install 2 inverters that are controlled by the system designed in step 4

Step 6) Install the batteries back into the box and verify that the extra batteries will fit

Step 7) Rewire all the batteries and connect them to the system (without melting anything)

Step 8) Verify that the control systems work, the inverters work, and no sparks...

Step 9) Report progress to my bud's

 

[Bacpacker]

Nice day's work Urban. Looks good

 

[UrbanHunter]

Thanks.

I was really happy when I could turn on and off the switches (2 black boxes with wires coming out the top) above the little fuse panel and have the inverters come on and off. The greenhouse only uses about 850 watts max, so the primary inverter is 1000 watts, (it's the blue box under the 2000 watt unit), the secondary inverter is 2000 watts, it is going to be set up to run my freezers.

 

[viking]

It's interesting that in #8 you mention no sparks, the owners manual for our 4,000 watt inverter mentions having a spark when hooking up the batteries, yep it startled me the first time, the inverter has a pretty hefty capacitor in it, once it's charged it won't spark again unless the batteries have been disconnected for a long period of time. Good looking set up, a lot of thought went into it, that's what it takes because some pieces of equipment limit you to what can be next to them as well as their need for no blockage of cool air getting to them.

 

[UrbanHunter]

It's interesting that in #8 you mention no sparks, the owners manual for our 4,000 watt inverter mentions having a spark when hooking up the batteries, yep it startled me the first time, the inverter has a pretty hefty capacitor in it, once it's charged it won't spark again unless the batteries have been disconnected for a long period of time. Good looking set up, a lot of thought went into it, that's what it takes because some pieces of equipment limit you to what can be next to them as well as their need for no blockage of cool air getting to them.

Yes, normally there would be a spark, but each of the inverters are connected to the battery bank buss bar by a 300 amp battery isolation relay (normally open) which are controlled by the low voltage control circuits. So when I made my last connections the only things that were being connected were the charge controllers, the battery monitor, and the low voltage control circuit. The inverters are not powered until the low voltage controllers turn on their battery isolater relay, no capacitors no spark.

This is a 12 volt system and there is virtually no draw when the voltage drops to 11.4 V, if the voltage gets above 12.7 V the second inverter kicks on and increases the load so the charge controllers will always be working at their max and I will be using as much power as I can while extending the life of my batteries.

1 thing I didn't show was I have a temperature controlled switch with the temperature probe on the back of one on the charge controllers, the switch turns on a fan blowing air up through the controllers.

Because it is a 1 off system, I will need to monitor it closely for a while, lots of moving parts... I guess I didn't follow the KISS system very well. But, I couldn't find any one who made an off the shelf system that did what I wanted.

 

[Mountain trapper]

At the end of August I replace my battery bank with 12 - 2 volt 1169 ah batteries. It's wired for 24 volt. These batteries replaced 8 - 6 volt 430 ah batteries. So far I really like them. My generator run time has been reduced quite a bit.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today I got to watch everything work and realized that I made a freshman level mistake... Being lazy I placed the + pickup for the fuse panel that feeds the control panel at the buss bar right before the relays delivering power to the inverters. But under a heavy load the voltage drop across the fuses, buss bar and 2' of 00 cable is enough to drop the measured voltage by 1/2 volt, which caused the high load controller to bounce in and out like an under-damped system. So tonight I moved the + pickup to the battery + buss bar. This should stabilize the voltage and help the system operate in a much smoother manner.

I was able to measure the power draw from the control circuit when everything is fully operational and loaded, it was about 20 watts, so it's not trivial but it is acceptable.

I did order 2 kill-o-watt meters so I can measure the power coming from the 2 inverters and track the power being used from the grid.

I am not happy with the 1000 watt inverter that I was using for the greenhouse today, it was delivering 300 watts, but the cooling fans were switching on and off far more often than I would like, I don't mind the fan coming on but it should stay on for at least 3 or 4 minutes before switching off again....

I actually prefer the performance of my cheapo 2000 watt inverter, it seems to be a steady performer (I have been using it for the past month alone) and the only thing that I can fault it with is if the low voltage alarm threshold is hit the alarm will not shut off until the batteries are almost fully charged or you have disconnected the battery from it... Turning the thing off doesn't do it...

 

[UrbanHunter]

The wife got an e-mail from someone asking about recommending standby generators (they send the e-mail to all the ladies at our church), I replied with my limited knowledge of NG generators, transfer switches, and installation costs. They had gotten a quote and it was right in the middle of my estimate, so I'm not too far off base. They are faced with having someone in their house who needs oxygen from an oxygen concentrator 24/7 and they were searching for a solution. This is the same problem we have and having a simple solution is totally out of the question, it just isn't available.

Most O2 concentrators draw about 500 watts steady state with about 1500 watts at start up, so you need about 2000 watts of power available, assuming you need to cover 1/2 day(enough time to get you to daylight), that is 12 hours.... So what you need is at least 6000 watt hours of energy storage, and you will need it close to the O2 concentrator, so the batteries need to be safe for indoor use. So at a minimum the system will cost you $600 for the 2000 watt pure sine inverter/charger, $40 for the cables(plus battery cables at $25 per battery), and at least 5 100AH 12 Volt LiFePo4 batteries at $300 @: So for a 12 hour system with 6 batteries it would cost you $2600, a 24 hour system with 12 batteries would be $4500. That is a lot of money to invest for a system that you only expect to be needed 3 or 4 times a year..... And where are you going to put it? Unless you have an empty pallet sized space in your basement or an un-used closet someplace, it's hard to think of a place that will work...

My current system is designed for just this problem, but it is placed in the greenhouse (outside) using deep cycle lead acid batteries (1/3 the upfront cost) and 1600 watts of solar to charge it. My system is used to power my greenhouse lights and heat, it can also supply part of my indoor growing stations power needs, so I am using power daily to get some payback. My 24 hour off-grid system cost me about $3600 total.

Sorry, I seem to have rambled on way too much....

 

[Mountain trapper]

I've never put the cost of our electric system together yet, but I'd guess it was somewhere around $75,000. That includes a 12 kw Perkins diesel backup for the house and a Winco 12 kw propane generator for the well pump. Both generators have auto start for when they're needed.
Currently I have 10 - 230 watt solar panels charging the battery bank. Its not enough, so the generator runs an average of 4 hours a day to supplement the sun. This spring I'm going to add an additional 4 - 415 watt panels plus a wind generator. We get most of our wind at night and in winter and spring. That should cut the generator run time considerably, saving a lot of diesel.

 

[UrbanHunter]

This morning I added to my battery bank and switched out the smallest cables to a larger size, and shortened any excessively long runs to reduce voltage drop. Based on my calculations the highest draw any single battery should see is 28 Amps and the smallest cables I have in my system is now 1/0. The battery box is now completely full and the system is at 95% of my final design targets....

After moving my control circuit positive pickup to the battery buss bar the system really settled down, when the charge controllers are charging, the inverters are seeing a little higher voltage than the control circuit and the battery voltage doesn't drop much when the inverters both kick in. I should get my kill-a-watt meters today and I will be able to start tracking the system performance in kwh/day/month.

Yesterday was a nice day, with sun, and both inverters were delivering as planned, they were delivering just over 1000 watts all day on average and the battery bank was at 12.4 volts at the end of the day. Today, I plan to leave the over-rides for the inverters at the OFF position and let the charge controllers fully charge/equalize the battery bank, I will check it at lunch and if it is close to 13 volts I will switch them back to automatic...

So, from my perspective my system is done, all I have to do is adjust the timers on my grow lights to give the solar about an hour to top off the batteries before the end of the day. Thus insuring that I have fully charged batteries overnight to cover the oxygen machine if we have a power outage....

Based on the data I have to date, my system can cover the O2 machine for 30 hours without any input from the solar, and on a sunny day the solar can fully replenish the depleted system in 7 hours.

I love it when a plan comes together.

 

[Bacpacker]

Well that is excellent news Urban. I'm glad to hear it

 

[UrbanHunter]

So last night I was looking at my parts shelf and noticed:

A 2000 watt inverter that I took out of service because it had a high stand by power draw.
I also saw a pair of 5' 00 cables that had big ends (did not meet anything I had).

I also noticed that in my box of cable ends that I had 4 new 00 ends remaining....
***
The positive cables from my relays to the inverters are too short to do much work around them and the inverter for off-loading high voltage is only 1000 watts. The 1000 watt inverter is too small to run the 02 machine or anything for cooking in an emergency, so it has limited value to me at this point.

***
Yesterday after work, I cut one of the 5' cables into 2 pieces and soldered new leads on them, applied shrink sleeves too. I then checked out the old 2000 watt inverter and got all the tools together to install everything... it was trash night or I would have installed everything last night...

So this morning I went out and disconnected the battery bank from the inverters at the ANL fuse, then I removed both of the inverters, installed the new cables, installed the Old 2000 watt inverter with the new cable and then installed my 2000 watt regular load inverter... Then I reconnected the ANL fuse and noticed that it is 150 Amps, that is barely enough for 1 inverter, but way too small for 2 if fully loaded, so I ordered a set of larger ANL fuses.

All of the final parts should be here by Saturday.

***
Oh, yesterday I noticed that by 11 AM the batteries were fully charged (much earlier than I had expected), so I put the system on "auto", it was providing about 900 watts of constant load, peaks were closer to 1500 watts, and the batteries were at 12.7 volts at the end of the day. Have to love those sunny days....

Thinking ahead, to the summer when I will not need nearly this much power and having longer days with more solar energy available. I could run a small air conditioner off the system in the day time to keep one room of the house cool without bumping up the utility bill... Just thinking ahead, but the possibilities are interesting....