Solar

Here I’ll be posting everything solar. This will include everything from stuff for the home, the garage, and anything at the island property. Posts here will also be mirrored in their respective sections.

Update #1

So I haven’t been able to find many pictures of my original setup but I did manage to find a few older pictures and what I first started out with.

This here is partly where it all began. Plus a 40-watt Coleman solar panel and some random old battery I couldn’t find pictures of.

Yup that’s right I was running on a 75w inverter, barely enough to run anything but it would charge my at the time laptop. At this point, the whole point of the solar system was simply to keep the battery my radio for the garage ran off of fully charged.

The single car battery eventually grew into a few batteries. The batteries were a mish-mash of what I could get for free. They were basically garbage but they were the right price. I also originally had a mish-mash of wires but picked up some cheap cables at Habitat for Humanity. At this time I had also gone through an upgrade to a 500w inverter which eventually died then upgraded to a 750w inverter.

Udate #2

I was planning on possibly running the garage lights off of solar. I like to think of it as storing sunlight during the day and using it at night. I’ve started to buy supplies to make my setup both less dangerous and more permanent. Again, I’m still not sure if I’m going to lump the solar stuff in with the garage upgrade or not as I don’t know how deep I’m going to dive into it.

The cabling, cable ends, and heat shrink we sell at work luckily. Hello, employee discount.

I also got a shunt to monitor my power usage and a fuse holder with fuse.

I also did one test end on a cable. I’ve opted to solder them but it’s quite tricky to heat up the lug and the wire enough without melting the insulation.

Update #3

So I found soldering the cable ends a little harder than I wanted so I bought myself a hydraulic crimper. I’m also redoing the car radio that the solar will also be powering.

This is the new board that will house everything. The 4 speakers, radio, 2 solar monitors and some 12v outlets.

Those meters seem to fit nicely.

Ok, I don’t try to toot my own horn but that looks nice. In case you were wondering the plywood is painted with rubberized undercoating which will help hide imperfections.

It’s also nice that these meters are backlit.

I also had to add to the “make your own tool to get the job done” pile. Needed a low-profile bit to go through a 2×4. Why? You may ask well it’s to add to the system that allows me to do the following test with the meters.

Update #4

So don’t have any pictures as I never figured it was notable but I did get a 100w Coleman solar panel. I’ve also purchased a 1000w pure sine wave inverter as I’d like to run even more items off solar power. After purchasing it I did end up finding cheaper models online but hopefully, this one will be of a better quality as it is from a physical store.

Along with the new inverter, I’ll be mounting it on a board with some more options for connections. I’ve also got a 12v fuse box for the lower amperage items such as the radio so I can get rid of all the in-line fuses.

I’ve also custom made a pair of copper buss bars. I simply took some 1/2″ copper pipe and hammered it flat. I then took two layers and soldered them together to make a solid piece.