I told you about my trip out to the ranch and all my solar panels were upside down in my driveway and broke all to hell, Amazon had 145 watt solar panels for $160.00 each. I grabbed me 2 of them Sat. afternoon. Sunday Amazon started charging tax on us Texans. So I got them for $320.00 and free 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime. I received them today and laid them out and stuck a volt meter to them and was getting almost 24 volts out of each one.
I had the Harbor Freight 45 watt panels before just to keep my battery's charged up. Now I will buy a inverter & run some of the stuff in the trailer off of them and I have to buy some more battery's since mine are deader the hell. An ole guy out there is selling some kind of 12 volt battery's that weighs 150 lbs. each for $150.00, I hear they are huge. I talked with some people out there that are using these battery's and everyone is happy with them so I'm going to buy a couple of them. Then I need to build a rack to mount these panels on and cement them in the ground so they don't blow away like my last one's did.
Now I need to do some studying on how to hook these up. From what little bit I've read, you can hook these panels up to where your getting double the watts or double the amps so I need to see which is best. Also see if I want a 24 volt system or a 12 volt one. To damn much stuff for my ole brain to take in at once. If I had known I was gonna live this long I would had taken it a little easier back in the 60's and 70's. I fried to many brain cells back then and tore my dang body up. When I passed 30 I figured by the way I was living I wouldn't see 40 so I partied like hell, when I hit 40 I thought o'hell what now. I decided I had better start taking better care of my ole self and quit everything except sex and smoking, now I'm thinking about cutting out the cigs but that's hard to do when the wife smokes also.
I better go do some studying on these dang panels, I have to read something about 5 times before it starts sinking in.
Your only as old as you feel, and right now I feel ancient. Sounds like everything is coming together for you. Are you planning on moving out there or just use it as a get-a-way? You know, I really miss ole Ben and his everyday blog.
ReplyDeleteWe plan on moving out there one of these days. The wife has a couple of more years until she retires. Y'all need to come out sometime. We'll have some fun.
DeleteJim - I am learning all of this stuff myself. Sadly I am learning at 31 what you learned at 40. Or should I say I have done 40 years of damage in 31 years? Either way... I am finding I am more interested in learning, but less capable of retaining what I learn. I sure wish I could buy back some of the braincells I killed off.
ReplyDeleteAnyway.... I am not sure what kind of charge controller you're going to run but most of them will reduce your input voltage down to whatever is needed. Just look at the specs on them. With that being said, you can usually put your panels in series instead of parallel which will double the voltage coming back to the controller. So side by side one panel's positive will hook to the other panels negative and then you'll bring back the remaining positive and negative to your charge controller. The result will be 48 volts back to your charge controller. Don't confuse this with your actual system voltage though... that just refers to the voltage of your battery bank......same rule applies there though... put them in series and the voltage is multiplied... but them in parallel and the voltage remains the same.
I have some info on our system we've been building for the trip down on my blog. It's a cluster, but we're getting there and spending a lot of friggin coin in the process.
Chris Miller
Our180.com - One Family's Journey To Finding True Happiness
Thanks for the info Chris.
DeleteThere's an outfit here in DFW area that sells Sharp 230 watt new panels for $1.00 per watt. These are factory blems. They output 24V, but with the right inverter you can feed into a 12V batt bank with no problem. I've got a couple of these panels and they really crank out the power in that Terlingua sunshine.
ReplyDeleteCraigslist - Dallas is where I found their ad.
Bigfoot in FTW
Thanks for the info Bigfoot. I hope one of these days our paths will cross out Terlingua way. I would like to meet you guys.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that isn't in short supply in Terlingua is sunshine!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you got a real good buy on the panels. Good luck on the hookup!
Hermit, there is a lot of hot sunshine right now out there but they tell me the hotter it is the less efficient the panels are, go figure. Thanks for stopping by.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea Amazon is now charging us tax! (Fellow Texan) I am so disappointed to learn of this.
ReplyDeleteMy husband bought a Harbor Freight solar kit but it's still in the box some months (many)later. It's ok though, as he has been busy doing some honey do list stuff. :)
Bel, the Harbor Freight solar kit is what I had out there before. The frame that I bought for mine does not work well in high wind. Broke everyone of them.
DeleteBel, the Harbor Freight solar kit is what I had out there before. The frame that I bought for mine does not work well in high wind. Broke everyone of them.
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