Dacrockett001
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Perfect, thank you for the info.
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Dacrockett001
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Lol, yes.
Dacrockett001
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I am thinking maybe a 9,000 BTU unit, I just want something to keep it at or below 90 during the day when I can run it 100% off the solar.
You gotta make sure you can feed the beast with panels. Assuming you have your panels tilted at approximately the right angle, and they're facing solar south with no shading, your peak solar will be around noon, but the hottest time of the day will be 2-4pm where you're not getting peak solar power.
If your roof orientation favors west of south, then that's to your benefit. East of south, worse.
If your roof orientation favors west of south, then that's to your benefit. East of south, worse.
Dacrockett001
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Here is a picture of my solar panels, and a compass, I know they are below the angle the experts say to have them, but I capture more morning sun this way.
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Dacrockett001
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Yes, sorry I should have said I was standing in front of the panels when I did that.
No worries. So if you stand with your back to the wall, you are facing SW?
If that's correct, at your location there's about a 11° deviation from magnetic to true north, so your panels are facing 238° vs. 180° true South.
This is actually beneficial to someone wanting more power in the afternoon like if they were running A/C during the hottest part of the day.
Does the Masculine Cavern itself shade the panels in the afternoon/evening?
If that's correct, at your location there's about a 11° deviation from magnetic to true north, so your panels are facing 238° vs. 180° true South.
This is actually beneficial to someone wanting more power in the afternoon like if they were running A/C during the hottest part of the day.
Does the Masculine Cavern itself shade the panels in the afternoon/evening?
I'm going to assume you answer yes to the SW facing, assume about 10° tilt and no shading.
If your panels were facing due south, you would get 1,646kWh/year. At 238° you're going to pull in 1,579kWh/year... not a big difference, but when you look at a day like today, you'd get 0.25kWh of additional energy after 12:00pm than you would facing due South. It's not a lot, but it's probably a solid 30 minutes of A/C use.
Since our property is in an area that often has afternoon clouds, we're facing at 168° slightly favoring East to try and harvest a little more of the morning sun than the possibly cloudy afternoon. When we're away, we have 400W drain when the RV absorption refrigerator is on. It uses about 5-6X the juice of a regular residential fridge of the same size. With a full fridge, it can use 5kWh/day (about 310W running 16 hr/day). That's a crapton IMHO. With it empty, it still uses around 3.
Rather than risk hammering the battery all night, or at least some of it, I simply use a wifi smart plug to cycle the fridge on and off according to the 3kW array's ability to provide 350W or more. Turns out, we can have the fridge on from 6:30am to 5:00pm and have it barely touch the battery.
Once you know what your actual power production is, you could likely setup something similar if necessary.
If your panels were facing due south, you would get 1,646kWh/year. At 238° you're going to pull in 1,579kWh/year... not a big difference, but when you look at a day like today, you'd get 0.25kWh of additional energy after 12:00pm than you would facing due South. It's not a lot, but it's probably a solid 30 minutes of A/C use.
Since our property is in an area that often has afternoon clouds, we're facing at 168° slightly favoring East to try and harvest a little more of the morning sun than the possibly cloudy afternoon. When we're away, we have 400W drain when the RV absorption refrigerator is on. It uses about 5-6X the juice of a regular residential fridge of the same size. With a full fridge, it can use 5kWh/day (about 310W running 16 hr/day). That's a crapton IMHO. With it empty, it still uses around 3.
Rather than risk hammering the battery all night, or at least some of it, I simply use a wifi smart plug to cycle the fridge on and off according to the 3kW array's ability to provide 350W or more. Turns out, we can have the fridge on from 6:30am to 5:00pm and have it barely touch the battery.
Once you know what your actual power production is, you could likely setup something similar if necessary.
Dacrockett001
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Yes, you are correct about the panels, so, it sounds like I am close to where I should be. I agree with you about the a/c power, I will set it up with a smart plug and timer then keep an eye on how much power I use and how cool that the temperature is inside. I can't believe how much I am out for all this solar to get free power, lol. I am enjoying this journey though, learned some things I didn't know before!
Dacrockett001
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So I got the MPPT all in one LV2424 MSD, it’s a 24 volt 2500 pure sign wave 80 amp controller/charger, super powerful for what I need. I tried to hook my wife’s computer to it last night the MPPT is not Mac friendly, but I got nowhere with the computer. I used the MPPT screen and set my parameters. Right now I only have about 30 landscape lights, a surveillance camera and now a fan. All of this is pulling about 10 amps.
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Dacrockett001
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Yes, you are probably right on, I used my clamp on meter and saw about 10 amp load.
The part that I am concerned with is that my old charge controller had a set of LOAD lugs and I had all of my 12/24 volt loads coming out of there, and the controller showed how many Wh were used.
The new controller has PV +- Bat +- then line in and line out, how can the controller know how much is being used if I wire the 12/24 volt loads right off the battery? Just quickly messing around with it this morning the controller was not showing any load being used even though there was. Now when I hooked up the fan (120V) I could see on the controller screen that there was a load, it was showing the watts being used. I will connect the computer again tonight when I get home to see if I can get the website to open and show any data.
i use this in a 12x24x16 insulated off grid shed.works perfectly.
Dacrockett001
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You have a 9,000 BTU air conditioner, what brand did you get?
I'm not familiar with that specific unit, but I can't find anything in the manual that indicates it provides a load option, so it's a feature loss from before. I don't know if that feature loss is typical of the hybrid units or with MPP Solar in general.
Dacrockett001
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Heck ya, that is awesome! I looked at one like that from Home Depot, same price, I also looked at a 48 volt DC split system.
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