OLD OLD stuff

Installed almost 30 years to provide lighting only...
Location lost in time lake......

Original system was powered by a pair of truck batteries that got a daily top up form an alternator off a late 60's Chrysler and 9 cubic inch B&S.
Before that lit by Coleman table lamps and lanterns.

Not bad eh?
I can't tell you what it cost new but that little panel still works well enough to top up a pair of golf kart batteries.

Thanks for sharing! Just guessing but I bet that's a 15 watt panel which at the time would have cost at least $10/watt.

The little wooden cabinet is the battery house that contains a couple lead acid T105.
The controller is a PWM original from the 90s.
Cottage is wired with some BX and and what ever recycled cable was available in the 60s and 70s
Most of the bulbs are LED now so the demand has dropped as the solar aged.

I'm trying to think back but I think it was closer to 1000 dollars back then to have this system installed.
I don't know who did it.
One summer I came up with my grandfather and proudly showed me what he had bought and how it eliminated the need to run a battery charger anymore

When you look back you realize he was really ahead of the curve.
He had talked for years about wanting to build a wind mill but he could not figure out a way to get around the losses involved in building something with scraps and automotive parts to make it practical.
This however was off the shelf stuff and it worked so well for so long