diy solar

diy solar

600W off-grid system installed at cabin

Reef Whooligan

New Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2022
Messages
18
I have a fully off-grid cabin that was wired to run off a generator. Basically there was an extension cord outside, in a box, that ran directly into the electrical panel. Although I have a generator I don't go out in the middle of the woods to listen to one run all the time so I replaced the bulbs with 12v ones and put clamps on the outside end of the extension cord to run off a battery. This worked mostly fine for lights but wasn't very convenient to manually charge the battery when needed and not be able to use any of the outlets in the cabin for things like charging phones and stuff.

Solar setup:
- 6x 100W Grape Solar panels (two 3 panel series)
- Renogy Tilt Brackets
- Renogy 200AH AGM
- Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100/50
- Victron Phoenix Inverter VE.Direct 800VA
- Victron Lynx Distributor
- EZ Generator Switch

The new setup has power run from the inverter to an outdoor EZ Generator Switch that allows me to switch between inverter power and generator power going into the panel. I used the Lynx Distributor because I installed all the parts in a confined area with very short cables and thought the cleanliness of not having fuse holders, they are all in the Lynx, was worth it. In the Lynx I have a Noco X-Connect attached so that if I need to manually charge I can switch to generator and easily plug in a charger. The day I finished was cloudy and intermittently raining but I still saw up to 530W when the sun came out from behind clouds. Even with the sun behind clouds it was 30-70W and charging which, this being my first solar setup, surprised me.

The panels are installed on a south facing wall using tilt brackets. It's certainly a lot of knobs to adjust (36 total, 24 to move) the tilt but this seemed like a cost-effective way to mount the panels in the space I have. It's no surprise that 16' lumber from Menards, the only big box hardware store within 100 miles, isn't very straight and I aligned the brackets with the wood rather than leveling them to each other which was a mistake. You'll see in the pictures the one on the left is especially wonky, and they're all a little uneven, but I should be able to adjust them if I ever get around to it. The holes in the brackets are elongated so it really shouldn't be difficult to straighten them up by loosening the screws.

Thanks to everybody who answered my questions here and to this forum in general for having such great information!
 

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