wingedlizard
New Member
I have built a small solar generator ( 350w, 40a mppt, 1000w inverter, single 12v 100ah lifepo4 battery), and I'm thinking of getting a bigger inverter.
I will need another battery to support a bigger current draw of the inverter, and will probably want to double my panels as well. May go from 12v to 24v too.
The All-in-one seems to make sense financially -- I get a bigger mppt, bigger inverter, a charger and a automatic transfer switch as well as better programmability and monitoring.
I am wondering what the draw backs might be. It seems the bigger inverter would cause less efficiency ( I've heard as much as 80w draw at 'idle').
Is there a minimum pv panel wattage, before going with an all-in-one?
My goal is to run a garage refrigerator ( 1500 wh per day @ 120w) and add my water well pump ( 260 wh per day but peak draw is high at @1400w ).
http://desertprep.info has a spreadsheet, and when I plug in all the data, I get the following ( 1 day 'reserve'):
Design Specifications for Your Generator
Minimum inverter wattage 1,900 W
Minimum battery AH reserve 313 Ah
Minimum solar panel wattage 768 W
System energy throughput 75.0 %
Projected available daily load power 1,418 Wh
Standby generator run hours 2.1 hr
Standby generator fuel (/day) 2.1 gal
The automatic transfer switch could allow me to use a smaller total battery AH, since I could automatically switch to Utility A/C when batteries were low ( or even automatically charge the lifepo4 batteries if they got to low).
Does going with the all-in-one have drawbacks I am not thinking of?
I will need another battery to support a bigger current draw of the inverter, and will probably want to double my panels as well. May go from 12v to 24v too.
The All-in-one seems to make sense financially -- I get a bigger mppt, bigger inverter, a charger and a automatic transfer switch as well as better programmability and monitoring.
I am wondering what the draw backs might be. It seems the bigger inverter would cause less efficiency ( I've heard as much as 80w draw at 'idle').
Is there a minimum pv panel wattage, before going with an all-in-one?
My goal is to run a garage refrigerator ( 1500 wh per day @ 120w) and add my water well pump ( 260 wh per day but peak draw is high at @1400w ).
http://desertprep.info has a spreadsheet, and when I plug in all the data, I get the following ( 1 day 'reserve'):
Design Specifications for Your Generator
Minimum inverter wattage 1,900 W
Minimum battery AH reserve 313 Ah
Minimum solar panel wattage 768 W
System energy throughput 75.0 %
Projected available daily load power 1,418 Wh
Standby generator run hours 2.1 hr
Standby generator fuel (/day) 2.1 gal
The automatic transfer switch could allow me to use a smaller total battery AH, since I could automatically switch to Utility A/C when batteries were low ( or even automatically charge the lifepo4 batteries if they got to low).
Does going with the all-in-one have drawbacks I am not thinking of?