Hi, all.
I'm sure all of you know about the hurricane that hit two years ago, and maybe some of you have heard about the earthquakes that have been going on for the past month. Well, the two power outages with that has prompted my family to get a generator for my MIL.
While she has someone coming by twice a day (she's 90), I really did't think it was realistic to have a gas generator- too much hands on to make that work more than a day.
Whereas looking and learning about solar over the past few years- that can be very hands off. And the DIY solutions end up on the med-high end of gas generators. So I convinced my family that I can do it.
The first part was finished last weekend while we were down there- two 100ahr lead acid deep cycle marine batteries + 2200/4400W Giandel true sine wave inverter. I made provisions for fast charging via a car that isn't being used and a trickle charger. The solar part will be installed in July when we have more time to fabricate things. The inverter has the capability of 300W solar input, which is pretty cool and convenient.
The goal of the system is to just run a refrigerator and a TV/cable/internet/phone set up. Nothing else. While I didn't have solid data to calculate from, I figured having 300W with the sun at that location, I'll reliably have 1300W-hr of solar, and it will use just about the same amount between the fridge and entertainment system. The additional battery will keep the discharge to ~50% range, keeping life as long as possible.
It would be great to get a better battery, but shipping them to Puerto Rico is kind of a pain- while I can get the inverter and panels shipped there via Amazon, no such luck for batteries, and I have to get what I can locally.
When it's all done, to get it regular exercise, I'll have the washing machine powered off of it.
It's been a fun build so far, and something I think may others on the island would appreciate.
I'm sure all of you know about the hurricane that hit two years ago, and maybe some of you have heard about the earthquakes that have been going on for the past month. Well, the two power outages with that has prompted my family to get a generator for my MIL.
While she has someone coming by twice a day (she's 90), I really did't think it was realistic to have a gas generator- too much hands on to make that work more than a day.
Whereas looking and learning about solar over the past few years- that can be very hands off. And the DIY solutions end up on the med-high end of gas generators. So I convinced my family that I can do it.
The first part was finished last weekend while we were down there- two 100ahr lead acid deep cycle marine batteries + 2200/4400W Giandel true sine wave inverter. I made provisions for fast charging via a car that isn't being used and a trickle charger. The solar part will be installed in July when we have more time to fabricate things. The inverter has the capability of 300W solar input, which is pretty cool and convenient.
The goal of the system is to just run a refrigerator and a TV/cable/internet/phone set up. Nothing else. While I didn't have solid data to calculate from, I figured having 300W with the sun at that location, I'll reliably have 1300W-hr of solar, and it will use just about the same amount between the fridge and entertainment system. The additional battery will keep the discharge to ~50% range, keeping life as long as possible.
It would be great to get a better battery, but shipping them to Puerto Rico is kind of a pain- while I can get the inverter and panels shipped there via Amazon, no such luck for batteries, and I have to get what I can locally.
When it's all done, to get it regular exercise, I'll have the washing machine powered off of it.
It's been a fun build so far, and something I think may others on the island would appreciate.