diy solar

diy solar

Greetings from Kentucky

Clifty Branch Farm

New Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2019
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34
Just learning this solar stuff. I have started by running all my fence line in one pasture with a 30w renogy mono panel hooked up to a 210ah Fullriver gell battery. My next project is going off grid for the barn. I have 2 85w panels and four of the Fullriver batteries and a 30amp renogy charge controller so far towards that project. I only need to power a fridge, fence charger, and lighting in the barn. So hopefully I will be able to get guidance on the barn project and not let the smoke out of the wires. After completing the barn the next step will be the shop. Thanks in advance for the help.
 
You'll definitely want some more panels with four batteries that size. Are the batteries 12 volt? What kind of farm?
 
The batteries are 12 volt and I have a total of 9 sitting in the shop. I get these batteries at work super cheap. Like $40 cheap. They go up for raffle every once in a while and last month the ones I scored on just had the threads for the posts stripped. No problem cuz the batteries also have the regular posts also. With such a good deal on batteries it would be foolish not to start building a system. I retire in a couple years and looking to cut my living expenses down. My wife and I have a small 20 acre farm that is half wooded and half pasture. We did the cow/calf commercial beef thing for a while but the bottom has dropped out of beef prices so we just raise a few head for our freezer. We grow a large garden for canning and we probably raise 50-60% of the food we eat. The goal is 90%. This solar thing is all new to me and taking baby steps. Like I said we have done our fencing with individual components and we are working on the barn. Getting ready to start building "the board" for the barn over the holidays. Got my spot picked out, have the pole for the panels concreted in and running cable to the board soon. I will be using Wills blueprint for the 400 watt system. So much to learn. Have a Merry Christmas.
 
Dang. Nice battery connection. Ok, you have 9, but I'm going to round that up to 10. Win another raffle :)

12 volts X 210 amp hours = 2,520 watt hours. You can only use half of that (50% Depth Of Discharge) if you want your batteries to last a long time. So, 2,520/2=1,260 available watt hours.

1,260 watt hours x 10 batteries = 12,600 available watt hours. So, for example, if you were powering a 500 watt appliance, 12,600 watt hours/500 watts = 25.2 hours. You can safely run a 500 watt appliance (or combination of appliances) for 25.2 hours. In the real world, you have minor losses through everything, so I would knock off another 10%, so 25.2-2.52=22.68 hours.

Now you need to figure out what you can get out of your panels. The average number for max output is about 5 hours. To make things really fun, figure on the occasional cloudy day or 2 where you will produce almost nothing.

Please check my math, the coffee is wearing off.
 
Thanks for the numbers. Ill need a lot MORE coffee to catch up. Gonna have to do this a chunk of learning at a time.This is a great base line for me to work off of.
 
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