diy solar

diy solar

Hi from the Philippines!

Jeremiah

Solar Breakdancer
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
262
Location
Mars
I just realized there is this greeting thread for newbies to the forums; so I figured I'd follow along with the local culture and introduce myself even though I'm here for like a month already.
I'm from the states, I studied Aerospace Engineering in school but worked as a real-time embedded software guy.
After getting tired of the work loads and stress levels of that world I moved to the 3rd world where I could live on the cheap and pursue my other interests: first Ukraine, now the Philippines where I work part time doing non-profit stuff which is really fulfilling to me; I also have a part time teaching gig teaching Classical Hebrew to grad students but I make like less than $5 an hour so, haha it's fulfilling and it sux at the same time after my commute.
Since I'm in the 3rd world economy my budget for solar stuff is quite limited, however the Philippines (according to one study I read recently) has the 5th most expensive electricity in the world! (we pay 4 to 5 times what I used to pay /kwhr in the states; varied from when I lived in Anaheim to when I lived in Cape Canaveral.) We are just about at the equator though so it's just insane that the entire country is NOT psyched on solar.
I never was so great at Electrical stuff; at work I usually just depended on the EE's to bang out their blue-wire prototype mysteries, then we'd slap our software on it and it would baffle me why my code wouldn't work when it had worked on the emulator. Then the EE's would change some wires or something and surprise my code worked afterall!
Anyway, I always hated my ignorance regarding electronics so several years back I got into Arduino hobby stuff.
My first project was a "PWM Solar charge controller." There was as cool instructible a nice EE posted so I built it. Programmers usually can't stand the code written by Electrical Engineers, so I rewrote his code and changed a few things on the design (minor baby changes) and wammo it worked!
It was so cool! He also has an MPPT charge controller but it doesn't work (even though he won some competition for it). Some of the commentors have solutions but I lost interest as I realized I could buy a reliable MPPT for cheaper than building his. In those days I also, having no budget for real solar panels, ordered a bunch of "damaged" solar cells from the US, and I got some bulk EVA encapsulant (I know my spelling sux, don't flame me), I bought some glass sheets and sandwiched my cells. I made a super hacky "vacuum oven" from a sturdy cardboard box and a vacuum cleaner and 2 heat guns. It worked! I made some ugly-ass solar panels that actually were water proof and made electricity!
So I only made about 300 watts of those guys but it was awesome; we had free lights at night and a couple small fans. The fans are a lifesaver when there are brown-outs here in hot summer nights as we ALWAYS have fans on 24x7 to keep the mosquitoes away so we don't contract dengue fever.
Anyway, making your own solar panels is doable, but in a hot/humid country like PH (or Florida!) it's real a pain in the ass doing that much soldering (heat) and using a (lamely-made) vacuum oven, etc. It's also quite time consuming and I have other hobbies (music composition & dead languages). So recently, during the economic collapse, I decided to check if solar panels had fallen in price b/c I'd really love to have free air-conditioning for a few hours a day. Man I found some great deals so I'm back in the solar game. There were always good deals in the US, especially on used but shipping that stuff here kills any of it. Now there are local manufacturers so I'm about to hop on that when the lockdown is over.
One thing I always hated about the idea of going off-grid is how horribly wasteful lead acid batteries are, yet it seemed there is no escape. On grid was not an option for me since in the Philippines only home owners can apply to get the special meter that spins both ways; otherwise you may get CHARGED for the power yo uproduce.
So, while researching about how to restore dead lead acid, if there is anyway to save them, rebuild them, etc. I stumbled across one of Will's videos about LifePo4.
They seemed out of reach though. I laughed when he talked about "how cheap" they are. (3rd world perspective :p ).
However, I liked his style, and his so rare "it's OK if I'm wrong sometimes" attitude,, so I decided to check out @Will Prowse 's book on Kindle. I also have a kindle book I wrote which has been very Unsuccessful, lol [I won't link to my book b/c I think it may be a forum violation to self promote products] and it's about spiritual topics anyway, not solar.
So I decided to check out Will's ebook since it was a bestseller and free for me (my kindle reading plan) to see what's up. I thought maybe I could gain some insight on how he made his book successful. I found it a nice read and actually learned some things. One thing, I had incredibly screwed up was I ALWAYS thought the amperage rating on charge controllers was regarding the amps-in from parallel strings of panels. I was TOTALLY wrong, lol, it's the AMPS out to the battery bank. Man what an IDIOT I'd been! I'm so lucky I didn't fry something. So then I started thinking, "what else have I been doing wrong?"I decided to check out the forum. Wish it had been around back when I was building my own panels! All there was back then was Solar Panel talk which was too judgy/angry for my tastes.
Here I stumbled on the crazy cheap 280AH LIfePO4 cells.
Now I convinced my significant other to raid our "housing fund" to do a full solar setup to get us mostly off grid (sunny days) and away from the horrid Filipino electrical monopoly. I'm hoping we either can buy the place we rent or get some cheap off-grid property later when my system/our lifestyle has the bugs worked out. I'm looking forward to ordering cells and building my first LiFePO4 battery bank; it's so exciting. I'm so glad to be a member of this forum guys and already it's been a huge help to me; I hope to give back as I learn and grow also.
-Jeremiah
 
Last edited:
I just realized there is this greeting thread for newbies to the forums; so I figured I'd follow along with the local culture and introduce myself even though I'm here for like a month already.
I'm from the states, I studied Aerospace Engineering in school but worked as a real-time embedded software guy.
After getting tired of the work loads and stress levels of that world I moved to the 3rd world where I could live on the cheap and pursue my other interests: first Ukraine, now the Philippines where I work part time doing non-profit stuff which is really fulfilling to me; I also have a part time teaching gig teaching Classical Hebrew to grad students but I make like less than $5 an hour so, haha it's fulfilling and it sux at the same time after my commute.
Since I'm in the 3rd world economy my budget for solar stuff is quite limited, however the Philippines (according to one study I read recently) has the 5th most expensive electricity in the world! (we pay 4 to 5 times what I used to pay /kwhr in the states; varied from when I lived in Anaheim to when I lived in Cape Canaveral.) We are just about at the equator though so it's just insane that the entire country is NOT psyched on solar.
I never was so great at Electrical stuff; at work I usually just depended on the EE's to bang out their blue-wire prototype mysteries, then we'd slap our software on it and it would baffle me why my code wouldn't work when it had worked on the emulator. Then the EE's would change some wires or something and surprise my code worked afterall!
Anyway, I always hated my ignorance regarding electronics so several years back I got into Arduino hobby stuff.
My first project was a "PWM Solar charge controller." There was as cool instructible a nice EE posted so I built it. Programmers usually can't stand the code written by Electrical Engineers, so I rewrote his code and changed a few things on the design (minor baby changes) and wammo it worked!
It was so cool! He also has an MPPT charge controller but it doesn't work (even though he won some competition for it). Some of the commentors have solutions but I lost interest as I realized I could buy a reliable MPPT for cheaper than building his. In those days I also, having no budget for real solar panels, ordered a bunch of "damaged" solar cells from the US, and I got some bulk EVA encapsulant (I know my spelling sux, don't flame me), I bought some glass sheets and sandwiched my cells. I made a super hacky "vacuum oven" from a sturdy cardboard box and a vacuum cleaner and 2 heat guns. It worked! I made some ugly-ass solar panels that actually were water proof and made electricity!
So I only made about 300 watts of those guys but it was awesome; we had free lights at night and a couple small fans. The fans are a lifesaver when there are brown-outs here in hot summer nights as we ALWAYS have fans on 24x7 to keep the mosquitoes away so we don't contract dengue fever.
Anyway, making your own solar panels is doable, but in a hot/humid country like PH (or Florida!) it's real a pain in the ass doing that much soldering (heat) and using a (lamely-made) vacuum oven, etc. It's also quite time consuming and I have other hobbies (music composition & dead languages). So recently, during the economic collapse, I decided to check if solar panels had fallen in price b/c I'd really love to have free air-conditioning for a few hours a day. Man I found some great deals so I'm back in the solar game. There were always good deals in the US, especially on used but shipping that stuff here kills any of it. Now there are local manufacturers so I'm about to hop on that when the lockdown is over.
One thing I always hated about the idea of going off-grid is how horribly wasteful lead acid batteries are, yet it seemed there is no escape. On grid was not an option for me since in the Philippines only home owners can apply to get the special meter that spins both ways; otherwise you may get CHARGED for the power yo uproduce.
So, while researching about how to restore dead lead acid, if there is anyway to save them, rebuild them, etc. I stumbled across one of Will's videos about LifePo4.
They seemed out of reach though. I laughed when he talked about "how cheap" they are. (3rd world perspective :p ).
However, I liked his style, and his so rare "it's OK if I'm wrong sometimes" attitude,, so I decided to check out @Will Prowse 's book on Kindle. I also have a kindle book I wrote which has been very Unsuccessful, lol [I won't link to my book b/c I think it may be a forum violation to self promote products] and it's about spiritual topics anyway, not solar.
So I decided to check out Will's ebook since it was a bestseller and free for me (my kindle reading plan) to see what's up. I thought maybe I could gain some insight on how he made his book successful. I found it a nice read and actually learned some things. One thing, I had incredibly screwed up was I ALWAYS thought the amperage rating on charge controllers was regarding the amps-in from parallel strings of panels. I was TOTALLY wrong, lol, it's the AMPS out to the battery bank. Man what an IDIOT I'd been! I'm so lucky I didn't fry something. So then I started thinking, "what else have I been doing wrong?"I decided to check out the forum. Wish it had been around back when I was building my own panels! All there was back then was Solar Panel talk which was too judgy/angry for my tastes.
Here I stumbled on the crazy cheap 280AH LIfePO4 cells.
Now I convinced my significant other to raid our "housing fund" to do a full solar setup to get us mostly off grid (sunny days) and away from the horrid Filipino electrical monopoly. I'm hoping we either can buy the place we rent or get some cheap off-grid property later when my system/our lifestyle has the bugs worked out. I'm looking forward to ordering cells and building my first LiFePO4 battery bank; it's so exciting. I'm so glad to be a member of this forum guys and already it's been a huge help to me; I hope to give back as I learn and grow also.
-Jeremiah
Thank you for the post. I spent some time on your island a while back. I remember the local grid when I was there. Extension cords from one place to another. People are so so nice tho. My best friend came over from PI in the late 70s. Couldn't speak a word of English when I met him.
 
I just realized there is this greeting thread for newbies to the forums; so I figured I'd follow along with the local culture and introduce myself even though I'm here for like a month already.
I'm from the states, I studied Aerospace Engineering in school but worked as a real-time embedded software guy.
After getting tired of the work loads and stress levels of that world I moved to the 3rd world where I could live on the cheap and pursue my other interests: first Ukraine, now the Philippines where I work part time doing non-profit stuff which is really fulfilling to me; I also have a part time teaching gig teaching Classical Hebrew to grad students but I make like less than $5 an hour so, haha it's fulfilling and it sux at the same time after my commute.
Since I'm in the 3rd world economy my budget for solar stuff is quite limited, however the Philippines (according to one study I read recently) has the 5th most expensive electricity in the world! (we pay 4 to 5 times what I used to pay /kwhr in the states; varied from when I lived in Anaheim to when I lived in Cape Canaveral.) We are just about at the equator though so it's just insane that the entire country is NOT psyched on solar.
I never was so great at Electrical stuff; at work I usually just depended on the EE's to bang out their blue-wire prototype mysteries, then we'd slap our software on it and it would baffle me why my code wouldn't work when it had worked on the emulator. Then the EE's would change some wires or something and surprise my code worked afterall!
Anyway, I always hated my ignorance regarding electronics so several years back I got into Arduino hobby stuff.
My first project was a "PWM Solar charge controller." There was as cool instructible a nice EE posted so I built it. Programmers usually can't stand the code written by Electrical Engineers, so I rewrote his code and changed a few things on the design (minor baby changes) and wammo it worked!
It was so cool! He also has an MPPT charge controller but it doesn't work (even though he won some competition for it). Some of the commentors have solutions but I lost interest as I realized I could buy a reliable MPPT for cheaper than building his. In those days I also, having no budget for real solar panels, ordered a bunch of "damaged" solar cells from the US, and I got some bulk EVA encapsulant (I know my spelling sux, don't flame me), I bought some glass sheets and sandwiched my cells. I made a super hacky "vacuum oven" from a sturdy cardboard box and a vacuum cleaner and 2 heat guns. It worked! I made some ugly-ass solar panels that actually were water proof and made electricity!
So I only made about 300 watts of those guys but it was awesome; we had free lights at night and a couple small fans. The fans are a lifesaver when there are brown-outs here in hot summer nights as we ALWAYS have fans on 24x7 to keep the mosquitoes away so we don't contract dengue fever.
Anyway, making your own solar panels is doable, but in a hot/humid country like PH (or Florida!) it's real a pain in the ass doing that much soldering (heat) and using a (lamely-made) vacuum oven, etc. It's also quite time consuming and I have other hobbies (music composition & dead languages). So recently, during the economic collapse, I decided to check if solar panels had fallen in price b/c I'd really love to have free air-conditioning for a few hours a day. Man I found some great deals so I'm back in the solar game. There were always good deals in the US, especially on used but shipping that stuff here kills any of it. Now there are local manufacturers so I'm about to hop on that when the lockdown is over.
One thing I always hated about the idea of going off-grid is how horribly wasteful lead acid batteries are, yet it seemed there is no escape. On grid was not an option for me since in the Philippines only home owners can apply to get the special meter that spins both ways; otherwise you may get CHARGED for the power yo uproduce.
So, while researching about how to restore dead lead acid, if there is anyway to save them, rebuild them, etc. I stumbled across one of Will's videos about LifePo4.
They seemed out of reach though. I laughed when he talked about "how cheap" they are. (3rd world perspective :p ).
However, I liked his style, and his so rare "it's OK if I'm wrong sometimes" attitude,, so I decided to check out @Will Prowse 's book on Kindle. I also have a kindle book I wrote which has been very Unsuccessful, lol [I won't link to my book b/c I think it may be a forum violation to self promote products] and it's about spiritual topics anyway, not solar.
So I decided to check out Will's ebook since it was a bestseller and free for me (my kindle reading plan) to see what's up. I thought maybe I could gain some insight on how he made his book successful. I found it a nice read and actually learned some things. One thing, I had incredibly screwed up was I ALWAYS thought the amperage rating on charge controllers was regarding the amps-in from parallel strings of panels. I was TOTALLY wrong, lol, it's the AMPS out to the battery bank. Man what an IDIOT I'd been! I'm so lucky I didn't fry something. So then I started thinking, "what else have I been doing wrong?"I decided to check out the forum. Wish it had been around back when I was building my own panels! All there was back then was Solar Panel talk which was too judgy/angry for my tastes.
Here I stumbled on the crazy cheap 280AH LIfePO4 cells.
Now I convinced my significant other to raid our "housing fund" to do a full solar setup to get us mostly off grid (sunny days) and away from the horrid Filipino electrical monopoly. I'm hoping we either can buy the place we rent or get some cheap off-grid property later when my system/our lifestyle has the bugs worked out. I'm looking forward to ordering cells and building my first LiFePO4 battery bank; it's so exciting. I'm so glad to be a member of this forum guys and already it's been a huge help to me; I hope to give back as I learn and grow also.
-Jeremiah
Nice to meet you.
 
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