Learning my way in North Florida

[JimCrozier]

I have looked into roof top solar and responded to a couple of those adds any Florida homeowner is constantly bombarded with - but they all want me to cut more trees than I am will to do and make multi-thousand dollar investment. So..

I am setting out to get some experience in this DIY Solar area so I can minimize the need for my generator when I get a power outage - not an uncommon event in rural North Florida. When the big storms come by (fortunately not as often here south of Tallahassee than in some other parts of the state - but still often enough to make plans) it is good to be able to maintain communications, keep the refrigerator going, and have some lighting. That is my expectation for version1 of this system, but I do want to make it expandable as I gain experience so I can run a small AC unit from the solar system. It would be great to be able to run the pump on my well, too - but if that is all I need the generator for, that is a big gain - and I don't even think about switching over the wiring to the well until day 3 of an extended outage.

I have just ordered the parts as specified in the 2.0 version of the milk crate system by Will Prowse, along with one 100w solar panel from Rich. If nothing else, it will be a huge upgrade to the UPS I currently use for my music studio, and I will add more panels later. I don't necessarily plan to put my v1 in a milk crate, but it is a neat idea.

I will let you know how it goes as I proceed. Is anyone else working along those lines?

cheers
JC

 

[JimCrozier]

In the first order of stuff I received was Will's book which I studied. Immediately it was clear that I would need a 40amp controller and a larger inverter. Since I was working with Amazon, the upgrade was easy to do.

I now have the system operational with 2x50ah LiFePO4 batteries in parallel and 2xRich 100W solar panels in series.
I will clearly need another pair of 100W solar panels but would like to add 2 pairs for a total of 6x100W.

Question: The Rich 40a Solar Controller says the max input from solar panels with a 12v battery bank is 520W which would be a limit of 4 100W panels - but that seems a waste of capacity. Is it safe to put 6x100W solar panels in this system - with the understanding that full output from all 6 panels at once is unlikely? Is that an invalid assumption? Is that a hard limit?

thanks