Solar power system to run a treadmill

[Peter LR]

Hi everyone! I'm a newbie to solar. My wife and I built our own gym in a 12x20 shed. It's insulated and we're so excited!

That said, we would like to have a treadmill run off the solar power. I know that treadmills suck a lot of energy, so we would have to build up the battery bank big enough, but what size system would be able to run a 120V treadmill (as that's the voltage most of them are, I believe)? My wife would only run it for about 45 minutes tops, but let's say 1 hour.

Thanks!

 

[snoobler]

Many items are 120V. Blenders, coffee pots, window A/C, computer chargers, light bulbs, televisions, etc., yet they all use dramatically different amounts of power, so "120V" tells us very little.

Solar system design:
Step one: Link #5 in my signature to determine your available solar hours for your location, panel orientation and tilt.
Step two: Link #1 in my signature to determine your daily energy needs.
Step three: use the above two to design a capable system.

You need to know how many watts your treadmill uses. You could actually use it and measure the energy with a kill-a-watt meter. You could look at the data plate and see how many amps it pulls. When you have amps and volts, you can calculate power by multiplying amps and volts, resulting in Watts. Then you multiply Watts by the # of hours you wish to run, and that gives you Watt-hours, a measure of energy.

From that point you can size a system based on energy needs and solar availability.

 

[Peter LR]

Thanks for the reply. The treadmills I was looking at are in the range of about 650 Watts.

 

[snoobler]

650W for 1 hour is 650Wh.

How much sun is available for your array?

 

[Peter LR]

Peak sunlight hours for my area are about 4.5 hours.

 

[snoobler]

Is that from link #5?

Do you plan to only power it during periods of peak sunlight, or do you plan to use it year round?

 

[Peter LR]

We plan on using it year round, about 3 days per week. It would only be my wife using it, as I'm not a runner. That said, it would be about 3 hours per week. As for the time of the day, that can vary.

 

[schmism]

1kwh/12v = 83ah
https://watts247.com/product/pip-1012lv-ms/ 1000w 12v all in one, a single 250w panel and a 100ah LFP battery.

 

[snoobler]

We plan on using it year round, about 3 days per week. It would only be my wife using it, as I'm not a runner. That said, it would be about 3 hours per week. As for the time of the day, that can vary.

If you plan to use it during periods of non-peak solar hours, you need to size the system accordingly.

Again, did you use link #5?