20-06-2022, 02:53 PM
Hey There Leigh,
the solar powered shack is a great concept and for many works well, some things to keep in mind is that have a circuit breaker on all sections of the solar battery and load to stop nasty things happening.
On the solar side of it, you can use house style solar panels which can be cheap to purchase ot find on gumtree for a song BUT you must then also use a charge controller that incorporates the needed tech to handle the change from 90-130 volts of DC down to your chosen battery voltage. Peter, vk5pw has a very nice setup not far away from me with such a controller.
The only downside to all this was the added RFI from the controller I had purchased, the one 5PW has seems to be RFI free..
The three charge controllers I had in my failed experiment were all noisy in various stages of the charge cycle but sadly each had a different bad point. I should have laid out the $$$ and gone with the controller vk5pw uses (will try to find out the brand for you)
If your happy with low charge currents, then of course you can opt for 12V solar panels but generally that limits your charge current and when light is scarce in winter you want to be getting as much charge as you can.
Also Jeff, vk5GF runs a solar setup so have a chat with him.
As for me I have opted for a Teslar home battery and put all my eggs in that basket, that way all of the available 8KW of solar charges that up every day and the whole property gets the benifit.
the solar powered shack is a great concept and for many works well, some things to keep in mind is that have a circuit breaker on all sections of the solar battery and load to stop nasty things happening.
On the solar side of it, you can use house style solar panels which can be cheap to purchase ot find on gumtree for a song BUT you must then also use a charge controller that incorporates the needed tech to handle the change from 90-130 volts of DC down to your chosen battery voltage. Peter, vk5pw has a very nice setup not far away from me with such a controller.
The only downside to all this was the added RFI from the controller I had purchased, the one 5PW has seems to be RFI free..
The three charge controllers I had in my failed experiment were all noisy in various stages of the charge cycle but sadly each had a different bad point. I should have laid out the $$$ and gone with the controller vk5pw uses (will try to find out the brand for you)
If your happy with low charge currents, then of course you can opt for 12V solar panels but generally that limits your charge current and when light is scarce in winter you want to be getting as much charge as you can.
Also Jeff, vk5GF runs a solar setup so have a chat with him.
As for me I have opted for a Teslar home battery and put all my eggs in that basket, that way all of the available 8KW of solar charges that up every day and the whole property gets the benifit.
Peter Sumner, vk5pj
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
- Winston Churchill
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
- Winston Churchill