solar panel questions?????

[jbtazgrabber]

building small house....wiring it for 12 volt lights....power goes out for a few days in winter and sometimes in summer....have generrator but  ussally dont like runnimg it for just lights.....there are quiet a few solar pannels i have looked at harbor friegt...northern tools...etcim looking to spend about 300.00 bucks it will be outside all the time.....anyone used any of these???.....also what size inverter to run my fridge??i  only have puter at wook and time is limeted to how busy we are .....so no puter help................any advice will be welcome......jb

[charles p]

I live in hurricane country.  When I moved here I had a small 2500 watt generator during a three day outage.  I could power a side by side refrig, several lights, and a Sony TV without overloading it.  A few times each day I unplugged the refrigerator and plugged in my upright freezer.

Now I have a 12kw generator that will run the entire house but it takes a lot of gasoline, is hot, and loud.  My electrician ran me a pigtail to my sheltered deck where I place the generator after a storm.  I also have a manual switch at my panel that isolates the generator from the grid.

It is amazing what that little 120v Coleman 2500 watt would do.  I gave it to a friend who uses it to run a water pump at his garden site.  Probably ten years old now and still runs good.  He adds a pint of gas to the tank, starts the motor and pump, and goes home.  It runs until it goes dry (which is not recommended).

[bilmac]

I am using two sets of the Harbor freight panels, a total of 6 fifteen watters to run a small trailer. The big demand is through the winter when my furnace has to run about every hour through the night. They don't really keep up in the winter, but I get by because I only stay there a couple days at a time, and haul batteries home to charge. They keep up fine in the summer. I have replaced the lights in the trailer with LEDs and disconnected any unnecessary juice user.

The Harbor Freight panels are the cheapest panels I have found at $150 for a set of three on their frequent sales. The set includes a charge controller, but the mounting frame they enclose is junk. I build frames out of 2X4s and hold the panels in it with screws and washers.

[jbtazgrabber]

thanks for the info.................how big of a inverter to run my fridge..........jb

[Bugflipper]

About 1000 watts is needed for a fridge.  If you figure on a few compact fluorescent lights you will probably want about 1200. http://www.theinverterstore.com/the-inverter-store-product.php?model=pwrb1250

The wattage required to run a fridge full time would be about a dozen 85 watt panels. You may be able to daisy chain 4 batteries and get enough charge out of 45 watts or so to run the fridge 2 or 3 times a day and let it act like a cooler instead of running all the time. The fridge compressor would burn about 105 amps every hour. So 3 hours of use for 3 days would drain 4 batteries to about 50-55% capacity while being charged. That's with running a couple of 16 watt compact florescents for 4 hours. It would take about 7 days of charging with no use to get the batteries back up to 100% if it is sunny.

It may be cheaper just to get solar for a few lights. Then run the generator 2 or 3 times a day for an hour to keep the temp down in the fridge. You could probably get by with a single battery and a little 400w inverter to power a radio or something of that nature with the lights. http://www.theinverterstore.com/the-inverter-store-product.php?model=pwrinv400w-top-rgb#

[bilmac]

Or get a propane refrigerator.

[efremtags]

or get a solar fridge, can run o n as little as 200w

[bilmac]

Efrem, I've been looking at the solar fridges you suggest. You say 200 watts. Is that the total size of the panel that will work in most situations, or 200 watts a day or what? Propane fridges are tempting, but when you think about it you are still depending on the propane supplier. How much do these things cost.

[blind ear]

In a stationary situation it is very likely that a propane frig could be converted to natural gas/methane. In most applications you only have to switch the orafice size from propane to natural gas. I am not an expert but if so, stationary, you could generate your own methane and produce great compost at the same time. ear

[efremtags]

about a  grand for a solar fridge. Steca and SUndanzer are 2 brands o look at.

Propane fridge is only as good as the fuel source, when u run out, your out. Solar is not fuel dependent, not to mention safer (no risk of fire or carbon monoxide).