Saturday, September 4, 2010

Solar Powered Workshop Part 1

June 29, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Solar


My solar power setup uses two marine batteries and one 130 watt solar panel. This will provide all the power for my workshop, or I hope so anyway. The rest of my set up is capable of expansion, so if what I have so far doesn’t provide enough power I can add batteries and/or another panel.

Comments

13 Responses to “Solar Powered Workshop Part 1”
  1. Lanny615 says:

    Very nice setup, but stay away from marine deep cycle batteries, they are only good for 300 cycles=1 year if cycled every day. Real deep cycle/golf cart batteries will last 5+ years if maintained properly.
    Greetings from sunny Jamaica.

  2. MrJetjoe says:

    if you use a fan use a d/c fan its more eff. than a/c same with lights don’t run lights off the inverter there is a lot of wasted power converting to a/c. rember the words of Tomas A Adison d/c power is more eff.

  3. hooptejoe says:

    @therealvirginiawind Your fine hooked up like that, it eliminates a set of wires. Mine is the same and been in use for almost 2 years. Nice job on your system

  4. therealvirginiawind says:

    After using this set up for several months I’d say it’s about right. My wife can run her stained glass grinder and a lamp, and I can run my mini drill press and charge my circular saw battery all at the same time without a problem. The 1750 also lets me run the fish pond pump too. One thing I can’t do with the 1750 is use the variable speed control on my scroll saw – it just runs at full speed. To get the variable speed to work I have to switch over to the small clean power inverter.

  5. gumby511 says:

    Do you think the 1750 was overkill or min? for what you are using it for?

  6. capnrob97 says:

    Very nice!

    I plan on building a solar powered shed just like that when I get into a house.

  7. thimpsy says:

    you have them connected correctly

  8. breezebro says:

    Your batteries are wired in parallel. I don’t know what philipx2 is talking about. With batteries in parallel it doesn’t matter where you connect to them, all wires being equal size.
    Could you tell us where you bought the solar panels and what brand they are?

  9. TatorMonster says:

    Nice Setup you got there! Looks like you put alot of time into doing it right. Good Job with the Video also, Look forward to seeing what you may add in the future if you decide to expand the system.

  10. philipx2 says:

    With both connections on one of the batteries it will work more than the other. Now it most likely will not effect the life of the battery as long as you don’t drain them down often. I do think in your setup it really doesn’t matter time will tell.

  11. therealvirginiawind says:

    Thanks for the comment Philipx2, but I don’t really understand why it would matter. I have both positive terminals connected together, and bot negative terminals connected together. It seems I could tap power from anywhere on the connection and reach both batteries equally.

  12. philipx2 says:

    Good going on your solar setup. You may want to swap you neg connection on your batteries. The way you have them set up the one battery you have with both wires will get worked more than one with out. Good luck.

  13. michael970 says:

    great video nice shed thanks for taking the time to make the video keep us updated.

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