Solar Power Topics

here's an electric car powered by wind
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/15/windpower-motoring
 
I actually have a few solar panels setup on my house. I use it charge a 100AH 12V SLA and 50AH Flooded Lead Acid car battery. I then have them piped into a 1,500 watt (3,000 peak) inverter that I plug in chargers or whatever else will reach it (yes, that inverter has 0 gauge wire connecting it to the batteries). I have 4 solar panels that each do about 18 watts in the sunshine. They are actually meant to charge SLA batteries since they run at 14 volts in the sun (actually the voltage is higher, but settles down when charging). The 4 of them in parallel give me about 72 watt/hour of recharge in the sun. A very slow charge, but I only use the power to recharge batteries right now. The good thing is, I have a somewhat limited backup power source for power outages (due to storms, etc.) The inverter has enough kick to run the microwave or anything else the extension cable will reach. So I get about an hour of solid same-as-wall-outlet power at least.

I also have a smaller 300 watt inverter (the one hanging down from the table with the white plug coming out of it) that I use for the little battery chargers (less loss on power conversion from DC to AC than the big one) I also use it from time to time to charge up my e-bike battery pack. It takes a while to recoup the power solar wise because charging (3) 13AH batteries out of a 150AH setup. Charge back time depends on how sunny it is, could take a few days of good sunshine.
 

Attachments

  • Image1.jpg
    Image1.jpg
    73.1 KB · Views: 1,576
  • Dcp03591.jpg
    Dcp03591.jpg
    56.1 KB · Views: 1,577
Back
Top