Solar lighting

[pete]

I'm thinking of putting solar light system in the house..
with the prise of panels/contoller/deep cycle batterys from china
a system to run led lights would only cost around $500NZ..
Dose anyone run a solar system... or have any first hand info on
solar power systems...


Pete



..

[Bruce's]

I have a small system at one of my camps ,250 watts ,charges several 6 volt golf cart batteries which at the time were the best for the $ ,works just fine on low load stuff like lights ,I also have a 50 watt system running some lighting in a sea container shed I have ,nothing wrong with it either .I would try to get 12 volt lighting if your system is 12 volt ( my bigger system is 24 volt) ,because everything 12 volt is very cheap compared to a 24 volt light and it's also easier to find .
I am going to move the smaller shed system into a gazebo I have to run lighting and a stereo around my pool .

[pete]

yes was going to put in a 12volt system
with 18 volt panels... You seem to need 18v panels
to charge a 12v battery.. not sure how meany watts
I will require from the panels...


..

[Mudflap]

It's been more than 25 years since I installed a solar power system on my house and pulled the plug on the grid. My system has evolved over time but has never let me down. It consists of 30 panels, 8 golf cart batteries, and a Sun Selector charge controller. It has a 3000 watt inverter for the garage and a 1000 watt inverter for the house. Everything runs off the inverters including washing machine, shop tools, welder, lights, refrigerators, computers, etc.. Just bought a new set of batteries last week. The old set lasted 6 years.

[cheesy]

I've been giving some thought to this for my new shed when it goes up in May. My other option is to just use one of my many Coleman's for lighting and using a one deep cycle battery with an inverter for small power tools, using a solar panel to keep the battery charged.

Just thinking out loud.

[2LZ]

It's in the eventual plan for running the whole house...or most of it. PG&E has got us over a barrel, especially in the rural areas where there's no other option like a local municipality like SMUD, when we lived in Sac. SMUD was dirt cheap for electricity.

The tiered system has us hosed. We can hit "tier 3" in nothing flat (.33 kwh +/-). All we run are minimal lights, our well and a timed electric water heater that only runs 3 hours a day for morning showers. Mind you, we're only two people and no pets, kids or grandkids....so all week, nothing is on all day.

A couple years ago, we had the elders coming up for the holidays so we set the central system (which is always off) at 55' just to keep the walls thawed so the wood stove could keep up more easily. 5 weeks+ later, the PG&E bill came in at just under $800.00 for those 5+ weeks. The central system has never run since and we bought a pellet stove and stuffed it into the fireplace. Now we have the two stoves. Heat is not an issue.

I'm thinking solar carport because I don't want the panels all over my roof....but it'll run us about 25k for the system, with the good panels. There's a bunch of lease systems out there but that doesn't entice me. I'm still paying someone every month. The upside is at least I'd know what the bill will be...but then I own nothing.

[katoranger]

I have been looking into some solar also. Currently moving our compact flourescent bulbs to LED. The house was all incandescent when we bought it 3 years ago.

Would like to install some solar panels eventually.