Solar panel power to the yurt

[Rinny2]

Originally Posted by Jafo

I have a radio up there that hooks into the DC adapters in the controller (not the inverter) and I have two DC lights already. I would love the Coleman though if you have no use for it.

Inverters use power to make power... and even when they're NOT making power! (It's minimal... but it's still power!) I bought the lantern for an old friend of mine who died before I got it to him, so any use it gets will be in his honor!

[Jafo]

I understand about the inverter.. I only have the inverter there for things that are not DC, like the battery chargers for my porter cable tools and stuff like that.. For the most part, I just want to be able to power the lights, my little radio, and the ham radio I will have up there.. Almost all of that is DC.

Cool on the lantern.. We can always use light up there lol..

[Jafo]

Got it all hooked up, and it worked great. I barely used a 5th of the power I could have. The battery was completely charged by 9am. I think I will stick with one battery for a while. Here are a couple videos!

solar1.mp4

solar2.mp4

[Jafo]

I stayed up at the yurt Saturday night and decided to try and give the solar system a run for its money. When I arrived the controller indicated the battery was full and that it had stopped charging; so it was full. I charged up all the power tools, the rechargeable radios, cell phone and whatever I could find to plug into it.

I had these two lamps I brought up a couple weeks before but just one of them set off the inverter fan so I brought up a couple other ones I had at the house that we didn't use. They were these little lamps we put behind some of our furniture with the intention of some mild back lighting. They each hold one 9 watt bulb, but we found the light too bright at home, but wow, they work perfect at camp. Even with both of them on, the inverter fan doesn't kick on, and they throw more light than the full size lamps do. They seemed to be drawing between 10-18 watts each off the inverter so probably an average of 1.5 amps each. That means I could run both of those lights for 18 hours before half my charge was gone in the battery (you shouldn't use more than half).

I have to say, I am really impressed with that little solar system. I am going to add one more battery for extra capacity, and a 2,000 watt inverter so I have the ability to run power tools and that will be it. Viva la-solar!

[Jafo]

BTW, Amazon just recently went on sale with these 145 watt solar panels. Wow, $140.00!! If you are an Amazon Prime member, that includes free shipping!

I may eventually get a few of those if the need arises.

[Jafo]

I hooked up the second battery this weekend even though we never even had an issue with just one battery. I am pretty confident that is all the power we are going to need for some time. Ran the lights and the stereo all night along with the ham radio and the unit put out a constant 12.8 volts of power the entire time.

[Jafo]

Here is a pic of the solar panels connected to the yurt:

[Woodyrock]

Most larger boats use golf cart 6 volt batteries in place of 12 volt Marine batteries.Our trawler had eight of these monsters. We never ran out of of power in all the years we had the boat, even when we sat at anchor for a week.
Woody

[Surely Yurts - Steve]

Yes, I have bought a total of about 20 of these kits I own 4 of the kits myself and use them at the workshop & yurt for all of my lighting and radio needs. The rest I have installed for customers and two of my neighbors in the off-grid community where currently I live. They are an amazing little system that is simple and effective. They have also held up, we got the first set 5 years ago!

Also, no need to worry about the charge controller over-charging the batteries. These are itty-bitty panels and controllers they don't have enough juice to over heat a deep-cycle battery and cause it any harm. Even at peak output they are only a trickle.

On a side note, the 12V deep cycle marine batteries are the way to go with a small solar array. We tried a set up with 6V golf cart batteries wired in series to achieve 12V. This was a disaster! They do indeed have more reserve capacity but once they go down these panels DO NOT have enough output to bring them back up. It is like trying to fill a swimming pool with a squirt gun. Word of experience with these small solar kits, stick with 12V deep-cycle marine batteries! If you need more capacity, just wire additional 12V batteries in parralel.

[baldy]

Solar is the way to go. I plan on buying six Kyocera 250 watt panels, a bank of 6 volt golf cart batteries and some other needed controllers. I managed to scrounge up enough wire to do the job, connectors too! Nothing installed yet, still buying pieces right now. Can't wait till I start building something!