Damn what a deal, we just hooked up this same kit at our little off grid cabin this past week, seems to be working great so far!!

@DIYJeff

5 жыл бұрын

BASS n BEER !!, glad to hear it. I'm waiting on a part to come to finish off my project. If you haven't seen Episodes 2 & 3 be sure to check them out. They are linked in the video description.

NICE DEAL

Great review, I have a set of solar panels. Going to run a 5,000 btu a/c on at least for a few hours during daylight for my dogs.

Just wat I need. I'm gonna do solar and this maybe exactly wat I'll be doing soon.

Haha you got a great deal on those 6 solar panels!!

Lucky your in that area . my city they get bought quick when it's on the as is pile....

So how has your solar panels been going? I have 200 watts of the harbor freight panels (lot better quality then the 45 watt kits) and 700 watts of the standard mono panels. First I will say that I LOVE the harbor freight panels. They work REALLY well on cloudy days. I used my panels to power my aquaponic air and water pumps and things kept going even in a light rain. I also powered Erie PA's first electric car show with these panels (PA and music system). The only real down side is they take a LOT more space than mono. But if you have the space to spare then they are truly great panels. The charge controllers that come in the boxes are rated for 20 amps. So you can hook 3 kits to one controller and then put the two controllers in parallel. However those controllers are PWM. If you get a MPPT (maximum power point tracking) charge controller you will net an average %20-%30 more power out of your solar panels into your batteries. I recommend going with a 40 amp (or higher) EPever MPPT charge controller and run all your panels to it. I would just go parallel connection for panels unless you have a really long distance run in which case higher voltage will offset wire losses running in series. EPever are affordable and are will known in the solar community. Be vareful of no-name off brand Chinese MPPT charge controllers. MANY of those are fakes. As far as batteries you can go Lead Acid or Lithium. Deep cycle lead acid is stupid easy to set up (good for some). But they are heavy and will give you around 500 cycles provided you don't discharge them below %50. Lithium can be done now a days for near the same cost. However you must build your own packs which means you must learn how to balance cells into banks when you build them and set up the BMS. It's not to hard but requires some reading for the newbie. A guy on KZread "jehugarcia" has several very good videos on building building quality modular lithium battery packs for cheap. A lithium pack should give you around 8000 cycles if you don't discharge below %50. However if you make your pack big enough and don't discharge past %80 you could get as many as 20000 cycles. As far as inverters there are two types Modified and Pure Sine Wave. Modfied sine wave inverters are the cheapest. The create a square AC wave that is less efficient and generates more heat in devices. Modified sine wave inverters are known to wear out electronics faster because of this. Pure sine wave inverters produce a AC wave identical to your AC wall outlet and are more efficient. However they cost most. NEVER go over a pure sine wave inverter's max amperage. They burn pretty easy if you do. When calculating wattage for a inverter count any device with an electric motor as 4 TIMES the device's average wattage rating. Motors take a HUGE amount of amperage on startup them their amp demands drops off. If you get an inverter I recommend a 24V pure sine wave inverter. you will have to build your own battery (vs being able to jumper to a car). However the higher DC voltage rating of an inverter the more efficient (less conversion loss) it will be. Hope this tips help. So how is your project going along?

@DIYJeff

5 жыл бұрын

Gene A, my project is coming along quite well. In fact, I'm just waiting on one more part to come in to complete it and then I can start production on my video of it. Stay tuned. PS - it's not a typical harbor freight solar project so if you haven't turned on your post notifications for my channel, be sure to do so, so you won't miss when I upload it.

I like the 25 W panels because you just need 2 of them to get 50 or 4 for 100

Get a Kodiak solar generator you can hook other batteries to it and you can go off-grid forever six panels is all you need

Solar panels are typically rated for ideal conditions, which you will seldom ever enjoy. Usually, about 80% of rated is reasonable to expect. These panels are pretty good about producing under lower light conditions than poly or mono panels. Unfortunately, these panels don't have a very long lifespan. I have had the three panel, 45 watt setup for a little over five years. Within the first year, all the plastic frames had cracked at the corners. Moisture gets inside and corrodes the connections where the wire is soldered to the panel buses. In two years, two panels stopped producing. By the third year, all the panels were dead. Repair is difficult and may be impossible in some cases. The panel bus protrudes about a quarter inch from the two pane glass sandwich and is usually where the failure occurs. If you can chip back the back glass pane to expose enough of the bus to resolder the wires, you can be back in business. You may destroy the whole panel in the process of chipping back the back glass pane. I have repaired one of the three and use it to maintain my truck battery. You can extend the life of the panel if you assiduously cover them with a tarp during rain events. I don't leave the repaired panel out in the rain and it's been working fine for two years.

@DIYJeff

6 жыл бұрын

8632tony , thank you for sharing your experience with the harbor freight panels. That doesn’t instill much confidence in their long term durability. I have to agree with you, as the housings do feel flimsy. This is definitely something I will consider as I continue to design my system.

batterys?

They didn't have any on the tent sale when I went. So mine came at the discount price X3. :-( Been running mine since about the time you got yours minus a week or so.

Panels aren’t that expensive it’s the battery that get expensive. Good find though.

I love harbor freight yard sales lol I mean tent sales great video my brother has one of those solor panels I don't know much about it either but my brother mainly uses it when camping. I can't wait to learn with you because I have been thinking of a project but I might not be able to do it till next year or so.. love to see your future videos as always keep the camera rolling.

@DIYJeff

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the comment Wrenches and boards. While solar really isn't complicated if you understand amps, watts, and volts, for those of us who don't, it's really complicated trying to figure out how many hours of usable sunlight you have, then figure out how many watts per hour you need to generate to accomplish your goal, and then mix in the complexity of different types of batteries and the different voltages and how all that plays into your system. Oh, and charge controllers and battery regulators. The more I research, the more i'm swimming in a sea of information, but learning is a blast, and knowledge is power! Thanks for watching!

Imagine setting up 24 panels for 600watts when 6 mono or poly panels will give the same watts... Ooofff...

The best thing I've found on the net was plans from Avasva .

@Vera-xu3xw

5 жыл бұрын

Really? They seem like a scam. I tried watching and he never got to the point.

Abe was a HUGE liar!!