Skip to main content

Autonomous Solar Power


In 2010 I constructed a simple autonomous solar power system comprising a poly-crystalline silicon solar panel of 60 Watt peak, a charge controller, a maintenance free 12V lead battery and a car power inverter for 230V/50Hz AC output.

The goal was not to save or earn money with it, since the parts were not so cheap and the amount of electrical power from such a small system is only suited to power my laptop. It  also charges the battery powered gadgets one has nowadays, like mobile phone and so on.

It was relatively simple to construct and still works fine after 8 years usage. The inverter is a bit noisy due to the cheap fan, but it stil works. I cleaned this fan once.

The photo shows the battery system when it was still testing, so the wires were a bit messy and improvised. This was altered after the initial test and holes were drilled to feed the cables indoors. Used cable is LappKabel ölflex 2,5 sq mm, weather proof.






The Kensington “Ultra Portable Power Inverter 150w” can deliver up to 120watts AC continuous, and has a USB connector for charging gadgets. The inverter has enough power to feed my 50Watt Weller soldering iron. I tried some quite “green” soldering work on a sunny day, and it works quite well. The inverter not suited for inductive loads, so will not power AC motors/fans and such well.

The battery is a pretty standard 12Volt 17AH maintenance free lead battery, the Conrad CP12170. In those days Lithium Ion or LiPo battery tech wasn’t yet available to mass market in higher capacity. It maybe still a bit challenging to get your hands on, therefor I just took this option though after 8 years of service I’m still happy with this  battery. Don’t feel the need to replace it yet, the capacity is still good enough to use the system in a dark evening.

The IVT SC10 charge controller is a quite a bit over dimensioned, since it is capable up to charging 10 amps, whilst the panel itself could deliver 4 Amps at most. But I think its always good to  be a bit on the safe end with these things, also to prolongue the lifetime.




Because of the relative short days, powering the laptop in winter isn’t really feasible. The discharge indicator on the battery controller wil light up red quite soon, after maybe an hour or less of usage. However, charging the mobile phone and such still works quite well in this darker time of year on this point of the globe.

Many people will use such a system on their camper-van or allotment garden shed roof, however I just installed it at home. When there is an outage, I will  have my own stash of power, and I gained experience in using solar panels. The panel was by far the most expensive component and nowadays probably would get more power in same form factor.

I don’t have the urge to update it yet, or maybe will get a mains connected system in the future. However our government has total crap policies for this, and don’t want solar owners to have any financial advantage. That’s why they quickly shovelled smart meters into all homes, before solar takes off in an a larger scale here in the Netherlands.

Those meters differentiate between expensive consumed and cheap(to them) produced power. The good-ol' Ferraris meters, backwards turning when producing, were deemed “too old-fashioned”. This was clearly influenced by larger energy lobbies. It is somewhat slowing down solar installations since  there is no guarantee one will keep the right to simply deduce the produced from the used amount after 2019/2020.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ADR modules part 1

This is a restoration project I’ve been procrastinating around since about 2015. This will be quite some work, but then if one doesn’t start at least it will not happen at all. This will be a step by step project, and see how far we get with this Kaizen like approach. So first a short intro of the four audio modules made by Audio & Design (Recording) Ltd, in the mid 70s based in Shinfield Green, Reading, Berkshire UK. The company still exists to this date and is still active in pro-audio and is now in a different location but still in Reading. These modules can be dated to the mid 1970s, more precisely found the E900 Equaliser unit quality checklists to be dated 12 November 1976. There are two E900 equaliser modules, and two F760N Compressor/Limiters. A picture of the now dismantled mixing desk with the four modules. The mixing desk was in a quite dusty and sorry state. The desk was too space consuming and heavy to keep and many other parts were sold as separate items. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Story of Repair (SoR): Electric Kettle

One or two weeks ago, during the day, the RCCD (residual-current circuit breaker) tripped. The root cause was very unclear at first since no equipment was switched on or off during the event. Also the weather was quite humid and sticky after a thunderstorm, so that could be a factor as well. By unplugging some usual suspects one at a time, we could trace it to the culprit. First I unplugged the coffee maker from the mains, but again the RCCD tripped after some minutes. Next the electric kettle was unplugged, and bingo! The RCCD did not trip again. This Kettle, a Tristar HL-108B, has a base piece. This base did have my suspicion, since the inner wires became visible from where there should be a cable strain relief. Opening the base required special spanner or ‘fork’ style screws. Somehow they want to discourage repair, but they are wrong. With a suitable long bit style drivers it was fairly easy to get access to the wire terminals. The multimeter did not show any problems, but these kin...
Post a Comment
Read more

More cheap trick tool alternatives (Remove Stuck/Seized/Frozen Bottom Bracket Fixed Cup)

Many bicycle tools can be quite expensive for an average tinkerer. On the other end some parts can be so hard to remove, that they do require some investment in tools to get the job done. E.g. to remove the fixed cup of an old road bike. Found this neat trick on Youtube for that exact problem, by "RJ The Bike Guy". Note he starts with an expensive electric impact wrench which works wonders if you own such a thing, but watch the video to the end where he shows a bit cheaper way where he uses some long breaker bar.
Post a Comment
Read more