Solar

I have finally completed the PV/Battery Backup system. It's been in progress for sometime, but I wanted to wait until it was finished to mention it.

The two panels on the left are Suniva 250 watt each. I used Ironridge rails for mounting.

The panels are charging two 246 amp hour GS batteries. Huge batteries!

The charge controller is the 24v Xantrex C60. No bells and whistles but cost effective and reliable, so far.

I have a 300W Samlex inverter, which is mounted above ceiling in the attic.

When I pulled all of the sheetrock down in the dining room I dedicated one duplex outlet to the solar system. So instead of it being wired back to the breaker box like the others, I took it's wiring above ceiling into the garage and wired a plug to the end. It plugs into the inverter.

If there is a power failure, I can plug into the solar outlet inside the house.

On the right is the breaker box by Midnite solar which houses the guts of the system. In a future post I will go over all of the components in the box.

As of yet I haven't really put the system through it's paces. Just some small loads like charging cell phones and laptops. There is a motion activated floodlight on the back deck that is now wired into this system as well. The flood load is also small with two led bulbs and only a 5 minute time setting when it detects motion.

DC Breaker Box

Battery box w/ GS Batteries

On sunny days, now during late spring, the charger is topping up the batteries by noon usually. At some point I am planning on wiring in the lighting in the dining room onto this system which are 8 dimmable led's that run just a few hours per day, normally dimmed at night. It will be nice to have this lighting available in case of grid power going down.



Electrical enclosure with Xantrex charge controller in the picture above. On the right the battery box with the (2) GS246 wired in parallel for 24v.