My Solar and 12v Project
I am trying to convert my office and CCTV to run off of 12v (wish I new that 24v was better when I started) and be total off grid I have nothing but the net and a few yahoo groups to teach me so I am making mistakes left and right. Yes there are how tos out there that coast you cash but I am hard headed and think that all the info I need is out there for free. My goals for this project.
- be total off grid.
- Don’t lose or sacrifice anything that I want my office to do
- try to make it as low coat as possible
- use solar and maybe wind and any other off grid power I can.
- battery bank large enough to run everything for 5 days without charging
My plan is having solar / wind / other power sources with battery bank large enough to run everything for 5 days without charging. I hopefully will be able to expand out to other area of my house as time goes on Pictures posted as I go along.
Info & Pictures Update 11/12/2011
I bought so new batteries since I last updated, two 12v 55ah, three 12v 75ah. And I also bought 1 of 3 12v 60watt solar panels. I hope to have all three solar panels up but February 2011. At that point I would be able to put out at peak 220 plus watts. I have made a few other changes in my office also to lower my power usage, because the fact is the the less you use the less you need.
I went from two pcs total of 650 watt power ~ to one pc with a 240 watt power supply and a stand alone CCTV DVR winch only uses 40 watts.
I still have five moitors but only use two for the regaular pc usage, one is now my tv, and the other two for the CCTV.
I have also added two Cobra 400wtt DC to Ac units to power things I can’t with straight 12v. I also have bought a 12v generator to hook up to my exercise bike.
Will post more pic of this and maybe a video when done. I have also added a mini frige that I will sone be powering with one of the Cobra 400wtt DC to Ac units.
Picture Update 2/27/2012
Update 5/20/2012
after seeing what my panels put out by hr I am trying to rearrange them to get a more long production out of them and that will mean placing them in three different spots.
The pictures are of my testing what times they put out what watts. Its hard when your in an apartment with no access to the roof to be off grid and I don’t think I will ever be as off grid as I like here in my apartment.
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Here is a shot of the back of my building the window are to my office, you can see the panel I tried to make and will be replacing soon but I have two 20 watt one 60 watt, what I will have when done is three 60 watts and one 20 watt. They produce above 12v+ for about 5hrs a day.
Pictures:
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- better look at battery bank 1 with all batteries
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- Making solar panels
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- Making Solar Panel
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- Making Solar Panel
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- one of my battery banks made up of 2412v 7.2ah batteries
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- Volt meters
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- 1 of 2 Panels I bought 12v 20watt
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- 12v generator
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- Led lights for office
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- Back 1st 60 watt panel
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- 60 watt solar panel
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- New mini frig
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- cble box, dvd rw, CCTV dvr box
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- New fuses added to fuse panel area
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- New PC, 240 watt, 3.0ghz p4 HT 3 gig ram over 3.6TB of hard drive storage space.
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- 12v 75ah battery (1 of many)
2 Comments on “My Solar and 12v Project”
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Thank you for visiting my blog, and taking the time to read my post. I hope you find it helpfully and interesting, please feel free to leave your thoughts and comments. If there is something you would like to ask or want to see please email or message me. ~ Mike G
Mike’s Weight Battle
wow this is really cool! i’m glad to see you going through the whole process yourself. i feel like maybe once you have it all working right you would be the best resorce on the web since you have it all from start to finish done by a real life person who is learning and making mistakes as they go! i’m excited to watch your progress when your done i will be following your guid to start trying to make my whole house solar! so dont mess up! lol
also i wanted to ask if there was any possibility of you getting in conntact with an amish community or conservative mennonite. i know you don’t like new ppl or leaving the house but those two sects of religion do this kind of thing ALL the time this is kinda there nich. also i can assure you (not that it matters) that MOST amish and mennonites would be happy to assist and would ask little to nothing in return. infact (and i don’t know if you have amish in your area, i do so i’m just gonna pretend you live down the road) if you were to run into an amish man and strike up a conversation about the solar convertion project you have going on (excuse me sire don’t mean to bother you but i’m converting my house to solar/wind and thought you may have some wisdom that would help me:) he will probly start a very excited and cheery coversation cuz they LOVE talking alternative energy. they don’t trust the goverment, or the grid and they want as little to due with it as possible. infact in most states amish don’t have to register births or deaths so in the eyes of our government most of them never even exsisted! i would LOVE to fly that far under the radar!
Thank you for your comment, I don’t have any Amish around my part of Pa. And I did not know they where into solar / wind either.