Power needs and using solar

[LittleMiss]

Hi All! Hoping to get some help in figuring out a solution for my power needs at camp. I know very little about power, so have provided a lot of detail in the hopes someone who knows this stuff can lead me in the right direction.

So here's what I'm leaning towards doing (but open to alternative suggestions). I want to get a deep cycle battery with an inverter and ideally have a solar run trickle charger. However I have no idea what I kind to get and what my needs are - and I want to make a long term investment here.

What I need to power: Below is what I need to power for the week and my estimated hours for each. I assume there's a way to do a calculation for my total power needs so I pick the right thing that will work for the next couple burns.

- LED Lights that are 3W (this: http://www.goalzero.com/p/18/light-a-li ... tern/28:2/) for 40 hours - 4 hours a day for 10 days
- Swamp Cooler. I use the one designed by figjam and estimated power is 1.45amp/ hour. 50 hours (5 hours a day x 10 days)
- Charge small electronics - iPhone, for music

I have this solar panel, which if I can re-purpose I'd like to: http://www.goalzero.com/p/20/boulder-15 ... anel/23:2/

Thanks in advance!

[GreyCoyote]

Sounds like a fun project. But you are paying WAY too much for a wimpy, 15-watt solar panel. The one you reference is more than $100 and is really too small to do any good. For a few bucks more you can increase the power by a factor of more than 5.

Try something like this: http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products. ... 00-12.html. This one is a 100 watt panel and in full sun will actually push about 7 amps into the battery. This should easily meet your power needs if you start with a fully charged battery.

The other item you will need is a charge controller. You can find these for as little as $30. Or for a few extra bucks get something like this: http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products. ... ver10.html That one will handle the full output of the above panel with no problem. Together they will supply much more power than you are currently need without spending a lot of $$$. So you could add more loads on your next outing.

Disclaimer: no financial interest in the company above. They just came up first in the Google search. You can likely do even better with some research.

Final item: talk to the crew at the AE Zone. They work with this stuff all day and have lots of good pointers for you.

[Eturnol]

Hello!

I'm also very new to this. If I wanted to power my camp in much the same way that OP does (swamp bubbler, LED lights, lantern, small speaker, iPhones, etc), would this be an acceptable set up?

DEEP CYCLE BATTERY
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0042QGWS ... SX200_QL40

SOLAR PANEL
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CAVMMM ... SY165_QL70

CHARGE CONTROLLER
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BCTLIH ... L500_SS115

Is this all I need to buy or is there more? Or would these even work together?

[nixiebunny]

Solar is not too hard to figure out. The solar panel wants to be tilted toward the noonday sun (about 45 degrees at Burning Man) on some cheesy wood brackets for trouble-free charging at maximum power. Otherwise you're wasting about 30% of its output by laying it flat. Which may not be a problem if you have twice as much solar panel as you need.

Expect to get the rated power out of the panel for about 6 hours a day. That's an approximation of the gradual increase and decrease in power over the day with the panel pointed south at 45 degrees. But the rated power isn't going into your battery - you lose another 30% in the charging/discharging cycle.

And your battery doesn't want to be run down more than 50%. So its amp-hours should be twice what you plan to actually use every night.

Calculating energy usage is amps times hours, and charging capacity is amps times hours, and battery capacity is amps times hours. So you can see if your battery has enough capacity to power your loads, and if your solar setup has enough power to charge the battery that much in a day. Another factor of two is a good idea, since it's easy to forget to turn off something, or to forget to take your towel off the solar panel, etc.

You also need to make solid connections. Crimp terminals of the blue variety will work for this setup, with 16 gauge wire (for short runs, under 20 feet). Crimp them well. There are instruction pages on the web for that stuff. don't swap + and -!

[Captain Goddammit]

Costco sells a similar battery for half that price.

[maladroit]

Costco sells a similar battery for half that price.

I found one at Wal-mart too...it's an Everstart Maxx group 29 battery. Both that and the Costco battery (which I've also used with good results) are not quite what you'd get with, say, an Optima deep cycle battery, but if you're using the battery a few times a year it'll probably deteriorate from age before you wear it out.

[Eturnol]

OK I'll look into the battery from Walmart and Costco instead of the one I posted.

What about the rest? Does the setup go:

Solar Panel > Charge Controller > Deep Cycle Battery > 6 Outlet Power Plug > Charged iPhones and illuminated LEDs?

I feel like there's something missing in between the Deep Cycle Battery and the power plug. Do I need an inverter? I'm not sure...

[maladroit]

Solar Panel > Charge Controller > Deep Cycle Battery > 6 Outlet Power Plug > Charged iPhones and illuminated LEDs?

I feel like there's something missing in between the Deep Cycle Battery and the power plug. Do I need an inverter? I'm not sure...

If everything you're bringing runs on 12 volts, and the 6 outlet power plug is the kind that plugs into a cigarette outlet in your car and makes 6 more cigarette outlets, then I think you're good. If you need to power stuff that you normally plug into the wall in your house, then yes you need an inverter.

[Eturnol]

Yeah it was more like a typical wall outlet. I was just going to bring a surge protector and hook a bunch of stuff up to that in my hexayurt. I'll read about inverters now. Thanks!

[Captain Goddammit]

Depending on what you want to power, make sure to read up on the difference between "modified sine wave" and "pure sine wave" inverters. Pure sine wave is what you have at home, modified sine wave (which is more like slightly improved square wave) is what most of the cheaper inverters produce and not everything works right with it.