Solar Shack
 

I have been building this to house my batteries, charge controller and what not.http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...SolarShack.jpg

That's a nice looking shed. You might even have room for a horse.

Thanks. Maybe a little horse. I'm more or less building this as my solar play house. This is at my father's house and the plan is to use solar to supplement and back-up for power outages. I should have room for 2 kw of PV.

I count about 3.2m minimum width so with a bit of overhang on all sides, you might even get 3kw

Have you considered climate control? Batteries don't like it too hot or too cold..

nice looking solar shack Verdigo.
I use passive climate control. Roxul between my joists (and a plan to put 1 or 1.5" polyiso sheets over the joists). I also insulated the floor (before finding out about floor insulation in "pole" barn style buildings). So glad I used pressure treated.
My walls are about R16-20 and my floor is around R25. I put an additional R10 under the batteries with xps.
We had quite a cold winter here this year with plenty of -20 C to -30 (as low as -15F). My batteries lowest recorded temp was -7 C (20F). I have better luck in the summer maintaining a pretty close to 25C average regardless of outside temps.

Actually the 8 planned 280 watt panels would be rated at 2240 watts. Once I get a couple of them hung where I can see what's what I may try for a total of 10 for 2.8kw. This is the other side with the ground mount shown. http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...4919023_o1.jpg As for climate control I was thinking of enclosing the battery bank and using a camper refrigerator for parts to cobble together a cooling unit. Haven't thought much about heating it yet. maybe a beer can heater for sunny days?

Passive climate control meaning just well insulated? I didn't insulate the floor. I was concerned about moisture building up. I do plan on insulating the walls and roof though. Southern Kentucky winters these last few years have been pretty mild. I am mainly worried about high winds taking my roof and solar panels away during thunderstorms. I was really hoping to get my upper roof done this weekend but its looking like its gonna rain all weekend. so much for gardening as well.

Very cool shed, looks well constructed. Thought about erecting a pole and putting a wind turbine on top of it? You can get a 50w DIY kit for around $180. You know for when it's overcast. :)

I've pondered battery temperature regulation in an unoccupied structure for a long time. It's a hard decision to heat/cool an area that ya don't live in..

I was thinking about using Peltier Thermoelectric Panels with a very insulated battery box. They will both heat and cool, depending on the polarity of the D.C. applied to them. They would only need to overcome the temperature changes inside of the box and use the batteries themselves as the mass to regulate temperature and the energy to operate them..

I know that they are very inefficient but I don't believe it would take a bunch of energy to regulate the temperature of a small area. (within a 5 degree margin +/- 70 degrees F.) The thermostat control shouldn't be too difficult to figure out..

Thoughts?

Nice building, BTW.. ;)

I was not aware of a thermoelectric cooling pad. How does that work?

Wiki Rocks.. ;)

Thermoelectric cooling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm probably gonna build a box to begin with and just ventilate it with a fan to begin with. Maybe you can get a thread going on Thermoelectric Panels and I can copy your set-up?

I keep my batteries in my bedroom on an open rack. I know if they are cold..

Offgridkindaguy. that's pretty funny. ah the smell of hydrogen sulfide in the morning :)
(of course you're probably using gel/sealed batteries)
verdigo: ya. I insulated the floor (well I have to in my climate) and then found this great site. http://www.buildingscience.com/resou...nd-crawlspaces
among others. I used pressure treated joists and according to the studies I've now seen ... good thing.
I have plans to add some kind of additional passive solar/hydro battery heating in the winter, but man I have a list of projects a mile long, so hopefully in 2014...

ps: I ventilate my battery box with a 4" abs pipe without fan. seems to work fine.

I was thinking along the same lines but using a 12 volt computer fan on the outlet PVC pipe.

Nope.. Don't smell a thing. If I did, the charge voltage is too high. Had them there since '89. I treat my battery like a kid. If I'm cold, so are they! ;)

Right now I have 8 L-16's there..

hey offgridkindaguy. how long have you had the l-16s? 24v or 48?
verdigo. would be interesting to have the fan run just when you need it. is there a hydrogen sulfide sensor for arduino? lol.

I'm sure passive ventilation is ok to keep the gas build-up to a minimum. I'm mainly concerned about getting some heat vented out in the summer months.

"hey offgridkindaguy. how long have you had the l-16s? 24v or 48?"

I've only had them installed for a few months. Prior to that, I had 4 golf cart batteries about 3 ft. from the foot of the bed. They lasted me 8 yrs.. ;)

I have them configured in 12 volts. Everything operates directly from the battery. I rarely use an inverter..

*The foot of the bed is in the right corner of the pic..*

http://imageshack.us/a/img809/2968/c...tteries014.jpg

very nice and well constructed shed for solar panel...

nice set up. Offgridguy. tho i suspect we're going off topic.:D

verdigo. for my "shizzer shack" (high tech washroom) I'm trying passive solar venting.

to wit: I have a metal roof. beneath that are the battens. then sheets of foil faced polyiso, then the rafters. What happens is that the sun heats the air between the insulation layer and the metal roof. What happens to hot air, it rises. The hot air is then vented out through the ridge. It draws cooler air up from the outside edge.

Now I'm just letting it work like that to reduce heat coming into the washroom. But in one of the posts I found the researcher (sorry, thought I had the link, but...) cut holes in the polyiso down by his walls. This allowed the convection current to draw air from his attic (in his case) up through to the vented ridge. This reduced his attic temps from 140 to 80 (if memory serves :p).

I can say that the system works. I don't have documented temps, but shortly after finishing the roof we had a day where it was -2C (about 29F). With two large windows on the south wall of the shack the interior temp of the shack rose to 7C (42F). Perfect for me. I want solar heating. But on the north side of the shed the snow which had fallen during the night remained frozen on the roof. The only explanation is that the convective current was keeping the metal roof at below freezing.

Rather than a fan you could harness the same principal for passive solar cooling. I recommend it to anyone trying to cool their house.

"nice set up. Offgridguy. tho i suspect we're going off topic."

Mebby.. Just sayin' that I keep my battery inside with me..

I am ready to hang some panels. Still trying to design a secure angle adjustable mounting system. I will probably use stainless angle to mount panels to the ground mount. Here are a couple of updated pics
http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...9/IMAG0159.jpg

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...9/IMAG0160.jpg

That's going to be a serious upgrade over the 3 amorphous panels I think I see sitting by the other shed. :)

Yep. The Harbor Freight Solar Kit. I suppose the gateway drug.

Looks good!

Have you got the panels attached yet?

Not yet. I bought some IronRidge rails but Have not attached anything so far. I only get weekends to work on it and have been getting rained out or had to do other things not as interesting. I wish the Solar fairies would show up.

Dennis

Your progress reminds me of the progress I'm making on my garage / workshop project. It seems every time I turn around, something more important comes along and disrupts my working on it.

That said, I have not lost interest in your solar shack project. So, if you've made some headway, I'd love to see an update.

I put up one last weekend. I plan another this weekend, and then get some output measurements. The two panels I have so far are 280 watt units from Grape Solar. These are 399.00 each with free shipping from Home Depot. I have seen similar units for in the $250.00 range, but with a shipping charge. I would like to find some of these cheaper units local so I could pick them up. Here is a pic with the one panel.

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/.../withpanel.jpg

Woohoo updates! :)

Looks good so far. How many panels / watts are you planning on putting up?

A little progress http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...9/IMAG0228.jpg

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...9/IMAG0227.jpg

Woo, good to see. :) Are the panels wired up yet, or just mounted?

Looking Good!

Making a bit more progress
http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...9/IMAG0245.jpg

I have the panels connected to a combiner, and have started mounting some other components

http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...o59/Shack1.jpg

It going slow but its going

Are we looking at Interstate Batteries on the shelf? I went beck and quickly scanned this thread and did not see the voltage your battery bank was going to be. So, will you fill us in, and add what battery size and capacity you're using?, please.... I really want to know what you plan to power with this too.

If I understand correctly, batteries need continuous exercise, so you must be planning to use the generated power on something as you go along, not just store it up for an outage.

Anyway, the work may not be the fastest on the planet, but the quality looks just fine. :thumbup:

Yes to the batteries being Interstate. They are GC2 XHD's (6 volt golf cart batteries) and are rated at 232 amp hours. I will initially be using 2 strings of 8 at 48 volts. I don't have an inverter yet, but have decided on an Outback GVFX 3648.

Presently I'm just maintaining them and have on order the last four to make up the 16. I am by trade a garage keeper and have an Interstate Account for automotive batteries which gets me the batteries at a wholesale cost. This is the reason I chose Interstate, not that I don't believe they make a quality product.

This page gives all the charging info from Interstate. Interstate Batteries FAQ :: How do I charge certain deep cycle 6-volt and 12-volt batteries? .

Yeah. I'm pretty slow. My initial plan is for a total of 3400 watts of PV and the plan is to set the inverter to sell and use the solar in that way. I just can't wrap my head around having solar panels and not being able to use it if the power goes out so that's why I opted for battery back-up.

I am sort of doing things backwards instead of measuring all my loads and building the system for my usage. I intend on squeezing my usage into the system I am building and eventually not have to rely on the grid. Just my personality getting in the way of common sense.

Thanks for the kind words.

Dennis

Looking Great!

As I learned building my system: Celebrate the small steps and milestones. I had a pallet of 220W panels in my garage for 15 months before I sorted out my design, came up with the funding I needed to buy all the remaining parts and $$$ to pay for my structural and electrical permits.