Home made solar inverter generator hybrid

[oil pan 4]

I was looking at sears diehard AGM group 31 marine.
Its 13 inches long, standard 7 inches wide, 9 inches tall and weighs 70 pounds.
Electrically it has a reserve capacity of 205 minutes. Reserve capacity is equal to 85 amp hours if the power is used at 25 amps for 205 minutes. Or 92 amp hours at one C over 10 hours (That works out to about a 9 to 10 amp load). And 100 amp hours if you stretch 1C over 20 hours (about a 5 amp load).
There is no way it will fit my current battery holder.
I think I am going to buy it anyway and play make it fit with my plasma cutter.

The optima battery by comparison had 100 minutes of reserve capacity, or about 40 amp hours.

[oil pan 4]

All my MC4 connectors arrived yesterday and today.

The solar panel's listing said they came with MC4 connectors. I didn't realize that meant the only ones were attached to the panels. If I would have known, I would have ordered a pile of MC4 connectors at the same time as the solar panels.

[oil pan 4]

Keep the sun off the gas, inverter and charge controller with solar panels.
I am going to attached the top panel to the top on a hinge and lock.


New batt.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1443204730
Have to make that fit.

[oil pan 4]

Welding the hinges on to the solar panel's moveable rack/frame.
That's 0.024'' L-56 electrode, 10L/min CO2, 22VDC filling a 1.5mm open root.
The frame is 1/8 inch thick, the heavy duty hinge was slightly thinner.
My welder had been acting odd today, later I figured out I had a worn contact tip, I have put about 30 to 35 pounds of wire through that tip so yeah it was worn out.

[Robaroni]

Hi,
I'm not sure how this works, you're using the PV modules to do what? Also a 1k inverter at 120 volts will only put out a little over 8 amps at 220, only 4 amps. Did you say you want to run welders with this? It won't do it, perhaps I'm missing something?

Rob

ps:

A 40 AH battery really only has 20 AH's. You don't want to drive a battery to less than 50% charge because battery life is rated in charge cycles and the deeper you discharge the fewer cycles you have. Even 50% is less than I'd ever want to discharge even a good deep cycle battery like a Rolls or a Trojan.

[ham789]

Looks like a fun project.
I don't have any direct experience, but I do have some concerns.
I'd worry about the generator shaking the life out of both the
solar panels and the battery.
I do about a hundred miles a day of garage sales on a motorcycle.
I put the booty in a box on the back end. When I get home,
it's not unusual to find a bunch of screws in the bottom of the
box that were shaken out of the stuff I bought.
I had an analog voltmeter in the back for a year or so.
When I needed it, I discovered that the insides were about the
consistency of a pile of sand. That's with an OHV twin engine
shaking the stuff.

You don't seem to have any charge control. I'd at least stick
a big SCR with a zener like a typical cheapo battery charger.
You wanna be careful about overcharging the expensive battery.

I'd get the component temperatures WAY down.
Reliability doubles for every 10 C you can get the temp
down. When the diodes fail shorted, there's a lot of
current that's gonna go somewhere you probably won't like.

Fast charging/discharging the battery/inverter setup might not be very
efficient and is hard on everything.

You might be trying to do too much with one system
and compromising everything.

Might be more reliable/efficient to run the big generator
for the big stuff and a 1KW generator for small stuff
on the battery/inverter system.

I have a Coleman PM500 generator. It's a 2-stroke PITA,
but it weighs 12 pounds as I recall.

Compare that to lugging around a big battery.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Robaroni

Hi,
I'm not sure how this works, you're using the PV modules to do what? Also a 1k inverter at 120 volts will only put out a little over 8 amps at 220, only 4 amps. Did you say you want to run welders with this? It won't do it, perhaps I'm missing something?

Rob

ps:

A 40 AH battery really only has 20 AH's. You don't want to drive a battery to less than 50% charge because battery life is rated in charge cycles and the deeper you discharge the fewer cycles you have. Even 50% is less than I'd ever want to discharge even a good deep cycle battery like a Rolls or a Trojan.

All the battery, inverter and solar panel do is prevent running of the loud generator for small items. This generator will burn about a half gallon per hour at no load.
The solar, inverter and battery are only going to run small items such as battery chargers for tools, computer phone, run drills, saws all, portable band saw, lights (12v dc and high voltage AC). Or a larger item such as a refrigerator for several hours at a time, intermittently run my 1hp air compressor, electric pole saw or run my skill saw at reduced power using my varrac.
As far as battery discharge I have no reason to run it way down, its got multiple charging sources to replenish it.

The generator powers large items such as welders, plasma cutter, microwave, skill saw, electric chain saw, provides power at night, charges the battery and runs everything while the battery charger is charging.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by ham789

Looks like a fun project.
I don't have any direct experience, but I do have some concerns.
I'd worry about the generator shaking the life out of both the
solar panels and the battery.
I do about a hundred miles a day of garage sales on a motorcycle.
I put the booty in a box on the back end. When I get home,
it's not unusual to find a bunch of screws in the bottom of the
box that were shaken out of the stuff I bought.
I had an analog voltmeter in the back for a year or so.
When I needed it, I discovered that the insides were about the
consistency of a pile of sand. That's with an OHV twin engine
shaking the stuff.

You don't seem to have any charge control. I'd at least stick
a big SCR with a zener like a typical cheapo battery charger.
You wanna be careful about overcharging the expensive battery.

I'd get the component temperatures WAY down.
Reliability doubles for every 10 C you can get the temp
down. When the diodes fail shorted, there's a lot of
current that's gonna go somewhere you probably won't like.

Fast charging/discharging the battery/inverter setup might not be very
efficient and is hard on everything.

You might be trying to do too much with one system
and compromising everything.

Might be more reliable/efficient to run the big generator
for the big stuff and a 1KW generator for small stuff
on the battery/inverter system.

I have a Coleman PM500 generator. It's a 2-stroke PITA,
but it weighs 12 pounds as I recall.

Compare that to lugging around a big battery.

I have no ideal if the solar panel can take the vibration. I am going to find out. The solar panel is racked to the generator with rubber vibration isolators.
The battery is AGM, good vibration resistance.

I have a 30 amp Morningstar prostar PWM charge controller. I run solar and my home made 220vac powered battery charger through it.

[oil pan 4]

This is what it looks like.
Only thing that is missing is my 220 volt battery charger. Its finished just need to install it. It goes beside the battery.


Here is the charge controller and fuse block.
The collector wires are all 10 gauge from the solar panel and battery charger. Then from the fuse block to the charge controller and charge controller to the battery is all 8 gauge.
The battery to the inverter is all 4 gauge and protected by an eaton aviation rated 100 amp breaker.

[Daox]

Have you used it yet?