Enough solar?

[Furbrain]

19 minutes ago, PsyCLown said:

 

 

So regarding 6 panels and adding more later, remember that the string of panels ideally needs to be in a certain voltage range - too low and efficiency drops, too high and it'll cause permanent damage to the inverter.

If the amps (current) is too high per string / mppt the. That'll just get cut and limited.
Also remember you need to take into account the temperatures as that'll affect the voltage, cold weather will lead to higher voltage. So you need to work it out to be in a safe zone.



As for going down to a small tent of say 80x80
Putting a small light of no more than 240w inside, will definitely reduce the power required. Smaller tent, means less lights and smaller fans and therefore less power.

If running the light at max during flower, fans may come to approx 60w so call it 300w in total at max.
In veg it'll be less power and you could get away with just an extraction fan and one fan inside for air circulation.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk
 

 

Thanks for that, I will update at some point!.

Photo shows last setup. 6x250w panels. Batteries were 2v with tons of storage. Great system but realise now I need much more.

[Ponica]

Just a tip.

A trick I learned from an expert , Easiest is to always convert every thing to to WATTS,

W = I (Amps) x V (Voltage) if a battery is 12V and rated 102Ah its 1224 Watt Hours, meaning for 1 hour you can draw 1224 watts. From here you can work out for how long. I.e if you have a device that draw 500wats 1224Wh/500wats = 2.4 hours.

However there are some caveats.

Usually when it comes to lithium batteries, they already display the specifications in Wh. So if you have a 5Kwh battery it means you can draw 5000 watts from it for one hour before its depleted. And Lithium batteries usually are OK with 100% DOD (Depth of discharge) where as other batteries such as Lead acid and AGM don't like being discharged too much. 50% is considered max anything beyond this point does not make sense and causes major damage. So essentially a 12V 102Ah is realistically a 51Ah battery as far as usage goes.. Its rated 102Ah because that's how they test it in the lab and in the Lab try get the most AH out of it for marketing purposes which basically became a standard way of measuring SLA/AGM batteries. With Lithium they don't have to tell white lies and just give it to you as it is.

The reason you want a 48V system over 12V is because Current and Voltage is on a scale. The higher the voltage the lower the current draw. Current=Heat.  Which also means you dont need extra thick cables.
And just because a battery is capable of its spec, it doesn't mean you should draw max current from it because they will get hot and heat kills batteries in not time. They can also put up quite a show if you abuse them , this goes for all types of batteries.

 

Things to bear in mind
Type of inverter Pure sine VS Square wave. If you are running expensive lights making use of expensive LED drivers they will become hot and may reduce its life span. you want pur sine wave , Square wave inverters are cheap nasty stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Ponica