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Old 10-16-2019, 01:16 PM   #1
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Solar n00b HELP!!!!

Hey Guys!

I need some serious help, wife is pis***! Lol. We have had our solar set up for a few months now and she is ready for power!! I have absolutely no idea what I am doing so I included a picture of our set up. We opted for strictly 110v (we basically only need to charge laptops/phones for power needs.)

Main questions are what inverter should I get to convert the solar (AC?) power to useable (DC) power? What gauge wire should I run from battery bank to breaker box? And finally how do I physically connect the wires into the breaker box?

I know these are pretty basic things but I have no experience in this so any help is really, really appreciated! Plus, happy wife happy life
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Old 10-16-2019, 02:09 PM   #2
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Need more information. How many batteries do you have,? what voltage are you running? How many amps is your battery bank? How many watts will you be consuming simultaneously on 110v and how many amps will everything draw? What kind of breaker panel do you have? (You can use one breaker as the main and connect hot to it and common to the common bar).

There are lots of things to be ranked into consideration to properly answer the questions you posed.

Start researching to get a better understanding of electrical systems. Then you can ask the questions while providing sufficient info to answer.

Best of luck...
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Old 10-16-2019, 02:13 PM   #3
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Don't take this wrong but, you don't know enough about electricity to even start the planning stage. There is A LOT of information about solar on the internet, some good, some bad and some dangerous. No one is going to do your homework for you.

Check these out.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoj...q8kmJme-5dnN0Q

https://www.diysolarforum.com/index.php

Solar panels produce DC voltage, your MPPT controller, if properly sized, should take care of the battery charging part. Batteries are DC. There are many things to consider such as circuit breakers, fuses, correct size wiring, correct size solar panels, correct size charge controller, etc.

If all you are TRULY going to do is charge laptops and cell phones there is NO reason to invert to AC. Everything on your bus is already DC. Your phone and laptop are DC, there are adapters available, to change to the correct voltage, to charge them from 12V DC.

If on the other hand you want to use anything that plugs into the wall outlet in your house, which is AC, you need an inverter.

Inverter, changes DC to AC.
Converter, changes AC to DC. A battery charger is basically a converter.

Your diagram isn't necessarily wrong, it's just missing a lot of pieces. Without knowing a lot of specifications about the equipment you already have, the only thing I can tell you for sure is that speaker wire is no where near heavy enough, or the correct kind of wire for that purpose. Wire gauge gets discussed ad nauseam on many RV,solar sites. READ them until you understand it.

I'm not trying to discourage you, it's just not possible to answer your question with the information you gave.
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Old 10-16-2019, 04:42 PM   #4
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I don't know much about this stuff, but I am learning. This is one of the sites I'm finding useful.



https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...-panel-systems
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Old 10-16-2019, 04:44 PM   #5
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I sized MPPT to 40, 2 100w panels currently, did a 40 because plan on adding 2 more panels. Have 2 12v 100ah AGM's, power audit gave us 25.44 TOTAL daily AH. We don't need a lot hence why the system was sized small. I read somewhere on the forum that heavy gauge audio wire was good but guess not hahah!

Apologies for not providing more info!! Not looking for anyone to do my research, just some guidance. ��

Best,

Kevin
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Old 10-16-2019, 04:46 PM   #6
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Join Date: Dec 2018
Location: Northern AZ
Posts: 78
Year: 2002
Engine: T444E/Allison 2000
I sized MPPT to 40, 2 100w panels currently, did a 40 because plan on adding 2 more panels. Have 2 12v 100ah AGM's, power audit gave us 25.44 TOTAL daily AH. We don't need a lot hence why the system was sized small.

Apologies for not providing more info!! Not looking for anyone to do my research, just some guidance. ��

Best,

Kevin
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Old 10-16-2019, 06:18 PM   #7
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Solarpaneltalk has some very informed people. I like this free download book that is very comprehensive and well written:
https://www.victronenergy.com/upload...limited-EN.pdf
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Old 10-16-2019, 06:24 PM   #8
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The ultimate all DC solar energy system I have seen is by a electrical engineer in Canada who also has designed, built, and marketed a amazing revolutionary controller. He goes by electrodacus.com.
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Old 10-16-2019, 06:25 PM   #9
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I hadn't noticed that book, and it looks like a real good start, thanks.
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