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Hello everyone, I am a new user to this site. I found it researching for my first solar project, and it seemed like alot of people answer others questions with very informative answers! I hope to get some thoughts and ideas to help guide me with my project.
I recently put together a small barn for our horses. Its an open air barn made from galvanized pipe and a corragated metal roof with plywood walls. it has 2 stalls on either end for our horses with a breezeway in the middle which is split in half. the front half of the breezeway is open and the back half is now enclosed to store the hay. Anyway, it needs light. one light in the hay room and one light in the breezeway. A big plus is that we will only need to use the light on average an hour a day. 2 hours tops maybe once a week.
items i have: 1- 75watt solar panel, 1- 10amp 12v 120w charge controller
2- 6volt golf cart batteries, 1- 300 watt inverter
i get lots of sun. (sacramento) but also very high heat.
this was my vision: 75w panel connected to my charge controller, connected to my 2 6volt batteries wired in series, connected to my inverter, then to a wall switch and then my 2 lights.
for my lights i was thinking about screw in led's:
"7 High Powered LED Medium Base PAR 30 bulb - 120/240 Light output comparable to 35~40 watt incandescent
Consumes just 8 Watts of power VAC" but those bulbs are $50 each. would low(30max)watt CFL bulbs work ok?
some questions are: 1.what type of light bulb would you choose? led bulb, cfl or flouresent?
2.do i need a fusebox between my inverter and my light switch? if so, what size?
3.what guage wire do i need to run this? I was told 4 guage, but that is so thick! seems crazy!
4.do i even need an inverter? can i run lights off of DC?
5.for this small system, is it even best to run it 12volts?
6.could i add more light fixtures in the future if i stay within my panels max output?
Well thats basicly what i got goin. If anyone has some advice for this solar greenhorn, all advice and suggestions would be much appreciated. thanks everyone
I recently put together a small barn for our horses. Its an open air barn made from galvanized pipe and a corragated metal roof with plywood walls. it has 2 stalls on either end for our horses with a breezeway in the middle which is split in half. the front half of the breezeway is open and the back half is now enclosed to store the hay. Anyway, it needs light. one light in the hay room and one light in the breezeway. A big plus is that we will only need to use the light on average an hour a day. 2 hours tops maybe once a week.
items i have: 1- 75watt solar panel, 1- 10amp 12v 120w charge controller
2- 6volt golf cart batteries, 1- 300 watt inverter
i get lots of sun. (sacramento) but also very high heat.
this was my vision: 75w panel connected to my charge controller, connected to my 2 6volt batteries wired in series, connected to my inverter, then to a wall switch and then my 2 lights.
for my lights i was thinking about screw in led's:
"7 High Powered LED Medium Base PAR 30 bulb - 120/240 Light output comparable to 35~40 watt incandescent
Consumes just 8 Watts of power VAC" but those bulbs are $50 each. would low(30max)watt CFL bulbs work ok?
some questions are: 1.what type of light bulb would you choose? led bulb, cfl or flouresent?
2.do i need a fusebox between my inverter and my light switch? if so, what size?
3.what guage wire do i need to run this? I was told 4 guage, but that is so thick! seems crazy!
4.do i even need an inverter? can i run lights off of DC?
5.for this small system, is it even best to run it 12volts?
6.could i add more light fixtures in the future if i stay within my panels max output?
Well thats basicly what i got goin. If anyone has some advice for this solar greenhorn, all advice and suggestions would be much appreciated. thanks everyone
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