Aloha from a Solar Newbie in Hawaii

[littleharbor]

Wow! The price you pay to live in paradise. I can relate, somewhat. I live on Catalina Island. My issues with restrictions and cost of living here could fill a book. How about $7.xx a gallon for gas? That picture isn't current. We've had GAS prices in the $7.25 range.

Anyhow try Ebay, you might have better luck. Just be sure the clamp meter is a model that will do AC and DC. some do high current AC only.

Gas prices in Avalon..jpg

[WH6FQE]

These Uni-T models are really nice little clamp meters, cant beat the price.

https://www.amazon.com/Uni-T-UT202A-...gateway&sr=8-6

And unfortunately when I go to look at that one I see something very familiar on Amazon: This item requires special handling and cannot be shipped to your selected location.

I am so sick of Amazon, I got that notice the other day when I tried to reorder another pair of shoes that I just ordered from them 6 months ago. It is rediculous how many things will not ship to Hawaii.

[SunEagle]

These Uni-T models are really nice little clamp meters, cant beat the price.

https://www.amazon.com/Uni-T-UT202A-...gateway&sr=8-6

I own that model Uni-T and I am very happy with it and it's accuracy for such a low cost clamp-on.

[littleharbor]

These Uni-T models are really nice little clamp meters, cant beat the price.

https://www.amazon.com/Uni-T-UT202A-Auto-Ranging-Handheld-Multimeter/dp/B0149K9TZI/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=Uni-T+DC+clamp+meter&qid=1553286039&s=gateway&sr=8-6

[WH6FQE]

I have that same model and use it mostly for checking the load on a portable, battery-powered vehicle lift. Had it about a year now and used it many times with no complaints. I paid $40 delivered but I see the price has gone up.

Yes, it seems the price on everything has gone up recently. I just looked at this a couple weeks ago and it was about $10 cheaper then, lol.

Will this be good enough quality for what I am needing to start figuring out exactly what my daily power useage is instead of going by the estimates from others?

[azdave]

Are you talking about one like this: https://www.amazon.com/MS2108A-Range...gateway&sr=8-1

I have that same model and use it mostly for checking the load on a portable, battery-powered vehicle lift. Had it about a year now and used it many times with no complaints. I paid $40 delivered but I see the price has gone up.

[WH6FQE]

With the passing of Sears, a handy piece of gear got harder to get. Sears had a nice DC clip on Ampmeter, which you could clip around your battery cable and you will know within 5% of what your load is.
Amazon has some too, but you have to be very careful and read the specs and make sure you get a unit that does clip-on DC amps. Man only do AC amps, and fraudulent ones require you to break the circuit and go inline.

Are you talking about one like this: https://www.amazon.com/MS2108A-Range...gateway&sr=8-1

With a good clip-on ampmeter the next piece of gear is the Kill-A-Watt meter. It's a totalizing watt meter, reads power factor, voltage, volt-amps, watts and you can let it run a week to get a nice daily average

I put one of those in my Amazon shopping cart a little while ago. It will take me a while to add everything up that is plugged in to the 6 outlets and power strips, unless I order several of these things and measure it all at once, but then I cant see a use for all of them afterward, lol.

[Mike90250]

With the passing of Sears, a handy piece of gear got harder to get. Sears had a nice DC clip on Ampmeter, which you could clip around your battery cable and you will know within 5% of what your load is.
Amazon has some too, but you have to be very careful and read the specs and make sure you get a unit that does clip-on DC amps. Man only do AC amps, and fraudulent ones require you to break the circuit and go inline.


With a good clip-on ampmeter the next piece of gear is the Kill-A-Watt meter. It's a totalizing watt meter, reads power factor, voltage, volt-amps, watts and you can let it run a week to get a nice daily average

[WH6FQE]

How many batteries do you have ? I worry about the dead load. Water beds weigh more, but are spread out over more area.

do you close the windows in storms (not likely to have much charging going on then)

You should exercise the auto switch over once in a while, pull the plug or switch off the breaker. Make sure it works, and also, batteries on float 24/7, sometimes forget how to discharge, and should be deeply cycled at least once a year to keep plate material active.

Are your computers laptops or desktops ? Big difference in loads, 80W for laptop, 300w for desktop & more for it's monitor

I have 24 of the 6-volt Trojan T-105 batteries. They are sitting directly above a load bearing wall downstairs. I also store several 55 gal barrels of drinking water for emergencies so I know about making sure the floor underneath is well supported for the additional weight. When you have a stack of two 55-gal barrels on a rack full of water fall through the floor, believe me, that memory stays with you throughout the future, LOL.

My windows have not been closed once in the 17 years we have lived here. I did close one set directly in front of my computers and radios during Hurricane Lane and Olivia, but the other 17 windows stayed open through it all. I set up a temporary plastic tent to cover my desk to keep any water spray away from my radios and enjoyed the breeze, singing "riding the storm out" lol.

I plan on doing monthly or at the bare minimum, quarterly, off-grid exercises where I will operate everything from DC power to exercise the system and make sure everything is ready to go and spot any issues that need to be addressed.

I am using 2 tower computers, one is an HP Z400 Workstation and one Mac Pro. The Mac has triple 27" wedescreeen LED monitors, and the PC has dual 23" widescreen LED monitors. I am trying to get moved over to a laptop in place of the PC tower, but so far I haven't been able to get it switched over yet. I am still working on it. If I am able to get that to work, I will attempt to do the same with the Mac system next. The widescreen monitors I will not be able to get rid of though, I need to get those connected to the laptops.

[WH6FQE]

If the off grid experts and you can solve the energy problems, I might be able to help with
switcher noise. There are a couple boxes of near new EMC filters removed from equipment
in my attic. If some fit the issue, could get to HI in a Fixed Rate Box, instead of cluttering here.
Bruce Roe

That would be awesome, I really appreciate it. I have the 40amp Renogy "Rover" MPPT solar charger now that I accidentally ordered when I was trying to order the 100amp version of it. If everything will work, I am wanting to put the 12-volt 100-watt panels that I have now on thatsolar controller and order a 100-watt Renogy MPPT controller for the 300-watt panels when they get here. a couple hams here were telling me to run the 12-volt panels on a PWM controller, but I have had several people tell me to stay away from those, especially with radios. So since I will already have the 40amp MPPT as an extra, I may as well use it to see if I can get what little power out of the 100-watt panels that I can.

[Mike90250]

How many batteries do you have ? I worry about the dead load. Water beds weigh more, but are spread out over more area.

do you close the windows in storms (not likely to have much charging going on then)

You should exercise the auto switch over once in a while, pull the plug or switch off the breaker. Make sure it works, and also, batteries on float 24/7, sometimes forget how to discharge, and should be deeply cycled at least once a year to keep plate material active.

Are your computers laptops or desktops ? Big difference in loads, 80W for laptop, 300w for desktop & more for it's monitor

[bcroe]

That what I was thinking, which is going to definitely be a problem. I could have created some shielding between the panels and my antennas with them being on the opposite side of the house from each other, however the solar controllers and radios are in the same room. Ouch.

If the off grid experts and you can solve the energy problems, I might be able to help with
switcher noise. There are a couple boxes of near new EMC filters removed from equipment
in my attic. If some fit the issue, could get to HI in a Fixed Rate Box, instead of cluttering here.
Bruce Roe

[WH6FQE]

1,200 nameplate watts = 960 harvestable watts under great conditions, less power with more heat.
So you have about 900w for 5 hours. Thats 4,500 watt hours, and you can count on that only being able to feed a 6kwh bank ( you are only allowed to use half of your flooded battery bank, or you are deeply cycling your deep cycle batteries and they won't last too long

Any daytime running usage amps will be subtracted from your battery recharge amps

Where are the electronics and batteries going to live ?

Does your gear run off 12V or 120V ? Antenna rotator ? Station lights ? vent fan ?

900W @ 13V = 70A (700ah bank)
900W @ 26V = 35A (350ah bank)
900W @ 52V - 18A (180ah bank)

This chart may help:

BatteryWattHourCapacity.jpg

Right now the radios batteries and everything are in the same room, upstairs in my house. I know you normally wouldn't want to have flooded lead acid batteries stored indoors, but the room has windows on 3 sides that have never been closed once in the 17 years I have lived here. They provide really good cross ventillation for any offgassing from the batteries. As an additional safety measure I also have a small 12-volt fan hooked up to it's own small solar panel and battery sitting outside on the lanai to direct airflow across the battery bank at times when the wind is not blowing strong enough.

All of the radios all run off of 12 volt, as does my station lighting. The only thing that is on 120 are the computers and monitors. My radios and lighting are currently connected to a pair of 50amp power supplies and battery isolators that will be connected to the system. When the AC power goes out the isolators will automatically switch over to the battery bank power until the AC power is restored, and then switch back. At least that's what they said when they sold the battery isolators to me, lol.

[WH6FQE]

Email sent, I have emailed a couple of other people but it will take some time for a reply, just so you know I am in Australia I emailed the sites owners about this and one of them was reading the thread at the time and suggested we see what we could do to help you out, so I am going back to re read this thread again as you may have already given most of the info we need but in a nutshell we need to know

1. Load requirements or a loads analysis, how many watt hours or kilowatt hours does the system need to deliver to run your radio equipment as I dont envisage building a huge hybrid (on grid and off grid system) I am assuming this will be a separate stand alone system to keep the radio gear running
2. Where is the system to be installed on your house, on your shed, in another building somewhere else

I had a look at your website and see you have some golf cart batteries so you may be further down the track that I first though but either way think we can help you out, cheers

I just emailed you back. Thanks a lot. I was actually just speaking with my counterpart down in Australia about the difficulties I have been having getting real panels here instead of these 100-watt toys.

[Mike90250]

I finally got Matthew at Renogy talked into shipping 4 of their 300 watt 24 volt solar panels to me today. They won't be here for a few weeks because they are going to come on a container ship and the shipping cost was almost half the cost of the panels, but at least they finally agreed to ship them to me now. They also agreed to ship me additional panels in the future if I want to pay their international freight shipping charges.

1,200 nameplate watts = 960 harvestable watts under great conditions, less power with more heat.
So you have about 900w for 5 hours. Thats 4,500 watt hours, and you can count on that only being able to feed a 6kwh bank ( you are only allowed to use half of your flooded battery bank, or you are deeply cycling your deep cycle batteries and they won't last too long

Any daytime running usage amps will be subtracted from your battery recharge amps

Where are the electronics and batteries going to live ?

Does your gear run off 12V or 120V ? Antenna rotator ? Station lights ? vent fan ?

900W @ 13V = 70A (700ah bank)
900W @ 26V = 35A (350ah bank)
900W @ 52V - 18A (180ah bank)

This chart may help:

BatteryWattHourCapacity.jpg