So I bought 1800 watts of panels. . . now what?

[Naptown]

Thanks!

So lets get this thread back on track so I can finally get some electricity in here! lol.

I did everything that has been suggested so far, 660 A/h battery bank wired to 24v. Got a midinite classic 150, 24 v 2000w inverter and 1880w of solar panels. Now I am trying to figure out what I need in a solar combiner box. How do i go about figuring out what amp breakers I need per panel, would it be the "short circuit rating" listed on the back of my panels?

Fuse size should be listed on the data sheet for the panels. If not I use 125% of the Isc rating.
Remember you only need fuses if you have 3 or more strings of collectors.

[ripjohnnyc]

Fuse size should be listed on the data sheet for the panels. If not I use 125% of the Isc rating.
Remember you only need fuses if you have 3 or more strings of collectors.

Thanks I got the data sheet from the seller, and it did say 15 amps. thanks!

[ripjohnnyc]

I'm glad you're pushing forward with your plans ripjohnnyc. We actually lived off grid for a year in WV using 560 watts worth of panels. We had an outback flexmax 60, a free bank of batteries (some companies give them away when they upgrade) and a cheap 2500/5000 peak inverter. We ran just about anything, excepting an ac unit and the fridge. This included, although some things could not be run together, led tvs, light, desktop and laptops, the vacuum, the kids games and toys... We didn't run things like high watt small appliances and things with heating elements (instead we would use items like the non-electric french press...) We also would not have been able to run our household things and a water pump simultaneously.

On the very short days of winter, when we were first able to set up our battery bank, the days were running pretty short due to the fact that we lived in a hollow and the hills went up all around. We would have trouble completely filling the bank but we were able to run the things mentioned above nearly every day and often into the night. We supplemented on the very dim stretches with a generator.

I realize this isn't overly technical, that is more my husband's dept. but we were quite comfortable with our little set up and i can assure you it was certainly possible with some care and thought. Our set up cost us a little over $2500 several years ago.

Thanks for sharing! Its good to know smaller set up works, and what you can actually do with them.