Sola powered chicken coop (rookie question)

[Tbrady]

Hi everyone. So I'm a complete newbie and hooked up my first solar setup for my chicken coop last week but I'm already having problem. Here's my setup.....20w solar panel>>>Gamma 3.0 charge controller>>>12v battery w/LCD volt meter display wired directly to battery. From the charge controller I then connected the lighting. Two 5w bulb fixtures to light the coop off off adigital timer. It was working fine for a week but I noticed tonight the battery light and the load light on the charge controller was blinking fast and lights in the coop were off. I unplugged the battery from the charge controller then hooked it back up again. It worked momentarily but then nothing again. My voltmeter is reading 11.5 btw. I'm stumped. Bad connections? Did I set it up wrong? It seemed pretty straight forward but now I have no idea what's wrong. Any help for a new guy to the solar way would be greatly appreciate.
Thanks very much
Ted

[Mike90250]

20 w panel is not going to be enough for 10 w of load. 50W panel would be better

[Tbrady]

Thanks mike but I don't understand. battery is reading almost a full charge and it had been working for an entire week.

[littleharbor]

11.5 volts is fully discharged. At that point you are doing irreversible damage to your battery. You need to get your battery recharged asap and add a larger panel. 50 watts is barely enough, 80 to 100 watts would be much better. What is the amp hour rating of your battery?

[Wy_White_Wolf]

Thanks mike but I don't understand. battery is reading almost a full charge and it had been working for an entire week.

You started with a fully charged battery. Each day you took out more out of it than the panel put back. It just took a week for you to notice that when the battery was finally empty.

You forgot the first part in designing a system. Calculate you load. Go back and read through the off-grid stickies on designing a system.

WWW

[PNPmacnab]

What do you need lights for, don't they get to sleep at night? I thought sure you would say that you are running a fan. If not leaving the lights on all night there could be an equipment problem.

[Sunking]

Hi everyone. So I'm a complete newbie and hooked up my first solar setup for my chicken coop last week but I'm already having problem. Here's my setup.....20w solar panel>>>Gamma 3.0 charge controller>>>12v battery w/LCD volt meter display wired directly to battery. From the charge controller I then connected the lighting. Two 5w bulb fixtures to light the coop off off adigital timer.

No wonder it didn't work. Everything you bought is grossly undersized. Nothing you have will work. You need larger everything, much larger.

What you have will only support the 10 watt lights for 2 hours. Here is what you will understand quite clearly, It wil cost you 10 times than you have already spent and you will have to spend that much every few years replacing the battery to make it work. Money talks loud and clear.

Smart money is dig a trench and run an AC circuit to the coop. Not only is it a lot cheaper, but actually works. Do not feel bad, there has been over 100 chicken farmers before you that have came here and learned that lesson. You are way late to the game. Your first mistake was buying something you had no clue if it would work or not.

[dennis461]

What do you need lights for, don't they get to sleep at night? I thought sure you would say that you are running a fan. If not leaving the lights on all night there could be an equipment problem.

Chickens lay eggs in daylight, keeping lights on (to make up for winter short days) gets more production.
Agree with size matters, Our small coop had 145 Watts, 10 hens, 3 batteries.

[PNPmacnab]

I had a client that raised exotic birds inside a warehouse. These birds were in the thousand dollar range each. He had lights that turned on with a timer. He wanted a controller that would slowly bring up the light level in the morning and dim at night. He said he had studies that the birth rate increased 20-30% if the birds weren't jolted with sudden on and offs of lights. This sounds like a good micro project determining how much light is needed and for how long. And adding in some gradual change might work here too. I did a simple study sending 100% power into a water heater at power point a couple years ago and the figure I remember was that three times the panels rated wattage is what you will likely get in watt hours a day.

[J.P.M.]

I had a client that raised exotic birds inside a warehouse. These birds were in the thousand dollar range each. He had lights that turned on with a timer. He wanted a controller that would slowly bring up the light level in the morning and dim at night. He said he had studies that the birth rate increased 20-30% if the birds weren't jolted with sudden on and offs of lights. This sounds like a good micro project determining how much light is needed and for how long. And adding in some gradual change might work here too. I did a simple study sending 100% power into a water heater at power point a couple years ago and the figure I remember was that three times the panels rated wattage is what you will likely get in watt hours a day.

As for a project, I'd start with the 8,760 TMY hourly irradiance levels at some representative location if/as available, and use that as a model to ramp the light levels up/down and see if the birds got luckier.

As for panel output, FWIW, if every day was completely clear and cloudless at my location, an optimally oriented but fixed array will produce something like 2.2 kWh/yr. per installed STC Watt. Modeled, and as it turns out actual, output over 3 yrs. at somewhat less than ideal orientation is about 1.7 - 1.8 kWh/yr. per installed STC Watt, or ~ 1,750/365 = 4.8 Wh/day per installed STC Watt. Less sunny climates make the 3X panel Wattage seem a reasonable number, if maybe a bit conservative for many but not all locations.

[PNPmacnab]

As they say, your results may vary and setups are seldom optimal. I haven't been able to find that test data, but one interesting thing glared out. Very often the peak power readings were often on days that had overall low total power for the day. I attribute that to the panels remaining cool and then being hit by a blast of bright sunlight as the clouds open up.

Nature can be funny. Years ago I was growing plants with ultrasonic sound. Rather dramatic results.

[PNjunction]

Despite the discharge, we STILL don't know what the capacity and chemistry the battery is.

The specs for that controller have settings for GEL, SEALED, and FLOODED, at 14.2, 14.4 and 14.6v respectively. This could be part of the problem if one doesn't know, in addition to the fact that like many cheap controllers, limits CV/absorb to only 2 hours before dropping to float. That alone, especially for agm, is a big problem in an underdesigned system in the first place.

LFP support is on a "consult us" basis.