Looking For Solar Batteries And Building Tiny Home Cabinets N9

9 years ago
23

I spent half the day driving around with a neighbor looking for some batteries that I can use at my off grid solar homestead. I especially want forklift batteries now due to their higher capacity and longer life.

Forklift batteries can take some real abuse. They are designed to provide about 1500 to 2000 cycles on average at 80% discharge. Compare that to standard deep cycle batteries that do not like to be discharged below 50% without limiting their overall life.

Now put a forklift battery in a solar power environment and try to keep them above 20 to 50% discharge and you have a very long life battery. Many people who are using forklift batteries have seen extremely long life in them when used for solar power and kept charged up most of the time.

Forklift batteries can take a deep discharge without damage whereas standard lead acid batteries are generally badly damaged when discharged to 80%.

I have been studying forklift batteries in solar power for a couple years now. Many people have seen over 20 years of use in a single set of batteries. Even used forklift batteries last longer than standard deep cycle batteries.

But sadly everywhere I went, they had just packed up the batteries and shipped them off that very day. It must be battery shipping day all over the area.

I also went to repair shops and service places looking for a battery but same answer. I just missed them.

I will keep looking. Right now my golf cart batteries are dead and I have very limited power.

In the afternoon I worked some more on the tiny house kitchen cabinets. Making my own cabinets means that they are solid and built to last, unlike the commercial ones made with pressboard.

I had to work in the dark again since it gets dark at 4 pm around here. I am behind the mountains and in the woods so it gets dark her earlier.

I got the cabinet by the kitchen sink finished and mounted on the wall. This one was the complicated one for me due to the support beam above it. But I got it all fit in nicely.

Follow my daily progress on the path to self sufficiency on my off grid solar homestead.
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