Working On Improved Solar Panel Output & Battery Conditions

9 years ago
30

I have spent a lot of time analyzing the travel of the sun through my off grid meadow every day this winter and have come up with some ways to improve my overall solar power output.

I have 800 watts of solar panels out in the meadow right now. In summer these were located in peak sunlight most of the time. But now that the sun is lower in the sky for winter I am not getting as much solar power production.

I plan to put 800 watts of solar panels out behind the RV facing south. This will block off my truck drive way out to the back of the meadow but for winter I would rather have the solar power output. This will give me morning to afternoon sunlight.

I will put the other four solar panels which are currently in the meadow up against the off grid tiny house. Here I am getting direct afternoon to evening sunlight.

With this setup I should have maximum solar power production throughout the entire day at the off grid homestead.

In summer I plan to build a sort of visor on top of the tiny house and put solar panels on that, facing south. But to make this work I will have to cut down a couple trees to allow the sun to hit the solar panels.

In the RV I put the smaller battery desulfator on the golf cart batteries so that they can be slowly restored to full power again. I hope anyway. If they cannot be restored then I will take them to the store. They are new and under guaranty. But they were sulfated when I got them from the store. I will see if they can be brought into service.

I will eventually get the Bedini Motor on the older badly sulfated golf cart batteries and try to recover them as well.

I took my battery hydrometer out to the new forklift battery bank to test the cells out. These are my new off grid solar powered batteries.

The hydrometer was showing a low charge on the battery. I have not been drawing any power off this battery to this day. I do not put any drain on them. I will not do so until they are fully charged up.

I have the larger battery desulfator on the forklift battery bank to help bring it up to full life again as well. This was a reconditioned battery bank so it can use the help.

When I use my laptop to upload videos I do it either in full sunlight or I use my HF 800 watt portable generator. I do not put any drain on the forklift battery bank yet.

Follow my daily progress on the path to self sufficiency on my off grid solar homestead.
https://www.youtube.com/user/techman2015/playlists?view=50&shelf_id=10&sort=dd

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