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Gurney Seeds. Grow your own food.

 

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Northstar Energy Products. They manufacture portable residential solar generators. These things produce from 1,000 watts to 4800 watts. If you live in a power outage area, this may be the way to go. I'm going to try to see one in person for an episode of "This Old Shack".

45 LED floodlight (it's bright!)
If you're in the market for totally portable solar power, check out Powerenz. Their units use the same type and brand of gel batteries that I started out with; great equipment. They even make military grade equipment!
Northstar Energy Products. They manufacture portable residential solar generators. These things produce from 1,000 watts to 4800 watts. If you live in a power outage area, this may be the way to go. I'm going to try to see one in person for an episode of "This Old Shack".

Visit my other sites:

NEC grounding regulations (PDF file)

Own a small business? My wife has a book to help small businesses move.

I use a program called "Homer" from The National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This program allows you to input all data (and I mean every damn little bit of information including emissions, clouds, everything) about your system to help both design and maintain it. Homer can be downloaded at http://www.nrel.gov/homer

 

 

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sunset_over_ypsi1.jpg (389444 bytes) Northern Michigan Solar Cabin

 

Wiring the cabin

 

Here's a description of my wiring and my charge control system:

PV panels

  • 2 sets of 45 watt Harbor Freight panels, total 90 watts ($400). Rewired and tested. You can see the rewiring in the first episode of This Old Shack for the 2008 season.

PV wiring

  • Panels wired to low voltage junction box (Lowe's, $2.99), bonded together with stainless bolts.
  • Panel negative and ground bonded together.

Grounding

  • 1 ground rod ($20) at east end of cabin, 100 amp service ground cable.
  • east rod bonded to 12 volt negative.
  • 1 ground rod ($20) at west end of cabin, 100 amp service ground cable.
  • west rod bonded to 110 volt neutral / ground.

PV to charge controller

  • 10 gauge solid wire (low voltage orange) purchased at Lowe's home improvement. 30 foot run.

Charge controller

  • Xantrex C-12 charge controller/12 volt distribution panel ($82).
  • Bulk setting at 14.3, float at 13.3, auto equalization off.

Generator

  • 2500 watt 110 volt, 12 amp 12 volt outputs ($495).

Battery Charger

  • Schumacher battery charger ($80) with bulk/float. Used at 30 amp setting.
  • Uses 110 of generator output for power.

Battery bank

  • 5 group 31, 110 amp hours each, wet cell, non-maintenance free.

House wiring

  • Square D QO (12 volt, 110 volt rated) distribution panel ($79).
  • 3 circuits used. Circuit one is bedroom, circuit 2 is outdoor lights, circuit 3 is living area.

Inverter

  • Xantrex 350 watt modified sine wave inverter.
  • Bonded to 110 volt panel feed.
  • Neutral successfully bonded to 110 grounding.

 

 

 

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