Here you can find Solar Panels and technological accessories related to Solar Energy: Click Here If you want to learn about Solar...
Here you can find Solar Panels and technological accessories related to Solar Energy: Click Here
If you want to learn about Solar Panels, to advise you before buying or to build your own Solar Panel: Click Here
This guy is the heart and soul of our off-grid solar system. It is a beautiful fall day here on the homestead. The solar panels? They are in complete sun. Let's cruise inside here and show you what we're running in our house. We've got a bunch of lights on, the ceiling fan, and a Mr. Cool, which is a 36k Mr. Cool heat pump that we're using to heat the place today. Of course, we've got the standard microwave, range, refrigerator with ice maker and water dispenser in the door, a 65" TV over here, another TV up there, and more lights. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath house that we're powering just like we were on the grid—but we are not on the grid. Let me show you how it all works. Yes, it's not finished yet, because if you're new here, we are building an off-grid homestead from scratch, debt-free, here in North Idaho. So, if you're interested in that kind of stuff and preparedness, well, you might like to subscribe to the channel. Check out our panels—30 solar panels here, and we're running about 10,000 watts of solar. I imagine we're not producing that much right now because, well, our batteries are probably full. We're going to check that out in just a second. Here’s the backside of the panels. These are homemade mounts right here. We’ve got a video on how we made these homemade mounts to hold all of these panels. They're working great—they shed the snow really well in the wintertime. Everything is working fine; we have no faults with our homemade mounts. We've got our power coming down these lines from the solar panels, wrapping around, and going up inside this box. Inside the box, we’ve got breakers, and it goes into this conduit, then underground over to there. From there, it comes up out of the ground and goes into the solar shed. Let’s cruise in here and check out our system. Ooh, this guy is the heart and soul of our off-grid solar system. Let me show you how it works. We’ve got four strings of solar panels out there, and they all come in to here. These guys send power out through this cable and this cable into the distribution hub right here. From here, if the batteries need charging, it comes out of these cables, goes into here, and into our battery bank. We’ll talk in more detail about the battery bank in just a second. If we need power out of the battery bank, it comes out of this wire, goes into the hub, and then goes up into our two inverters right here. Each of these does 120 volts, but when you combine them with this data cable right here, you can get 240-volt split phase, which allows us to run our well pump and our whole house. It’s all wired just like a standard grid home, but we’re only powered by these guys right here. It then comes out of this wire and into this breaker box, which feeds into the wall. Let’s head back outside real quick. It goes into this LB, underground, and into that LB over there. Oh, and yes, that’s another Mr. Cool—it heats and cools the apartment above the garage. The power goes up and over to the breaker box where it’s all wired up. I forgot—so, the 240 doesn’t only run the well; it also runs the Mr. Cool units, which are 240-volt. Now, these inverters can also charge the batteries from the generator that’s right over here. Let’s head back outside again. Here’s the generator. If we start this guy up and plug it in, it goes into the wall. Then, back inside, it comes through the wall and into each inverter, which then sends power through here to charge the batteries if we don’t have enough sun. All of this would be worthless without a good battery bank. Before we talk about the batteries, let’s see what we’re using for power. The batteries are at 100%, and we’re producing 1,400 watts of power. It’s bouncing around a bit. Some power is going to the battery to keep it topped off—it’s only using 23 watts to do that. Then it goes to the inverters and straight to the house. If the generator were running, we’d see its output here, showing how many watts it’s putting into the inverters, batteries, and the house loads. That’s how the whole system works. There’s a link to a wiring diagram in the description below if you want to check it out. Now, let's talk a bit about the batteries. This right here is the heart and soul of our off-grid solar system. We’ve got 16, 100-amp, 12-volt lithium iron phosphate batteries. These are Battle Born batteries, and they’ve been doing great. We’ve been running them for a few years now with zero issues. Let me show you how they’re wired. They’re wired in series, so these four batteries here make a 48-volt battery. We have four strings of four batteries each, all wired in parallel, so the entire system acts like one giant 48-volt battery. In total, we have over 19,000 watt-hours of battery backup. Every day the sun recharges them, and we use them all night long. We could go for a couple of days without having to charge the batteries, based on our typical usage. Why do I keep saying this is the easiest off-grid solar battery bank out there? Well, I come from the lead-acid world, and if you’ve used deep-cycle lead-acid batteries, you know the struggle. You can only use 50% of a lead-acid battery, and you’ve got to maintain them. These lithium iron phosphate batteries, though? Zero maintenance. Zero issues. Look, they’re even installed on their side—nothing spills out. You don’t have to check water levels or anything. They just work. They’ve got a built-in battery management system (BMS) that protects them from being drained too far, overcharged, too hot, or too cold. You can’t damage them the way you could with lead-acid batteries. I totally recommend Battle Born lithium iron phosphate batteries. Looking at the system, you might think it’s complicated because of all the wires, but it’s really not. These batteries are a direct replacement for lead-acid deep-cycle batteries. They wire up and function the same way. Battle Born is the sponsor of this video, but even if they weren’t, I’d still be recommending them. They’ve powered our family for years with no issues. There are over 300,000 Battle Born batteries in use worldwide, and their customer service is great—based right here in the U.S. If you can’t afford the system upfront, they offer financing, and they have a list of certified installers if you need help setting it up. One more reason these are better than lead-acid batteries: they have a 10-year warranty. They charge faster, hold more power, and are a drop-in replacement for any 12-volt deep-cycle battery, whether for your trolling motor, RV, or solar setup. If you live in a super-cold climate, they also offer heated batteries now. We don’t have them, but I wish we did. The batteries self-heat when it gets too cold. For us, I sometimes have to run a little heater in the shed on the coldest days. If you’re considering getting your house ready to go off-grid, check out Battle Born batteries. I think you’ll be really impressed. There’s a link down in the description below, or you can scan the QR code on the screen. Thanks to Battle Born for sponsoring this video, and we’ll see you in the next one. Hope you have a great day, and keep smiling! ...
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