solar generator
 

Too bad these are not 50 to 100 times more powerful. What's the problem anyway? Is it the batteries or the actual solar panel technology?

http://www.gaiam.com/retail/product/41-0218

Re: solar generator
 

Harvester Solar Electric Generator $2,475.00 !?!?!



Here's my set up for emergency solar generator -

(2) 6 volt golf cart batteries - $150

(1) 75 watt panel - $540

(1) 20 amp solar charge control - $35

(1) 1200 watt inverter - $140


Total cost of a same size DIY system - $ 865 (not including a small roll of wire and some screws)

Add about $250 for my home built 100 watt portable wind generator and the system kicks butt on that $2475 unit ...


Don't get ripped off ...

Re: solar generator
 

Re: solar generator
 

Can you go into more detail about that one please? :D

Re: solar generator
 

:cool2: WTF !

One panel,One 105 AH Battery !

They make it sound like one unit can power an entire house,guess they think everyone is an illiterate moron who flunked third grade math.

I have six 120W Mitsubishi Solar Panels ,ten trojan T125s,2 BP 80amp charge controllers,2 Trace sine wave 4000W inverters.

1 homebuilt 1KW wind turbine,1 homebuilt 500W wind turbine.

Cost ? You don't want to know.............

Buy yourself an old used Onan or Cat diesel gen set and forget about the gas units,unless it has a 1800 RPM genny.........the 3600 RPM units will self destruct in about a week under heavy use.

The China Diesels are hit and run.........saw some good ones and some junk.........buyer beware.

If you have a tractor a PTO generator is the way to go.........

Get out the old calculator before you start investing in alternative energy.....otherwise you are doomed to pour your money down the drain.
:coolbeer:

Good post........might get some members to thinking.

Re: solar generator
 

About $250 in parts ........ and a day in the shop (includes paint dry time).

Re: solar generator
 

:D Halophyte: Damn neat. Looks like an Ametek PM generator....nice work.

Never had any luck letting the power cord(welding cable) wrap freely around the pole,must have snapped off or ruined a dozen.Wind in my area blows equally from all directions.A strain relief cable would get wound up and lock up the mill for days waiting for the right wind direction to unwind the sucker.
Finally sat down and designed a slip ring and brush assembly to end the twist problem once and for all.
Complicated,and quite a project to fabricate from scratch,but well worth it.Trust me.......it's ten times more labor than the mill itself.
My mills are self tilting (UP) to prevent overspeed.So far the 1KW unit (HAWT)has withstood 80mph winds with no damage.The 500 watt unit is a downwind design which I'm still not happy about. The downwind designs bird dog themselves to death tracking the wind and will run in reverse if you don't use unidirectional bearings that can only turn one direction.

Nice blades.......they are the bitch kitty.

:eek: :eek:

Re: solar generator
 

Nice work, Master Halo! Shall we call it the Halorator, Mark I.

How much juice does it create and when do you use it.

Re: solar generator
 

[FONT="Comic SansDam Rat, you are quite a fabricater!! How high is your wind mill??MS"][/FONT]

Re: solar generator
 

Output is 150 watt range @ 30 mph winds, tops out at about 12 amps .... its a portable unit, not a permanent unit, 2 units work feeding my RV batteries.

Solar panels alone loose 50% of their output in winter ...

Power cable (30amp 10 ga cord) can be installed as shown or feed thru center pipe.

Re: solar generator
 

Wyldwil, I am currently knee-deep in solar research at The Ohio State University, so I will answer your quest-ion.

Solar photovoltaics transform 10-15% of insolation (solar radiation) into usable current.
The batteries store 60-85% of the electrical energy produced by the solar photovoltaic cells.

Commercial Solar photovoltaics (PVs) transform 10-15% of insolation (solar radiation) into usable current.

Each square meter of Earth has a 24/7 average of 370 Watts, or about ~1000 Watts during daily peak sun.

So a square meter panel, made of amorphous thin film silicon, assuming 10% system efficiency: Insolation-->PV--->Battery--->Usage
would give an average of 37 Watts for 24 hours a day. Not much, but thats only one square meter.

Now if you had a square 31 feet on each side, 961 ft^2
= 100 m^2 of Solar Panels,
that would produce a 24/7 average of 3700 watts (3.7 kW)
So 961 square feet of sunlight would produce almost 4 kW 24/7 average, or
around 10 kW at peak sunlight.

But the sun don't shine at night, at least not here in Ohio. Which is why adding wind and water generators is essential to a diversified renewable energy system. Not to mention wind and especially water energy is more concentrated than diffuse insolation.

Honestly, the solar panel technology needs much work, both in increasing efficiency while drastically reducing cost. Silicon can't harvest the infrared spectrum of sunlight, which is half the insolative energy.

Ideally, solar photovoltaics should produce 40-50% efficiency, with miniscule material costs and newspaper-roll-print proceessing.

The research I am involved in utilizes various nanotechnologies as quantum dots (tiny balls of semiconductors) to increase solar absorbance, and nano-electrodes to increase surface area for charge transfer to the electrodes.

I would detail the essential innovations but I'm working on intellectual property protection for my Solar Philm.

I am currently trying to raise the $40,000 needed for a small prototype to demonstrate efficiency thus attract more venture capital, like those South African guys who demonstrated CIGS solar cells.

Re: solar generator
 

That was a great description of solar electrical generation. Much thanks!

Can you tell me what you think would be the best way to convert my house to solar electrical power?

Re: solar generator
 

I would love to help, SLV.

Let me ask you a few questions..

Where is your house located? state/city, rural/urban/suburban

Is there lots of direct sun and wind? (its more cost-effective to diversify between solar and wind as River Rat)

How much land do you have?

How much rooftop space do you have?

Do you have space for storing deep-cycle batteries?

Do you want to be completely off-grid?

How much is your average electrical usage?

What do you pay per kilowatt hour? usually around 6 cents/kW*hr
A kilowatt-hour = 1000 watts constantly for 3600 seconds

And most importantly...
How much do you want to spend?

If you give me those details (and any others you think important)
I will give you my best ASAP.

An good-sized American house uses an average of around 3-5 kW.

As a start you would need:
Deep-Cycle Batteries (such as lead acid, these are perfect for long-term usage)
Charge Controller, Inverter (changes Direct Current into Alternative Current),
solar panels
I would suggest buying (or constructing) two or three tiny wind turbines- bergey is good.

As River Rat said, getting the calculator out to make sure its worth your budget is essential when dealing with renewable power.

If you have endless funds, shit, then you can make like Bush's ranch- which is almost completely green powered- geothermal I think.

More later...

Re: solar generator
 

:D Halo:

Three inch rigid conduit pole about 25 feet,with three anchored guy wires.
Fabricated hinge base to lower the pole/mill for maintenance on a 30 inch square concrete pad 12 inches thick. No problems so far.

I have a machine shop Halo: CNC Bridgeport Mill,Pratt & Whitney Lathe converted to CNC,Douglas Horizontal Mill CNC,surface grinder,centerless grinder,2 bandsaws,plasma cutter,2 migs,1 Tig,1 rod welder,screw machine,gear hobs,EDM machine,etc.
Enough tooling to fill a 12x12 room.......etc.
I ran a machine shop(self employed) building custom transmission drives and robotic textile controls for twenty years.Got a lot of heavy construction equipment now...the shop comes in handy when I have to rebuild tracks,pins or hydraulic cylinders.
Slick Willy sold all of us down the river with NAFTA so I closed the shop down and took a job as plant engineer close to home.

Wind turbines are sort of a hobby of mine.....drives my wife batshit.I just love to see them running and flying in the wind.Solar panels are about as exciting as watching corn grow....... :>) also expensive.

:D :D

Re: solar generator
 

Where is your house located? state/city, rural/urban/suburban

Rural

Is there lots of direct sun and wind? (its more cost-effective to diversify between solar and wind as River Rat)

300+ days each year of sunshine - property is on a hill surrounded by wind-swept plains (very few trees).

How much land do you have?

5 acres

How much rooftop space do you have?

Not much on the house, but there are a couple nearby barns with about 80 linear feet of combined south-facing roof plane (maybe 1,500 square feet of roof plane).

Do you have space for storing deep-cycle batteries?

Yes.

Do you want to be completely off-grid?

Yes.

How much is your average electrical usage?

House doesn't have gas, so the cooking, heating, and water heating is all electric. We have a wood burning fireplace to supplement heat in the winter, and we are thinking about a Renai (sp?) on-demand hot water system. So, to answer your question... I don't know! But I hope these details can help you estimate.

What do you pay per kilowatt hour?

It doesn't matter to me. It's not about saving money.

And most importantly... How much do you want to spend?

Whatever it takes to be self-sufficient. Whatever it takes to get a reliable system that is safe and requires minimal maintenance.

The bottom line is that I want to live off of nature. I want to eat what we produce. I want to harness the energy around me. I want to drink my own filtered, unchlorinated, unflouridated water. Etc.

Thanks for your recommendations! If you could provide me with the names of vendors that would be great. (I live in Colorado.)

Re: solar generator
 

With a shop that well equipted, I'd be fabbing axial flux machines.

Re: solar generator
 

The ultimate solar application would be generating hydrogen instead of electrical power ..... at the efficiency's of photosynthesis.

Re: solar generator
 

Google [stirling energy]
might give some of you some ideas..........

dtnwn

Re: solar generator
 

I've been interested in putting up some solar for some time. I've gone to the web sites and looked at the prices. And figured out how many decades it would cost to get your "saved money" back. I finally found one guy who just said it straight out, "for most homes and users, generating electricity from solar panels is a losing proposition. On the other hand, try setting up a solar hot water generating system and you can get your money back in short order."

Gregg

Re: solar generator
 

I would buy:
10-20 300 Watt PhotoVoltaic Panels with racks and roof mounts,
2 or 3 Bergey Xcel 10 kW systems (remember that is peak power production), horizontal axis
2 or 3 Quiet revolution 6 kW Vertical axis Type,
20-30 Deep Cycle Batteries (AGM or Lead-Acid),
two charge controllers to maintain system integrity,
+5 kW inverter,
high intensity LEDs,
lots of high gauge wire,
and professionals to install it all,
unless you have the know-how.

Here are some links to follow:

Purchase Solar Panels: long list of current prices and products
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/sola...wer_panels.htm
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_wind_power.htm

Purchase small Wind Turbines:list of current prices and products
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/smal...rs_gallery.htm

Premier Tiny Wind Turbine manufacturer:
http://www.bergey.com/

Aesthetically pleasing helical turbine from UK:
http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/

http://www.pacwind.net/
wimpy 1 kW versions

Looks promising and low-maintenence, but Vertical Axis WTs uncommon
http://www.cleanfieldenergy.com/4_products/default.asp

If you want to waste money on a cool lighted tower:
http://panasonic.co.jp/mesc/products...lineup_02.html

Hunergic Powered dynamo= Now this is cool!
http://www.ccrane.com/more-categorie...gy-source.aspx

Deep Cycle Batteries: AGM or Lead-Acid or Ni-Cad<--costly and toxic
http://www.1st-optima-batteries.com/
http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Bat...ting%20battery
http://store.solar-electric.com/batteries.html

I suggest LEDs for lighting, since they are so low-power, these efficient solid state durable devices.

You could look into concentration lens systems for PVs or solar stirling systems.

Obviously you have a great water filter like Berkeley.
http://www.waterfiltercomparisons.ne...Comparison.cfm

Various Starter Resources for anyone interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_...e_%28energy%29
http://www.solarbuzz.com/Consumer/FastFacts.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell.htm

Don't forget biomass- algae miscanthus hemp switchgrass corn soybean
If money truly doesn't matter, for tons of organic biomass, run automatic H20 Purification and hydroponic systems with LED grow lights fans temperature control and fluidic pressure systems, all powered by solar/wind or hunergy. Keep pedaling!
http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html

And don't forget about passive solar- but i don't know too much about actual implementations besides the obvious.

Re: solar generator
 

LED lights suck ... I'm using the automotive type in my RV and they have a short life due to being overdriven (crappy circuit design).

However, the 12 volt CCFL lamps are excellent.

Re: solar generator
 

LED light bulbs have improved a great deal recently. They will soon be superior to other lights. Check out OLEDs too.

http://www.theledlight.com/

Cool call on the Cold cathode lights, I like them. I think the SBC building in Dallas used green CCFL lights down their huge skyscraper.

Re: solar generator
 

Thanks, Manifespo! I've got a lot of reading to do.

Has anyone every heard of TMA? (Terra Moya Aqua) They are a new company in Wyoming, and they have an awesome turbine-style wind generator. Check it out:

http://www.tmawind.com/

Re: solar generator
 

At first that TMA looks a bit like a Darrius, but there's something quite different going on there.

Manifespo, What have you heard about a solar unit call "The Sunflower"?

Re: solar generator
 

Thanks for the suggestion, Unclad Lad.
I was not familiar with SunFlower.
I thought you meant, SunPower, which uses all back electrical contacts to reduce shading on the PV cell.
http://investors.sunpowercorp.com/re...leaseID=207424

Looking up the SunFlower tracker technology,
http://www.airaus.com/airaus/category.jsp?categoryID=97

Is that the one? It looks promising, using a MOSFET processor to maintain the angle for maximum Volt-amperage during the day. It's also cool because it moves around like its sister plant, unlike most panels. That should make River Rat a bit happier. :)

This page has another tracking technology- HelioTube
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/e..._pv/index.html

Also it details the work of SolFocus, which is working on bringing to market holographic concentrators for high efficiency triple-junction solar cells.

Re: solar generator
 

Nope-wrong Sunflower.

I did find the device I remember, but apparently it is not yet fully realized:

http://www.energyinnovations.com/sunflower.html

Very interesting concept, though.