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tedsomango
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# Posted: 30 Mar 2011 11:49pm
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i have heard 6v gold cartis the way to go,
is there any other cheaper ways to go.
Cheaper companies or deals i am not seeing here.
They are pretty expensive!!
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tedsomango
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# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 01:35am
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The max my panel can produce jn a day is 310wh= 25.83ah
Should i go with a standard deep cycle marine battery? Or
if i bought 1 Trojan 105 is there anyway i can convert 6v-12v I don't know such things. It seems like 220 ah for 115.00 is a really good price but they dont do that for 12v.
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Vince P
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# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 08:43am - Edited by: Vince P
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You can't go wrong with the TROJAN T-105, And yes, these are 6v Golf Cart Batteries, so you would connect two in series for conversion to 12v. I purchased mine from http://www.backwoodssolar.com/ and picked them up at one of their many distributors. You would need to call them to see where the nearest one is for you.
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 10:29am
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Costco and Sams Club sell golf cart batteries in some of their warehouses, not all. They are not Trojan but I've used them in the RV for something like 10-12 years. 6 volt, 210 amp-hour, $68 plus core at my closest Sams. Hard to beat that.
The lead plates in a golf cart battery are a bit thicker than those in a marine/rv battery. Yes you need two but they hold up much better than the marine. In my mind there is no doubt the GC battery is a better buy when life is considered.
There are converters made for changing DC voltages but I don't know of any designed for making 12 v out of 6 volts.
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tedsomango
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# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 12:34pm
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It seems I want to make a System that would be nice for me and that I will have to be patience and make sure to get the right things!! Power will wait a little bit longer until I have to money to go forth but this is one of the most mind bendingly fun exercises I have practiced in a long time. Piece bye piece i will build it. I think I will buy panel first and see what I can scrounge then slowly buy the golf cart batteries. There AH just cant be beat!!
Thanks for all the help everyone, this is just too much fun!!
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JohnQ
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# Posted: 2 Apr 2011 02:38am
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One caution of doing it piece by piece, you want your batteries to roughly the same age and not have a old, low performer in the string. Better to buy a pair of Costco 6v to start off. If after a 2-3 years you feel you need more capacity, turn those 2 in and buy 4. You'll have only spent $50-$70/year at that rate.
Also, my sense from friends and a bit of my own experience is that you never hear folks complain about having too much solar power storage -- especially when gas is $4.25 and it takes some more to haul it to our cabin.
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blackchisel97
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# Posted: 14 Apr 2011 12:49pm - Edited by: blackchisel97
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Golf cart batteries are best bet for the price. They're truly deep cycle and can hold alot. Marine batteries are another good choice. There are solar batteries such as those made by Surette but they cost quite a bit.There are devices available which allow to charge batteries in low light condition and low input current. Also, there are quite simple circuits allowing to restore sulfated battery back to >90% factory capacity. Solar panels available to us - general public are overpriced and low efficiency, not exceeding 17%. In such case it is crucial to get as much as possible from them instead of increasing their total surface.
I've been working on this technology for the past few years and successfully restored 80% of the batteries discarded by people. I'm not trying to advertise my product. I don't sell anything but I can show how to do it. I do have 10 years old car batteries which perform just like new after one week treatment. This is not a rocket science.
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SEOhio
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# Posted: 16 Apr 2011 09:18am
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If your battery usage is low, you might get by with a single 12 volt deep cycle battery, about $70-$80 at Sam's (core additional). We use our battery to run 2 fluorescent bulbs for a few hours on weekend evenings in the winter. Our battery charge was still above 12 volts when I visited a few weeks ago, not having seen a charge since it was purchased (I must hook up that solar panel sometime...) I've read of others getting years out of a conventional car battery (not deep cycle) this way, but deep cycles can mortally injure a car battery. I spent a fraction more for a deep cycle battery.
If you are running an inverter, TV, laptop, etc, this won't work for you.
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unixfmike
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# Posted: 16 Apr 2011 09:40pm
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I personally used a "Lawn and Garden" 12v battery with a 750 watt power inverter. It was abe to simultaneously power 6 6w LED light bulbs, 1 19" CRT TV, 1 12" fan, and charge a cell phone. If I left all on it was good for about 6 hours. If I ran just the TV and 2 lights, I got about 8 hours of use. The TV seemed to be the biggest drain. If I only ran the lights, I would get a full night of use. I frequently had my laptop plugged in to watch movies at night, and it stayed powered on for 9-10 hours straight before the sun came up.
--MikeW
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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 16 Apr 2011 10:18pm
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If you're not concerned about Ah, inversion/conversion losses, or the cost of fuel in the generator then either 2@6v or 1@12v GC will work. The price is right if you're on a shoestring.
But if you're running anything that draws any kind of power and not just a couple low-wattage lights (even 19" LCD TV or phone/laptop charging), you probably won't last a full day. 200Ah goes a lot quicker than you'd think.
We run 2-5 low wattage lights, satellite modem, Wi-Fi router, two laptops and 75w DC freezer. Each of our batteries is 200Ah -- we have 4@12v AGM with two wired in series to create 24v and then that pair wired in parallel with the other pair to give us 800Ah total @ 24v. We can turn everything on, plug in all our chargers (cell, tool, sweeper), and our bank will last us about 5 days on an 8 hr charge from our 2kw Honda (1 gallon of gas). With more conservative use, 800Ah can last us around 10 days. These suckers aren't cheap -- $500 each -- but when we factored in the cost of gas ($4.50 out here in the bush) to run the generator at least 8 hrs everyday with a smaller/cheaper bank, they paid back the price difference in a little less than a year. They also come with a 5 year warranty... which you won't find on most of the warehouse GC batts (or most lead acid for that matter).
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