Our micro home solar power station is running! (see earlier post) Above a power inverter is hooked up to the battery (which is hooked to the charge controller, which is connected to the panels on the roof). It is running a 60 watt incandescent bulb in the lamp. I blew a couple fuses before finding out the wiring was reversed at one point. At first I tried to run a 26 watt fluorescent bulb but the initial power required to ionize the mercury in the tube was too much and it wouldn't light, so we switched to an old fashioned bulb. The voltage inverter also had a buzzer built into it that started a piercing beep, beep, beep to indicate the battery was getting low (to warn people that hook this up in their cars that the car might not start if it is continued to be drained). This threatened to wake up F who was taking a nap so I unhooked it and opened up the box. I got the buzzer out, which was soldered directly into the board, put it back together and hooked it back up, and now it is running fine and much more peaceful. Every now and then a little fan kicks on in the back to cool it off but it is fairly quiet. I tested this light the night before, the lamp ran fine for many hours and when the sun came up the battery started recharging again.
Eventually I might add another battery to use more of the potential charge capacity. (And making sure they are both equally charged before hooking together to prevent a sudden drain from one to another, melting wires and starting a fire.) After that perhaps a larger power converter. Then after that the direction to grow in is more PV panels and a larger charge controller, then more batteries,...
No comments:
Post a Comment