I used to put 2- 6 volt batteries in parallel in my old VW in the early 60's to get more starting power on those winter mornings. It worked like a charm. Anyone old enough to own a 6 volt VW will remember what I mean.
Thank you very much for these very informative tutorials. They are the best I have found yet. I hope all is well with you and Molly and things have quieted down. My best regards to you and Molly.
Thanks sir !! You explain every thing very well and I am learning so much more since I started watching your videos !! You have a lot of knowledge sir !
Your right about that Derek. People complicate it for themselves. They do to much research and just get to much information. Don't over think it , get a small solar panel and hook it up to a battery. They are looking at huge complex systems and talking themselves out of wind and solar. Start small , get that figured out and the rest is easy to understand.
Hi Jeff. As I said in my first post I'm new to solar power and wind turbine power. I live in Florida now and my house faces East and West. My garage hooked to the house faces south, so I have a lot of good roof lines for solar power. Really enjoyed your Solar panels for beginners. Thanks keep up the good vidios.
haters gonna hate..lol..they are nobody...what they say or do is meaningless..i have learned more from your videos than any of the rest..i finally understand what im doing now..thanks a lot!
Very informative. Excellent speaker. Been finding the whole subject of solar PV confusing but these videos are extremely informative. Keep up the great work Jeff. Thank you.
The batteries are hooked in series, the charge controller negative is hooked to one end of the bank and the positive is hooked to the other end. The bank will charge evenly that way. You do the same with your dc to ac inverter.
quality of the video the guy, seems like this video cudb been made in the 80s lol.. its awsome i love it. most helpful video iv found but everytime i watch i gotta remind myself its not an old video lol
Hey Jeff. You have made it useable for me as I am just now starting to get serious about installing a complimentary system for my house. I like your easy and pleasant delivery. I will keep watching and progress. Thanks Dutch
glad to see somebody finally showing what can be done with solar. one day I may get enough never to put a video of what I have up on here. for me there are to many prying eyes at the moment for me to put up a video of my system. solar and wind really isn't rocket science. if you can hook up a car battery you have the basic steps down already. it is understanding the type of charge controller you want or need and sizing the system that gets people in trouble.
Hi, I've just started watching your solar panels for beginners and I am learning a lot. I am a true beginner. ON you part 2 on the end of the video where you hooked the fan and the pump on the load, are they on the same place? and can they run together? and what and how would you put a fan in the cooler for the batteries and pump? Could you give more details. Yes I am very new at this and these may seem like dumb questions, but I really want to do this right and you are a very good teacher. Thank
Bubbles are nice Alan. Have you ever made bubbles in your tub when you were a kid ? I want to make them commercially. I think there's a market for them. Ian would know, I'll ask him.
jeff, you ever seen the glass break on a panel? mine have made it through hale storms and everything, but today my 2 year old daughter managed to brake the glass on one with a screw driver. she threw it up in the air and the tip hit the in the bottom right hand corner. it got ugly really fast. it is still laying out there popping and cracking and new brakes forming from top to bottom!!! amazing to watch!!
I really wanted to stay with 3 point guy wires but I think for the sake of safety and stress I'm going to go with 4 point guy wires. This video makes it look worth while.
the legal here in Kentucky grid ties I have really help off set what little the electric company is running(been just paying the $20 connection fee since rewiring to run 80% of the house off the battery bank. can't wait to start on my next home!!! it will be totally off grid. can't wait for the snow this winter!! when the power goes out and we are still lit up, and warm while other are saying I wasn't so crazy after all!!
I love um. 24 volts and very little use in the way of watts. We have them in the store for about a year, still running good straight off a 24 volt battery bank. One solar panel keeps up 2 12 volt batteries, never had to charge them up at all.
Thats a great video lots of usefull information especially around air gaps between batteries and looking out for dodgy retailers who resetting things that they shouldn't. I guess if its too cheap then its cheap for a reason and thats because its either not what it says on the box or its junk
Thanks Jeff. I just stubbled across your videos, but I'm learning a lot. I see uses for my aquaponics projects I'm getting into now. Thanks. I look forward to your other video series.
Yes you can do that. A lot of people use a plug in grid tie inverter to the dump switch and feed back to the grid rather then dump it into a bank of resisters. 6 volt batteries are definitely better to use then 12 volt. They will last longer and have less caps to check for water. It gets a little complicated and kinda hard to answer but I can tell you that most off grid people use 6 volt batteries. They can be discharged more then 12 volt batteries can. 2 volt batteries are the best .
I gave away the 10 harbor freight kits to friends who were interested in try solar. then I set up my friends entire home off grid. after awhile it starts getting easier. not cheaper but easier. I think I have a video of when I switched over to the 6 volt golf cart batteries. I started out with eight of them. I now have 20 and six 2 volt Trojans as my back up system!!! three 80amp flex max 80's with 1200 watts run to each, another 20 amp mppt charge controller and 4 of your wind turbines.
thank you for all you do here . I have been going thou the videos that you made and putting it on my 5th wheel i live in all year around and the snow comes i get loads of wind from the south and for now i have two solar painelsthat make 200 watts and a 12 votl wind turbmine and adding more on and the 12 volt 500 watt i got coming from you will soon be here and i will be adding it on the 5th wheel BUT i will be having a very good spot to put it up and my work has just started i am at 75% power . Thanks for your help here i will as alawys be looking for more from you ..I live in PA and some times i get snow storms and no sun for days keep the videos coming and some time see you out here for one lord willing god bless
I find that using a water pump with a venturi is much more durable than the air pump. Using a venturi nozzle, if made properly, will produce micro bubbles making it more effective than a ring. If the nozzle is installed properly it will free range and clean the bottom of the pond.
exactly. I started out with one harbor freight system, then moved up to a total of 10 of them. when I started with the 100 watt panel and a battery bank of 10 Wal-Mart 75 ah deep cycle (not truly deep cycle batteries) and cheap charge controller I really started learning. then I got my first wind turbine from somebody else. after that mistake i got my next 4 from you and a scorpion charge controller. don't get me started on inverters!! pure sine wave is the only way to go there!!
I remember a comment on the 24 vdc cooling fan saying if you connect with out a battery it will burn out. what kind of devices need batteries and what devices don't? thanks for what you are doing. john
Once I was even trying to use a coffee brewing machine to make circulate the water to heat it up it was a fine idea but they didn't finish it , but it's doable
jeff, did you get that ring down? closer to the bottom of the pond. get some cinder-blocks and run the hose thru the cinder-blocks. wieght down the ring so its close to the bottom. It will work better from the bottom. love the video and would love to talk with you about a small farm i have and bring some power to heat water and for lighting needs. I'm sure we will talk soon. thanks again for the video and all the information. Thomas
That is some cool stuff. Hope to be heating my house water soon from my wind turbine. Even if you can keep the water temp above 40. 0 to 40 is when the immersion heater is pulling all the power. Nice gazebo and pound do you have alligators in Missouri?
MissouriWindandSolar Hi Bernie, I get a catalog with farm stuff in it and they sell 'balls' full of pellets that supply 'good' bacteria that will eat the 'bad' bacteria too to help clean up your pond. They aren't expensive either and last at least 30 days. They state how many acre/feet of pond they will cover. Try Northern www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/NTESearch?escapeXml=false&ipp=24&storeId=6970&Ntt=pond%2Bcleaner good luck.
So Jeff, thanks for the video... My question is: If one want to use battery bank and a Grid Tie inverter, can you hook the Grid Tie Inverter to the Load part of the charge controller, so that it turns off the Grid Tie Inverter before it kills the batteries? Also, what is the advantages/disadvantages from using 6v batteries vs 12v? Is 4 6v batteries better than 2 12v? Visa Versa? or does it matter? Thanks, bro.
I would love to live there, I would have a small waterfall effect instead of the pump thing for aesthetics and when its clean that is. It will be beautiful with ducks too. and more bushes around the pond especially ones that clean the water, i.e. reeds.
Carp ? I did not know that. It's full of Bass and Catfish if you can believe that. I don't know how they live in the dirty water. It's just feed by rain water.
Just curious why you used two connecting leads when putting your batteries in series. Shouldn't it only require one lead going from your positive of one battery to the negative of the other? Then you go from your two remaining posts out to your load?
Hello sir great vids and info. If i buy a solar panel with the mc-4 connection can i cut it off and still be able to use it with a diffrent system if need be ?
the 6 volt golf cart batteries are true deep cycle batteries. they have thicker led plates in them and a small one will weigh in around 60 pounds. they also just have three cells in them were 12 volt batteries have 6. most 12 volt batteries are not true deep cycle batteries. there are some that are true deep cycle, but they are few and far between. jeff is right when he said most people living off grid use 6 volt batteries.
I bet this series is gettin a lot of views now days. Best I've seen yet, simple. Love it!
Thank you, please don't stop your experiments
I used to put 2- 6 volt batteries in parallel in my old VW in the early 60's to get more starting power on those winter mornings. It worked like a charm. Anyone old enough to own a 6 volt VW will remember what I mean.
Thank you very much for these very informative tutorials. They are the best I have found yet. I hope all is well with you and Molly and things have quieted down. My best regards to you and Molly.
Thanks sir !! You explain every thing very well and I am learning so much more since I started watching your videos !! You have a lot of knowledge sir !
Your right about that Derek. People complicate it for themselves. They do to much research and just get to much information. Don't over think it , get a small solar panel and hook it up to a battery. They are looking at huge complex systems and talking themselves out of wind and solar.
Start small , get that figured out and the rest is easy to understand.
Really great info. TY very much from an old guy who knows everything... lol. Peace
Really, your videos series are the best, your instructions is very clear . i like it all
Thank you!
Jeff you are the best. This video series is the best I've seen so far. Keep-up the good work ! ! !
Hi Jeff. As I said in my first post I'm new to solar power and wind turbine power. I live in Florida now and my house faces East and West. My garage hooked to the house faces south, so I have a lot of good roof lines for solar power. Really enjoyed your Solar panels for beginners. Thanks keep up the good vidios.
Thanks Greg. I am glad you got something out of it. Your garage is a good place for solar panels.
Jeff
Wow fantastic videos!!!!! Now you break it down and now it makes sense. Thank you
Your welcome Richard.
If you can turn a screw driver you can do it if you really want to.
Jeff
haters gonna hate..lol..they are nobody...what they say or do is meaningless..i have learned more from your videos than any of the rest..i finally understand what im doing now..thanks a lot!
great videos easy to understand well presented great teacher . kept up the good work
Very informative. Excellent speaker. Been finding the whole subject of solar PV confusing but these videos are extremely informative. Keep up the great work Jeff. Thank you.
Thanks.
I will be putting up more of them soon.
Gold fish , I will give that a try. What I am trying to do is get the right type of plants in it also.
Looks good and straight forward
The batteries are hooked in series, the charge controller negative is hooked to one end of the bank and the positive is hooked to the other end. The bank will charge evenly that way. You do the same with your dc to ac inverter.
Thank you very much for the clear and easy way you taught this - great stuff, subscribing now!
One of the first videos I've watched on the solar how to's. UA-cam is awesome.
finally found someone who can teach me this stuff. Thank you Jeff from Australia
Thank you Jeff for doing these videos, I am getting some good ideas.
J
Thank you much....I always learn from your videos.....this was very helpful.
Your welcome.
Missouri Wind and solar team is super awesome!!!
Thanks Raymond.
Molly and I are fine. Yes things have quieted down. They have been ignored.
Back to making how to videos.
quality of the video the guy, seems like this video cudb been made in the 80s lol.. its awsome i love it. most helpful video iv found but everytime i watch i gotta remind myself its not an old video lol
Lol, i will take that as a compliment.
Jeff
i'm liking that DC ceiling fan.............
Excellent tutorial
Hey Jeff. You have made it useable for me as I am just now starting to get serious about installing a complimentary system for my house. I like your easy and pleasant delivery. I will keep watching and progress. Thanks Dutch
Thanks Scott. That'a a good idea.
great video jeff , thanks for the info on solar . will deff keep watching ,
Thank Jeff I got some good ideas.
Great video 👍❤️🙏🏼
Thank you!
glad to see somebody finally showing what can be done with solar. one day I may get enough never to put a video of what I have up on here. for me there are to many prying eyes at the moment for me to put up a video of my system. solar and wind really isn't rocket science. if you can hook up a car battery you have the basic steps down already. it is understanding the type of charge controller you want or need and sizing the system that gets people in trouble.
Great Videos !!! Learned a lot ! Thank you !
Glad to hear that. Thanks
You are an awesome teacher! Thank you so much!
Thanks.
It does run them, just at a lower wattage. If I had 2 panels together the water would have come to a boil quickly.
thanks for sharing Jeff, I not only enjoy but also learn alot from your channel, keep it up
another great video thanks a lot.
Very good job and good video...Thank you
+abassin555 abassin555 Your very welcome.
Ahhh!! can someone explain to me why they don't show you these skills in highschool!?!?!?! Thanks Jeff Im off to part 3 =D
Should be taught in schools.
Your welcome Javier
Jeff
Hi, I've just started watching your solar panels for beginners and I am learning a lot. I am a true beginner. ON you part 2 on the end of the video where you hooked the fan and the pump on the load, are they on the same place? and can they run together? and what and how would you put a fan in the cooler for the batteries and pump? Could you give more details. Yes I am very new at this and these may seem like dumb questions, but I really want to do this right and you are a very good teacher. Thank
so informative! thank you for your time & effort.
Thanks Theo. The pump I installed is a noisy one. It's got worse with chattering.
That water heater is a great idea it takes a lot of $$$$$$$ and £££££££££££ to heat water. Great video THANK YOU.
Yeah it does. You can do it with dc elements, a lot of guys do.
Thanks. More videos on there way.
Another great video.It gives me lots of ideas and some inspiration for many d.i.y. solar projects. Thanks Jeff.
Your welcome Joe.
Jeff, great videos for us dummies. I leaped before I looked. I have 5 100 watt panels and now I don't know how to use them effectively.
Well you can always get a grid tie inverter and feed the power back into the grid.
You can also tie 2 in series and that would make them 24 volt.
Jeff
Thanks , I hope you get something out of them.
great info It has given me many ideas. Thanks
Your welcome Kevin. I have made some changes since i made this video. I am using a 24 volt pure sign wave inverter . Been working great.
Your videos are clear, great info, and well explained, thanks for posting!!
Thank you Jose
Yes, the ring has weights in it and it sank right to the bottom. Yeah I have to weight the hose.
About the water heating element back in a days I use the Iron with the bracket mounted to the tank ,worked fine
It's the wire size on the inside of the tube .
Not yet on the aerator, we got it done late and it started raining the next day and NO sun.
Bubbles are nice Alan. Have you ever made bubbles in your tub when you were a kid ? I want to make them commercially. I think there's a market for them. Ian would know, I'll ask him.
jeff, you ever seen the glass break on a panel? mine have made it through hale storms and everything, but today my 2 year old daughter managed to brake the glass on one with a screw driver. she threw it up in the air and the tip hit the in the bottom right hand corner. it got ugly really fast. it is still laying out there popping and cracking and new brakes forming from top to bottom!!! amazing to watch!!
I really wanted to stay with 3 point guy wires but I think for the sake of safety and stress I'm going to go with 4 point guy wires. This video makes it look worth while.
I didn't realize shade on a small portion of the panel had so much affect on them. WOW
the legal here in Kentucky grid ties I have really help off set what little the electric company is running(been just paying the $20 connection fee since rewiring to run 80% of the house off the battery bank. can't wait to start on my next home!!! it will be totally off grid.
can't wait for the snow this winter!! when the power goes out and we are still lit up, and warm while other are saying I wasn't so crazy after all!!
I love um. 24 volts and very little use in the way of watts. We have them in the store for about a year, still running good straight off a 24 volt battery bank.
One solar panel keeps up 2 12 volt batteries, never had to charge them up at all.
Thats a great video lots of usefull information especially around air gaps between batteries and looking out for dodgy retailers who resetting things that they shouldn't. I guess if its too cheap then its cheap for a reason and thats because its either not what it says on the box or its junk
More great ideas from Missouri, thanks
Thanks Jeff. I just stubbled across your videos, but I'm learning a lot. I see uses for my aquaponics projects I'm getting into now. Thanks. I look forward to your other video series.
Yes you can do that. A lot of people use a plug in grid tie inverter to the dump switch and feed back to the grid rather then dump it into a bank of resisters.
6 volt batteries are definitely better to use then 12 volt. They will last longer and have less caps to check for water. It gets a little complicated and kinda hard to answer but I can tell you that most off grid people use 6 volt batteries. They can be discharged more then 12 volt batteries can. 2 volt batteries are the best .
Thank you.
This is exciting stuff. :-O
Thanks
Jeff
wish I could of learned this in high school
Great man and thanks from Japan
I gave away the 10 harbor freight kits to friends who were interested in try solar. then I set up my friends entire home off grid. after awhile it starts getting easier. not cheaper but easier. I think I have a video of when I switched over to the 6 volt golf cart batteries. I started out with eight of them. I now have 20 and six 2 volt Trojans as my back up system!!! three 80amp flex max 80's with 1200 watts run to each, another 20 amp mppt charge controller and 4 of your wind turbines.
Helpful
Bears and mountain lions.Alligator turtles. Had no idea Missouri had them.Be careful you could be lunch.
HOWdy M-W&S,
Thanks
COOP
...
Going to try running our pump in the skimmer with solar power.
Deborah Jabara Hope it works for ya.
Excellent news and well done to both of you. So whens the next video?
Great information entering solar panel giveaway
thank you for all you do here . I have been going thou the videos that you made and putting it on my 5th wheel i live in all year around and the snow comes i get loads of wind from the south and for now i have two solar painelsthat make 200 watts and a 12 votl wind turbmine and adding more on and the 12 volt 500 watt i got coming from you will soon be here and i will be adding it on the 5th wheel BUT i will be having a very good spot to put it up and my work has just started i am at 75% power . Thanks for your help here i will as alawys be looking for more from you ..I live in PA and some times i get snow storms and no sun for days keep the videos coming and some time see you out here for one lord willing god bless
Thanks William.
180 degrees, that is awesome
Yes sir. This is food for the hungry
I find that using a water pump with a venturi is much more durable than the air pump. Using a venturi nozzle, if made properly, will produce micro bubbles making it more effective than a ring. If the nozzle is installed properly it will free range and clean the bottom of the pond.
exactly. I started out with one harbor freight system, then moved up to a total of 10 of them. when I started with the 100 watt panel and a battery bank of 10 Wal-Mart 75 ah deep cycle (not truly deep cycle batteries) and cheap charge controller I really started learning. then I got my first wind turbine from somebody else. after that mistake i got my next 4 from you and a scorpion charge controller. don't get me started on inverters!! pure sine wave is the only way to go there!!
hey Jeff more good information. Thank You
+phillip staton Your welcome Phillip
Sounds like wind power would be helpful too.
I remember a comment on the 24 vdc cooling fan saying if you connect with out a battery it will burn out. what kind of devices need batteries and what devices don't?
thanks for what you are doing.
john
Jeff you need to invite Dave and I out for your awesome knowledge but better then that fishing
Very cool to see what solar can do with a little work. Witch panel of equal wattage work better 12v, 24V or 48v?
Great video thank you... what is the difference form a ac water element and a dc water element??? and did that air aerator help/fix your pond?
Once I was even trying to use a coffee brewing machine to make circulate the water to heat it up it was a fine idea but they didn't finish it , but it's doable
jeff, did you get that ring down? closer to the bottom of the pond. get some cinder-blocks and run the hose thru the cinder-blocks. wieght down the ring so its close to the bottom. It will work better from the bottom. love the video and would love to talk with you about a small farm i have and bring some power to heat water and for lighting needs. I'm sure we will talk soon. thanks again for the video and all the information.
Thomas
excelent
Thanks.
pradeep kumar e
That is some cool stuff. Hope to be heating my house water soon from my wind turbine.
Even if you can keep the water temp above 40. 0 to 40 is when the immersion heater is pulling all the power. Nice gazebo and pound do you have alligators in Missouri?
Love the info But maybe a smaller pump system and then go catch some carp and put them in your pond they will clean it up much better.
Thanks Bernie. Yes the pump is a little to big, should have went smaller. But now i have something to go by.
MissouriWindandSolar
Hi Bernie, I get a catalog with farm stuff in it and they sell 'balls' full of pellets that supply 'good' bacteria that will eat the 'bad' bacteria too to help clean up your pond. They aren't expensive either and last at least 30 days. They state how many acre/feet of pond they will cover. Try Northern www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/NTESearch?escapeXml=false&ipp=24&storeId=6970&Ntt=pond%2Bcleaner good luck.
So Jeff, thanks for the video... My question is: If one want to use battery bank and a Grid Tie inverter, can you hook the Grid Tie Inverter to the Load part of the charge controller, so that it turns off the Grid Tie Inverter before it kills the batteries?
Also, what is the advantages/disadvantages from using 6v batteries vs 12v? Is 4 6v batteries better than 2 12v? Visa Versa? or does it matter?
Thanks, bro.
I would love to live there, I would have a small waterfall effect instead of the pump thing for aesthetics and when its clean that is. It will be beautiful with ducks too. and more bushes around the pond especially ones that clean the water, i.e. reeds.
Yes, i am going to get some reeds and pond plants this spring.
do you have a post of how the pond looks now?
Carp ? I did not know that. It's full of Bass and Catfish if you can believe that. I don't know how they live in the dirty water. It's just feed by rain water.
i m from the caribbean area ...this is food made more solar energy
Just curious why you used two connecting leads when putting your batteries in series. Shouldn't it only require one lead going from your positive of one battery to the negative of the other? Then you go from your two remaining posts out to your load?
Hello sir great vids and info. If i buy a solar panel with the mc-4 connection can i cut it off and still be able to use it with a diffrent system if need be ?
the 6 volt golf cart batteries are true deep cycle batteries. they have thicker led plates in them and a small one will weigh in around 60 pounds. they also just have three cells in them were 12 volt batteries have 6. most 12 volt batteries are not true deep cycle batteries. there are some that are true deep cycle, but they are few and far between. jeff is right when he said most people living off grid use 6 volt batteries.