Input voltage does NOT have to be 12v to run a 12v battery bank... Wire your panels in series to raise the voltage and drop the current, this will help with the long cable runs.
This is the EXACT reason to go MPPT, higher input voltage, less losses on the wire between panels and charge controller. Save money on not having to go huge wire gauge! If they keep the panels in parallel (off the cuff: 17Vdc, 30 amps (10a/panel) 6awg) They lose 14% of their power! If they series the panels they lose only 2% of their power over the same cables. www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html
The panels do not have to be 12v. Nowhere near. They can be up to 145v for the 80 I believe (startup). You want to stay well under that for cold mornings but there is a sizer on the Outback web site for optimal power. The panels absolutely need to be wired in series/ series-parallel. I believe he stated that they only have a 12v inverter so therefore the battery side of the equation needs to stay 12v unless they change out the inverter. The moral of the story is that solar is not hard if you use proper equipment. His pror statement about constant maintenance is simply not true at all if you set your system up correctly and size it appropriately. I tried to offer to help them but he seemed very defensive and unwilling to let me give him advice. I like the cat :)
This post is totally correct. For a given power output on a panel array, if you increase the voltage then the current will drop (power = volts x current). Cable resistance losses are proportional to the current and not the voltage. Therefore, increasing the voltage by wiring the panels in series is the way to go. Also, with this configuration you will gain a benefit in using a MPPT controller when the panels are in partial shade or when it is overcast :)
Yes exactly, running this charge controller at "12v" input is just plain silly. He should series his panels up to 150V max and let the MPPT handle the downconversion to 12v for the battery bank.
I resent being called a nerd. I'm a geek, a 53 year old geek to precise. I watched because I eventually want to do solar, wind and if possible, hydro power. I am rooting for you two.
Can't go wrong with Outback, tried and tested in the Australian sun! Love to come over and visit one day, lovely to see the learning process unfold, that is what this is all about. My journey with Solar started 4 years ago and still learning!
Not a nerd. Every single thing you said past the point when the mighty hunter wanded off to catch the bird was way over my head. I do, however, love to listen to you both talk. And I super love your channel.
Big respect to Jesse & Alyssa, I like the fact that you want to be mainly self-sufficient with local support and invest in each other, your work and your property for the future, Alyssa keep the videos coming and we will keep watching them thank-you.
I have a 1200 watt solar system. In order to solve the problem of having an excessively long PV voltage run, i placed my cheap PWM controllers and my battery bank AND my inverter in a small concrete block house within 10 feet of the solar panels. The long run to my home is at 120 volts...so not much voltage loss with #12 ac wire. System cost much lower.
That is the smart way to go. With their 2000W inverter and 100ft run, #6 ac wire should be used. If they need more ac, a second inverter and a second run of ac wire is needed and their charge controller still will have plenty of margin.
Their charge controller is limited to 48v worth of panels (under load) and either way, 120v ac causes less wire resistance than 120v dc and they will still need it inverted anyway to run their appliances which means replacing their current inverter!
Have you looked at the spec for the FlexMax 80? Input voltage is max 145 startup. Total wattage at 12vDC battery is 1000. www.outbackpower.com/downloads/documents/Make_The_Power/flexmax_6080/specsheet.pdf
He's got 4x 24v panels. He's using a rinky-dink 12v battery bank. The current dc lines arel way under rated for what he has now and still needs to be replaced. Using 148vdc to the camper needs #4 wire to be safe and only #6 from the panels at 120v ac from there to match their inverter. Have you looked at the spec for their inverter? www.powerdriveinverters.com/sp/powerdrive-2000-watt-power-inverter-4-ac-2-usb-app-with-bluetooth/ . They have to run on a budget and what you are talking about is far more expensive, out of spec for the controller's peak efficiency for best case scenario battery bank of 60VDC input w/48V battery at 53.1VDC (98.44%), requires them to ditch their current inverter before they even get their house built.
Im 2 seconds in and i see you've learned alot, been running outback solar charger for 7 years no problems minimal maintenance system wide ( mostly cleaning the panels and battery maintenance). Run thicker cables from your panels tho you dont want to burn down your house!
Hey Guys, I am running the flexmax 80 on our solar system at our remote cottage in northern Ontario Canada. Its an amazing charge controller. We run 12- 2 volt lithium batteries hooked in series and in parallel for a final output voltage of 12 volts. Our panels are 4-310 watts with 2 pairs hooked in series and then together in parallel for a total output voltage of 90 volts ,32 amps. around 1240 watts to the controller . We have a run of 60 feet or wire from our panels to our controller we use 8 AWG MC4 wire for that. From our controller we have a 10 foot run of 4 AWG wire to the battery bank. We run 2-2000 watt sine wave inverters on the other end. this system will actually make some current on moonlit nights and does pretty well on cloudy days. We run a 12 volt refrigerator 120 volt stand up freezer and a satellite dish receiver constantly with no issues. Good luck on your system. BTW if you could hook up your panels on a pivot to keep them pointing at the sun more directly with a little manual tweaking during the day performance improve greatly. RICK
Nice upgrade --- Its a great charge controller! We have two of them in our system (GS8048). (Our system is in our StarLite wars video playlist.) You will be able to grow with this system, and with Outback you won't have to worry about the company disappearing. We've used the history feature to track one issue we had with undersized breaker, but system is pretty much program it an forget it. If you decide to get a new battery system - I'd suggest a small fork-lift battery for lots of watts per dollar and deep cells, no terminal corrosion issues, with long cell life. They have smaller fork-lift batteries than seen in our video, and we used two 24v ones to reach 48V which is more efficient than 12V or 24V. All the best to you and Alyssa on this electron-odyssey !! BTW --- Alyssa you do an awesome job on the editing. We both love the way you edit and my wife mentions/hints that to me every time she watches one of your videos. ;-}
I know that the summer heat is coming/here it's nice to see a cloudy day for you and most important is doing something that isn't back breaking. Even though the back breaking videos teaches me a lot and is appreciated. Best of luck on everything.
Im so glad to have yall series as a guideline, theres SO MANY things I had not considered involved with homesteading, I love this, a real eye opener, and yall are awesome, and your subscribers are awesome with the valuable input
You two are really cool and inspiring to watch. Thank you for those great informative and entertaining videos! Cant wait to see the house build videos!
Outback makes a good MPPT charge controller, a wise purchase. I'll bet your system performance will improve dramatically, although I would just say to make sure that your solar panels are wired correctly to ensure you are getting an appropriate voltage -- in a previous video you said your solar panels were wired in parallel, which may very well be appropriate, but just be sure it is. You'll need to check the nominal voltage of your panels (it's on their label usually called Vmp -- whereas Voc is the voltage when not under load) and then figure it out from there. So Congrats on an excellent charge controller, be sure to spend hours reading the manual! And feel free to ask any questions. Cheers mate!
Ok so (watched video):-- I now understand you have a 12V battery bank, so lots of line loss over a roughly ~100ft #8 AWG string. Ok makes sense now, I understand your upgrade plan. Good choice on the Outback. Also I like your idea of buying another panel for the primary purpose of eventually wiring it into two strings (2 panels in series per string, then those 2 strings joined in parallel for a 4-panel array at 24V). When you decide to rewire your panels and battery bank to a 24V setup you'll reduce line loss and get better performance overall -- the only requirement being to upgrade your inverter. What you could do in the meantime is buy a 24V-12V DC transformer as a stepping stone. P.S. the reason they call it "80" is because it has a Maximum Output Current of 80 amps.
Thanks for putting out such a consistent stream of high quality videos. UA-cam desperately needs more people like you guys. I always look forward to your next video. Also I am a cat person. And I grew up without running water, wood stove, outhouse etc. keep pushing. Your house will be done before you know it!
i just got my Outback FLEXMax 80 Charge Controller today and am starting to install my 100% off grid in Puerto Rico, we lost 75% of our grid last summer. i feel like i am in over my head but heck lets do it.
Hey! i watched the whole thing. I'm a nerd but I mostly want to support you by watching the whole video. Your videos play in the back ground as I do various things and it sorta keeps me company.
You will Like your new charge Controller, probably one of the best decisions. You may. My only other, comment is to configure your battery bank to 24 V or 48 V. Your efficiency will go up, but I do understand your learning and that's a good thing. Neil
instance of removing a newly purchased product from its packaging and examining its features, typically when filmed and shared on a social media site. WELL DONE!!!!!
What's with all the haters lately? If you think this couple is fake then why are you watching their videos? If you have complaints about what they are doing, why are you watching their video? If you have CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, then, by all means, help them out with comments. But if you're just here to whine or complain or to criticize, then just leave and quit watching them.
wether they are doing it right or wrong is less important to me than the fact they are making decisions and working them through and then adjusting as best they can .... they have shown some troules with gravity feed water .. like leaks, air pockets, future planning and even potential maintenance hassles overcome ... this is more real than some guy who spends 8 months setting his system up and changing it 20 times before you see what he started with and what he finished with .... no matter what you can learn from their misteaks, and choices and methods ..... still very informative no matter if you agree with their choices or not.
0623kaboom I fully agree. I like seeing their mistakes and how they work through them. It shows they are real people, learning by their mistakes, and makes them seem more human. It helps us learn too. I don't plan to homestead anytime soon but just seeing the pitfalls they encounter makes it that much more interesting and educational to watch.
I think its great! Its all entertainment - Jesse and Alyssa are like-able, the stuff they get up to and buy is interesting and gives me a laugh, and the comments range between supportive and friendly, and frothing jealousy and haughty superiority. I'm just watching and reading with a smile, beer and popcorn.. ;)
Outback charge controllers are popular with UK narrow boat users. MPPT usually gets 20% more electricity out of the same panels. Data logged about three years ago showed that winter solar harvest is about 8% of panel rated power, NOW you really need more panels another KW now would be a start. Your battery really isn't charged until the charger current goes down to about 2% of the AH nunber (2A for each 100AH) -If it never gets there then something is broken. Arranging panels at about 100v will let you send more power down the same cable, but if you are going to have a solar farm away from the house then fit some really good large gauge cable in a protected path. Have to say that now is the time to plan to locate some KW of panels on the house, the more KW you fit, the more months you get usable electricity.
Love the solar power stuff I'm slowly building my own off grid set up for in town to off set my power usage love your take on things as you learn and develop the skills to set this up ☺️ now time to set the panels up in series and plug in the new inverter and reap the rewards ☺️
Greetings, I run a flex Max 80, a 24 v 3500 outback inverter and 1000 watts of solar in my rv. My panels are 250 watts wired in series and parallel to produce 48 volts. My battery bank is 24 volts. I'm only limited by the size of my battery bank. Outback makes good stuff. So far, I've not seen anyone using outback equipment in an RV but it is high quality and holds up well. I've never been disappointed with my setup. This system is overkill for my needs but I would rather have more than not enough.Oh ya, my 4 panels are ground deployed so I can park my rig in the shade and have my panels in the sun.
First thing I would do after installing that new charge controller is to wire my three panels in Series to bump up the voltage coming into the charge controller. I will bet that fixes most of your issues with the Solar system immediately. Second thind thing is add those extra panels as soon as I could.
You mentioned you have some 24v panels. Why not leave the 12v panels on the existing controller and connect the 24v panels to the Flexmax 80. Using the capability to step down to 12v on the output, you should then be able to have the two systems connect in parallel to the battery bank.
That's not what I would do. If both panels have the same current capability at a given solar radiance, then I'd wire it in series with the 24 volt panels. If your solar charge controller top end voltage doesn't get exceeded, you want to wire as MANY solar panels in series (making sure that the max total no load voltage of all the panels doesn't exceed the charges max) because you will have less I2R loss ( Current squared * Resistance of your cable = power loss in cables themselves). High voltage, low current is ALWAYS the best way to move power or energy bc the current is what's going to kill your efficiency because of I2R losses. This is why transmission lines from a power company are stepped up to such high AC voltages with the use of a simple transformer. Sadly, transformers only work for AC currents and not DC currents like solar panels (think of them like DC batteries with high internal resistances). These MPPT charge controllers are nothing more than a smart controlled Buck converter (DC-DC efficient converter). The MPPT just loads the current from the solar panels just right so that when your panel voltages sag under load (voltage output drops as you pull current from the panels, hence internal resistance),so that it finds the right maximum current and maximum voltage combination, or in other words V*I=Pmax. If the charger pulls too hard on the panels, then the voltage will drop significantly, but the current will also go up, however V*I will no longer be the highest Pmax possible, so the charge controller will back it off slightly till it finds that sweet spot. It's fascinating to watch this happen constantly pulling a little harder, then backing it off to the sweet spot. My 60A MPPT Solar Charge Controller I bought on eBay goes through this - find the max power spot - about every 10 seconds. It was only $300! www.ebay.com/itm/60A-MPPT-solar-charge-controller-regulator-12v-24v-48v-3200w-monitoring-PCM60X-/161615675225?hash=item25a10b7f59:g:K6UAAOSwm8VUygAw I hope that maybe that helps. I'm an electrical engineer and I've built my own portable solar generator. One day I'll make a video, but I'm not done with the whole system.
I am folloing you for a while, you are awesome! The drive, solving problems together, I love it. Hope to see the finished house soon. Thanks for sharing
Yeah nothing like getting a box in the mail that is too small for your cat and watching her try to screw her entire body into it .Usually a total success too.
Not saying I'm not a nerd (I do have a physics degree, and I program corporate databases for a living), but ... the reason I was "still" watching at the end was because I skipped ahead to see if anything interesting was going to happen :p I think the video would have been more functional if it had been a cut-down unboxing combined with highlights from reviewing the installed system (which is probably also going to be another boring video ... "Here's it charging the battery ... and this is a status light ... and here it is discharging a night ..."). Love you guys, though. Gratz on the Cistern install -- and can't wait for you to finally get the frame up on your home.
YAY!!!!!!! NOW,you are in to serious power. SERIES connections. i just realized that my PWM was too lame. I went to an MPPT and NOW,I run my panels @ 90 VOLTS! What a difference! 100 V. @ 5 amps is 500 watts. My cables to my panels are undersized,like yours. 8 G. wires. Now,I don't care at all. B-4:300 W. Now: 500 watts.Same panels,but now wired in series,with the MPPT CC. WIN,WIN.
Thanks for the video folks. The information is helpful, and the direct and indirect humor is always appreciated. Can't wait for the next installment of your adventure
Another nice job all around. This is not criticism, when I was learning my trade it was driven into me the terminology was very important so I'll share this. The "grease" known as no-lux( might be a brand name) is to help prevent corrosion as you mentioned. Which can come from moisture or when dis similar metals are introduced such as copper wire and aluminum lugs. Those plastic bushing or grommets do protect the wire insulation from the metal enclosure but make sure that's the best application. Don't make the lug you terminate the wire to the means of support, at least not on the larger wires. And my last bit of advice, as you know all of your equipment on your property requires some level of preventative maintenance periodically check you're termination. Electricity when flowing creates heat and when no amperage is present you have more of an ambient temperature thus termination over time will loosen because when metals heat and cools it is moving.
You guys are doing a great job! I mean this in the absolute best way possible, if you would like to learn a little bit more about solar power I would be happy to discuss it with you. Not saying I know more than you guys but I have seen and continue to see some issues with your system. Just remember to recognize the difference between "works" and "works right". Just because you manage to charge a battery and pull juice out of it doesn't mean the system is working efficiently or optimally. Keep up the great work, very exciting to see the progression!
Food for thought. Put the battery box right under the panels and put the inverter rite in the battery box so you are putting 110V over the wire to the RV.
I enjoy watching your videos, you guys seem really happy and work together as a team , what a great life. Some jerks video popped up that has a solar farm at his house after I watched your latest huckleberry solar video. Man that guy was a jerk, eating his burrito and drinking his blue moon beer! Don't listen to these negative people. It's impressive that you guys try all of this in your own. You are making the most out of what you have and can afford . I'll keep watching!
I'm no expert but from my research the diversion load is for when the batteries are topped off and you have a wind mill. When there is minimal draw the generator in a mill will produce less power by basically reducing resistance and allows the blades to spin faster which could inevitably get damaged. By diverting the draw to another destination, usually a water heater element, it keeps the wind mill from spinning too quickly.
I've been watching you for a while, but I've never commented before. I've always wondered though, why you don't build a shed up next to the solar panels and put the battery bank, inverter and charge controller up there? Running high voltage down the hill would give you so much less voltage drop trouble than what you're doing with DC.
Batteries will be located in the basement of the home and panels may be mounted elsewhere, likely on a pole. Until home is built, we're avoiding doing anything permanent.
Pure Living for Life , I've been working with electricity for a long time, but not solar at all so I'm no expert. A simplified(and probably partially incorrect) understanding I have is this..depending on wire size that 100 foot run is gonna cost you about 2-3 volts. When you pull that off DC 12 volts, that's huge. If the inverter were at the top of the hill you would send 120v down which(with cheaper wire I might add) would still be 117-118 volts by the time it gets to the bottom of the hill. I feel like the simple move would probably have increased daily output of your old system by 15-20% daily without any additional purchases. Either way, when you get closer to your finished building out there, I feel like it should always be I your plan to have the solar equipment as close to the panels as possible. Someone with more experience chime in. Also, I love what you're doing, I wish I was up I the mountains doing this myself instead of sweating my butt off in Orlando...good work you two.
Pure Living for Life You would be better served by digging a hole and building a small shed with an access door next to the solar panels. This will keep the batteries cool in summer and fairly warm in the winter. Put your inverter in the shed with the batteries and run AC wire to the house, this will make everything much better and more efficient as well.
Pure Living for Life you need to install a bank of MAXWELL SUPER CAPACITORS in parallel with your battery bank . this would add surge capacity easing the starting of high draw devices like A/C and make certain that your cables are of sufficient guage to run the distance .
You keep mixing current, power and voltage. Voltage is between two points, like the connections of your battery. Current is that what starts running as soon as your two connections are connected. Power is the total of energie available. Some forms: # voltage = current * resistance. # power = voltage * current. Now, if you have a high resistance cable connecting your panels to the batteries, you will loose a lot of power in the cable. Therefor, you try to use cables with low resistance, normally you come to higher diameter of the cables.
The protrusions on the back are to maintain 1/4" spacing between the mounting surface and the casing per national electric code. precipitation and dust run behind it to reduce corrosion or pooling water on the outdoor equipment.
I wasn't snoring I have a sinus issue.... honest! Thanks for the info, all this solar stuff is interesting to a geek like me. Who knows when this knowledge might come in handy.
Good info, and yes, I am a nerd. =) Time to make assumptions, and we know where that goes. You have 8 batteries, I assume they are 6V. You could wire 2 sets of 4 batteries in series, and parallel those two sets to get you to 24V. Jess, you mentioned adding another panel, that would give you 4-12V panels, again, wire 2 sets of 2 in series, and parallel wire the 2 sets, to again give you 24V PV. Then your whole systems would be running at 24V. The higher the voltage, the smaller gauge wire can be used. I have the feeling you know this already, but want to help out where I can. Love you guys, pet Bugaboo for me. Keep up the helpful and informative work you blessed folks are doing.
You didn't tear up Bug-a-boo's new toy did ya, the cardboard box. Cats love cardboard boxes, cut an access hole on the side close the top. Now he has a private place to sleep and play in. My cats have a multi-level cardboard condominium, and one level is divided into multi-rooms. They love it, if we don't see them, that's where they will be. Keeps them occupied. And for the juice, get a bicycle hooked up to a generator, loose weight and make juice at the same time. But only in your spare time.
I enjoyed your presentation. The features of this unit are very nice and should be required features of any non-trivial system. You should be very thankful there are nerds like myself to design, test and manufacture such wonderful components of a battery-power system. Thank you. Now, let's see your careful installation of this.
OkY, I am a nerd, so I will own that, BUT this was great! You guys are so good at communicating! I found this very helpful, as I do your entire channel. Thank you!
Rubber Wilbur NWO You bit on it ! LOL! Get off your lazy butt and go build a homestesd the way you want to. So hush your yap and pass the popcorn! Rubber Wilbur??? Never mind.... I dont care.
I might be missing something but why don't you use on of the Battery boost capacitor banks to help with loading from the Freezer and the AC when they kick on. I don't mean to be rude and apologize if it comes out that way. I deal with 12V a lot as an amateur radio operator and one of the ways to both smooth out power and reduce the loading for transmission is to put a Capacitor bank in between the batteries and the radio. Smooths out the drop and also reduces loading on the batteries. Hope that helps and like I said not meaning to be rude you folks are doing great. My kids and I completely are looking forward to your success.
Outback Flexmax 80 CC........Now Your Cooking!!! I have a Flexmax 60 and have had no problems with it what so ever! They are a great Great System...... Yes Sir....Outback!!!
I'd prefer a controller that I can connect to my laptop via Bluetooth to see what the performance of everything is. This one is nice since it steps down the voltage for different source configurations.
Looks like things are moving along (which requires a lot of planning, budgeting, coordinating along with many speed bumps...), congrats~ I used to ask one of my cats questions like how Jesse did it and my cat's reactions were just like Bugaboo lol
Try to do your long runs A/C (alternating current) and not D/C (direct current) like it comes off the cells as. You'll have much less loss. Or perhaps have the battery bank under the solar panels, then run A/C to your trailer from there and you should get much less loss. D/C over any distance will result in huge power losses as you heat the wiring basically.
A Suggestion and/or something to consider.. It might be good if you consider another TWO-or-Three more Photo Panels.. Then, condense or re-position the Panels, Battery Bank and Controller.. That will shorten the #4 Gauge Wire.. Of course, everything costs money..
Darn I think you 2 are awesome and I have watched you from the start, but I see you have some people that do not think the way I do and I do not understand why they watch your site, but please keep the videos coming I really enjoy them.
Hi Jesse did you realise that you can configure your panels to 24v but still leave your batteries 12v so you can still run everything as 12v, that's what I did !! What that means is on cloudy days because your panels are 24v their bring in a higher 24v amps or current but when it reaches the charge controller it KNOWS your battery bank is 12v so it converts the 24v back to 12v but the amps remain the same as 24v almost !! For example these are just numbers at this point but hopefully you'll see what I'm getting at, if you have a12v panel setup that brings in 6 amps to the controller it will then put about 6 amps into the battery bank, same panels now setup as 24v say bring in 12 amps to the controller that doesn't mean 12 amps is going to the batteries ! What the controller does it realises there 24v at 12 amps but at the same time it knows your batteries are still setup as 12v so in fact instead of putting the 12 amps into the batteries the controller ups the amps to 15- 16 amps roughly, so the controller takes the 12 amps at 24v PLUS HALF the amps you would've got on 12v which was 3 amps and adds them together to give you the final amps of 15-16 amps which is what you want on overcast days. I hope you understand what I'm getting at !! Seeya Rob
I must have a different idea of what living "off grid" is about. I've been watching those Alaska life tv series for years and am always shocked how much money those people have to run their lives, HUGE equipment, backhoes, bulldozers, snow mobiles, wood saws, etc. etc. I just have no idea how people can afford to live off grid. I do love watching your videos though, you both have such an upbeat look at life and it's good to see others enjoying their life! :-)
Not really a cat person, mind you I don't totally dislike them, but that was a good looking cat. This was an interesting follow up to the last video I saw. Thanks.
Input voltage does NOT have to be 12v to run a 12v battery bank...
Wire your panels in series to raise the voltage and drop the current, this will help with the long cable runs.
This is the EXACT reason to go MPPT, higher input voltage, less losses on the wire between panels and charge controller. Save money on not having to go huge wire gauge!
If they keep the panels in parallel (off the cuff: 17Vdc, 30 amps (10a/panel) 6awg) They lose 14% of their power! If they series the panels they lose only 2% of their power over the same cables.
www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html
He is doing 12v because his inverter is a 12v inverter.
The panels do not have to be 12v. Nowhere near. They can be up to 145v for the 80 I believe (startup). You want to stay well under that for cold mornings but there is a sizer on the Outback web site for optimal power. The panels absolutely need to be wired in series/ series-parallel. I believe he stated that they only have a 12v inverter so therefore the battery side of the equation needs to stay 12v unless they change out the inverter. The moral of the story is that solar is not hard if you use proper equipment. His pror statement about constant maintenance is simply not true at all if you set your system up correctly and size it appropriately. I tried to offer to help them but he seemed very defensive and unwilling to let me give him advice. I like the cat :)
This post is totally correct. For a given power output on a panel array, if you increase the voltage then the current will drop (power = volts x current). Cable resistance losses are proportional to the current and not the voltage. Therefore, increasing the voltage by wiring the panels in series is the way to go. Also, with this configuration you will gain a benefit in using a MPPT controller when the panels are in partial shade or when it is overcast :)
Yes exactly, running this charge controller at "12v" input is just plain silly. He should series his panels up to 150V max and let the MPPT handle the downconversion to 12v for the battery bank.
I resent being called a nerd. I'm a geek, a 53 year old geek to precise. I watched because I eventually want to do solar, wind and if possible, hydro power. I am rooting for you two.
Can't go wrong with Outback, tried and tested in the Australian sun! Love to come over and visit one day, lovely to see the learning process unfold, that is what this is all about. My journey with Solar started 4 years ago and still learning!
Not a nerd. Every single thing you said past the point when the mighty hunter wanded off to catch the bird was way over my head. I do, however, love to listen to you both talk. And I super love your channel.
FINALLY! You guys got a REAL charge controller. Had our two fm80 for three years now no problems
Big respect to Jesse & Alyssa, I like the fact that you want to be mainly self-sufficient with local support and invest in each other, your work and your property for the future, Alyssa keep the videos coming and we will keep watching them thank-you.
THE key thing you said was: 'this {piece of the puzzle} can grow with us'
Congrats on the major step of growth
I have a 1200 watt solar system. In order to solve the problem of having an excessively long PV voltage run, i placed my cheap PWM controllers and my battery bank AND my inverter in a small concrete block house within 10 feet of the solar panels. The long run to my home is at 120 volts...so not much voltage loss with #12 ac wire. System cost much lower.
That is the smart way to go. With their 2000W inverter and 100ft run, #6 ac wire should be used. If they need more ac, a second inverter and a second run of ac wire is needed and their charge controller still will have plenty of margin.
The answer is for them to run the panels in series and bump the voltage to over 100v. No need to run AC downwind.
Their charge controller is limited to 48v worth of panels (under load) and either way, 120v ac causes less wire resistance than 120v dc and they will still need it inverted anyway to run their appliances which means replacing their current inverter!
Have you looked at the spec for the FlexMax 80? Input voltage is max 145 startup. Total wattage at 12vDC battery is 1000.
www.outbackpower.com/downloads/documents/Make_The_Power/flexmax_6080/specsheet.pdf
He's got 4x 24v panels. He's using a rinky-dink 12v battery bank. The current dc lines arel way under rated for what he has now and still needs to be replaced. Using 148vdc to the camper needs #4 wire to be safe and only #6 from the panels at 120v ac from there to match their inverter. Have you looked at the spec for their inverter? www.powerdriveinverters.com/sp/powerdrive-2000-watt-power-inverter-4-ac-2-usb-app-with-bluetooth/ .
They have to run on a budget and what you are talking about is far more expensive, out of spec for the controller's peak efficiency for best case scenario battery bank of 60VDC input w/48V battery at 53.1VDC (98.44%), requires them to ditch their current inverter before they even get their house built.
Im 2 seconds in and i see you've learned alot, been running outback solar charger for 7 years no problems minimal maintenance system wide ( mostly cleaning the panels and battery maintenance).
Run thicker cables from your panels tho you dont want to burn down your house!
Hey Guys, I am running the flexmax 80 on our solar system at our remote cottage in northern Ontario Canada. Its an amazing charge controller. We run 12- 2 volt lithium batteries hooked in series and in parallel for a final output voltage of 12 volts. Our panels are 4-310 watts with 2 pairs hooked in series and then together in parallel for a total output voltage of 90 volts ,32 amps. around 1240 watts to the controller . We have a run of 60 feet or wire from our panels to our controller we use 8 AWG MC4 wire for that. From our controller we have a 10 foot run of 4 AWG wire to the battery bank. We run 2-2000 watt sine wave inverters on the other end. this system will actually make some current on moonlit nights and does pretty well on cloudy days. We run a 12 volt refrigerator 120 volt stand up freezer and a satellite dish receiver constantly with no issues. Good luck on your system. BTW if you could hook up your panels on a pivot to keep them pointing at the sun more directly with a little manual tweaking during the day performance improve greatly. RICK
"I'm not sure why they call it the flexmax 80"
"But this controller is very flexible"
Flex able in voltage to max of 80 amps thus flexmax 80 DA TA !
"and has a max of 80 amps"
Nice upgrade --- Its a great charge controller! We have two of them in our system (GS8048). (Our system is in our StarLite wars video playlist.) You will be able to grow with this system, and with Outback you won't have to worry about the company disappearing. We've used the history feature to track one issue we had with undersized breaker, but system is pretty much program it an forget it. If you decide to get a new battery system - I'd suggest a small fork-lift battery for lots of watts per dollar and deep cells, no terminal corrosion issues, with long cell life. They have smaller fork-lift batteries than seen in our video, and we used two 24v ones to reach 48V which is more efficient than 12V or 24V.
All the best to you and Alyssa on this electron-odyssey !!
BTW --- Alyssa you do an awesome job on the editing. We both love the way you edit and my wife mentions/hints that to me every time she watches one of your videos. ;-}
Very very nice
I know that the summer heat is coming/here it's nice to see a cloudy day for you and most important is doing something that isn't back breaking. Even though the back breaking videos teaches me a lot and is appreciated. Best of luck on everything.
Im so glad to have yall series as a guideline, theres SO MANY things I had not considered involved with homesteading, I love this, a real eye opener, and yall are awesome, and your subscribers are awesome with the valuable input
You two are really cool and inspiring to watch. Thank you for those great informative and entertaining videos! Cant wait to see the house build videos!
Outback makes a good MPPT charge controller, a wise purchase. I'll bet your system performance will improve dramatically, although I would just say to make sure that your solar panels are wired correctly to ensure you are getting an appropriate voltage -- in a previous video you said your solar panels were wired in parallel, which may very well be appropriate, but just be sure it is. You'll need to check the nominal voltage of your panels (it's on their label usually called Vmp -- whereas Voc is the voltage when not under load) and then figure it out from there. So Congrats on an excellent charge controller, be sure to spend hours reading the manual! And feel free to ask any questions. Cheers mate!
Ok so (watched video):-- I now understand you have a 12V battery bank, so lots of line loss over a roughly ~100ft #8 AWG string. Ok makes sense now, I understand your upgrade plan. Good choice on the Outback. Also I like your idea of buying another panel for the primary purpose of eventually wiring it into two strings (2 panels in series per string, then those 2 strings joined in parallel for a 4-panel array at 24V). When you decide to rewire your panels and battery bank to a 24V setup you'll reduce line loss and get better performance overall -- the only requirement being to upgrade your inverter. What you could do in the meantime is buy a 24V-12V DC transformer as a stepping stone.
P.S. the reason they call it "80" is because it has a Maximum Output Current of 80 amps.
Thanks for putting out such a consistent stream of high quality videos. UA-cam desperately needs more people like you guys. I always look forward to your next video. Also I am a cat person. And I grew up without running water, wood stove, outhouse etc. keep pushing. Your house will be done before you know it!
i just got my Outback FLEXMax 80 Charge Controller today and am starting to install my 100% off grid in Puerto Rico, we lost 75% of our grid last summer. i feel like i am in over my head but heck lets do it.
Hey! i watched the whole thing. I'm a nerd but I mostly want to support you by watching the whole video. Your videos play in the back ground as I do various things and it sorta keeps me company.
You will Like your new charge Controller, probably one of the best decisions. You may. My only other, comment is to configure your battery bank to 24 V or 48 V. Your efficiency will go up, but I do understand your learning and that's a good thing. Neil
instance of removing a newly purchased product from its packaging and examining its features, typically when filmed and shared on a social media site. WELL DONE!!!!!
I'm one of the nerds that stayed till the end. lol What an awesome upgrade! Can't wait for videos of it in action.
What's with all the haters lately? If you think this couple is fake then why are you watching their videos? If you have complaints about what they are doing, why are you watching their video? If you have CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, then, by all means, help them out with comments. But if you're just here to whine or complain or to criticize, then just leave and quit watching them.
spencerjw Amen!
I DO post positive comments.
wether they are doing it right or wrong is less important to me than the fact they are making decisions and working them through and then adjusting as best they can .... they have shown some troules with gravity feed water .. like leaks, air pockets, future planning and even potential maintenance hassles overcome ... this is more real than some guy who spends 8 months setting his system up and changing it 20 times before you see what he started with and what he finished with .... no matter what you can learn from their misteaks, and choices and methods ..... still very informative no matter if you agree with their choices or not.
0623kaboom I fully agree. I like seeing their mistakes and how they work through them. It shows they are real people, learning by their mistakes, and makes them seem more human. It helps us learn too. I don't plan to homestead anytime soon but just seeing the pitfalls they encounter makes it that much more interesting and educational to watch.
I think its great! Its all entertainment - Jesse and Alyssa are like-able, the stuff they get up to and buy is interesting and gives me a laugh, and the comments range between supportive and friendly, and frothing jealousy and haughty superiority. I'm just watching and reading with a smile, beer and popcorn.. ;)
Outback charge controllers are popular with UK narrow boat users. MPPT usually gets 20% more electricity out of the same panels. Data logged about three years ago showed that winter solar harvest is about 8% of panel rated power, NOW you really need more panels another KW now would be a start. Your battery really isn't charged until the charger current goes down to about 2% of the AH nunber (2A for each 100AH) -If it never gets there then something is broken. Arranging panels at about 100v will let you send more power down the same cable, but if you are going to have a solar farm away from the house then fit some really good large gauge cable in a protected path.
Have to say that now is the time to plan to locate some KW of panels on the house, the more KW you fit, the more months you get usable electricity.
I chuckle every time they refer to them living "off grid". Right next to a road, neighbors in sight, a short ride to town is NOT off grid.
Love the solar power stuff I'm slowly building my own off grid set up for in town to off set my power usage love your take on things as you learn and develop the skills to set this up ☺️ now time to set the panels up in series and plug in the new inverter and reap the rewards ☺️
Greetings,
I run a flex Max 80, a 24 v 3500 outback inverter and 1000 watts of solar in my rv. My panels are 250 watts wired in series and parallel to produce 48 volts. My battery bank is 24 volts. I'm only limited by the size of my battery bank. Outback makes good stuff. So far, I've not seen anyone using outback equipment in an RV but it is high quality and holds up well. I've never been disappointed with my setup. This system is overkill for my needs but I would rather have more than not enough.Oh ya, my 4 panels are ground deployed so I can park my rig in the shade and have my panels in the sun.
First thing I would do after installing that new charge controller is to wire my three panels in Series to bump up the voltage coming into the charge controller. I will bet that fixes most of your issues with the Solar system immediately. Second thind thing is add those extra panels as soon as I could.
You mentioned you have some 24v panels. Why not leave the 12v panels on the existing controller and connect the 24v panels to the Flexmax 80. Using the capability to step down to 12v on the output, you should then be able to have the two systems connect in parallel to the battery bank.
That's what I would do Jim.
Yes, that will work just fine.
That's not what I would do. If both panels have the same current capability at a given solar radiance, then I'd wire it in series with the 24 volt panels. If your solar charge controller top end voltage doesn't get exceeded, you want to wire as MANY solar panels in series (making sure that the max total no load voltage of all the panels doesn't exceed the charges max) because you will have less I2R loss ( Current squared * Resistance of your cable = power loss in cables themselves). High voltage, low current is ALWAYS the best way to move power or energy bc the current is what's going to kill your efficiency because of I2R losses. This is why transmission lines from a power company are stepped up to such high AC voltages with the use of a simple transformer.
Sadly, transformers only work for AC currents and not DC currents like solar panels (think of them like DC batteries with high internal resistances). These MPPT charge controllers are nothing more than a smart controlled Buck converter (DC-DC efficient converter). The MPPT just loads the current from the solar panels just right so that when your panel voltages sag under load (voltage output drops as you pull current from the panels, hence internal resistance),so that it finds the right maximum current and maximum voltage combination, or in other words V*I=Pmax. If the charger pulls too hard on the panels, then the voltage will drop significantly, but the current will also go up, however V*I will no longer be the highest Pmax possible, so the charge controller will back it off slightly till it finds that sweet spot. It's fascinating to watch this happen constantly pulling a little harder, then backing it off to the sweet spot.
My 60A MPPT Solar Charge Controller I bought on eBay goes through this - find the max power spot - about every 10 seconds. It was only $300!
www.ebay.com/itm/60A-MPPT-solar-charge-controller-regulator-12v-24v-48v-3200w-monitoring-PCM60X-/161615675225?hash=item25a10b7f59:g:K6UAAOSwm8VUygAw
I hope that maybe that helps. I'm an electrical engineer and I've built my own portable solar generator. One day I'll make a video, but I'm not done with the whole system.
I am folloing you for a while, you are awesome! The drive, solving problems together, I love it. Hope to see the finished house soon. Thanks for sharing
Thank you for taking your time and giving a good explanation of the device. Was thinking of having solar plus wind power.
The cat wanted you to get the controller out of the box so he could then take over the box. Box please.
NYangryguy the goal of all cats.
Yeah nothing like getting a box in the mail that is too small for your cat and watching her try to screw her entire body into it .Usually a total success too.
You can wire 48 volts from the panels to the charge controller and still pull 12 volts off the battery to the inverter .
Allen Cox And it is better on the long cables ( higher voltage and lower amps).
Not saying I'm not a nerd (I do have a physics degree, and I program corporate databases for a living), but ... the reason I was "still" watching at the end was because I skipped ahead to see if anything interesting was going to happen :p
I think the video would have been more functional if it had been a cut-down unboxing combined with highlights from reviewing the installed system (which is probably also going to be another boring video ... "Here's it charging the battery ... and this is a status light ... and here it is discharging a night ...").
Love you guys, though. Gratz on the Cistern install -- and can't wait for you to finally get the frame up on your home.
YAY!!!!!!!
NOW,you are in to serious power.
SERIES connections. i just realized that my PWM was too lame.
I went to an MPPT and NOW,I run my panels @ 90 VOLTS! What a difference!
100 V. @ 5 amps is 500 watts.
My cables to my panels are undersized,like yours.
8 G. wires. Now,I don't care at all.
B-4:300 W. Now: 500 watts.Same panels,but now wired in series,with the MPPT CC.
WIN,WIN.
Thanks for the video folks. The information is helpful, and the direct and indirect humor is always appreciated. Can't wait for the next installment of your adventure
Another nice job all around. This is not criticism, when I was learning my trade it was driven into me the terminology was very important so I'll share this. The "grease" known as no-lux( might be a brand name) is to help prevent corrosion as you mentioned. Which can come from moisture or when dis similar metals are introduced such as copper wire and aluminum lugs. Those plastic bushing or grommets do protect the wire insulation from the metal enclosure but make sure that's the best application. Don't make the lug you terminate the wire to the means of support, at least not on the larger wires. And my last bit of advice, as you know all of your equipment on your property requires some level of preventative maintenance periodically check you're termination. Electricity when flowing creates heat and when no amperage is present you have more of an ambient temperature thus termination over time will loosen because when metals heat and cools it is moving.
Personally, I like the Bugaboo inclusion. Thanks!
Steve
I love seeing Bugaboo, never feel like there's too much kitty in your vlog!
You guys are doing a great job! I mean this in the absolute best way possible, if you would like to learn a little bit more about solar power I would be happy to discuss it with you. Not saying I know more than you guys but I have seen and continue to see some issues with your system. Just remember to recognize the difference between "works" and "works right". Just because you manage to charge a battery and pull juice out of it doesn't mean the system is working efficiently or optimally. Keep up the great work, very exciting to see the progression!
Nerd Alert... Guilty as charged! LOLGreat upgrade guys. Glad to see you're doing a few things to make life a little more comfortable.
Food for thought. Put the battery box right under the panels and put the inverter rite in the battery box so you are putting 110V over the wire to the RV.
I like to see how much you love and respect that cat!
Love the cat. Markings are spectacular. Disposition is dog like. Ton of personality. Very vociferous. And of course, it loves you.
I enjoy watching your videos, you guys seem really happy and work together as a team , what a great life. Some jerks video popped up that has a solar farm at his house after I watched your latest huckleberry solar video. Man that guy was a jerk, eating his burrito and drinking his blue moon beer! Don't listen to these negative people. It's impressive that you guys try all of this in your own. You are making the most out of what you have and can afford . I'll keep watching!
handsome kitty . cats keep evil spirits at bay and no home is safe without them .
Very good job explaining for people who don't know much about this stuff !
I'm no expert but from my research the diversion load is for when the batteries are topped off and you have a wind mill. When there is minimal draw the generator in a mill will produce less power by basically reducing resistance and allows the blades to spin faster which could inevitably get damaged. By diverting the draw to another destination, usually a water heater element, it keeps the wind mill from spinning too quickly.
Yup I have one of those in My solar system. I have a Midnite Classic 200 too because my input voltage on one array is to high for the Flexmax.
Very nice I went with the Midnight classic 150 running 2880 watts on my 5th wheel at 12volts .
I've been watching you for a while, but I've never commented before. I've always wondered though, why you don't build a shed up next to the solar panels and put the battery bank, inverter and charge controller up there? Running high voltage down the hill would give you so much less voltage drop trouble than what you're doing with DC.
Batteries will be located in the basement of the home and panels may be mounted elsewhere, likely on a pole. Until home is built, we're avoiding doing anything permanent.
Pure Living for Life , I've been working with electricity for a long time, but not solar at all so I'm no expert. A simplified(and probably partially incorrect) understanding I have is this..depending on wire size that 100 foot run is gonna cost you about 2-3 volts. When you pull that off DC 12 volts, that's huge. If the inverter were at the top of the hill you would send 120v down which(with cheaper wire I might add) would still be 117-118 volts by the time it gets to the bottom of the hill. I feel like the simple move would probably have increased daily output of your old system by 15-20% daily without any additional purchases. Either way, when you get closer to your finished building out there, I feel like it should always be I your plan to have the solar equipment as close to the panels as possible. Someone with more experience chime in. Also, I love what you're doing, I wish I was up I the mountains doing this myself instead of sweating my butt off in Orlando...good work you two.
Pure Living for Life You would be better served by digging a hole and building a small shed with an access door next to the solar panels. This will keep the batteries cool in summer and fairly warm in the winter. Put your inverter in the shed with the batteries and run AC wire to the house, this will make everything much better and more efficient as well.
Pure Living for Life you need to install a bank of MAXWELL SUPER CAPACITORS in parallel with your battery bank . this would add surge capacity easing the starting of high draw devices like A/C and make certain that your cables are of sufficient guage to run the distance .
enator71 Yeah, it isn't rocket science, dig a pit, insulate it, cover it, add a hatch, get on with it.
You keep mixing current, power and voltage.
Voltage is between two points, like the connections of your battery.
Current is that what starts running as soon as your two connections are connected.
Power is the total of energie available.
Some forms:
# voltage = current * resistance.
# power = voltage * current.
Now, if you have a high resistance cable connecting your panels to the batteries, you will loose a lot of power in the cable. Therefor, you try to use cables with low resistance, normally you come to higher diameter of the cables.
The protrusions on the back are to maintain 1/4" spacing between the mounting surface and the casing per national electric code. precipitation and dust run behind it to reduce corrosion or pooling water on the outdoor equipment.
PV/ off grid power is something that is very foreign to me. Love these videos. Gives myself a heads up on things to look out for.
Nerd and proud. I got excited when you mentioned you could do some programming on it.
I love it when Bugaboo makes an appearance on your videos
I own FM80, with 4 * 250 watts in series, 12 volt system. Great controller.
I have two of these. One has 12 12v panels,3 sets of 4 panels in series and 4 24v panels in series
I wasn't snoring I have a sinus issue.... honest! Thanks for the info, all this solar stuff is interesting to a geek like me. Who knows when this knowledge might come in handy.
Good info, and yes, I am a nerd. =) Time to make assumptions, and we know where that goes. You have 8 batteries, I assume they are 6V. You could wire 2 sets of 4 batteries in series, and parallel those two sets to get you to 24V. Jess, you mentioned adding another panel, that would give you 4-12V panels, again, wire 2 sets of 2 in series, and parallel wire the 2 sets, to again give you 24V PV. Then your whole systems would be running at 24V. The higher the voltage, the smaller gauge wire can be used. I have the feeling you know this already, but want to help out where I can. Love you guys, pet Bugaboo for me. Keep up the helpful and informative work you blessed folks are doing.
Glad to see you moving up.
A linear actuator would assist maximizing sun intake with a solar tracker. Pretty cool stuff.
Like others mentioned already... rewire the panels you already have in series and raise the voltage higher for that long run.
I watched to the end....but I`m not a nerd, I was waiting to see if Bugger-Boo would come back :)
You didn't tear up Bug-a-boo's new toy did ya, the cardboard box. Cats love cardboard boxes, cut an access hole on the side close the top. Now he has a private place to sleep and play in. My cats have a multi-level cardboard condominium, and one level is divided into multi-rooms. They love it, if we don't see them, that's where they will be. Keeps them occupied.
And for the juice, get a bicycle hooked up to a generator, loose weight and make juice at the same time. But only in your spare time.
I enjoyed your presentation. The features of this unit are very nice and should be required features of any non-trivial system. You should be very thankful there are nerds like myself to design, test and manufacture such wonderful components of a battery-power system. Thank you. Now, let's see your careful installation of this.
Very cool guys, look forward to see you incorporate this into your system!
OkY, I am a nerd, so I will own that, BUT this was great! You guys are so good at communicating! I found this very helpful, as I do your entire channel. Thank you!
Loving the daily upload. keep up the amazing job.
Rubber Wilbur NWO You bit on it ! LOL! Get off your lazy butt and go build a homestesd the way you want to. So hush your yap and pass the popcorn! Rubber Wilbur??? Never mind.... I dont care.
I have the 60 and it's a good unit, though the fan is a little loud when it comes on. I have 9 panels at 240W and 8 x 600AH batteries.
I might be missing something but why don't you use on of the Battery boost capacitor banks to help with loading from the Freezer and the AC when they kick on. I don't mean to be rude and apologize if it comes out that way. I deal with 12V a lot as an amateur radio operator and one of the ways to both smooth out power and reduce the loading for transmission is to put a Capacitor bank in between the batteries and the radio. Smooths out the drop and also reduces loading on the batteries.
Hope that helps and like I said not meaning to be rude you folks are doing great. My kids and I completely are looking forward to your success.
K om
T
Cats LOVE boxes...!!! If you get Bugaboo a bunch of cardboard boxes he'll have the time of his life... He wants IN...!!!
Have the FlexMax80 on my solar boat. Great choice!
dont forget to run the panels in serie as far as you can. higher volt on the cables down instead of current and losses:)
WHOOOP WHOOOP WHOOOP! Nerd alert! Watched it to the end. Thanks you guys. Keep up the great work, you are an ispiration to us all.
Outback Flexmax 80 CC........Now Your Cooking!!! I have a Flexmax 60 and have had no problems with it what so ever! They are a great Great System...... Yes Sir....Outback!!!
I'm a dog person, but i dont want to stop watching your video. I like what you do too much to care about cat moments.
I'd prefer a controller that I can connect to my laptop via Bluetooth to see what the performance of everything is. This one is nice since it steps down the voltage for different source configurations.
You are right, not everyone likes cats, But I'm not one of those people although I did used to be, but my cat Macy has won my heart.. lol
cat dont care, she just wants the box. lol
what a seriously adorable kitty!!! nice solar goodness!!!
Hi have 1 off these as well. Great unit. Works with my ABB inverter and sungrow hybrid. Great video guys thanks.
Looks like things are moving along (which requires a lot of planning, budgeting, coordinating along with many speed bumps...), congrats~ I used to ask one of my cats questions like how Jesse did it and my cat's reactions were just like Bugaboo lol
Someone must
have made a nice donation to your support fund.
Cat is eating off the grid rats..
organic rats
hercules3782 you missed the joke for about a mile...
Love all the daily content, man we're getting spoiled.. Love Bugaboo being included extra too! Oh, you definitely had me snoring, lol 😉😄😅
You are definitely getting there.
Try to do your long runs A/C (alternating current) and not D/C (direct current) like it comes off the cells as. You'll have much less loss. Or perhaps have the battery bank under the solar panels, then run A/C to your trailer from there and you should get much less loss. D/C over any distance will result in huge power losses as you heat the wiring basically.
A Suggestion and/or something to consider.. It might be good if you consider another TWO-or-Three more Photo Panels.. Then, condense or re-position the Panels, Battery Bank and Controller.. That will shorten the #4 Gauge Wire.. Of course, everything costs money..
Bugaboo is such a cute cat.
Darn I think you 2 are awesome and I have watched you from the start, but I see you have some people that do not think the way I do and I do not understand why they watch your site, but please keep the videos coming I really enjoy them.
That is such an awesome charge controller
Hi Jesse did you realise that you can configure your panels to 24v but still leave your batteries 12v so you can still run everything as 12v, that's what I did !! What that means is on cloudy days because your panels are 24v their bring in a higher 24v amps or current but when it reaches the charge controller it KNOWS your battery bank is 12v so it converts the 24v back to 12v but the amps remain the same as 24v almost !! For example these are just numbers at this point but hopefully you'll see what I'm getting at, if you have a12v panel setup that brings in 6 amps to the controller it will then put about 6 amps into the battery bank, same panels now setup as 24v say bring in 12 amps to the controller that doesn't mean 12 amps is going to the batteries ! What the controller does it realises there 24v at 12 amps but at the same time it knows your batteries are still setup as 12v so in fact instead of putting the 12 amps into the batteries the controller ups the amps to 15- 16 amps roughly, so the controller takes the 12 amps at 24v PLUS HALF the amps you would've got on 12v which was 3 amps and adds them together to give you the final amps of 15-16 amps which is what you want on overcast days. I hope you understand what I'm getting at !! Seeya Rob
I must have a different idea of what living "off grid" is about. I've been watching those Alaska life tv series for years and am always shocked how much money those people have to run their lives, HUGE equipment, backhoes, bulldozers, snow mobiles, wood saws, etc. etc. I just have no idea how people can afford to live off grid. I do love watching your videos though, you both have such an upbeat look at life and it's good to see others enjoying their life! :-)
I'm where you stand in solar knowledge and I also love cats! His name is Churro!
All the cat was wanting was the empty box. It could not care less about the charge controller.
LOL cats like "WOOT I GET A BOX!"
Lucitt13 “
Don't worry... there are those of us that like cats as much as you. ;)
Not really a cat person, mind you I don't totally dislike them, but that was a good looking cat. This was an interesting follow up to the last video I saw. Thanks.
You're a good man, Jesse. Wish I could come out and help sometime.