You normally want to be able to bring you batteries back to full charge in 1 or 2 days of good sun. The deeper you discharge them and the longer that they stay discharged will shorten the battery life. Heat and cold will effect the batteries, just like it does your car battery. Extreme cold will cut down on the amp hours you can pull from the batteries and extreme hot means you will have to add water more often. If they are in the garage and it is ventilated there will probably not be a problem here in OK. If you build a battery storage box that is ventilated I would insulate it. That will help keep the temps from changing real fast. I keep my AGM batteries in my shop building which is insulated and I do not let it get below 32.
Battery bank limit is a good question. I really don't know for sure. jrusling? I would think the main affect would be recharge time. It would take longer to recharge more batteries than fewer. The more wattage you have going into you battery bank (more panels or higher wattage panels) the faster they will charge. The more batteries you have the longer it takes to charge, etc. Therefore you could have more batteries than your panels could recharge if you have a constant usage from them.
As far as temperature I think if you stick with deep cycle batteries (AGM, marine, golf cart etc.) you will be ok. They are designed to be more tolerant of temperature variations then a regular car battery.
As far as temperature I think if you stick with deep cycle batteries (AGM, marine, golf cart etc.) you will be ok. They are designed to be more tolerant of temperature variations then a regular car battery.
Keep in mind that charge controllers are normally rated in AMPs and for a given voltage. You can get setups from 12 volts to 48 volts. For a small system I recommend a 12 volt system. You also want you batteries capacity to match as close as possible. It is best to get your batteries at the same time and from the same lot. It is also better not to let you batteries go below 80 % of their charge level. Most inverters will automatically cut off at 10 volts or a little higher.
Sounds like I need to start fairly small, maybe 100W, but with key components (charge controller, inverter) large enough to expand both capacity and storage. Initially, I guess I could also go larger on the battery bank since I wouldn't initially have enough load to discharge it very deeply or often, and fewer panels would be able to keep them topped off.
I'd like the option to run some small appliances in the future, like a small freezer and/or refrigerator, and I've read that there's lots of stuff designed for RVs that would work well for this type of application.
I'd like the option to run some small appliances in the future, like a small freezer and/or refrigerator, and I've read that there's lots of stuff designed for RVs that would work well for this type of application.
So don't mix and match battery type (AGM with lead acid), or Amp-hour ratings, assuming the batteries are the same age and condition?
If you don't want to spend a lot, but have everything you need so that if the generator goes down, northern tool has a 100w ish setup. Wait until it is on sale and use their coupons. While not high end, it works and with a couple of boat or RV batts will save running a generator as much. Also for emergency situations, get a couple of the bat packs with USB connectors. Small light handy and cheap. I once ran my house and my neighbors for 10 days off of a welder. Anything works in a pinch, but if you have a choice, make it easy on yourself. .02
Right.
I was wondering about this. It would help out quite a bit. Maybe not to go larger, but higher quality.
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