Author Topic: Best Off Grid Set Up?  (Read 12927 times)

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Harold in CR

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Re: Best Off Grid Set Up?
« Reply #33 on: April 16, 2017, 09:34:04 AM »
George65

 Problem with wood gas, just as you say with WVO, it's all about how it's done. A properly built woodgas burner would have the gas cooled down before entering the traps/filters. The one I might copy, shows the maker holding the gas delivery pipe bare handed, before it gets to the sawdust filter. He has a glass jar to catch the tars and can simply unscrew it to clean it.

 I have the original 20 HP Honda V-twin from the sawmill. I have cleaned the carb, along with wife's son (excellent mechanic) MY son, another pretty good mechanic all around smart guy, and the engine will only idle IF it manages to fire up and run at all. Takes a special "pulse fed" carb, and they go for over $200.00 + USD. Then, I get the privilege of buying $6.00 + gallon of gasoline.

 I would love to find some unpolished SS milk line tube to build mine, along with a SS barrel and a SS beer keg for the filter. In the states, I can find that stuff easily, just shipping eats the shorts.

 Damn, we are really jacking the OP's thread now.  ::)

Mary B

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Re: Best Off Grid Set Up?
« Reply #34 on: April 16, 2017, 04:14:24 PM »
For stainless kegs maybe check for these in your country. Formerly used to hold coke or pepsi syrup products that was then mixed with carbonated water. Beer brewers now use them as beer kegs. This is my new beer fridge I am setting up. They are called Cornelius kegs, pin lock kegs, ball lock kegs and can be found on Craigslist, ebay, and online sources. I paid $35 each for these with disconnects and new O ring sets.


Harold in CR

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Re: Best Off Grid Set Up?
« Reply #35 on: April 16, 2017, 07:18:06 PM »

 Thanks Mary, but, down here, any metal found goes directly to the scrap dealers. It's nearly impossible to find scrap metal for projects. I have asked around for anything for scrap, but, none available. There are small pickups running up and down the roads looking for metal, even the 30 ga. old rotten corrugated roofing they pick up.

clockmanFRA

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Re: Best Off Grid Set Up?
« Reply #36 on: April 17, 2017, 04:10:45 AM »
Hi FoggyNotion, again.

Back onto topic ..... I will have a stab at it........

Off Grid is always going to be difficult to fully understand, as there are so many variable's with your own particular situation.

However, the World is changing, and folk see generating and using their own created power as a big step forward, and forums like here, independent folk/organizations like ours, are slowly spreading the Word .

Economically /cost effectively batteries are a problem, I and many others stick to tried and tested lead acid.
Our philosophy here at 'Echorenovate' in Normandy, France, ........ Keep it Simple, Make it Robust, and Keep it Cost Effective.

Novemeber 2016……… The below, from 'Oztules', Flinders Island, Australia, is a very good , uptodate, synopsis of the state of Renewable Energy for the normal Domestic Household.

My apologies if I have posted this here before? .....


Totally Off Grid With Solar. ?

“There are a few installations down here now that came in around the $15000 dollar mark.

They use 10kw of solar, home brew inverter, home brew solar controller, and 35kwh battery banks.

They have no other form of power except they do have generator change over if necessary.

So far that has never been required but for one exception... out on one of the islands parks and wildlife had a rat eradication team over in the worst sort of solar weeks we have ever seen 10 days of heavy rain... and 15 people... this was a bit much, and the genny ( 5hp with modified car alternator) ran for a day..... thats it... power was rationed after that as the 15 city folk had no idea of conservation, and left the shearing shed lights on all night (600w for 14 hrs before the sun comes up), 15 ;lots of phones and ipads, and coffee urn all day and night etc... it was not a fair go really...

Apart form that event, there has been no generator support that I know of on the other sites.
As a rough rule of thumb at 40 degrees south, if you normally use 15kwh/day then use 15kw of solar panels.... if that includes hot water, maybe a few more.

If you don't go silly on the very dark days, ( not just overcast, but dark) you should only use the genny for maintenance starts.. just to see if it still starts.

I find that 10kw will generate about 8-10 amps in truly terrible light ( 48v system), and more than you can choke on when it is light cloud or sun.... thats 400-500w.

If the heavy cloud brightens up even a little bit, your suddenly up in the 20-40 amp and more but still 8/8 cloud and pretty heavy... 8/8 cloud of single layer, and your back up in the 40-80 amps range... so it takes a miserable day to pull you down.

If you go up to the 15kw arrays, your making more than normal quiescent current no matter what the weather is, and should get 6-7kwh at the very worst... you can live with this as a generality... ie fridges, freezers, lighting and most other stuff except for heating and cooling and hot water.

With the cost of solar panels now, particularly second hand 250 watt panels, that 15kw array is cheap as nuts.... probably in the $7000 range, which leaves $6000 for batteries... and thats too much really, and a few thousand for inverter and controller and fixing materials.

Lets be clear, there is no need for a monster battery or an expensive battery, better to use golf cart ones that will last 5 years, and replace them every 5 years.

6x220ah american batteries can be found for $200, so a 24 battery bank will only be $5000 ( you will probably get more years than that as they will rarely be discharged beyond 25%... and that should give 3000 cycles)

Stylish expensive cells ( whilst I like them very much) are not necessary to produce a better system.

Panels are key and the only thing that is critical, charge controllers are of little interest if you make your own, and mppt is next to useless for this setup... simple 150amp pwm will do fine... maybe $100, inverter around the $300 if using aerosharps or inspires.... point the panels any where you have access too. N, S, E ,W.... east is particularly useful to get the recharge going early, so a 3-4 kw looking east is a good thing, a few kw west, the rest can be almost flat... just enough to self clean, pointing any place.

It really is cheap to go off grid if you ignore the experts, and their fancy add on's.

You only need expensive add ons ( auto generator support and fancy software in your inverter) if your system is inadequate to start with, and now that can be solved with panels..... and you can build 2 of everything for next to nothing so redundancy is a given.

The world has changed simply because power is easy to get now panels are cheap. Thats my 2 cents worth, and it is working on installations down here.

Inverters are now only about $100 to build the electronics now, so I have plenty of spare change over units now.  ( oddly, non have failed yet... I felt sure the island ones would as they are the hardest to get to... but no..)

When the name brands fail ( and they do), it has taken weeks for the owners over here to get back on line.... no fault of the australian manufacturers/agents, but remoteness is everything, and real inverters are not trivial to transport off island and back... could build half a dozen for just the cost of freight alone if we use air freight.


All kinds of things become irrelevant, such as cooling for panels.. we don't want any, so you can clamp directly to the roof if you want, as ventilation is a waste of effort.. we actually want attenuation when it gets hot... coz that means the suns out, and we have probably 7 times the power we actually want then... some losses would be more than welcome. Line loss is a good thing now for the same reason.. when there is lots of current, there is actually way way too much, so losses are irrelevant too, and when the light is poor, the losses will be tiny/non-existent.

Mppt is useless for the same reason, may help when the light is poor, but that will be very rare for the complicated electronics that that brings, and the thousands of dollars that will add to the system.. for what? (15kw of mppt is not cheap... 15kw of pwm is a hundred bucks or so)


But I am the village idiot after all, and am a bit different in my views too.

I will do a thing on the solar controller soon ( Time??? ), and a thing on how to modify the 39 dollar 350w 48v pwm power supplies ( led lighting they use them for) to use as battery chargers. They should work off the shelf, but they don't have adequate o/current protection, so last night I fixed up the three that I blew up testing them( they lasted 10 seconds), and added current control.... now it is a proper tough charging alternative... ie a 40 amp charger for 48v system (38 up to 58v) is now $240 dollars and free shipping.... so you can set the current and the voltage ( I would set for 56... and leave it) Thats 6 units in parallel... and you can keep paralleling them..
...........oztules   
[/i]

'Oztules' can write and get his point over far better than I can.

2017 April ........ I now use the second hand/used GTI, (Grid tied Inverters) taking 10kW of PV. Our 48vdc to 230vac Pure Sine Wave OzInverter, can take the GTI input and charge backwards to the batteries.
And yes the OzInverter can be set at 60HZ or 50HZ or 230vac to 110vac.

Although I still have 5kW of PV charging the batteries on independent charge controllers just to finish/float my precious 1300ah, 48v batteries.

Perhaps some members here could put a booklet together on the real actual basics? ......



« Last Edit: April 17, 2017, 04:25:05 AM by clockmanFRA »
Everything is possible, just give me time.

OzInverter man. Normandy France.
http://www.bryanhorology.com/renewable-energy-creation.php

3 Hugh P's 3.7m Wind T's (12 years) .. 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (8 yrs) .. 9kW PV AC coupled to OzInverter MINI Grid, back charging AC Coupling to 48v 1300ah battery

Mary B

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Re: Best Off Grid Set Up?
« Reply #37 on: April 17, 2017, 04:31:27 PM »
I would not want to be a ham radio operator within 10 miles of 15kw of PWM! Can you say RFI?