completely confused!

[smokepolehall]

we know i need a power supply. i have read the posts & the 12vdc battery bank isn't the the best choice. so the Horizontal 5HP eng. with alt. is the way to go for on demand power & charging battery bank, correct ? so which battery bank should i build & volt output ?

 it must convert it to ac power for the few things we use in cabin. next year i can add solar panels of 125 watt per or smaller because best shipping costs. advice needed before i waste hundreds more. thanks

[wooferhound]

Here are some stories that will help you out a lot choosing your system voltage.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2009/4/1/152857/2102

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2008/8/31/202716/222

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2006/10/8/15588/1235

[smokepolehall]

seems the 24v system is within my funding & has less loss & abit smaller copper wiring. do you know if the Energizer EGC2 6v batterys are any good ? if not then i will have to go with another brand. thx

[ghurd]

That is commonly called "Sam's Club 6V golf cart battery".

I used quite a few.  No complaints.  I figure it is a Trojan or Interstate.

It gets my vote for best bang for the buck.  $71 + $9 core charge.  Scrounge up the old batteries in the neighborhood because (locally) they will take anything in for the core.

G-

[smokepolehall]

thx, do you know of an affordable brand of 24vdc inverters ?

[ghurd]

I do not.  Not with how you are using affordable.  And a known name, with decent and affordable is impossible.

Most known name 24V are very good quality.  Not cheap.

The unknown names are not so big on quality, from what I have seen.  Be careful about sellers who overly boast the item.

There is a fairly large gap between junk and premium 24V inverters, at least as far as I can tell.

Best bet is probably finding something used.

Tripp lite, Statpower, Trace... They used to have more 24V available than now.  Used ones pop up from time to time.

G-

[zeusmorg]

 I think if I was designing a small system that I would pick 24 v also. There are good deals on inverters out there that are 24 v, you just have to look a lot. Most of the "cheap" ones are 12 v, and they are generally that.. cheap.

 In a nutshell you need to keep it as close to the vest as possible it seems. Have you looked at other uses for RE energy? like Hot water heating, It's possible to design a gravity flow system that uses absolutely no electricity, ac or dc, although the efficiency of them are lower. I don't know how you heat your water now but biggest bang for buck is solar water, even in space heating. For that you should look at gary gary's site. http://builditsolar.com/  There are a lot of informative articles there and plenty of money saving ideas! Worth spending some time reading.

[smokepolehall]

i have built a 16 gal poly tank painted blk thats been getting water warm enough for showers this summer. i have a 3 gal propane hot water heater we will use this fall & winter. i will look at the site you put up for me thx