My proposed system for South West TX..

[epsgunner]

Hi folks..

I decided to do my proposed setup for my offgrid cabin out in SW Texas..

Starting with...

6- 130W 12v Kyoceras in series of 2 (for 24v) and parallel all 3 strings.. 780 array. and 22.17 max amps.. $1250.. (at 52% system effeciency it would be 405.6/hour * 5 = 2028 watts per day).. others have thrown number of 77% system eff..
Morningstar TS-45 PWM 12/24/48v Controller.. $155
Samlex PST-1000-24A 1000w Pure Sine Inverter.. $350
8-Trojan T-105 (or equivalent). $1200
Wires, brackets, breakers, 6 breaker combiner box.. $364

Total comes to $3319..

The cabin is just 12'x24' with a barn type roof so I'll be adding a sleeping 5-6' lost up top in the back half..

I get 6-7 hours of usable daylight facing South (in the summer).. (no trees or anything).. I have my angles for the 3 phases as well.. The winter sun is South also.. The panels will be movable to  change position and tilt and on POLES and not the building..

The needs are:
Water pump @ .9a AC 110v (Shurflo 3 gpm).. (on a switch to limit run to water usage)..
Small fridge 5-9 cu ft. 110v. (going to put on a timer for every 3 hours to go on for 1 hour..)
Small 5K A/C for about 2 hours a day MAX (to cool the back 1/2 of the cabin)... 110v (550watt/hour (or 55 amps DC / hour))
2-3 13watt CFL bulbs.. laptop, and maybe a LCD TV..

The reason I chose the MS TS-45 controller over the Xantrex is 5 extra amps and the 5 year warranty..

I could MAX my system amperage by doubling to 12 of these panels.. 6 (series) in parallel and be at 44.34 amp max.. The VOC for the circuit is 43.4.. which give me a little cold weather wiggle..

The Samlex 1000 Watt inverter has a 2 year warranty as well.. (which I may go with a 1500 w version before I order this stuff in a few weeks..)

I was going to go with just 24v panels.. but the costs are almost equal.. and I found a good deal on the 130w panels.. the 190w panels x 4 would be $1400 and would produce 760 watts..

I was also just told of some big 275 watt panels.. that would give me 1100 watts for about the same price as the 6 - 130 watt panels..   <<< waiting for shipping quote..

I'll order the panels before I fly out.. then I'll hit my local NAPA for there 8146's.. or local Batteries Plus for the GC125.. (226ah rated 6V).. Though the Trojan T-105RE's were just brought to my attention.. with a 2 year warranty and only about $20/battery more..

The A/C would be used only if needed and a max of 2 hours at peak sun time.. so the panels would supplying all but about 15 amps per hour (which would be drawn from the bank of 440ah)..

I'm buying the controller, combiner, & wires 1st.. (I have a small 800w 12v inverter here).. then I can use a local cheap small panel to 'play' with here in NJ before I fly back to TX later in the year for the big install.. Before I fly I will also decide on 1000 w or 1500 w pure sine from Samlex and get that in hand..

What says the crowd?? good starter system??

[epsgunner]

Also note I have a 6 breaker combiner box..  my 10AWG run is 7.75 amps and less than 20' each (1.37% loss).. and the combiner to controller wire is 6 AWG and 1 foot long, and 6 AWG from the controller to the battery bank about 5'.. the battery bank to the inverter will be 2 AWG and just about 3'..   

At 24v system operations the wires I chose should be GTG..

[XeonPony]

LMAO Identicle to what I did! Only I used 135w and got overcharged on cost of pannels. I am afriad how ever you will have to use a tristar 60 (And don't waste time with any thing other then mppt ) to keep in the ratings and as for the rest will be fine, I easily generate 2Kw to 1.6Kw daily depending on how much juice I suck out of em.

- Get a proper DC fridge, mine is a hair smaller then a full sized fridge and uses less then 60Ah a day.

- Never mind the switch for the pressure pump use a larg pressure tank w/ a flow restrictor for the water.  The best thing for the pump is to let it run for longer at one go rather then off on off on in short cycles, with that small white pressure tank I get 6 pots coffe befor the pump needs to kick in. as for the flow restrictor I use a ultra fine Carbon ice filter so I don't get blowen off my fet from the tap lol.  For your set up I'd get a 20 to 40 gallon tank. set the tank to 2 psi - difriencial in other words my sureflow kicks in at 40 so the tank pressure is set to 38psi.

Air con same thing no issue it could be run all night and it would only bring you to 68% dod. The pannels will have ya to float by noon! Assuming the 440 is 1/2 of total ampacity of the battery bank My battery bank was sized to using 960Ah total using the Excide 6v - 224Ah golf cart batteries 8 of them in series perallel

Every thing ells sounds dandy!