I found a deal on 4000 watts of solar panels for $400 but they are high voltage like 200 volts per panel. Am I correct to assume these are not suitable for DIY off grid projects?
Why would you assume this?
>>2977191All the cheap charge controllers max out around 50 volts. As near as I can figure I would save money on the panels but then have to buy a $600 charge controller.
>>2977193Yeah, the voltage is a problem. Even 48v inverters have an 800v max on the mppts. You can't string very many of these together. Like, I'd do 3, and at max current of 2.3-ish amps, you're not getting much out of these panels. The burden of finding equipment to make use of these things is a lot. If you haven't bought them, walk away. If you have, find a bigger sucker.
>>2977203>If you haven't bought them, walk away.I didn't. What do you think about these 580 watt panels. The voltage is lower. Would it be reasonable to put 4 in parallel?
Dam up a nearby valley and use the output of the panels to pump water into your new reservoir. Pumps are simple things and will happily use 200 volts. You can then use off the shelf hydro equipment to get electricity out of the reservoir's gravity potential.
>>2977188High low amp can use smaller wire tho from the panels to the controller Probably a good deal for the right set-up
You can easily just parallel them into a 3-5sXp at 800-1000V strings with a 1500V rated inverter, it's not rocket science. This really isn't much different than regular solar panels, maybe cabling will be slightly more messy. If there's nothing wrong with the panels then it's perfectly fine to buy these. Older inverters have issues with the high voltage, but all modern inverters are at the very least 400V-ish.https://rentry.co/solarshit
>>2977209These are similar to panels I bought for myself. 40-50 VOC lets you string 10 together and occupy one MPPT. Do this twice and you have enough energy to feed a single family home at 49 degree latitudes in the winter. As long as you're using heat pumps for heat and hot water, anyway.
Then convert volts into amps :>
>>2977303>10kWpThat produces a good 1kWh per day on a cloudy winter day, you better be well insulated.
>>2977322Limiting air leakage first. Casement and awning windows, plus Henry VPTech exterior insulation. The insulation matters, but controlling air leakage matters more.This is 2 strings of 10 each 350w panels for 7kw nominal btw. I'll still have 12 panels left over.
>>2977337> why did you suffocate to death anon?I eliminated all sources of “air leakage”
>>2977358HRV. Delivers fresh air to the building without wasting heat energy from stale conditioned air. Required by code and by sane HVAC specifications for tight envelopes in states with 21st century building standards. I forgot you might live in a shithole state so the inclusion of an HRV or ERV may not be implicit.
>>2977193>All the cheap charge controllerswell then don't get the cheap ones. simple as.
What do those boxes do anyways?A step down transformer isnt hard to make and if its dc it can be converted to ac. Lastly if you need to store the energy theres car batteries. What am i missing?
>>2977378Everything, you're an idiot, give up and apply for autismbux.
>>2977362>Heh, I've spent $15k with $200 average yearly upkeep to save $500 per year on the utility bill, am I a genius or what
>>2977193True if simple 12 or 24V off grid system. Hybrid inverter chargers can handle (and also use) the extra voltage. They are 10 times as expensive but then delicious AC. Vevor has a cheap one.
>>2977448Well if the op wants to cheap out on spending $600 on a box i think there is a way to diy it and it could end up being cheaper if hes willing to put in the time. There are some things that are not practical to diy sure. Like soldering ram or making a fancy radio duplex transmitter or more complex circuits but this does not strike me as one of those things. Idk theres metal transformers from microwaves that have good iron cores though those are a bit scary and need to be discharged.>or you get socked to death
>>2977545>socked to death
>>2977378Depends on the "box"Cheap pwm charge controllers do what it says on the box. Run pwm to reduce panel voltage down to whatever voltage is needed for charging the battery. They may have some simple charge logic or may just a be a dumb "Here's 13.6v, enjoy". They are terribly inefficient and don't work if panel voltage drops below what you want out.Mppt use either a buck converter, or buck boost converter and a bunch of microelectronics to shift around voltage and current input vs output to match the panel as it's power output changes due to clouds, time of day, shade, etc. An inverter was also mentioned, in which case the, typically mppt, charge controller also has a DC to AC inverter tacked on, giving out whatever your country's flavor of power.Mind you, for any real power we are talking 150+ volt systems, can easily be 400, 800, or even 1000 volts. Not very diy friendly. On the other end, a small 24v or 48v system with a couple 100 watt panels can prolly make a diy controller feasible, but once again, a low voltage system of any real power will be passing around 100+amps. Not diy friendly.So no, unless all you want is a small pwm system to run a couple lights, you are not realistically going to diy anything to do with the "boxes"
