Parts List(Affiliate Links) Used Solar Panels: shorturl.at/gAHNV LiFePO4 Battery: amzn.to/3BaiBFr Inverter: amzn.to/48mE2yK Solar Charge Controller: amzn.to/3Pxfc7S Solar Extension Cables: amzn.to/46vKjqc Battery Cables: amzn.to/3ZbZ66E Battery Cable Fuse: amzn.to/3LjPXTZ (For positive battery cable) Battery Monitor/Shunt: amzn.to/3Tehjz2 Other Suppliers: SanTan Solar (Used Solar Panels): shorturl.at/vSW28 (Discount Code: "DIYsolarfun5") Signature Solar: shorturl.at/fPW27 CurrentConnected: shorturl.at/pLNR1 ShopSolarKits: shopsolarkits.com/1302 (Discount Code: RAY101) Ruixu Batteries: www.ruixubattery.com/?ref=fOKapj_VLUpGf4 *Chapters* 0:00 Intro 1:03 Equipment 2:14 How much solar do you need to run a fridge in SUNNY CONDITIONS 10:46 How much solar do you need to run a fridge in CLOUDY OR STORMY CONDITIONS 20:46 Conclusion & Costs
Great video...one point I can add... The refrigerator does not run continuously... Monitor your model for a week...it is a great way to insure your foods... I run a chest freezer and a small 7.5 cu ft refrigerator/ freezer...one Lifepo4 100ah battery and two 165watt mono panels...30amp controller... I do live in fl🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞 solar is best small scale... multiple sets so you always have a good source instead of standing in the dark with a flashlight trying to figure out what's wrong with one inverter and one battery set up... Just like circuit breakers in the house, have separate lines for each line that you want... refrigeration ,lighting computers security cameras ,you name it everybody gets an individual circuit...
Glad I found this video. A year ago, I set up a 48V system with a Victron 150/45 charge controller and 2800-ish watts solar fed thru an eco-worthy combiner. I am using 8 6V 215AH lead-acid golf car batteries ($800 for 8 at Sams Club - now $119 ea.) with a balancer to minimize the need for equalization. An impressive little "eBay special" 2000W (4000W surge) pure sine wave inverter draws just 6 watts no-load. It's running a freezer (100W) and a side-by-side (200w) house fridge. During the summer, I can run much more, but this is what I've found I can run all winter long, cloudy days and all, without once going to the grid. Doing all the work myself, I have a little less than $4K invested. So far so good. I have not had any cells out-of-balance , no terminal corrosion, and only needed to add 1/2" distilled water ONCE in over a year. I recently added the JBD SmartShunt, and set to a min charge level of 40%. Of the 60% "usable " capacity of these batteries, I have seen them get down to a little below 50% after a few cloudy days. After any day with a little sun, where batt's start at 100%, I usually see the charge process get started with 73% battery still available. When the sun pops out, the system slams a full charge in them before 9:30AM. During the day, the solar delivers what is needed, and batt's just float. In summer, I charge all my 80V brushless lawn care tools off this setup (like catching sunlight in little buckets, lol) I only had to broom snow off 1 time last year... This year could be different... It's a lot of fun, and I like my little "Partial-off-grid-setup".
The way you calculated watt hrs. You have single handedly helped me learn this calculation. 2 years trying. 5000 watt ES growatt. (2) 5120 watt hr 48v eg4. (24) 185 watt panels. 2 series strings in parallel. Now I can KNOW answers to questions I did not. Cg
OK, a few things from someone off grid over 20 years: Your calculation premise was incorrect and what you need to calculate is how much battery capacity you need to run that fridge overnight and on days with low sunshine. A 100 watt solar panel rarely produces 100 watts even under great conditions and you want enough solar to keep that battery charged up while running that fridge so the battery is full charged for night time use. If you figure 5 hours of sunshine which is avg for winter you would need at least 200 watts to power that fridge and put some juice back in the battery if the weather turns cloudy. Then you need a battery with enough capacity to run that fridge for the 19 hours when the sun is not shining. For that fridge I would recommend at least 400 watts of solar and a 200Ah LIFEPO4 battery. If you want to use a better fridge look at the 12/24 volt car fridge/freezer that avg 45-50 watts and are better insulated chest style so they run very little depending on ambient temp. Then you can run one of those off that 100Ah battery and 200 watts of solar. Hope that helps!
Thanks this is the exact video I’ve been looking for what’s the minimum system that can run a full size fridge indefinitely. I haven’t found another similar video yet
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay they come and go, the vinyl backing does have cracks which might let in moisture causing a short, but you'll find that almost never happens.
You paid $260.00 for the 10 panel and then a total of $300 for panels and shipping? Or you paid $260.00 for panels + $300.00 for shipping, for a total of $560.00? I'm not following your total cost on these with shipping.
@@kf4wnf $260 for the panels, and $300 for shipping, for a total of $560. The panels are typically $50 each, but if you watch the site long enough you'll occasionally find them for $32 or less. By the way, the panels work great, I'm getting about 85% of the stated wattage out of them on average in Ohio.
For anyone reading this if your planning on replacing your fridge soon & you want/have a solar system or “solar generator” buy an inverter fridge there very efficient & don’t surge watts
@@jimhofoss9982 they're gradually getting less expensive. Maybe double what you would expect for that capacity if you shop around for a good price. Which is still high, but is becoming doable.
Very cool. I'm doing basically the same thing you are but on a slightly larger scale. You are correct in saying to up the capacity. With my setup, I doubled the capacity and in doing so it lets you take full advantage of all or most of your panels power production window. 400AH @ 48 VDC with 16-250 W used santan solar panels. Good luck
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay 6000 BTU air con for my shed with a fan for circulation. I'll be hooking up a couple of smaller deep freezers when the weather isn't so hot (Florida) and the attic isn't 130 to run separate circuits.
I really liked this video. My systems (three) are for redundancy. my main system is 1020w 24v with two 300ah power queen batteries it runs a fridge a chest freezer, TV, Lights, fantastic fans. My second system is 12v 1020w runs the bedroom, bathroom, fans, lights. It's 4 50ah lithium batteries, I'm planning on doubling those 4. My third system runs the water system alone. It's 12v 510 watts it's got a 1500w inverter with two 50ah lifepo4 in parallel
You have blessed me a great deal my brother! I am as I type this,figuring out my kWh needs for two small systems. The wheelhouse and the carpenter shop. Thank you and may God bless you and your family.
Highly recommend using 24v for cases like this. You will double the watts you can shove in the battery at the same amperage. 48v is even better but gets more pricy and batteries can get a bit large...good for non-mobile use. 24v is a nice happy medium as you cut your current down in half thus reducing cable costs, it's still reasonably portable and it'll take a charge faster from the amps you can use. Also good to check the power factor of things too as a bad PF essentially uses up more capacity on your inverter. I have a charger for my lawn mower batteries and the PF is 0.5 on that thing, my little inverter is only 300 watts so basically it's using twice the power and if I try to run 2 of them it overloads the inverter. If the PF was closer to 1.0 I would be able to run two of them...or if they made a DC charger (GRR)...
I have 1600 watts of solar panels and a 600 watts B&C wind generator. They feed twenty big marine batteries from Autozone. I'm using a 24 volts Aims Power inverter charger, 2000 watts. I used a 40 amps Epever charge controller, 4215 BN. I used all 100 watts panels. I don't have a good exposure to the Sun 🌞 except forty feet away which drops the watts a little bit but gets sun more hours so it actually gets more that way. I have a thousand amp hours of battery bank. I run a freezer and a fridge plus oven, hotplate, sump pump, washing machine, air conditioner, fans, lights, chargers, etc. Saws, drills, no problem. I can get by two days and nights without Sun 🌞, but the wind usually blows and helps. Anyways, each battery almost never gets below 12.3 volts, that's after two days of rain. Mostly they stay at or above 12.45 volts. I just bought two batteries at a time but when I got to twenty everything changed. Kind of like a herd of cows pushing on a fence, lot of power there. Fourteen of my batteries are 105 amp hours and six are 85 amps. I was buying the smaller ones when I was saving up for the Inverter charger. I bought a Winco Lil Dog generator that can charge the battery bank. I've used it once, and after I added the wind generator in March, I haven't had to use it for that anymore. I use it to run my DC inverter welder. I got my stuff to where it works great 👍. I don't use a great amount of power so my batteries are almost always charged up. I have plenty this time of year, and it was okay with 1400 watts of solar panels last year. The year before I had 1000 watts. So I added two more solar panels to see what it does this winter. Last year I could get five to six hundred watts on a clear sunny day. But not for long, the short days kill the power production. The most I have seen is 1020 watts coming in, the max for the controller is 1040. But with the smoke from Canada I'm lucky to get 800. With clouds it averaged around 450 watts most of the day. But somehow it's enough and I just keep going. I didn't know much about it at first, but this will be my third Winter off grid. I have tinkered with it, and it works like I imagined when I used to daydream about having solar.
I just bought the $259 model of the Power Queen battery to run my trolling motor on my new Lowe 1440M jon boat, I have plans to buy another for a 200AH solar build on a small building as to move in when the power goes out. I bought a three item combo on Amazon with a battery box that has a 60amp breaker for trolling motor and 10 amp breaker for usb and 12v hookup and battery level tester all built in, also came with a smart charger that will charge the Power Queen up in 5 hours and if it will run stuff for 17hours as you tested with an invertor than that is still winning in my book! Enjoyed your video.
Here's a good video that shows you when you need to use them and when you don't. You don't need to use them in every situation. th-cam.com/video/s1P31hxlD3I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=w3zU88orr2AAtgy6
Hey, I just want to tell you that I really appreciate this video in particular. I'm in the works for setting up a power system for my off grid parents. The refridurator is sucking up the most power. I'm at a toss up between absorption 3way or a 24v compressor.
My absorption 3-way fridge in my RV is very small and it uses four times the amount of power as my regular 120 volt house fridge. I would definitely go a 24 volts! I think those fridges will even use less power than the one I show in this video
Dude, you've earned a sub. I've just started to dabble into solar with a small Harbor Freight kit, but want to do something bigger and have lots of questions. You are answering some of them.
Thank you for breaking this down so well. Ive been trying to learn solar now for a while to help with our hurricane seasons but got so lost in all the information. Now im confident i can rig up a system to keep the fridge and radio running.
just built a small 2 kw array, for $7000🇨🇦. includes a 90 amp mppt charge controller, 3kw heavy xantrex inverter, capable of 6 kw surge, and six 100 amp/hr agm batteries. Runs continuously. In northern BC, long winters with very little sun.
I have a 5000w/hour battery bank with four 100Ah 12v LifePo4 batteries connected in 24v, I calculated that to get same 4000w/hour usable capacity I would need 7 150Ah AGM batteries that would cost more then the LifePo4 batteries and weigh 170kg more which is to much in a van...
I’m just getting into solar. Doing my homework and came across this page. First off, great in depth information! Just to make sure I’m understanding, the battery powers the fridge through out the night. Then in the morning the solar panels charge the battery and also run the fridge at the same time?
To maximize the PV efficiency, tilting the panels to the sun angle is important. I have 4-100 watt panels in a tiltable frame i made from discarded bed frames. Pressure treated 4x4s sunk 2 feet in the ground with 3 bags of fence post concrete for each post. The frame pivots at a few inches above the center of balance so it's slightly bottom weighted. I used unistrut at the bottom to make my monthly tilt adjustments. I hope you have these panels of the ground now.
I get about 70% of the full watt on my flat mounted solar panels on my box van camper on sunny days. But it seems flat mounted panels give an advantage when it is overcast? I get about 270w from my 1380w of solar panels on cloudy and rainy days which is more then other I know that have their panels optimally angled south. But my panels is mounted 2 and 2 in series giving 80v which people say helps get better charging when it is overcast compared to panels just running 20v and mounted in parallels only at 20v.
Alsome video!! I have a suggestion that could maximize the performance of your panels. Paint your fence white. It will reflect more light into the panels. Hope this helps. God bless
A couple issues I have in winter months your looking at much less sun hrs if any for multiple days so min 5kwh battery just for fridge partly because your battery will not charge up completely daily and to charge your system your looking at the min sun hrs days plus max solar panels 1100kwh panels. To charge and have your system on float most days if your system is not on float mode you need more power or solar.
100 ah = 269 dollar 2 x 100ah batt = 538 dollar ( 1 x 200ah = 579 dollar ??). Better have 2 x100ah Is better because if one is broken you still can use the fridge ( wtshf) And always use the same batt in all of your home inst. so you always can change the batts . Greetings from 🇳🇱 the netherlands 👋
A fridge uses around 1500w when it starts, so one 100Ah battery is normally not enough to get the fridge started. You need two 100Ah batteries or need to use a large capacitor or a capacitor bank of around 1farad (I think it was recommended). I measured the power usage of a large 2m wide old freezer and a normal size old fridge to be on average 70W total together measured over 1 month in the summer, so a fridge and freezer do not use much when they are running, it is only the start where it used about 1500w for several seconds that is the problem (when a fridge is running I think it uses 400w or something like that, but normally it do not run often).
Great video. There are days when the sky is so dark you will get no power what so ever. You really need another battery or two, to get you through those days. More solar panels would not hurt either. I have learn you cannot have too much solar panels. I have 16 panels on my RV and I can stay in the desert with the only limitation is food , water and dump. There has been a couple of times in the last several years I had no choice but to fire up my noisey thirsty generator, which is something I hate to do.
Good valuable info Ray! Just got our new (D2M) Ecoflow Delta 2 Max (2Kw LiFePo4). I’m running your test using two 340w Qcell panels I picked up from Santan Solar in Savannah before they closed. On sunny days the panels can farm from 1.25-1.5 Kw/Day. Up to 3Kw per day for both of them. And the D2M has two charge controllers, each with a max input of 500w and 60v. It’s more than enough to run my fridge, and the D2M soaks up as much as it can before getting maxed out. The maxed D2M easily runs the fridge until the next sun cycle. As you mentioned, you don’t want to waste solar power, so, I’m going to add another circuit, probably modem/router/tv, and see if the panels and D2M can handle that as well as the fridge. Like you, we have an RV with 2Kw LFP and 300w solar that we can run an extension cord from to input into the ac input on the D2M.
Nice setup you got there. Sounds like you'll always have cold food :). I love LFP in my RV. I'm going to be reviewing the Bluetti AC200Max as an RV battery replacement option soon.
Bluetti is good too. I chose Ecoflow because it charges way faster than anything else. (I’m not affiliated). I am now a true believer in mid-size powerstations, mostly due to their versatility. Ray’s purpose built system is 1,000% easier with a powerstation. Plus when you go camping, just throw it in the RV like a mobile FHU pedestal.
A full house fridge typically burns an average of 60W. The cycle on, depending on the compressor, might need a 1000W surge and maybe 200W running. In anycase, the average consumption will wind up being around 60W so 60W x 24h = 1.4 kWh. However, an always-on inverter (even the victron inverter with its "eco" mode), is only 85% to 90% efficient and also has vampire consumption. Assume 85% and 10W. So that's 70W / 0.85 = 82W. x 24h = approximately 2 kWh/day. For solar with sunny weather your production is roughly x4 or x5 the nameplate. e.g. 1kW in panels yields 4kWh/day in production. But in cloudy weather it is going to be more like x2. e.g. 1kW in panels yields only 2kWh/day. So you would need, roughly, 1000W of solar (nameplate) to reliably run a fridge 24 x 7. Now if you add a furnace, that is a bit more of a problem because furnace blowers for central air usually burn around 300W. Plus the furnace starter itself but you can usually ignore that. If your furnace is running 8 hours a day, 8h x 300W = 2.4 kWh. Adjust by the assumed 85% efficiency and you wind up needing around 3 kWh. So now you are up to 3 kWh + 2 kWh = 5 kWh and at 2x (cloudy weather) that means you would need (5.0kWh / 2x) = 2.5 kW nameplate worth of panels to reliably run the fridge and furnace 24x7. Other people have commented on the battery voltage. 12V shouldn't be used. Use 24V or 48V, its a lot more efficient and the amperages are a lot lower. The inverter only needs to be able to handle the worst case surge, which in this case... I would assume roughly 2000W, so a 3000W inverter would do the job. However, remember that the inverter's vampire consumption scales with the maximum output wattage, and efficiency drops as you size up, so you want an inverter that is just big enough to handle the surges and no bigger. -Matt
24 or 48v would definitely be better. I'd love to have this same set up with a 48v battery. I wanted to keep it simple with a common 12v battery. Maybe later I'll have a 48v set up. People are more scared of that voltage though.
@ssoffshore5111 that's what I have been hearing. I haven't looked too much into them yet. I would like to get a brand which can be maintained. Common parts etc.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay IDK about parts, but I've had my 32 cu ft LG for about 5-7 years now (?), zero issues. No surge and it averages around 1kW/day.
I tried a fridge on my off grid property, it consumed a lot of power and did not get very cold.This was because every time the door was opened to get a beer all the cold air would fall out.My solution was to get a 140litre chest freezer and use an external thermostat switch to run the freezer at 4 degrees C. when the lid is opened slowly all the cold stays in, and the insulation is better than a fridge.Freezer is 240v 120w, duty cycle is 25% on a 40 degree C day.I haven't measured it on cooler days.
On my Ford Transit box van made into camper i have 4 320w 40v solar panels mounted flat of total 1380w charging a LifePo4 battery bank of 5000w/hours at 24v. I use a 3000w pure sine inverter to run a small fridge + a very small freezer. On sunny days I get 1000w charge in middle of day and on a sunny day it can charge the empty battery bank in one sunny day. When it is overcast and / or raining I get 150 - 270w which is enough to keep the fridge and freezer running day and night forever without sun. But there is no power left for anything else to run if there is no sun.
15:11 Awesome Content! 🎉 1. Is that solar charge controller the power inverter?… from DC to AC? 2. What happens when you don’t have a solar charge converter? 3. Other than the battery, inverter, and solar panels, what are the required items to have? Thank you for sharing! ❤
The "solar mppt charge controller" is used to charge the batteries. The Inverter turns power from DC to AC so you can run your fridge. You'll also want a 30 foot 10AWG Solar Extension Cable: amzn.to/46vKjqc) depending on how far away your solar panels will be located. I'll include that in the kit in the description. Hope that helps.
Ref. to my 6 100AH LiPo4 behind front seats post..My solar input (now) totals 300 watts..with one on-roof 100watt 12volt panel only..if I'm out & about w the skillsaw cutn up firewood to pack in rear S-10 floor area! I like the lil' 4dr 4WD wgn (2nd-gen) as last of the "narrow-body-nimble" rides w stout lil V-6 w pickup-like overall cargo length..w PERManent rain cover! Also can squeeze another 100 to 150watts of solar on roof.😄.
This is the kind of real life application experimentation I was looking for. Everyone else does (to my mind) ridiculous tests. As if after a hurricane knocks out my power I’m going to go “ Well, I lost power. Let me set up my solar generator and whip out my heat gun.” No. I want to know if I can keep my fridge and freezer going and for how long. Saw your video a while back and decided to build a 24v hand cart system with two 200Ah batteries as a backup for my very nice gasoline generator. Revisiting your video now to reacquaint myself with your results.
Thanks for video. Must be awesome to have 7 whole sunhours a day. I only have 4. But price is cheap here in ph. A brand new lvtopsun 450watt panel is about 120$. A 12v250ah byd is less than 400$, a one solar 1000watt toroidal inverter is 110$ and a one solar 40a 150voc 12/24/36/48v mppt is 85$. So 715$ in total. If you want you can get a 1,8kwatt y&h hybrid with 450voc & 80a charging for same price as the individual mppt and inverter. I got both and they work amazing together. So many possibilities now a day. Thanks again for video.
So is it possible to charge the battery and at the same time directly from the inverter power the fridge? If its daytime of course. I mean skipping the battery if theres enough power coming from solar
The inverter will draw power from the solar panel charger and the batteries if the solar charger is not providing enough power. If the batteries is charging and the solar charger is making more power then then the inverter is using the rest will be used to charge the batteries. The inverter will not use the power from the batteries if the solar charger is making more watt then he inverter is using.
Just a tip for anyone if you are buying a new refrigerator for your house and plan to use solar, get a top freezer with no fancy electronics, they are more efficient than bottom freezer and are way more efficient than split door. A basic top freezer fridge would use about half the power per day compared to his bottom freezer split door fridge.
I HAVE 6, 100 WATT PANELS ON MY SYSTEM. 60 AMP CHARGE CONTROLLER, 8, 100 AMP 12 VOLT LITHIUM BATTERIES AND 1500 WATT INVERTER WIRED FOR 26.6 VOLT SYSTEM. IT RUNS MY FULL SIZE REFRIDGERATOR, 40 INCH TV, OVERHEAD LIGHT, INTERNET ROUTER, 2 SECURITY CAMERA'S, COMPUTER, CORDLESS PHONE, LAMP AND ALARM CLOCK IN BEDROOM, AND SEVERAL CORLESS DRILL CHARGERS. HAS BEEN UP AND RUNNING FOR A LITTLE OVER A YEAR NOW AND HAS PERFORMED PERFECTLY SO FAR. AND WILL RUN ALL THAT EVEN AFTER UP TO 5 CLOUDY DAYS. LOVE MY SOLAR SYSTEM.
Thank you for your good science. I am planning a large system for my small sailboat and have a dumb question: If I were to use two of the smaller size 100AH batteries like the one in this test and run them in parallel, do I just use the shunt on the battery directly connected to the load and will that give me the state of charge/watts used/... for both batteries?
To be honest I haven't done that before but here's a link that might help. Carful with the boat set up. I always hear of sailboat fires... I love the idea though. I'd love to sail sometime! community.victronenergy.com/questions/59286/smartshunt-installation.html
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Thanks for the very helpful link! My boat is a trailerable boat so I am a "trailer sailer". I plan to head north of Tahoe (I'm in San Diego) to try and sail as many west coast lakes as I can. I will let you know when I make it up as far as you! I have done San Pedro to Caralina Island and back few times and one San Diego to Long Beach to Catalina Island and back. Lots of open ocean sailing!
@@benkanobe7500 Cool. that would be really fun! I'd go for sure. I love to fish also :). We've taken the RV to silverstrand state beach and Thornhill broom Beach/RV park. the last 2 summers. Very fun :)
just installed my first system, two 12v 100ah power queen batteries, renogy 700w inverter and lion energy 12v 30amp solar charge controller plus 3 lion energy 12v 100watt rigid panels. charged both batteries to full with vevor charger and then connected my full size fridge. everything ran fine for 2 full days. this morning the inverter sounded an alarm and i had to plug fridge into the house. im wondering if the panels couldnt keep up. what device do i need that will show wattage coming from the panels and how topped off the batteries are? im guessing i need something to monitor those two
That's awesome. You'll want the Victron Smart Battery monitor: amzn.to/3I6maw4. It will measure both those. Kind of expensive but it's very good. Yeah I think you need some bigger solar panels. Sometimes you can find larger ones on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for cheap. 👍
Lovely video! exactly the setup I have except I live in the UK so when you mentioned you had to wait for bad weather I had to laugh! Thanks for sharing
I can’t make sense of your results. While on utility power, my kill-o-watt meter recorded that my frig (specs 115v, 5.2A) consumed 1.73kWh in 24 hours. When I ran it off my 24v, 200Ah battery, no panels connected, it was tapped out in about 5 hours. What am I missing?
SO at a guess if you had 6 of these batteries and your 6 panels you could probably run completely off grid, especially if you have a 2nd hand generator as an emergency backup for charge and maybe a large gas tank for heating and cooking, barbeque style ;) Alternatively for water heating have a large coil of 2" hose coiled on your roof keeping the water warm at least before it goes to your water heater, saving more power. I cut my gas off completely saving me $360/year *just in connection/supply fees - without using any of the gas!* Well worth it.
it is crazy how these pre-made, lifepo4, 4s and 8s battery packs, have become cheaper than building your own. I built my own and 1 year later , I could have just bought these for less and NO LABOR. And it is a lot of work to make your own, and get the tools to do so.
I just bought the Eco-worthy 24V 100ah just for $370 (free shipping and included the tax) this because of the labor promotion. I am thinking buying another 24v100ah, the weight is 43 pound. I need to pick up some solar panel and inverter. YOur videos help me a lot to make decision on my DIY project. During the Hurricane beryl, we didn't have power for week. We hope this system will protect us from the outrage. I am thinking having a system that allow us to run some Solar, battery, and grid system. The hybrid between solar system, grid system and the battery system. I still dont' know whether I can make the system to setup to work according the power avaialability. Such as, when Solar power system is available, the system will feed my power needs just use the solar power, and if the solar is no power it switches to the battery system, and finally if both the solar and the battery systems are not available, it goes with the grid system. If Solar-Power= Available use Solar Power Else If Battery-Power = Available use Battery Power Else if Grid-power = Avialble use Grid
I ran my 24 cu. ft. fridge, two fans, a table lamp, and my internet on a Champion 3400 generator for 27 hours on one 20 pound lp fuel tank with fuel left over. My generator is a dual fuel set up but I have never ran gasoline in it because of the possibility of carburetor clogging. For emergencies I keep 3 20 lb. lp tanks and one five gallon gas can in the shed. I also generally have 40-60 lbs. of charcoal for the bbq and a good supply of cut wood. Now, with that said, I am not a hick in the woods. I live in a normal suburban neighborhood but I am prepared for at least 90 days of chaos.
As you pointed out, the charge controller has wifi and you can access the data. Would the shunt then become redundant or is there data from the shunt that is not available from the charge controller?
I would say get the Battery monitor and ditch the wifi in the charge controller. The bluetooth app for the solar charge controller won't show battery charge state. I'd get the victron shunt over the one used in this video... It's $50 more though.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay So many folks agree with you and also recommend Victorn. That's what I am going to do. Thanks for responding it is very helpful.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Mine runs about every 13 hours. Not sure how it knows to kick on though. I use the Emoria Device and App to track all my usage.
Yes, a bigger battery capacity would be helpful, because it would reduce the deep cycling. Going down to 17% every night will rapidly use up your total number of charge cycles. Better to have enough battery capacity to stay above 40% - 50%, most of the time.
Can I use this Plug Adapter 15 Amp to 20 Amp Grounded 1 T-blade Female Outlet Splitter Plug Adapter (NEMA 5-15P to 5-15/20R) Black to plug my 20amp male plug
Around 2014 I bought four 225 watt panels and an MPPT controller. (Currently three panels, one is in the Albemarle Sound. Prepare for squalls.) Ten months of using solar to recharge the batteries, I saved enough in diesel to pay for the solar. Since 2015 that electric is free. I plan to sell the boat and am looking to buy a 14 foot box truck. I have 1200 AH LiFePO4, up to 1075 watts of solar and a 24 watt 12 volt cooler. I am looking at possibilities of powering the cooler in the truck. I am also looking at the possibility of running a rooftop air conditioner to keep the box below 100 degrees F. (one guy's box truck got hot enough to ruin his heat shrink.) Whether I use 12 volts or 48 volts on land remains to be seen. Since the motorhome is 12 volts, that is likely the winner.
@ny1t I haven't used that but I know it only can support an output of 2400 Watts, one large appliance. The gtowatt 48-volt all-in-one system I have in my 5th Wheel video can support 3000 Watts or 2 large appliances instead of just one
Great honest video ! I've lived off-grid for 38 years and the advancements have been fantastic, but the math is the same. The continued underestimation I see is never ending for newbies , thank goodness for folk like yourself taking the time and effort to put together such realistic tutorials . Thankyou for helping them and I'm still learning too ! Suchfun ......😉🙃😎 NZ
No, you need battery and panels not just more solar for getting through days of storms, you could always use a charger or propane based charger if you wanna run more to recharge your battery. If you had to you can’t make the sun come out. Slightly bigger charge controller might be in an order j agree as well. Recommend command 24 V system.
Because panels are so cheap in relation to batteries I thought I'd attempt to go with getting extra panels after all they still produce even durring storms. I'm not sure the most cost friendly option. that's an interesting subject.
That would work to help not running out of power during the night. I have manually cut the power to the fridge and freezer during night many times to make sure of not emptying the battery bank completely many times.
It saddens me that santan is closing the GA location. They are providing guys like me with affordable off grid solar! Honestly I’d advise anyone who needs a lot of solar cheap to hit them up!
The very first thing you need to do is get rid of any refrigerator made in the US. They are energy hogs. I bought a Haier sold by Ge from China. It is the most silent and efficient full size refrigerator I have ever owned. My very small solar system will run my refrigerator with only 2 300 watt panels. It takes 3 days of cloudy weather for me to need another way to charge my batteries. That is very rare in Arizona.
This video was very informative. I appreciate the calculations. However, you flashed up critical numbers on the screen during your editing which didn’t stay up long enough. You went too fast when showing the panels volts and how that effects the charge controller. I had to do a lot of scrubbing to pause and take screen shots lol
Just make sure you stay below what specs of what your charge controller says. This one says to stay below 120voc(I believe) and to not connect more than 35 amps. On the most sunny day, I'll be below that so there's nothing special I need to do. hope that makes sense.
You might be able to find people selling them on your local classifieds ads. I spoke with Santan solar and they said people from Canada come down with large trailers and drive them up north to sell them. Feel free to try that if you want to earn some extra money. I think that might be the only way to get these use solar panels up there though.
Parts List(Affiliate Links)
Used Solar Panels: shorturl.at/gAHNV
LiFePO4 Battery: amzn.to/3BaiBFr
Inverter: amzn.to/48mE2yK
Solar Charge Controller: amzn.to/3Pxfc7S
Solar Extension Cables: amzn.to/46vKjqc
Battery Cables: amzn.to/3ZbZ66E
Battery Cable Fuse: amzn.to/3LjPXTZ (For positive battery cable)
Battery Monitor/Shunt: amzn.to/3Tehjz2
Other Suppliers:
SanTan Solar (Used Solar Panels): shorturl.at/vSW28 (Discount Code: "DIYsolarfun5")
Signature Solar: shorturl.at/fPW27
CurrentConnected: shorturl.at/pLNR1
ShopSolarKits: shopsolarkits.com/1302 (Discount Code: RAY101)
Ruixu Batteries: www.ruixubattery.com/?ref=fOKapj_VLUpGf4
*Chapters*
0:00 Intro
1:03 Equipment
2:14 How much solar do you need to run a fridge in SUNNY CONDITIONS
10:46 How much solar do you need to run a fridge in CLOUDY OR STORMY CONDITIONS
20:46 Conclusion & Costs
This was by far the best "real-world" (including forgetting to plug in the PV's) test that has be made.
Great video...one point I can add...
The refrigerator does not run continuously...
Monitor your model for a week...it is a great way to insure your foods...
I run a chest freezer and a small 7.5 cu ft refrigerator/ freezer...one
Lifepo4 100ah battery and two 165watt mono panels...30amp controller... I do live in fl🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞 solar is best small scale... multiple sets so you always have a good source instead of standing in the dark with a flashlight trying to figure out what's wrong with one inverter and one battery set up... Just like circuit breakers in the house, have separate lines for each line that you want...
refrigeration ,lighting computers security cameras ,you name it everybody gets an individual circuit...
Very good points. People have also mentioned the same thing. Seems like a good idea!
Glad I found this video. A year ago, I set up a 48V system with a Victron 150/45 charge controller and 2800-ish watts solar fed thru an eco-worthy combiner. I am using 8 6V 215AH lead-acid golf car batteries ($800 for 8 at Sams Club - now $119 ea.) with a balancer to minimize the need for equalization. An impressive little "eBay special" 2000W (4000W surge) pure sine wave inverter draws just 6 watts no-load. It's running a freezer (100W) and a side-by-side (200w) house fridge. During the summer, I can run much more, but this is what I've found I can run all winter long, cloudy days and all, without once going to the grid. Doing all the work myself, I have a little less than $4K invested. So far so good. I have not had any cells out-of-balance , no terminal corrosion, and only needed to add 1/2" distilled water ONCE in over a year. I recently added the JBD SmartShunt, and set to a min charge level of 40%. Of the 60% "usable " capacity of these batteries, I have seen them get down to a little below 50% after a few cloudy days. After any day with a little sun, where batt's start at 100%, I usually see the charge process get started with 73% battery still available. When the sun pops out, the system slams a full charge in them before 9:30AM. During the day, the solar delivers what is needed, and batt's just float. In summer, I charge all my 80V brushless lawn care tools off this setup (like catching sunlight in little buckets, lol) I only had to broom snow off 1 time last year... This year could be different... It's a lot of fun, and I like my little "Partial-off-grid-setup".
The way you calculated watt hrs. You have single handedly helped me learn this calculation.
2 years trying.
5000 watt ES growatt. (2) 5120 watt hr 48v eg4.
(24) 185 watt panels. 2 series strings in parallel.
Now I can KNOW
answers to questions I did not.
Cg
Nice, Glad it helped. I learn a bunch from you guys commenting also. Nice set up.
OK, a few things from someone off grid over 20 years:
Your calculation premise was incorrect and what you need to calculate is how much battery capacity you need to run that fridge overnight and on days with low sunshine.
A 100 watt solar panel rarely produces 100 watts even under great conditions and you want enough solar to keep that battery charged up while running that fridge so the battery is full charged for night time use.
If you figure 5 hours of sunshine which is avg for winter you would need at least 200 watts to power that fridge and put some juice back in the battery if the weather turns cloudy.
Then you need a battery with enough capacity to run that fridge for the 19 hours when the sun is not shining.
For that fridge I would recommend at least 400 watts of solar and a 200Ah LIFEPO4 battery.
If you want to use a better fridge look at the 12/24 volt car fridge/freezer that avg 45-50 watts and are better insulated chest style so they run very little depending on ambient temp.
Then you can run one of those off that 100Ah battery and 200 watts of solar.
Hope that helps!
Correct, a 100 watt panel rarely produces 100 watts. Hopefully I made that clear Thanks for the comment. Cool cabin!
Thanks this is the exact video I’ve been looking for what’s the minimum system that can run a full size fridge indefinitely. I haven’t found another similar video yet
I got 10 235w panels from Santan Solar for $26 a piece and $300 for shipping, and all of them are working great at about 170w each.
Awesome, are those still in stock?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay they come and go, the vinyl backing does have cracks which might let in moisture causing a short, but you'll find that almost never happens.
You paid $260.00 for the 10 panel and then a total of $300 for panels and shipping? Or you paid $260.00 for panels + $300.00 for shipping, for a total of $560.00? I'm not following your total cost on these with shipping.
@@kf4wnf $260 for the panels, and $300 for shipping, for a total of $560. The panels are typically $50 each, but if you watch the site long enough you'll occasionally find them for $32 or less. By the way, the panels work great, I'm getting about 85% of the stated wattage out of them on average in Ohio.
@@frankmaze1972 can those cracks in the vinyl siding be sealed/caucked with something?
For anyone reading this if your planning on replacing your fridge soon & you want/have a solar system or “solar generator” buy an inverter fridge there very efficient & don’t surge watts
never heard of an inverter fridge, just get a good puresine inverter (that you would need anyway) and run a stock low wattage fridge.
The Philippines has inverter-type appliances I noticed. Especially for our air conditioning.
12 volt deepfreezers are expensive.
Samsung
@@jimhofoss9982 they're gradually getting less expensive.
Maybe double what you would expect for that capacity if you shop around for a good price.
Which is still high, but is becoming doable.
Very cool. I'm doing basically the same thing you are but on a slightly larger scale. You are correct in saying to up the capacity. With my setup, I doubled the capacity and in doing so it lets you take full advantage of all or most of your panels power production window. 400AH @ 48 VDC with 16-250 W used santan solar panels. Good luck
That's great!. What are you running off that?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay 6000 BTU air con for my shed with a fan for circulation. I'll be hooking up a couple of smaller deep freezers when the weather isn't so hot (Florida) and the attic isn't 130 to run separate circuits.
The Victron gear is fantastic and it's helping you immensely. I've got a 75/30 on the way now.
This was totally fun, learned a lot, just getting into solar, save some cash but mostly to learn and have fun great video
Thanks. It's definitely fun stuff :)
I really liked this video. My systems (three) are for redundancy. my main system is 1020w 24v with two 300ah power queen batteries it runs a fridge a chest freezer, TV, Lights, fantastic fans.
My second system is 12v 1020w runs the bedroom, bathroom, fans, lights. It's 4 50ah lithium batteries, I'm planning on doubling those 4.
My third system runs the water system alone. It's 12v 510 watts it's got a 1500w inverter with two
50ah lifepo4 in parallel
Very nice!
You have blessed me a great deal my brother! I am as I type this,figuring out my kWh needs for two small systems. The wheelhouse and the carpenter shop. Thank you and may God bless you and your family.
Highly recommend using 24v for cases like this. You will double the watts you can shove in the battery at the same amperage. 48v is even better but gets more pricy and batteries can get a bit large...good for non-mobile use. 24v is a nice happy medium as you cut your current down in half thus reducing cable costs, it's still reasonably portable and it'll take a charge faster from the amps you can use. Also good to check the power factor of things too as a bad PF essentially uses up more capacity on your inverter. I have a charger for my lawn mower batteries and the PF is 0.5 on that thing, my little inverter is only 300 watts so basically it's using twice the power and if I try to run 2 of them it overloads the inverter. If the PF was closer to 1.0 I would be able to run two of them...or if they made a DC charger (GRR)...
You need a bigger inverter. I got a 2000 watts one and got it over with instead of a bunch of little ones.
@@davidpotter9462 Don't wanna waste money on another 12v inverter, gonna go 24 or 48v.
I have 1600 watts of solar panels and a 600 watts B&C wind generator. They feed twenty big marine batteries from Autozone. I'm using a 24 volts Aims Power inverter charger, 2000 watts. I used a 40 amps Epever charge controller, 4215 BN. I used all 100 watts panels. I don't have a good exposure to the Sun 🌞 except forty feet away which drops the watts a little bit but gets sun more hours so it actually gets more that way. I have a thousand amp hours of battery bank. I run a freezer and a fridge plus oven, hotplate, sump pump, washing machine, air conditioner, fans, lights, chargers, etc. Saws, drills, no problem. I can get by two days and nights without Sun 🌞, but the wind usually blows and helps. Anyways, each battery almost never gets below 12.3 volts, that's after two days of rain. Mostly they stay at or above 12.45 volts. I just bought two batteries at a time but when I got to twenty everything changed. Kind of like a herd of cows pushing on a fence, lot of power there. Fourteen of my batteries are 105 amp hours and six are 85 amps. I was buying the smaller ones when I was saving up for the Inverter charger. I bought a Winco Lil Dog generator that can charge the battery bank. I've used it once, and after I added the wind generator in March, I haven't had to use it for that anymore.
I use it to run my DC inverter welder. I got my stuff to where it works great 👍. I don't use a great amount of power so my batteries are almost always charged up. I have plenty this time of year, and it was okay with 1400 watts of solar panels last year. The year before I had 1000 watts. So I added two more solar panels to see what it does this winter. Last year I could get five to six hundred watts on a clear sunny day. But not for long, the short days kill the power production. The most I have seen is 1020 watts coming in, the max for the controller is 1040. But with the smoke from Canada I'm lucky to get 800. With clouds it averaged around 450 watts most of the day. But somehow it's enough and I just keep going. I didn't know much about it at first, but this will be my third Winter off grid. I have tinkered with it, and it works like I imagined when I used to daydream about having solar.
@@ChrisEpler mine is 24 volts. It works great 👍.
@@ChrisEpler I used an Aims Power inverter charger, 24 volts, 2000 watts. Running on twenty big marine batteries
I just bought the $259 model of the Power Queen battery to run my trolling motor on my new Lowe 1440M jon boat, I have plans to buy another for a 200AH solar build on a small building as to move in when the power goes out. I bought a three item combo on Amazon with a battery box that has a 60amp breaker for trolling motor and 10 amp breaker for usb and 12v hookup and battery level tester all built in, also came with a smart charger that will charge the Power Queen up in 5 hours and if it will run stuff for 17hours as you tested with an invertor than that is still winning in my book!
Enjoyed your video.
Thanks for the safety notes. Could you make a video on using a fuse during the setup in series? Thanks.
Here's a good video that shows you when you need to use them and when you don't. You don't need to use them in every situation.
th-cam.com/video/s1P31hxlD3I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=w3zU88orr2AAtgy6
Thanks for the information ! I just might try solar now .
Hey, I just want to tell you that I really appreciate this video in particular. I'm in the works for setting up a power system for my off grid parents. The refridurator is sucking up the most power. I'm at a toss up between absorption 3way or a 24v compressor.
My absorption 3-way fridge in my RV is very small and it uses four times the amount of power as my regular 120 volt house fridge. I would definitely go a 24 volts! I think those fridges will even use less power than the one I show in this video
Dude, you've earned a sub. I've just started to dabble into solar with a small Harbor Freight kit, but want to do something bigger and have lots of questions. You are answering some of them.
Thanks, feel free to request any videos
Thank you for breaking this down so well. Ive been trying to learn solar now for a while to help with our hurricane seasons but got so lost in all the information. Now im confident i can rig up a system to keep the fridge and radio running.
Thanks, hopefully everyone in your family is safe
just built a small 2 kw array, for $7000🇨🇦. includes a 90 amp mppt charge controller, 3kw heavy xantrex inverter, capable of 6 kw surge, and six 100 amp/hr agm batteries. Runs continuously. In northern BC, long winters with very little sun.
I have a 5000w/hour battery bank with four 100Ah 12v LifePo4 batteries connected in 24v, I calculated that to get same 4000w/hour usable capacity I would need 7 150Ah AGM batteries that would cost more then the LifePo4 batteries and weigh 170kg more which is to much in a van...
The most important part of a solar set up is the batteries. Battery capacity will determine what you can run and for how long.
I’m just getting into solar. Doing my homework and came across this page. First off, great in depth information! Just to make sure I’m understanding, the battery powers the fridge through out the night. Then in the morning the solar panels charge the battery and also run the fridge at the same time?
Correct.
To maximize the PV efficiency, tilting the panels to the sun angle is important. I have 4-100 watt panels in a tiltable frame i made from discarded bed frames. Pressure treated 4x4s sunk 2 feet in the ground with 3 bags of fence post concrete for each post. The frame pivots at a few inches above the center of balance so it's slightly bottom weighted. I used unistrut at the bottom to make my monthly tilt adjustments. I hope you have these panels of the ground now.
I get about 70% of the full watt on my flat mounted solar panels on my box van camper on sunny days. But it seems flat mounted panels give an advantage when it is overcast? I get about 270w from my 1380w of solar panels on cloudy and rainy days which is more then other I know that have their panels optimally angled south. But my panels is mounted 2 and 2 in series giving 80v which people say helps get better charging when it is overcast compared to panels just running 20v and mounted in parallels only at 20v.
Alsome video!! I have a suggestion that could maximize the performance of your panels. Paint your fence white. It will reflect more light into the panels. Hope this helps. God bless
A couple issues I have in winter months your looking at much less sun hrs if any for multiple days so min 5kwh battery just for fridge partly because your battery will not charge up completely daily and to charge your system your looking at the min sun hrs days plus max solar panels 1100kwh panels. To charge and have your system on float most days if your system is not on float mode you need more power or solar.
100 ah = 269 dollar 2 x 100ah batt = 538 dollar ( 1 x 200ah = 579 dollar ??). Better have 2 x100ah Is better because if one is broken you still can use the fridge ( wtshf)
And always use the same batt in all of your home inst. so you always can change the batts .
Greetings from 🇳🇱 the netherlands 👋
A fridge uses around 1500w when it starts, so one 100Ah battery is normally not enough to get the fridge started. You need two 100Ah batteries or need to use a large capacitor or a capacitor bank of around 1farad (I think it was recommended). I measured the power usage of a large 2m wide old freezer and a normal size old fridge to be on average 70W total together measured over 1 month in the summer, so a fridge and freezer do not use much when they are running, it is only the start where it used about 1500w for several seconds that is the problem (when a fridge is running I think it uses 400w or something like that, but normally it do not run often).
This was the best real world video I’ve seen. Thank you!
Thanks a lot for the video. Always nice to see an actual system working in real life.
Great video. There are days when the sky is so dark you will get no power what so ever. You really need another battery or two, to get you through those days. More solar panels would not hurt either. I have learn you cannot have too much solar panels. I have 16 panels on my RV and I can stay in the desert with the only limitation is food , water and dump. There has been a couple of times in the last several years I had no choice but to fire up my noisey thirsty generator, which is something I hate to do.
storms/weather have wind, so a wind turbine might be good. wonder if that can just goto the mppt as well?
I've never done a wind turbine but as long as you get a mppt according to the wind turbine volts&s it should work great.
Good valuable info Ray! Just got our new (D2M) Ecoflow Delta 2 Max (2Kw LiFePo4). I’m running your test using two 340w Qcell panels I picked up from Santan Solar in Savannah before they closed. On sunny days the panels can farm from 1.25-1.5 Kw/Day. Up to 3Kw per day for both of them. And the D2M has two charge controllers, each with a max input of 500w and 60v. It’s more than enough to run my fridge, and the D2M soaks up as much as it can before getting maxed out. The maxed D2M easily runs the fridge until the next sun cycle. As you mentioned, you don’t want to waste solar power, so, I’m going to add another circuit, probably modem/router/tv, and see if the panels and D2M can handle that as well as the fridge. Like you, we have an RV with 2Kw LFP and 300w solar that we can run an extension cord from to input into the ac input on the D2M.
Nice setup you got there. Sounds like you'll always have cold food :). I love LFP in my RV. I'm going to be reviewing the Bluetti AC200Max as an RV battery replacement option soon.
Bluetti is good too. I chose Ecoflow because it charges way faster than anything else. (I’m not affiliated). I am now a true believer in mid-size powerstations, mostly due to their versatility. Ray’s purpose built system is 1,000% easier with a powerstation. Plus when you go camping, just throw it in the RV like a mobile FHU pedestal.
A full house fridge typically burns an average of 60W. The cycle on, depending on the compressor, might need a 1000W surge and maybe 200W running. In anycase, the average consumption will wind up being around 60W so 60W x 24h = 1.4 kWh. However, an always-on inverter (even the victron inverter with its "eco" mode), is only 85% to 90% efficient and also has vampire consumption. Assume 85% and 10W. So that's 70W / 0.85 = 82W. x 24h = approximately 2 kWh/day.
For solar with sunny weather your production is roughly x4 or x5 the nameplate. e.g. 1kW in panels yields 4kWh/day in production. But in cloudy weather it is going to be more like x2. e.g. 1kW in panels yields only 2kWh/day.
So you would need, roughly, 1000W of solar (nameplate) to reliably run a fridge 24 x 7.
Now if you add a furnace, that is a bit more of a problem because furnace blowers for central air usually burn around 300W. Plus the furnace starter itself but you can usually ignore that. If your furnace is running 8 hours a day, 8h x 300W = 2.4 kWh. Adjust by the assumed 85% efficiency and you wind up needing around 3 kWh.
So now you are up to 3 kWh + 2 kWh = 5 kWh and at 2x (cloudy weather) that means you would need (5.0kWh / 2x) = 2.5 kW nameplate worth of panels to reliably run the fridge and furnace 24x7.
Other people have commented on the battery voltage. 12V shouldn't be used. Use 24V or 48V, its a lot more efficient and the amperages are a lot lower.
The inverter only needs to be able to handle the worst case surge, which in this case... I would assume roughly 2000W, so a 3000W inverter would do the job. However, remember that the inverter's vampire consumption scales with the maximum output wattage, and efficiency drops as you size up, so you want an inverter that is just big enough to handle the surges and no bigger.
-Matt
24 or 48v would definitely be better. I'd love to have this same set up with a 48v battery. I wanted to keep it simple with a common 12v battery. Maybe later I'll have a 48v set up. People are more scared of that voltage though.
When you replace the fridge, get an inverter based fridge next. More efficient and almost no surge.
@ssoffshore5111 that's what I have been hearing. I haven't looked too much into them yet. I would like to get a brand which can be maintained. Common parts etc.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay IDK about parts, but I've had my 32 cu ft LG for about 5-7 years now (?), zero issues. No surge and it averages around 1kW/day.
@@ssoffshore5111 that's not bad. About 40 W per hour on average. Or 15 cents per day for me.
1,440 watts used solar panels + 100ah 12v lifepo4 (1280wh) 30amp charge controller.
I tried a fridge on my off grid property, it consumed a lot of power and did not get very cold.This was because every time the door was opened to get a beer all the cold air would fall out.My solution was to get a 140litre chest freezer and use an external thermostat switch to run the freezer at 4 degrees C. when the lid is opened slowly all the cold stays in, and the insulation is better than a fridge.Freezer is 240v 120w, duty cycle is 25% on a 40 degree C day.I haven't measured it on cooler days.
On my Ford Transit box van made into camper i have 4 320w 40v solar panels mounted flat of total 1380w charging a LifePo4 battery bank of 5000w/hours at 24v. I use a 3000w pure sine inverter to run a small fridge + a very small freezer. On sunny days I get 1000w charge in middle of day and on a sunny day it can charge the empty battery bank in one sunny day. When it is overcast and / or raining I get 150 - 270w which is enough to keep the fridge and freezer running day and night forever without sun. But there is no power left for anything else to run if there is no sun.
15:11
Awesome Content! 🎉
1. Is that solar charge controller the power inverter?… from DC to AC?
2. What happens when you don’t have a solar charge converter?
3. Other than the battery, inverter, and solar panels, what are the required items to have?
Thank you for sharing! ❤
The "solar mppt charge controller" is used to charge the batteries. The Inverter turns power from DC to AC so you can run your fridge. You'll also want a 30 foot 10AWG Solar Extension Cable: amzn.to/46vKjqc) depending on how far away your solar panels will be located. I'll include that in the kit in the description. Hope that helps.
Thank you so much for your video. I just entered the solar world and bought some equipment. Your video provided me some very good info.
Thanks!
Very informative I’ll be looking into getting solar panels to run my refrigerator and freezer. Thank you very much great great video.
Ref. to my 6 100AH LiPo4 behind front seats post..My solar input (now) totals 300 watts..with one on-roof 100watt 12volt panel only..if I'm out & about w the skillsaw cutn up firewood to pack in rear S-10 floor area! I like the lil' 4dr 4WD wgn (2nd-gen) as last of the "narrow-body-nimble" rides w stout lil V-6 w pickup-like overall cargo length..w PERManent rain cover! Also can squeeze another 100 to 150watts of solar on roof.😄.
This is the kind of real life application experimentation I was looking for. Everyone else does (to my mind) ridiculous tests. As if after a hurricane knocks out my power I’m going to go “ Well, I lost power. Let me set up my solar generator and whip out my heat gun.” No. I want to know if I can keep my fridge and freezer going and for how long. Saw your video a while back and decided to build a 24v hand cart system with two 200Ah batteries as a backup for my very nice gasoline generator. Revisiting your video now to reacquaint myself with your results.
Nice. I need a hand cart setup.
Thanks for video. Must be awesome to have 7 whole sunhours a day. I only have 4.
But price is cheap here in ph. A brand new lvtopsun 450watt panel is about 120$. A 12v250ah byd is less than 400$, a one solar 1000watt toroidal inverter is 110$ and a one solar 40a 150voc 12/24/36/48v mppt is 85$. So 715$ in total. If you want you can get a 1,8kwatt y&h hybrid with 450voc & 80a charging for same price as the individual mppt and inverter. I got both and they work amazing together.
So many possibilities now a day. Thanks again for video.
Where's ph?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Philippines
Thank you very much for expalining all the details and diferent scenarios . great great video.
So is it possible to charge the battery and at the same time directly from the inverter power the fridge? If its daytime of course.
I mean skipping the battery if theres enough power coming from solar
The inverter will draw power from the solar panel charger and the batteries if the solar charger is not providing enough power. If the batteries is charging and the solar charger is making more power then then the inverter is using the rest will be used to charge the batteries.
The inverter will not use the power from the batteries if the solar charger is making more watt then he inverter is using.
@@a64738 thanks
Excellent, thank you. New sub. Cheers.
Best thing i ever did was buy my 2 growatts, eg4 batteries, and panels from san tan. Signature solar has my next solar project the mini split.
Nice. I need one of those too.
Just a tip for anyone if you are buying a new refrigerator for your house and plan to use solar, get a top freezer with no fancy electronics, they are more efficient than bottom freezer and are way more efficient than split door.
A basic top freezer fridge would use about half the power per day compared to his bottom freezer split door fridge.
I HAVE 6, 100 WATT PANELS ON MY SYSTEM. 60 AMP CHARGE CONTROLLER, 8, 100 AMP 12 VOLT LITHIUM BATTERIES AND 1500 WATT INVERTER WIRED FOR 26.6 VOLT SYSTEM. IT RUNS MY FULL SIZE REFRIDGERATOR, 40 INCH TV, OVERHEAD LIGHT, INTERNET ROUTER, 2 SECURITY CAMERA'S, COMPUTER, CORDLESS PHONE, LAMP AND ALARM CLOCK IN BEDROOM, AND SEVERAL CORLESS DRILL CHARGERS. HAS BEEN UP AND RUNNING FOR A LITTLE OVER A YEAR NOW AND HAS PERFORMED PERFECTLY SO FAR. AND WILL RUN ALL THAT EVEN AFTER UP TO 5 CLOUDY DAYS. LOVE MY SOLAR SYSTEM.
Thank you for your good science. I am planning a large system for my small sailboat and have a dumb question: If I were to use two of the smaller size 100AH batteries like the one in this test and run them in parallel, do I just use the shunt on the battery directly connected to the load and will that give me the state of charge/watts used/... for both batteries?
To be honest I haven't done that before but here's a link that might help.
Carful with the boat set up.
I always hear of sailboat fires... I love the idea though. I'd love to sail sometime!
community.victronenergy.com/questions/59286/smartshunt-installation.html
Pull the spec sheet on the battery you want to buy before you drop the $. Some are very picky how they are wired series or parallel.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Thanks for the very helpful link! My boat is a trailerable boat so I am a "trailer sailer". I plan to head north of Tahoe (I'm in San Diego) to try and sail as many west coast lakes as I can. I will let you know when I make it up as far as you! I have done San Pedro to Caralina Island and back few times and one San Diego to Long Beach to Catalina Island and back. Lots of open ocean sailing!
@@benkanobe7500 Cool. that would be really fun! I'd go for sure. I love to fish also :). We've taken the RV to silverstrand state beach and Thornhill broom Beach/RV park. the last 2 summers. Very fun :)
Do you have a link for that fridge power monitor/meter?
amzn.to/3SPIqAL But this one also has good reviews and is a half the price: amzn.to/49Q0sZE
just installed my first system, two 12v 100ah power queen batteries, renogy 700w inverter and lion energy 12v 30amp solar charge controller plus 3 lion energy 12v 100watt rigid panels.
charged both batteries to full with vevor charger and then connected my full size fridge. everything ran fine for 2 full days.
this morning the inverter sounded an alarm and i had to plug fridge into the house. im wondering if the panels couldnt keep up.
what device do i need that will show wattage coming from the panels and how topped off the batteries are?
im guessing i need something to monitor those two
That's awesome. You'll want the Victron Smart Battery monitor: amzn.to/3I6maw4. It will measure both those. Kind of expensive but it's very good. Yeah I think you need some bigger solar panels. Sometimes you can find larger ones on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for cheap. 👍
I use the battery monitor in this video. th-cam.com/video/np1RsaI7ObQ/w-d-xo.html
Great vids! How many inverters you need per battery group?
Great info, thanks.
Lovely video! exactly the setup I have except I live in the UK so when you mentioned you had to wait for bad weather I had to laugh! Thanks for sharing
That's funny! Thanks :)
I can’t make sense of your results. While on utility power, my kill-o-watt meter recorded that my frig (specs 115v, 5.2A) consumed 1.73kWh in 24 hours. When I ran it off my 24v, 200Ah battery, no panels connected, it was tapped out in about 5 hours. What am I missing?
Either your inverter is insane inefficient or your battery is bad. I would guess that your battery is bad
Hey Ray, is it possible to book a virtual appointment with you?
I'd prefer to answer any questions here where others can also provide feedback and all can learn.
SO at a guess if you had 6 of these batteries and your 6 panels you could probably run completely off grid, especially if you have a 2nd hand generator as an emergency backup for charge and maybe a large gas tank for heating and cooking, barbeque style ;) Alternatively for water heating have a large coil of 2" hose coiled on your roof keeping the water warm at least before it goes to your water heater, saving more power. I cut my gas off completely saving me $360/year *just in connection/supply fees - without using any of the gas!* Well worth it.
it is crazy how these pre-made, lifepo4, 4s and 8s battery packs, have become cheaper than building your own. I built my own and 1 year later , I could have just bought these for less and NO LABOR. And it is a lot of work to make your own, and get the tools to do so.
I just bought the Eco-worthy 24V 100ah just for $370 (free shipping and included the tax) this because of the labor promotion. I am thinking buying another 24v100ah, the weight is 43 pound. I need to pick up some solar panel and inverter. YOur videos help me a lot to make decision on my DIY project. During the Hurricane beryl, we didn't have power for week. We hope this system will protect us from the outrage. I am thinking having a system that allow us to run some Solar, battery, and grid system. The hybrid between solar system, grid system and the battery system. I still dont' know whether I can make the system to setup to work according the power avaialability. Such as, when Solar power system is available, the system will feed my power needs just use the solar power, and if the solar is no power it switches to the battery system, and finally if both the solar and the battery systems are not available, it goes with the grid system.
If Solar-Power= Available
use Solar Power
Else If Battery-Power = Available
use Battery Power
Else if Grid-power = Avialble
use Grid
What is the app you are using to monitor the battery usage percentage of power left?
Thanks for pointing this out. amzn.to/3ww8x6L
Sorry, Here the one I recommend: Battery Monitor/Shunt: amzn.to/3Tehjz2
I ran my 24 cu. ft. fridge, two fans, a table lamp, and my internet on a Champion 3400 generator for 27 hours on one 20 pound lp fuel tank with fuel left over. My generator is a dual fuel set up but I have never ran gasoline in it because of the possibility of carburetor clogging. For emergencies I keep 3 20 lb. lp tanks and one five gallon gas can in the shed. I also generally have 40-60 lbs. of charcoal for the bbq and a good supply of cut wood. Now, with that said, I am not a hick in the woods. I live in a normal suburban neighborhood but I am prepared for at least 90 days of chaos.
As you pointed out, the charge controller has wifi and you can access the data. Would the shunt then become redundant or is there data from the shunt that is not available from the charge controller?
I would say get the Battery monitor and ditch the wifi in the charge controller. The bluetooth app for the solar charge controller won't show battery charge state. I'd get the victron shunt over the one used in this video... It's $50 more though.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay So many folks agree with you and also recommend Victorn. That's what I am going to do. Thanks for responding it is very helpful.
@benkanobe7500 they're good however I wouldn't get the victron for my RV.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay I was referring to the Victron Shunt.(?)
@benkanobe7500 definitely, i love that thing!
That's really good info, thank you!
Great information. Thanks
Thanks. You guys are great!
My Frig uses about 675W in defrost mode. I guess yours uses less if you can use a 500W inverter. Over a full day my full sized frig uses 1.15KWH.
Wow, about 50 watts on average. Pretty nice. Do you know how often you defrost cycle turns on?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Mine runs about every 13 hours. Not sure how it knows to kick on though. I use the Emoria Device and App to track all my usage.
@@MyWasteOfTime cool, i bought one of those but still need to install it. I think it's turned on with a auto timer.
Yes, a bigger battery capacity would be helpful, because it would reduce the deep cycling. Going down to 17% every night will rapidly use up your total number of charge cycles. Better to have enough battery capacity to stay above 40% - 50%, most of the time.
Which phone app did you download to measure the battery?
I used this smart shunt to measure the battery draw: amzn.to/3PwJuHI If you get a smart battery they have this functionality built it though.
Learned a lot from this, thank you for making this video
Can I use this Plug Adapter 15 Amp to 20 Amp Grounded 1 T-blade Female Outlet Splitter Plug Adapter (NEMA 5-15P to 5-15/20R) Black to plug my 20amp male plug
Sorry, I'm not sure I'm following..
Around 2014 I bought four 225 watt panels and an MPPT controller. (Currently three panels, one is in the Albemarle Sound. Prepare for squalls.) Ten months of using solar to recharge the batteries, I saved enough in diesel to pay for the solar. Since 2015 that electric is free.
I plan to sell the boat and am looking to buy a 14 foot box truck. I have 1200 AH LiFePO4, up to 1075 watts of solar and a 24 watt 12 volt cooler. I am looking at possibilities of powering the cooler in the truck. I am also looking at the possibility of running a rooftop air conditioner to keep the box below 100 degrees F. (one guy's box truck got hot enough to ruin his heat shrink.)
Whether I use 12 volts or 48 volts on land remains to be seen. Since the motorhome is 12 volts, that is likely the winner.
I used this cheap 48v to 12v converter in my 48V RV battery system and it works awesome: amzn.to/3rEQ8ma
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay I hadn't considered that I will look at it. But I already have the Victron 12 volt 125X2 inverter/charger.
@ny1t I haven't used that but I know it only can support an output of 2400 Watts, one large appliance. The gtowatt 48-volt all-in-one system I have in my 5th Wheel video can support 3000 Watts or 2 large appliances instead of just one
Great honest video ! I've lived off-grid for 38 years and the advancements have been fantastic, but the math is the same. The continued underestimation I see is never ending for newbies , thank goodness for folk like yourself taking the time and effort to put together such realistic tutorials . Thankyou for helping them and I'm still learning too ! Suchfun ......😉🙃😎 NZ
38 yes. Wow! How did you do it before solar panels?
LoL we had solar panels then, $1200nz for an 80w panel from Arizona and it's still in use, 3 part and heavy.... Things are amazing now! 😉🙃😎 NZ
@deanedeane4318 wow!
whats the surge wattage of your fridge?
The highest I saw it was at 350 watts but I think that might have been the defrost cycle turning on.
Is the refrigerator using 75w/hour on average?
Yup
No, you need battery and panels not just more solar for getting through days of storms, you could always use a charger or propane based charger if you wanna run more to recharge your battery. If you had to you can’t make the sun come out. Slightly bigger charge controller might be in an order j agree as well. Recommend command 24 V system.
Because panels are so cheap in relation to batteries I thought I'd attempt to go with getting extra panels after all they still produce even durring storms. I'm not sure the most cost friendly option. that's an interesting subject.
Q-cell is the only company i buy solor panels from... supreme quality and performance can't be beat
What have you bought from them?
Excellent analysis!
What about adding an electric automatic timer to turn off the fridge for a couple hours at night?
That would work to help not running out of power during the night. I have manually cut the power to the fridge and freezer during night many times to make sure of not emptying the battery bank completely many times.
Thank you so much this is what I needed to know!
It saddens me that santan is closing the GA location. They are providing guys like me with affordable off grid solar! Honestly I’d advise anyone who needs a lot of solar cheap to hit them up!
Satan is, closing it with everyone's help
Good show its appreciated thank you
What is the name of that battery
Powerqueen. There are some links in the description 👍
The very first thing you need to do is get rid of any refrigerator made in the US. They are energy hogs. I bought a Haier sold by Ge from China. It is the most silent and efficient full size refrigerator I have ever owned. My very small solar system will run my refrigerator with only 2 300 watt panels. It takes 3 days of cloudy weather for me to need another way to charge my batteries. That is very rare in Arizona.
Nice, I hear the 12 volt fridges are also really efficient
GREAT video.......thanks.
Thank you
Unplug the fridge at noon, then wait a few minutes the defrost cycle will happen the next day @ noon when you have solar power coming in.
Keep your power above 10 KWH . 24VDC OR 48VDC SYS . SOLAR AND WIND TURBINE !! good luck .
Thank you. I need to get a wind turbine. I'd love to diy one but haven't looked into that yet.
This video was very informative. I appreciate the calculations. However, you flashed up critical numbers on the screen during your editing which didn’t stay up long enough. You went too fast when showing the panels volts and how that effects the charge controller. I had to do a lot of scrubbing to pause and take screen shots lol
Thanks for the feedback. I'll try and go a bit slower on those parts. Cheers!
Thanks! 🙂👍
I just need for cargo trailer but love u teach ing
I wanted to know about solar an refrigerator for over 25 yrs now?
i miss the part of how you protect from over current when all the (over)panels on a cloudy day get full sun?
Just make sure you stay below what specs of what your charge controller says. This one says to stay below 120voc(I believe) and to not connect more than 35 amps. On the most sunny day, I'll be below that so there's nothing special I need to do. hope that makes sense.
Well done.
Excellent video.
Good video.
In a power outage the refrigerator will keep cold for hours without any power if the door is not opened.
Now I need to know who in Alberta Canada sells used solar panels
You might be able to find people selling them on your local classifieds ads. I spoke with Santan solar and they said people from Canada come down with large trailers and drive them up north to sell them. Feel free to try that if you want to earn some extra money. I think that might be the only way to get these use solar panels up there though.
thank you
Thank you!
HOW ABOUT A VIDEO WHERE YOU TELL PEOPLE HOW TO LOOK AT THEIR MONTHLY ELECTRICITY BILL AND HOW TO BASE THE SYSTEM ON THAT?!?!?!
For a fridge specifically?
Mine runs on propane as well as shore power.
Your fridge?
Would it be more ECONOMIC to do a DEEP FREEZER, (under 200.00) a 120 volt mechanical thermostat(60.00) then hook that to my inverter????