Solar power

[icsd71]

Does anyone use solar panels to power their equipment? If so can you give suggestions? Would love to supplement solar as much as possible.

 

[sissy]

I would love solar but it is not cheap to buy or set up unless you have real knowledge of how to do it

 

[dustboy]

How many watts are you using between pump, lights, etc? If you don't already have the equipment, it can operate much more efficiently on 12V DC rather than 120V AC.

Solar is totally possible and you will break even on the cost in a relatively short amount of time.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Your selection of available submersible pumps is severely limited as to maximum water flow. Solar powered external pumps are, however, available up to 6000 gph.

 

[MitchM]

I have solar, but it's more of a novelty than useful.
Having some kind of solar setup does give a person a look at reality instead of wishful thinking.

 

[dustboy]

150 watts gets you about 2000 gph. Depending on the quality and duration of your sunshine, you'd want 200-400w solar. A 200w panel under full sun is realistically going to put around 12A back into the battery, the pump will take about 15A out. A safe ratio of sun-to-run might be about 1.5:1, so for every hour it runs you would want 1.5 hours of full sun. To improve this ratio, simply upgrade to more wattage from the panels.

The battery bank shown below could safely run the pump without sun for about 7 hours, assuming it was able to get a full charge the next day.

200w solar kit with charge controller: $300
230 Ah batteries (2 deep-cycle 6v golf cart): $220
1000w inverter: $100
Battery cables, misc.: $40
Total: $660

I'll admit, to use solar you kind of have to like geeking out on this stuff...I'm the kind of guy who checks his battery voltage and charge rate several times through the day, just because I like seeing it work. If you'd rather just set-it-and-forget-it, solar is probably not for you. Without good sun, your pump might run less than you expect, and without proper maintenance it's pretty easy to kill a battery.

 

[MitchM]

dustboy, you must be referring to solar radiation at 1000 watts/square meter or more and a battery temperature above 10c. That 2000gph is probably with zero head height.
Anything less will give you less power.
I would love to switch to solar, but the power and technology is not there yet.