Pond circulation pump has been on nonstop for almost a month, and it is still going strong. 🙂 After fixing the problems with the pump motor controller circuit, we left the motor on 24 hours per day and 7 days per week running off of only the 2 solar panels next to it. I am…
A 12VDC electric fan
In addition to the solar panels and other items received from Amorn Solar today, I also decided to pick up a cheap 12VDC floor fan (pictured above). We will be using 24V for our DC lines, so if we use something like this later, we will probably have to step it down to 12V, but…
A new order of solar panels received today
Today, we received our newest order of solar panels from Amorn Solar. In the top of frame, you can see 6x 300W panels. Each is pretty big, measuring about 2m by 1m. Together, they should really have plenty of power to run the entire house. Down below, in the small white box on the left…
Solar powered circulation pump update
On December 23, I was quite happy that the new prototype pump controller circuit didn’t blow out in the 30 seconds or so that it took to burn out before I worked out a solution to the voltage spike issue. From that point, I left the pump running 24 hours a day until today, and…
First real solar powered pump test
Today I ran the solar powered pump the entire day for the first time. I am very pleased with the results. Ever since I solved the voltage spike issues we’ve been having with all of our power electronics circuits over the years, I’ve been very excited to actually try out the new pump controller circuit…
Solar panels update
We’ve connected up the solar panels to batteries and a charge controller now. 2x 280W solar panels mounted near a pump shed You can see the pump shed behind the solar panels, the battery shed on the ground to the left, and the edge of the electrical box sticking out from the back left support…
New solar installation
Having finished construction and testing of the water circulation pumps, the next step is to find a permanent power source. I’ve always been interested in the potential of solar for bringing power to any point on the land without needing an electrical grid connection. These pumps are ideally suited to solar, being almost 30x more…
Solar Power Test
We’ve been experimenting with solar power for a few years measuring the differences between cloudy days and sunny days and comparing how much energy we actually get from a solar panel per day vs its rated maximum power. Manufacturers have an incentive to overestimate these numbers, so real world testing is always best. As it…
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