400W Solar installation shopping list

[rayra]

That's a pretty expensive setup for fresh margaritas in the middle of nowhere.

I'm really curious why so much capacity, and the angle grinder is almost certainly a red herring. I'm really curious what the OP is trying to power.


eta OP's in Ft Lauderdale, maybe it's his hurricane backup plan

 

[nycgags]

That's a pretty expensive setup for fresh margaritas in the middle of nowhere.

I'm really curious why so much capacity, and the angle grinder is almost certainly a red herring. I'm really curious what the OP is trying to power.


eta OP's in Ft Lauderdale, maybe it's his hurricane backup plan

Plan is to upgrade to a trailer at some point where we would be talking about either part-time air conditioning or full-time evaporative swamp air conditioning.

 

[nycgags]

I thought it might have been DIY!

Seems simple enough to setup.

 

[SnoViking]

I'm going to play devils advocate here (with the preface that I am 100% solar, and am currently building a solar setup): but $3200 for the system seems very high, even crazy. You could buy an almost silent Honda/Yamaha generator/invertor for half of that, which would be 1/4 the size and 1/8 the work. I didn't see the price itemized with the items so I'm curious where the price added up. I'm in the process of building up a 100w system tied to a group 31 (110aH) battery. Clearly you're shooting for much high amp hours but for $3200 I think that's high for what your needs are. Just my thoughts.....

 

[nycgags]

I'm going to play devils advocate here (with the preface that I am 100% solar, and am currently building a solar setup): but $3200 for the system seems very high, even crazy. You could buy an almost silent Honda/Yamaha generator/invertor for half of that, which would be 1/4 the size and 1/8 the work. I didn't see the price itemized with the items so I'm curious where the price added up. I'm in the process of building up a 100w system tied to a group 31 (110aH) battery. Clearly you're shooting for much high amp hours but for $3200 I think that's high for what your needs are. Just my thoughts.....

Well to be fair $1200 of that $3200 went towards a roof rack and awning which really aren't solar costs and if I don't roof mount, would not be needed.

The inverter I spec'd out I think now is garbage and would opt for an Aims 2000W inverter which would cost $588 off of Amazon but provide 20 seconds of 6000W surge.

My Solar prices might have been on the high side, but I think once you factor in shipping of a rigid solar equivalent the price is on point (less than $2 a Watt).

Charge Controller / Deep Cycle / Case all seem like reasonable prices to me. I might even spend more for a Lithium battery provided the aforementioned brand checks out:
$3k for a 260Ah Lithium (SmartBattery brand)
Looks like I will pass on SmartBattery unless there is a brick & mortar that sells them. According to the BBB they have serious delivery issues.

When I first looked into Lithium the prices I saw were at least 50% higher which turned me off, even though this new brand is still almost 10x more expensive than AGM I think it would be worth it.

 

[Steve F]

I also have a Jeep, with Solar, but a 2 door. It runs just 40W of Solar on the roof racks and 66AH of dual battery setup in it. This is to run the 25lt Waeco fridge I have in the back. That fridge is purely for drinks when out on the trail so the onboard solar is for keeping the battery topped up if I get back to camp early and park for longer than normal. In reality the 66AH will run the fridge for a couple of days anyway even without running the Jeep to top up the battery or with minimal solar power.

My trailer also has a 105AH battery in it, it runs a 50lt Waeco fridge and sits in camp all the time but has 240W of folding solar (80W shown below when I was testing). It will run 24hours a day, 7 days a week with no additional charging as long as there is 4 hours of good sun each day. Worst case I take the fridge off it and put it in the JK while I'm out on the trailers, this lets the trailer battery charge up with no load.

Fridge in the trailer plugs in here.

Realistically I can't see any situation where I'd need 400w of solar and 200AH of battery, even what I have now is more than required Oh and I have run my 240V (Australia) drill off of the 600w inverter with no issues. I reckon you rethink and start with less, both in weight and power, get the bigger regulator and you can always add the extra panels later if needed.

Cheers
Steve