Getting free power from the sun is the dream of many people. The lack of knowledge of the basics of solar power may intimidate many people. I decided to write this article to give a general guideline to everybody wanting to set up a simple and effective solar power system. This is an outline to give you the general idea of what you will need to give yourself enough power to use a television and small appliances. You can add on and make this much larger, or make it smaller for simple applications. Often it is best to start small for general applications such as running a small appliance, then working your way up. Solar power can save you money on the cost of electricity, and doing it yourself can save you money on the price of installation.
You will need solar panels, electric wiring, an inverter, large batteries (such as golf cart), and a charge controller when following these steps.
1. First if you are in the North American Continent, you will wan to setup approximately 160W to 180W worth of solar panels. Set them up facing south, and turned at 45-60 degree angle from the ground. You of course will want them where there is not shade in any part of the day.
2. Wire the panel(s) and run (a short as possible) outdoor electrical wire to a charge controller. I would suggest just a simple cut extension cord for this setup to keep things cheap and to save money.
3. A good charge controller for this application would be a battery minder 180W charge controller with desulphation (to preserve battery life). Any charge controller would work fine though so long as it is for 12V. The charge controller will keep your batteries fresh & charged without damaging them or overcharging. Also the charge controller is a diode, which keeps the batteries from shooting power back to the panels!
4. Now a tricky part, using heavy gauge cable, (such as welding wire bought in tool stores) wire the batteries together in series parallel. I suggest welding wire because it will save you money over the price of typical large gauge 12V cable. Wiring in series parallel means two of the batteries are wired from positive to negative terminals and the other two batteries will be wired from positive to negative. This will leave you with two sets of batteries (wired positive to negative), each set with two terminals left exposed. Now, on the exposed terminals on the two sets of batteries, combine the two positive terminals together and the two negative terminals together.
This series parallel will make all 4 of the 6 volt batteries run at 12 volt (or 12V). (Golf cart batteries are great because they are made to be charged and discharged frequently.)
5. Wire the final connection to the charge controller, and also to your pure sine inverter.
6. Now as the sun hits the panels, it will be charging the batteries through the charge controller. When you power on the inverter, it will be converting the 12V of DC power into 120V A/C power used by most televisions, radios, electronics, and appliances. This is true sine power, so it is as clean as the power coming from your standard outlets. Cheap inverters are not true sine, so be careful when buying one for your solar power system. You can often save money on inverters by purchasing used or from online auctions.
