Hey YouTube, I would like to
show you my portable solar power generator that I recently built.
I want to thank all of the folks who posted their projects on YouTube previously, they were great
inspirations for this one.
I consider this a medium-size and moderately priced portable solar power generator.
It generates 110 amp hours and costs,
including the 100 watt solar panel that's used with it
about $950 dollars total cost.
It's portable, but I would say that it's not meant for
backpacking. It weighs about ninety pounds.
This particular unit I built to use on my cruising boat
I wanted something that was portable so that when I sold the boat and upgraded
I could take the system out and take it with me. I also do some
tent camping and it will be used for that purpose as well.
The system offers
again 110 amp hours,
obviously the starting point is to get some power into this ...so for demo
purposes today I'm using a small 27 watt
solar panel and I'll show you how all this mates and how the whole thing works.
Come around to the back of the system and you will see what I've installed is
a 2-pin SAE port
that allows the energy
from the solar panel to come into the system...and
once that is coming into the system it is going to a
solar charge controller that is under the top... we'll get back to that in just a
bit.
The case itself is a Plano
sportsman's case ...was about twenty-five dollars, it is quite rugged
is much more sturdy than a typical Rubbermaid container by all means
but was quite affordable and again is to be used
inside a cabin on a boat so it doesn't need to be perfectly weatherproof but this is
I think quite
weatherproof as it's built.
On the front, after we get some power into the
batteries we're able to provide power through a number to accessory ports, we've
got 12 volt on the side
I did install a 12-volt power indicator. It's reading about 13.4 volts
going in right now.
We've got USB power here, a 5 volt 1 amp
and a 5 volt 2.1 amp USB port,
of course a 12-volt outlet here and on the AC side
What I've installed, you'll see how that works in a bit, is
an AC voltmeter and ammeter
and that gives me an indication that power is on here and also is very
important because the
ammeter tells me how many amps I'm drawing out of the system using various
appliances and that's very
importand when you're developing your solar power budget for
solar power generated during the day versus solar power being utilized from
the system.
I've installed some Leviton weatherproof
covers to my 110 AC outlets here
and swinging back around to the back side
what I'll show you is that this is all turned on
using a master battery switch,
that's been installed here. It is keyed
sp we will install that key and
power up the AC side of the system.
You'll see here that when you turn that switch on
I does power up a
digital thermometer. There's a sensor inside that tells you what the internal
temperature the case is,
so we can monitor whether or not we need to activate the fans.
There's two fans on the back that push air in and draw air out to the case to keep
the
AC DC inverter cool.
They are powered up if needed by this switch.
And we'll turn that off so that
we can better hear each other.
But I only use that if it is absolutely necessary and that helps to
conserve some power. So back to the front of the case again...
What you see is that now
our AC voltmeter and ammeter is powered up
indicating that there is power again to these outlets, right now showing 109
volts and 0 amps being drawn.
Let's go to the inside of the case. The case
is pretty rugged, a nice top with some handles that latch it down.
We can remove this top completely and on the inside
what you're gonna see is a 400 watt pure sine wave inverter
and a 30 amp solar charge controller. On the
the deck or on this tray the keeps these
appliances or these accessories up out of the battery compartment I've installed
also an
emergency light that could be useful during camping if absolutely necessary.
There are handles here that allow you take this tray out.... this idea was inspired by
another YouTuber who is so good to post his project...very inspirational. I've got four
vents here,
allow air to circulate through the top portion of the
the case as well as through the bottom. I am going to show you how this whole thing comes
apart and what the inside looks like. We simply the disconnect the
AC power cord from the top tray
and the whole thing and be lifted out
and put behind the unit.
I've basically used two batteries, they are wired in parallel.
2AWG wire cables here are to transfer power back and forth
between the batteries.
I've installed a divider and something of a deck underneath as well.
there's some framing that will keep the batteries in place and
keep them from moving around. The wire gauges here range from
smallest 18 gauge right up to the 2 gauge and
quite a few different wire sizes in-between.
I modeled the system after a number I've seen on YouTube.
I did consult with a friend who is an electrical engineer for safety purposes,
had to make sure things were wired properly and safe. And to protect all the
the components there's probably no lesson well five different fuses in this
system ranging from
a ANL 50 amp fuse here between the inverter
and the the battery and
a host of other inline fuses such as this one,
a 30 amp fuse between the solar charge controller
and the batteries. There are a number of other fuses
running in the lines between power sources, AC, DC
and outlets. There is another way to charge the system up.
I did buy a trickle charger that
had an SAE port and simply ran the
cable that came with that through the wall
of this case and then out under the handle so that this is protected from the
elements.
An SAE 2-pin port mates up here to
trickle charge this whole system so that it's ready to go in the event
of an emergency.
Again, it generates 110 amp hours, cost about $950 dollars
and I'm gonna be really excited to use this again with the 100 watt panel.
This should allow it to charge at a rate of about 5 amp hours.
So that is my project. I hope everybody enjoyed it and again I want to thank
everybody who posted on their projects
so that we could benefit from their knowledge and build our own.