my first one arrived yesterday. i have it set up in the drive way getting light from sun up till sun down. it is set so that it gets direct sunlight at noon and is collecting it from the sides as long as tthe sun is out. a tracker would be ideal, but at the moment i'll use what i have on hand. i hooked it up around 2:00 yesterday and hooked it up to my lawn mower batery. needless to say it is now fully charged.
i was amazed at how easy it was to set up, but i will be making improvements to the panle holder. it is kinda flimsy to say the least about it. it is raining here and has been over cast since i set it up yesterday, but it is producing great power for trickle charging batteries. i have two more kits coming and a much better charge controller. i think i'm going o invest in about a total of 15 of these kits and a grid tie inverter. the charge controller i am going to use has a dump feature that when the battery bank is fully charged it dumps the power that comes off the panels into the grid tie inverter and puts it back into the grid of my home. that means the electric metter either slows down or turns backwards until i use a big 220 volt item or use over the power my panels are putting out.
for a starter bank of batteries i am going to use 10-20 deep cycle batteries. as time and money allows i will change them out to a better battery system.
i'm also going to make a solar air heater.
all this will be used in my out biulding. i will have a solar panel on a fan on the solar heater so that when the sun is out it will keep the biulding warm i hope.
i'm just trying this out right now to see what can be done when i biuld my next home. i'm not a big liberal greeny. i'm a conservative and figure anything i can do to save myself money on electric and heating is great!!!!
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