My Solar Generator Experiment.
For years I've been using a little 15W solar panel to maintain the charge on the battery in an RV that we keep in the mountains. We typically only power some D.C. lights and a water pump in the RV, so the 15W panel has worked well. With that success in mind, I decided to take solar a step further.
I took a 45W solar panel ($139 at Harbor Freight) and connected it to a parallel bank of two deep cycle RV batteries (about $100 each at Sam's Club) and then to a 3000W inverter (about $200 at Harbor Freight - you can get a 2000W inverter for about $129) to build my little solar generator. This particular solar panel came with a charge controller, which is nice. Everything is on a cart, so technically, it's portable.
The batteries have 125 Amp-hrs each, so I can store up to 250 Amp-hrs for those little emergencies when you don't want to hassle with a gas powered generator. So far, I have powered my refrigerator for up to 2.5 days and it will run the entertainment center (52" screen & Direct TV receiver) for at least 6 hours. That is the extent of my experimentation so far.
I can think of several other applications for this little rig. For example, I would like to wire it in as a back up source of power to the fan in our wood burning fireplace.
I plan on building another one for use at our remote mountain site where we use a portable generator, primarily for lights, in the evening. If we were to use the compact fluorescent bulbs, we could amply light a cabin all evening and allow the batteries to recharge during the day.
