I have been busy reading up on this solar subject.In this catalog they have Xantrex,Samlex,Morningstar power inverters.
Prostar,TriStar,SunSaver,Xantrex,Phocos,Outback Controllers.Also KACObut high dollar,too much for me.
Sharp,Kyocra,Canadian Solar,Evergreen,CDT solar5 panels.
Which one should I consider?Last years catlog,so don't know if price has changed. Thanks.
Choices, choices, choices. What's a person to do ? Well, I started with a small but fairly good system. I was framing a large house for a man who was starting up a solar business here locally. in the time I was out there, I started learning a lot about what brands do what and price also. Yes, it is very confusing at first. In fact , after 16 years , there is still so much new stuff which only adds to initial confusion.
Sometimes the different brands do different things, or in different ways. Lets take inverters. First of all , an inverter "inverts" 12v dc battery current to ac house type current. In can do this in 2 basic ways, which are modified or square wave current or pure sinewave ac current , which is much better and also much more expensive. Then they come in different sizes which is to say what their output current will be at max. Then they come in a couple of different styles such as grid tie or stand alone configurations. Now there are a couple of more different types which a few will offer built in battery chargers. My inverter is an older Trace 2512 which is mostly built for pure sine wave, 2500 watts, with a built in battery charger which will put out around 150 amps from either elec (grid) and or a back up gennie.
That is a lot more power then your standard battery charger can do.
There are only two different brands of inverter's that I will ever recommend. One is the Trace, which was taken over by Xantrax and the other is the Outback. By the way, all three of these brands are all designed by the same guys. Trace and Xantrax are virtually the same, the only real difference that I am aware of is that the older trace units have a clock built inside of them and the newer version xantrax does not.
Yes, it can be and often is very confusing.
Here is what I would suggest for you. Decide what you will need to run on solar. For instance my refer/freezer runs only about 14 hours a day, which is to say of that time actual running time is about 6 -7 hours as it cycles. I have it and my chest freezer on timers. After all, if they are not opened in the middle of the night , they will stay cold, especially the chest freezer. I run my 27" crt tv about 3 hours in the morning and from about 3:30 pm in the after noon to about 9:30 at night. During the day, both my wife and I both have our desk top computers on say 1/2 -3/4 of the entire day. Water pump for water, which we take our showers in late afternoon to conserve power, and of course intermitent lighting. So, by living as we do, we get by (barely) on a small system which is about 1500 - 1700 watts. With modern pricing, you can generally get panels about $3.00 per watt. When I started, you were getting a deal to get them around $4.00 per watt. My inverter was around $3,000.00 , and my charge controlers with led covers were about 275.00 ea. I have 4 on line with spares for backups. I soon learned about wiring and found that I had to upgrade all my battery cables, which after seeing the price in the stores, made my own for about 1/3 of the costs. I am in the process of re-racking all my solar, in order to make more room for future purchases, and will soon be re-wiring them in order to make them more efficient. Just finishing a complete re-wiring of my wind gennie system yesterday, which is now using two Xantrax C-60's along with my resistance dump load , rectifier etc to get the max use of it also.
Read my blogs if you wish:
Basic Getting into Solar / Wind - Survival Monkey Forums
