Today I worked more on the project I was working on yesterday, namely the solar powering of my ventilation fans. The short end of the story for those with minimal attention spans is everything worked as predicted. The stages of getting there and testing took quite a while though.
When I'm working on electrics I tend to use a voltmeter. I've tried several different voltmeters but this one from Walmart seems to be working and seems to keep on working. I had one from Lowes or Home Depot about 12 years ago and that just seemed to die - the needle wouldn't move on the scale. It stuck half way! I've tried one or two digital multi-meters and they seem to be the worst - they either break very quickly, giving erratic readings or the batteries die quickly. Needless to say those that take the most expensive batteries die the fastest. This one has a single AAA battery inside (and a small glass fuse).
When I'm soldering I often find that a small electric soldering iron just won't do what's needed. Thus I tend to turn to a butane torch. It's really good for soldering and for shrink-wrap insulation sleeves. I think this was another Walmart purchase. I did have one from Harbor Freight but it didn't work after having been in storage in my old storage unit.
So, using the torch and my meter, I put Anderson connectors on the cutoff cords that I'd been using for my solar panels. Now I have two extension cords. I used them today when I was testing my directly solar powered fans. They worked perfectly. Putting Anderson connectors on is problematic. They come as two connectors, connected by two wires. One wire is red, the other white. The problem there is that when they're cut apart to be used, the red wire is positive on one connector and negative on the other. Thus the color of the cables has to be ignored and a meter must be used every time to check for polarity.
I tested the setup with a single solar panel and a single fan. That worked really well. Next I introduced the second panel (using the Y connector I built some months ago) and the second fan. The control unit worked just as well as I'd hoped and turned the fans off when the voltage was too low. It was possible to hear the fans going on and off.
Interestingly as the sun was pretty well overhead, the best position for my panels seemed to be flat on the ground. I'd not thought of laying them flat. I'd always heard they should be at an angle. Mind, all my other panels are vertical. They seem to work pretty darned well.
I had an afterthought as I was adding a fuse to the incoming power line that I should try putting the panels optimally but connected via the front solar input. That would give me a test sample to see whether I do indeed need to install my newly made purple box with the low voltage cutout switch. I didn't have time today but I'll try it next weekend. It might be that placed optimally the solar input from the front, going through the charge controller might be sufficient to power the fans. If not then I can just continue on the way I am. If it turns out I don't need my fancy voltage limited then it will simplify my wiring no end and I shall rejoice. I can just put a simple switch and a small switch box.
Walking in the yard not far from the bus I spotted this cactus growing wild - as they do in my locale. It served to remind me of my late mother who so loved cacti. She passed away in October 2016. She wasn't just a lover of cacti - she was pretty much an expert as she was on wildlife.
No comments:
Post a Comment