How much solar do you need to run a house fridge: RAIN or SHINE
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
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In today's video, we're going to see how many solar panels do you need to run a house refrigerator. We're going to be looking into long-term sustainable refrigeration with a focus on solar panel solutions that work in any weather condition.🌞☁️🌧️
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Join us as we tackle the question "How many solar panels do you need to run a typical house fridge?" We'll break it down step by step. First, we'll explore how many solar panels are required during optimal, sunny conditions. We'll show you just how efficient solar power can be when the sun is shining brightly.
But we don't stop there! Weather can be unpredictable, and we're here to ensure you're always prepared. We'll also investigate how many solar panels are needed to keep your fridge running smoothly on cloudy or stormy days. Yes, you heard that right! Solar panels can still produce energy even when the weather isn't perfect. It just takes a bit of extra solar power.
The goal here is to empower you with the knowledge and tools to embrace sustainable living and harness solar energy for your everyday needs. By the end of this video, you'll have a clear understanding of how to optimize solar panel capacity for your refrigerator, ensuring you’ll have a cool place to always store your food.
Sustainable refrigeration doesn’t have to be complicated!
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Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:03 Equipment
2:14 How much solar do you need to run a fridge in SUNNY CONDITIONS
10:46 How much solar do you need to run a fridge in CLOUDY OR STORMY CONDITIONS
20:46 Conclusion & Costs
................................................................
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Disclaimer
I am not a licensed electrician. Working with electricity is dangerous and can lead to injury or death, even when following documentation and instructions. I can not be held liable for such damage or injury. I am not giving or seeking to give advice on how to work with electricity. You should consult with a licensed professional whenever possible and get all work reviewed by an inspector and follow any local regulations in your area. I'm documenting my projects for informational purposes only. Electricity can kill you! BE CAREFUL! - Věda a technologie
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For anyone reading this if your planning on replacing your fridge soon & you want/have a solar system or “solar generator” buy an inverter fridge there very efficient & don’t surge watts
never heard of an inverter fridge, just get a good puresine inverter (that you would need anyway) and run a stock low wattage fridge.
The Philippines has inverter-type appliances I noticed. Especially for our air conditioning.
12 volt deepfreezers are expensive.
Great video...one point I can add...
The refrigerator does not run continuously...
Monitor your model for a week...it is a great way to insure your foods...
I run a chest freezer and a small 7.5 cu ft refrigerator/ freezer...one
Lifepo4 100ah battery and two 165watt mono panels...30amp controller... I do live in fl🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞 solar is best small scale... multiple sets so you always have a good source instead of standing in the dark with a flashlight trying to figure out what's wrong with one inverter and one battery set up... Just like circuit breakers in the house, have separate lines for each line that you want...
refrigeration ,lighting computers security cameras ,you name it everybody gets an individual circuit...
Very good points. People have also mentioned the same thing. Seems like a good idea!
This was by far the best "real-world" (including forgetting to plug in the PV's) test that has be made.
1,440 watts used solar panels + 100ah 12v lifepo4 (1280wh) 30amp charge controller.
Glad I found this video. A year ago, I set up a 48V system with a Victron 150/45 charge controller and 2800-ish watts solar fed thru an eco-worthy combiner. I am using 8 6V 215AH lead-acid golf car batteries ($800 for 8 at Sams Club - now $119 ea.) with a balancer to minimize the need for equalization. An impressive little "eBay special" 2000W (4000W surge) pure sine wave inverter draws just 6 watts no-load. It's running a freezer (100W) and a side-by-side (200w) house fridge. During the summer, I can run much more, but this is what I've found I can run all winter long, cloudy days and all, without once going to the grid. Doing all the work myself, I have a little less than $4K invested. So far so good. I have not had any cells out-of-balance , no terminal corrosion, and only needed to add 1/2" distilled water ONCE in over a year. I recently added the JBD SmartShunt, and set to a min charge level of 40%. Of the 60% "usable " capacity of these batteries, I have seen them get down to a little below 50% after a few cloudy days. After any day with a little sun, where batt's start at 100%, I usually see the charge process get started with 73% battery still available. When the sun pops out, the system slams a full charge in them before 9:30AM. During the day, the solar delivers what is needed, and batt's just float. In summer, I charge all my 80V brushless lawn care tools off this setup (like catching sunlight in little buckets, lol) I only had to broom snow off 1 time last year... This year could be different... It's a lot of fun, and I like my little "Partial-off-grid-setup".
The way you calculated watt hrs. You have single handedly helped me learn this calculation.
2 years trying.
5000 watt ES growatt. (2) 5120 watt hr 48v eg4.
(24) 185 watt panels. 2 series strings in parallel.
Now I can KNOW
answers to questions I did not.
Cg
Nice, Glad it helped. I learn a bunch from you guys commenting also. Nice set up.
The most important part of a solar set up is the batteries. Battery capacity will determine what you can run and for how long.
Thanks this is the exact video I’ve been looking for what’s the minimum system that can run a full size fridge indefinitely. I haven’t found another similar video yet
100 ah = 269 dollar 2 x 100ah batt = 538 dollar ( 1 x 200ah = 579 dollar ??). Better have 2 x100ah Is better because if one is broken you still can use the fridge ( wtshf)
And always use the same batt in all of your home inst. so you always can change the batts .
Greetings from 🇳🇱 the netherlands 👋
This was totally fun, learned a lot, just getting into solar, save some cash but mostly to learn and have fun great video
Thanks. It's definitely fun stuff :)
I just bought the $259 model of the Power Queen battery to run my trolling motor on my new Lowe 1440M jon boat, I have plans to buy another for a 200AH solar build on a small building as to move in when the power goes out. I bought a three item combo on Amazon with a battery box that has a 60amp breaker for trolling motor and 10 amp breaker for usb and 12v hookup and battery level tester all built in, also came with a smart charger that will charge the Power Queen up in 5 hours and if it will run stuff for 17hours as you tested with an invertor than that is still winning in my book!
Enjoyed your video.
To maximize the PV efficiency, tilting the panels to the sun angle is important. I have 4-100 watt panels in a tiltable frame i made from discarded bed frames. Pressure treated 4x4s sunk 2 feet in the ground with 3 bags of fence post concrete for each post. The frame pivots at a few inches above the center of balance so it's slightly bottom weighted. I used unistrut at the bottom to make my monthly tilt adjustments. I hope you have these panels of the ground now.
just built a small 2 kw array, for $7000🇨🇦. includes a 90 amp mppt charge controller, 3kw heavy xantrex inverter, capable of 6 kw surge, and six 100 amp/hr agm batteries. Runs continuously. In northern BC, long winters with very little sun.
The Victron gear is fantastic and it's helping you immensely. I've got a 75/30 on the way now.
I really liked this video. My systems (three) are for redundancy. my main system is 1020w 24v with two 300ah power queen batteries it runs a fridge a chest freezer, TV, Lights, fantastic fans.
My second system is 12v 1020w runs the bedroom, bathroom, fans, lights. It's 4 50ah lithium batteries, I'm planning on doubling those 4.
My third system runs the water system alone. It's 12v 510 watts it's got a 1500w inverter with two
50ah lifepo4 in parallel
Very nice!
Alsome video!! I have a suggestion that could maximize the performance of your panels. Paint your fence white. It will reflect more light into the panels. Hope this helps. God bless
Very cool. I'm doing basically the same thing you are but on a slightly larger scale. You are correct in saying to up the capacity. With my setup, I doubled the capacity and in doing so it lets you take full advantage of all or most of your panels power production window. 400AH @ 48 VDC with 16-250 W used santan solar panels. Good luck
That's great!. What are you running off that?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay 6000 BTU air con for my shed with a fan for circulation. I'll be hooking up a couple of smaller deep freezers when the weather isn't so hot (Florida) and the attic isn't 130 to run separate circuits.
Thanks for the information ! I just might try solar now .
I got 10 235w panels from Santan Solar for $26 a piece and $300 for shipping, and all of them are working great at about 170w each.
Awesome, are those still in stock?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay they come and go, the vinyl backing does have cracks which might let in moisture causing a short, but you'll find that almost never happens.
You paid $260.00 for the 10 panel and then a total of $300 for panels and shipping? Or you paid $260.00 for panels + $300.00 for shipping, for a total of $560.00? I'm not following your total cost on these with shipping.
@@kf4wnf $260 for the panels, and $300 for shipping, for a total of $560. The panels are typically $50 each, but if you watch the site long enough you'll occasionally find them for $32 or less. By the way, the panels work great, I'm getting about 85% of the stated wattage out of them on average in Ohio.
@@frankmaze1976 can those cracks in the vinyl siding be sealed/caucked with something?
That's really good info, thank you!
OK, a few things from someone off grid over 20 years:
Your calculation premise was incorrect and what you need to calculate is how much battery capacity you need to run that fridge overnight and on days with low sunshine.
A 100 watt solar panel rarely produces 100 watts even under great conditions and you want enough solar to keep that battery charged up while running that fridge so the battery is full charged for night time use.
If you figure 5 hours of sunshine which is avg for winter you would need at least 200 watts to power that fridge and put some juice back in the battery if the weather turns cloudy.
Then you need a battery with enough capacity to run that fridge for the 19 hours when the sun is not shining.
For that fridge I would recommend at least 400 watts of solar and a 200Ah LIFEPO4 battery.
If you want to use a better fridge look at the 12/24 volt car fridge/freezer that avg 45-50 watts and are better insulated chest style so they run very little depending on ambient temp.
Then you can run one of those off that 100Ah battery and 200 watts of solar.
Hope that helps!
Correct, a 100 watt panel rarely produces 100 watts. Hopefully I made that clear Thanks for the comment. Cool cabin!
Great info, thanks.
Thanks a lot for the video. Always nice to see an actual system working in real life.
Just a tip for anyone if you are buying a new refrigerator for your house and plan to use solar, get a top freezer with no fancy electronics, they are more efficient than bottom freezer and are way more efficient than split door.
A basic top freezer fridge would use about half the power per day compared to his bottom freezer split door fridge.
Thanks for the safety notes. Could you make a video on using a fuse during the setup in series? Thanks.
Here's a good video that shows you when you need to use them and when you don't. You don't need to use them in every situation.
czcams.com/video/s1P31hxlD3I/video.htmlsi=w3zU88orr2AAtgy6
Excellent, thank you. New sub. Cheers.
Very informative I’ll be looking into getting solar panels to run my refrigerator and freezer. Thank you very much great great video.
it is crazy how these pre-made, lifepo4, 4s and 8s battery packs, have become cheaper than building your own. I built my own and 1 year later , I could have just bought these for less and NO LABOR. And it is a lot of work to make your own, and get the tools to do so.
Great information. Thanks
Thanks. You guys are great!
Good video.
Good show its appreciated thank you
Great video. There are days when the sky is so dark you will get no power what so ever. You really need another battery or two, to get you through those days. More solar panels would not hurt either. I have learn you cannot have too much solar panels. I have 16 panels on my RV and I can stay in the desert with the only limitation is food , water and dump. There has been a couple of times in the last several years I had no choice but to fire up my noisey thirsty generator, which is something I hate to do.
I’m just getting into solar. Doing my homework and came across this page. First off, great in depth information! Just to make sure I’m understanding, the battery powers the fridge through out the night. Then in the morning the solar panels charge the battery and also run the fridge at the same time?
Correct.
Highly recommend using 24v for cases like this. You will double the watts you can shove in the battery at the same amperage. 48v is even better but gets more pricy and batteries can get a bit large...good for non-mobile use. 24v is a nice happy medium as you cut your current down in half thus reducing cable costs, it's still reasonably portable and it'll take a charge faster from the amps you can use. Also good to check the power factor of things too as a bad PF essentially uses up more capacity on your inverter. I have a charger for my lawn mower batteries and the PF is 0.5 on that thing, my little inverter is only 300 watts so basically it's using twice the power and if I try to run 2 of them it overloads the inverter. If the PF was closer to 1.0 I would be able to run two of them...or if they made a DC charger (GRR)...
You need a bigger inverter. I got a 2000 watts one and got it over with instead of a bunch of little ones.
@@davidpotter9462 Don't wanna waste money on another 12v inverter, gonna go 24 or 48v.
I have 1600 watts of solar panels and a 600 watts B&C wind generator. They feed twenty big marine batteries from Autozone. I'm using a 24 volts Aims Power inverter charger, 2000 watts. I used a 40 amps Epever charge controller, 4215 BN. I used all 100 watts panels. I don't have a good exposure to the Sun 🌞 except forty feet away which drops the watts a little bit but gets sun more hours so it actually gets more that way. I have a thousand amp hours of battery bank. I run a freezer and a fridge plus oven, hotplate, sump pump, washing machine, air conditioner, fans, lights, chargers, etc. Saws, drills, no problem. I can get by two days and nights without Sun 🌞, but the wind usually blows and helps. Anyways, each battery almost never gets below 12.3 volts, that's after two days of rain. Mostly they stay at or above 12.45 volts. I just bought two batteries at a time but when I got to twenty everything changed. Kind of like a herd of cows pushing on a fence, lot of power there. Fourteen of my batteries are 105 amp hours and six are 85 amps. I was buying the smaller ones when I was saving up for the Inverter charger. I bought a Winco Lil Dog generator that can charge the battery bank. I've used it once, and after I added the wind generator in March, I haven't had to use it for that anymore.
I use it to run my DC inverter welder. I got my stuff to where it works great 👍. I don't use a great amount of power so my batteries are almost always charged up. I have plenty this time of year, and it was okay with 1400 watts of solar panels last year. The year before I had 1000 watts. So I added two more solar panels to see what it does this winter. Last year I could get five to six hundred watts on a clear sunny day. But not for long, the short days kill the power production. The most I have seen is 1020 watts coming in, the max for the controller is 1040. But with the smoke from Canada I'm lucky to get 800. With clouds it averaged around 450 watts most of the day. But somehow it's enough and I just keep going. I didn't know much about it at first, but this will be my third Winter off grid. I have tinkered with it, and it works like I imagined when I used to daydream about having solar.
@@ChrisEpler mine is 24 volts. It works great 👍.
@@ChrisEpler I used an Aims Power inverter charger, 24 volts, 2000 watts. Running on twenty big marine batteries
Hey, I just want to tell you that I really appreciate this video in particular. I'm in the works for setting up a power system for my off grid parents. The refridurator is sucking up the most power. I'm at a toss up between absorption 3way or a 24v compressor.
My absorption 3-way fridge in my RV is very small and it uses four times the amount of power as my regular 120 volt house fridge. I would definitely go a 24 volts! I think those fridges will even use less power than the one I show in this video
GREAT video.......thanks.
Thank you
Well done.
Lovely video! exactly the setup I have except I live in the UK so when you mentioned you had to wait for bad weather I had to laugh! Thanks for sharing
That's funny! Thanks :)
A couple issues I have in winter months your looking at much less sun hrs if any for multiple days so min 5kwh battery just for fridge partly because your battery will not charge up completely daily and to charge your system your looking at the min sun hrs days plus max solar panels 1100kwh panels. To charge and have your system on float most days if your system is not on float mode you need more power or solar.
The very first thing you need to do is get rid of any refrigerator made in the US. They are energy hogs. I bought a Haier sold by Ge from China. It is the most silent and efficient full size refrigerator I have ever owned. My very small solar system will run my refrigerator with only 2 300 watt panels. It takes 3 days of cloudy weather for me to need another way to charge my batteries. That is very rare in Arizona.
Nice, I hear the 12 volt fridges are also really efficient
I just need for cargo trailer but love u teach ing
New subscriber.
Good valuable info Ray! Just got our new (D2M) Ecoflow Delta 2 Max (2Kw LiFePo4). I’m running your test using two 340w Qcell panels I picked up from Santan Solar in Savannah before they closed. On sunny days the panels can farm from 1.25-1.5 Kw/Day. Up to 3Kw per day for both of them. And the D2M has two charge controllers, each with a max input of 500w and 60v. It’s more than enough to run my fridge, and the D2M soaks up as much as it can before getting maxed out. The maxed D2M easily runs the fridge until the next sun cycle. As you mentioned, you don’t want to waste solar power, so, I’m going to add another circuit, probably modem/router/tv, and see if the panels and D2M can handle that as well as the fridge. Like you, we have an RV with 2Kw LFP and 300w solar that we can run an extension cord from to input into the ac input on the D2M.
Nice setup you got there. Sounds like you'll always have cold food :). I love LFP in my RV. I'm going to be reviewing the Bluetti AC200Max as an RV battery replacement option soon.
Bluetti is good too. I chose Ecoflow because it charges way faster than anything else. (I’m not affiliated). I am now a true believer in mid-size powerstations, mostly due to their versatility. Ray’s purpose built system is 1,000% easier with a powerstation. Plus when you go camping, just throw it in the RV like a mobile FHU pedestal.
Best thing i ever did was buy my 2 growatts, eg4 batteries, and panels from san tan. Signature solar has my next solar project the mini split.
Nice. I need one of those too.
15:11
Awesome Content! 🎉
1. Is that solar charge controller the power inverter?… from DC to AC?
2. What happens when you don’t have a solar charge converter?
3. Other than the battery, inverter, and solar panels, what are the required items to have?
Thank you for sharing! ❤
The "solar mppt charge controller" is used to charge the batteries. The Inverter turns power from DC to AC so you can run your fridge. You'll also want a 30 foot 10AWG Solar Extension Cable: amzn.to/46vKjqc) depending on how far away your solar panels will be located. I'll include that in the kit in the description. Hope that helps.
Unplug the fridge at noon, then wait a few minutes the defrost cycle will happen the next day @ noon when you have solar power coming in.
A full house fridge typically burns an average of 60W. The cycle on, depending on the compressor, might need a 1000W surge and maybe 200W running. In anycase, the average consumption will wind up being around 60W so 60W x 24h = 1.4 kWh. However, an always-on inverter (even the victron inverter with its "eco" mode), is only 85% to 90% efficient and also has vampire consumption. Assume 85% and 10W. So that's 70W / 0.85 = 82W. x 24h = approximately 2 kWh/day.
For solar with sunny weather your production is roughly x4 or x5 the nameplate. e.g. 1kW in panels yields 4kWh/day in production. But in cloudy weather it is going to be more like x2. e.g. 1kW in panels yields only 2kWh/day.
So you would need, roughly, 1000W of solar (nameplate) to reliably run a fridge 24 x 7.
Now if you add a furnace, that is a bit more of a problem because furnace blowers for central air usually burn around 300W. Plus the furnace starter itself but you can usually ignore that. If your furnace is running 8 hours a day, 8h x 300W = 2.4 kWh. Adjust by the assumed 85% efficiency and you wind up needing around 3 kWh.
So now you are up to 3 kWh + 2 kWh = 5 kWh and at 2x (cloudy weather) that means you would need (5.0kWh / 2x) = 2.5 kW nameplate worth of panels to reliably run the fridge and furnace 24x7.
Other people have commented on the battery voltage. 12V shouldn't be used. Use 24V or 48V, its a lot more efficient and the amperages are a lot lower.
The inverter only needs to be able to handle the worst case surge, which in this case... I would assume roughly 2000W, so a 3000W inverter would do the job. However, remember that the inverter's vampire consumption scales with the maximum output wattage, and efficiency drops as you size up, so you want an inverter that is just big enough to handle the surges and no bigger.
-Matt
24 or 48v would definitely be better. I'd love to have this same set up with a 48v battery. I wanted to keep it simple with a common 12v battery. Maybe later I'll have a 48v set up. People are more scared of that voltage though.
When you replace the fridge, get an inverter based fridge next. More efficient and almost no surge.
@ssoffshore5111 that's what I have been hearing. I haven't looked too much into them yet. I would like to get a brand which can be maintained. Common parts etc.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay IDK about parts, but I've had my 32 cu ft LG for about 5-7 years now (?), zero issues. No surge and it averages around 1kW/day.
@@ssoffshore5111 that's not bad. About 40 W per hour on average. Or 15 cents per day for me.
So is it possible to charge the battery and at the same time directly from the inverter power the fridge? If its daytime of course.
I mean skipping the battery if theres enough power coming from solar
Thanks for the math test Doc
storms/weather have wind, so a wind turbine might be good. wonder if that can just goto the mppt as well?
I've never done a wind turbine but as long as you get a mppt according to the wind turbine volts&s it should work great.
Thanks for video. Must be awesome to have 7 whole sunhours a day. I only have 4.
But price is cheap here in ph. A brand new lvtopsun 450watt panel is about 120$. A 12v250ah byd is less than 400$, a one solar 1000watt toroidal inverter is 110$ and a one solar 40a 150voc 12/24/36/48v mppt is 85$. So 715$ in total. If you want you can get a 1,8kwatt y&h hybrid with 450voc & 80a charging for same price as the individual mppt and inverter. I got both and they work amazing together.
So many possibilities now a day. Thanks again for video.
Where's ph?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Philippines
Q-cell is the only company i buy solor panels from... supreme quality and performance can't be beat
What have you bought from them?
Did you ever mount the controller and inverter, if so where did you put the in relation to the refrigerator?
not yet. I'm building a off grid system now :)
Thank you for your good science. I am planning a large system for my small sailboat and have a dumb question: If I were to use two of the smaller size 100AH batteries like the one in this test and run them in parallel, do I just use the shunt on the battery directly connected to the load and will that give me the state of charge/watts used/... for both batteries?
To be honest I haven't done that before but here's a link that might help.
Carful with the boat set up.
I always hear of sailboat fires... I love the idea though. I'd love to sail sometime!
community.victronenergy.com/questions/59286/smartshunt-installation.html
Pull the spec sheet on the battery you want to buy before you drop the $. Some are very picky how they are wired series or parallel.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Thanks for the very helpful link! My boat is a trailerable boat so I am a "trailer sailer". I plan to head north of Tahoe (I'm in San Diego) to try and sail as many west coast lakes as I can. I will let you know when I make it up as far as you! I have done San Pedro to Caralina Island and back few times and one San Diego to Long Beach to Catalina Island and back. Lots of open ocean sailing!
@@benkanobe7500 Cool. that would be really fun! I'd go for sure. I love to fish also :). We've taken the RV to silverstrand state beach and Thornhill broom Beach/RV park. the last 2 summers. Very fun :)
No, you need battery and panels not just more solar for getting through days of storms, you could always use a charger or propane based charger if you wanna run more to recharge your battery. If you had to you can’t make the sun come out. Slightly bigger charge controller might be in an order j agree as well. Recommend command 24 V system.
Because panels are so cheap in relation to batteries I thought I'd attempt to go with getting extra panels after all they still produce even durring storms. I'm not sure the most cost friendly option. that's an interesting subject.
This video was very informative. I appreciate the calculations. However, you flashed up critical numbers on the screen during your editing which didn’t stay up long enough. You went too fast when showing the panels volts and how that effects the charge controller. I had to do a lot of scrubbing to pause and take screen shots lol
Thanks for the feedback. I'll try and go a bit slower on those parts. Cheers!
It saddens me that santan is closing the GA location. They are providing guys like me with affordable off grid solar! Honestly I’d advise anyone who needs a lot of solar cheap to hit them up!
Satan is, closing it with everyone's help
just installed my first system, two 12v 100ah power queen batteries, renogy 700w inverter and lion energy 12v 30amp solar charge controller plus 3 lion energy 12v 100watt rigid panels.
charged both batteries to full with vevor charger and then connected my full size fridge. everything ran fine for 2 full days.
this morning the inverter sounded an alarm and i had to plug fridge into the house. im wondering if the panels couldnt keep up.
what device do i need that will show wattage coming from the panels and how topped off the batteries are?
im guessing i need something to monitor those two
That's awesome. You'll want the Victron Smart Battery monitor: amzn.to/3I6maw4. It will measure both those. Kind of expensive but it's very good. Yeah I think you need some bigger solar panels. Sometimes you can find larger ones on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for cheap. 👍
I use the battery monitor in this video. czcams.com/video/np1RsaI7ObQ/video.html
HOW ABOUT A VIDEO WHERE YOU TELL PEOPLE HOW TO LOOK AT THEIR MONTHLY ELECTRICITY BILL AND HOW TO BASE THE SYSTEM ON THAT?!?!?!
For a fridge specifically?
Do you have a link for that fridge power monitor/meter?
amzn.to/3SPIqAL But this one also has good reviews and is a half the price: amzn.to/49Q0sZE
What is the app you are using to monitor the battery usage percentage of power left?
Thanks for pointing this out. amzn.to/3ww8x6L
Sorry, Here the one I recommend: Battery Monitor/Shunt: amzn.to/3Tehjz2
I wanted to know about solar an refrigerator for over 25 yrs now?
I can’t make sense of your results. While on utility power, my kill-o-watt meter recorded that my frig (specs 115v, 5.2A) consumed 1.73kWh in 24 hours. When I ran it off my 24v, 200Ah battery, no panels connected, it was tapped out in about 5 hours. What am I missing?
Either your inverter is insane inefficient or your battery is bad. I would guess that your battery is bad
As you pointed out, the charge controller has wifi and you can access the data. Would the shunt then become redundant or is there data from the shunt that is not available from the charge controller?
I would say get the Battery monitor and ditch the wifi in the charge controller. The bluetooth app for the solar charge controller won't show battery charge state. I'd get the victron shunt over the one used in this video... It's $50 more though.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay So many folks agree with you and also recommend Victorn. That's what I am going to do. Thanks for responding it is very helpful.
@benkanobe7500 they're good however I wouldn't get the victron for my RV.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay I was referring to the Victron Shunt.(?)
@benkanobe7500 definitely, i love that thing!
Around 2014 I bought four 225 watt panels and an MPPT controller. (Currently three panels, one is in the Albemarle Sound. Prepare for squalls.) Ten months of using solar to recharge the batteries, I saved enough in diesel to pay for the solar. Since 2015 that electric is free.
I plan to sell the boat and am looking to buy a 14 foot box truck. I have 1200 AH LiFePO4, up to 1075 watts of solar and a 24 watt 12 volt cooler. I am looking at possibilities of powering the cooler in the truck. I am also looking at the possibility of running a rooftop air conditioner to keep the box below 100 degrees F. (one guy's box truck got hot enough to ruin his heat shrink.)
Whether I use 12 volts or 48 volts on land remains to be seen. Since the motorhome is 12 volts, that is likely the winner.
I used this cheap 48v to 12v converter in my 48V RV battery system and it works awesome: amzn.to/3rEQ8ma
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay I hadn't considered that I will look at it. But I already have the Victron 12 volt 125X2 inverter/charger.
@ny1t I haven't used that but I know it only can support an output of 2400 Watts, one large appliance. The gtowatt 48-volt all-in-one system I have in my 5th Wheel video can support 3000 Watts or 2 large appliances instead of just one
Keep your power above 10 KWH . 24VDC OR 48VDC SYS . SOLAR AND WIND TURBINE !! good luck .
Thank you. I need to get a wind turbine. I'd love to diy one but haven't looked into that yet.
Which phone app did you download to measure the battery?
I used this smart shunt to measure the battery draw: amzn.to/3PwJuHI If you get a smart battery they have this functionality built it though.
Hey Ray, is it possible to book a virtual appointment with you?
I'd prefer to answer any questions here where others can also provide feedback and all can learn.
My Frig uses about 675W in defrost mode. I guess yours uses less if you can use a 500W inverter. Over a full day my full sized frig uses 1.15KWH.
Wow, about 50 watts on average. Pretty nice. Do you know how often you defrost cycle turns on?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Mine runs about every 13 hours. Not sure how it knows to kick on though. I use the Emoria Device and App to track all my usage.
@@MyWasteOfTime cool, i bought one of those but still need to install it. I think it's turned on with a auto timer.
If you want a backup to the battery when running your fridge you could use a Dual Power Automatic Transfer Switch. The switches are quite inexpensive and in the event of no power coming from your battery and solar system it would switch over and use mains power.
In this video it shows the switch and principles. I suggest the solar is the "Power Grid" and the generator is the normal house power. czcams.com/video/AUdNmwZaucI/video.htmlsi=jyU-CCfrCs0Jq3to
Big Clive also has a video - czcams.com/video/babtv00R-Nc/video.htmlsi=D0BrxqBdN0Zj1MLQ
whats the surge wattage of your fridge?
The highest I saw it was at 350 watts but I think that might have been the defrost cycle turning on.
i miss the part of how you protect from over current when all the (over)panels on a cloudy day get full sun?
Just make sure you stay below what specs of what your charge controller says. This one says to stay below 120voc(I believe) and to not connect more than 35 amps. On the most sunny day, I'll be below that so there's nothing special I need to do. hope that makes sense.
Your not living until you see stars behind your eyelids.
?
Would it be more ECONOMIC to do a DEEP FREEZER, (under 200.00) a 120 volt mechanical thermostat(60.00) then hook that to my inverter????
Now I need to know who in Alberta Canada sells used solar panels
You might be able to find people selling them on your local classifieds ads. I spoke with Santan solar and they said people from Canada come down with large trailers and drive them up north to sell them. Feel free to try that if you want to earn some extra money. I think that might be the only way to get these use solar panels up there though.
Sounds like you need 2 X 100 AH batteries to be sure to run through the night at least
Two would be better but this one ran through the night if you're looking for just a minimum viable set up
200 ah would be perfect..having that extra juice would be there if there was 2 bad days of sun
What is the name of that battery
Powerqueen. There are some links in the description 👍
running a freezer or a frige is not that big of a deal, once it gets to operating temp.
the thing is insulated. so it only goes on once in awhile.
of course the compressor will turn on eventually and then you will have to be able to supply current.
now running your washing machine is a big deal. of course you won't be running your clothes dryer at all. don't even think about it.
lights in the house can be replaced with l e d so it's a lot better than it used to be.
Mine runs on propane as well as shore power.
Your fridge?
Change the fridge into heater with 4000 W of usage
Interesting...how so? I'm not sure I'm following?
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRayI wish to know the size of the required system
I mention this in the video.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay All I see is a fridge. A bigger system.
I have a 1100 watts inverter,and 1100 don't start a small refrigerator, how can your 500 watts,start your refrigerator,? I is impossible, that 500 watts start a refrigerator.
Maybe you need a new inverter?
In winter with rainy conditions you may only get 10% of the power you calculate. Probably want to go with ten of your panels, not two.
For the Rainy test I used 6 panels and was easily able to keep my fridge running during a stormy week testing it.
I was told you had to buy water proof solar pannels is this true or myth ? I tought they were all water proof
All I have seen are waterproof.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay I had visited harbor freight and looked at the solar panels 100 watt. They told me not to use them in the rain bc the cases were not water proof and could damage the panel. So I was not sure bc I thought all panels were water proof
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay I'm just getting started so I didn't want to mess up
@chrisharvell8535 I could see them being non-waterproof waterproof. Because, well, you know why... Harbor freight. Where are you located?
17 hours w a 100 AH battery ?
yup. I'll add a link in the video to that.
No way that full sized fridge only uses 75 watts - my mini fridge uses 96 watts
But your mini fridges isn't running constantly... most likely.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay you are right. It was just hard to believe your larger fridge didn't pull more watts than mine
Mine is using 75 watts on average. When it's running it over 200 watts.
Between 10 and 25%????? I'd be jumping for joy with that. No my 600 watts of panels gets me 20 watts or so when it's cloudy and that's having them angled at the sun....pretty pointless at 3.3%. So I'd need over 6,000 watts of panels to make 200 watts.
When the clouds were super dark and it was raining I was hardly getting any power. Similar to you. But the clouds would thin out a little occasionally during the day making the average power gathered throughout the day a little higher.. I think that's where those websites get the 10 to 25% number from.
A 75 watt fridge is bar fridge size
A modern fridge uses minimal power unless the defrost cycle is running
@niktak1114 if a 400 liter fridge has a compressor that only draws 75 watts it maybe would work if the ambient temperature was 15 degrees. But it might need to be less
75 watts is the average power usage through out the day(for this fridge) .Sometimes it's not running. but when it is running it uses more that the 75 watts.
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay that makes sense
Are the claims that LFP batteries can last 10 years true? Where can I go to see the scientific test results?
Sorry I'm not sure where you go to see that
No sound!
Hmm..Thanks.. I'm hearing it now... Maybe because it was just uploaded.
I'd tell how much solar patterns you need for how much power you use when it's sunny out. You need that much power when it nasty weather, so you need twice as much solar patterns. Actually, 3 times more solar panels. Can we do one when it's a sunny day from when it's a cloudy day? So you still get your power that you need to run everything.
So if you need 8 kW of power, you better have yourself 24 kilo. Watts, a power of solar panels. Just so you can make the need to be needed for when it's. Dark and gloomy for 3 weeks at a time And like me, I don't got a gas generator and I will never have one. And I will never get one, and I don't want 1 I aint gonna buy anything. That's gonna cost me money all the time. Special with gas, keep going up price.
Rediesel, coy, whale or propane. Always going up in price. So I won't get anything to do with any of that. I don't even allow any of that at my property. Actually except for the vehicles I drive i'm trying to even limit that even.
I don't have a generator either... never had. :)
cant discharge to zero without damage, thats a fatal fallacy. Lipos are 80% DOD without damage, better than lead acid but not a 0 DOD setup. And a fridge doesnt run 24/7 but average of 4-6 hours a day of actual running. But kodos on the .7 solar panel ratio, most ppl see 100 watt panel and calculate 100 watts.
ecotreelithium.co.uk/news/lifepo4-battery-depth-of-discharge/#:~:text=You%20can%20safely%20discharge%20a,any%20damage%20to%20the%20battery.
I believe that confirms my statement TY. thats my point exactly
@maddhatter3564 you were probably looking at the lithium-ion section of the article. Lithium-ion is a different type of battery from Lfp battery. If you look it up there are plenty of articles and references to the 100% Dod. letmegooglethat.com/?q=does+discharging+a+lithium+iron+phosphate+battery+to+zero+damage+it
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay Isn't it always exciting when ignorant $#%@%^#&$, watch a video and instantly become an expert on a subject they themselves didn't even know existed beforehand. Excellent tutorial btw....thank you sir!
Solar power, like wind power, like electric vehicles is a big scam that will break your bank account.
My brother, who drives 100 miles every day for his commute in his tesla, will argue with you on that point.
And he charges it using fossil fuel more than solar or wind....@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay
@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay what are the 20 year maintenance costs of one of those Tulsa cars? I heard the batteries cost a fortune to replace. Not sure how to put out the fire because those batteries burn hot when they come in contact with water.
@MAGnetICus_Attractus my brother is saving about $500 a month in gas. My other brother n law just bought one and he calculated $600 savings per month. However most people don't do as much driving as they do
Your wrong. The price has come way down and the tech has gone through the roof
talk to long
I tried to keep everything brief. What part do you think I was speaking too long?
Ouch. Your hardware costs thousands. You have no useable low voltage DC. You have no cunning. Use DC chest freezers. Shop carefully for your charge controllers. Divide your appliances into AC when necessary, and DC. Solar panels are best shipped as 100 watt chubby 21 volt, not skinny panels. Mount them on frames, together, instead of individually. Half your panels can aim part eastward and some part westward so you get less charge but longer duration. Diluted electrolyte flooded lead batteries are excellent, but do not wire them in parallel. Bigger installations can use separate chargers into separate batteries into separate loads. Grid tie is a loan scheme. Long low voltage wiring can be insulated aluminum wire but indoors must be copper. Wiring between the regulator and battery must be heavy and short.
The hardware can be picked up for under $1,000
None. Waste of $$$.
right...food is overrated
if it is to plug a fridge it doesnt really mather how heavy the batery is when the fridge weight 300 pounds