{"id":775,"date":"2017-07-11T21:25:43","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T21:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/?p=775"},"modified":"2017-07-15T14:42:56","modified_gmt":"2017-07-15T14:42:56","slug":"solar-powered-rainwater-project-batteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/2017\/07\/11\/solar-powered-rainwater-project-batteries\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Powered Rainwater Project – Batteries"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may recall from an earlier post<\/a> that the Solar Powered Rainwater Project<\/a> requires substantial battery storage. In our original calculations, we decided we would need 15,796 watt\/hours of storage to provide three days of autonomy (or days without sun). We would need 16, 190-amp hour golf cart batteries to reach this goal. This becomes not only a cost issue (about $1800) but also a logistical and space issue. Each battery weighs around 60 pounds. That’s nearly a half ton of lead!<\/p>\n

To test my ideas and get the project running more easily, I decided to cut the number back to eight batteries. It turned out that Interstate 6-volt golf cart batteries were available from Costco for $83 each, and were rated at 205 ampere hours. Eight batteries would yield 9840 watt hours of storage — nearly 2\/3rds of our original goal. Plenty to get the project started.<\/p>\n

Storing a 1\/2 ton of lead<\/h3>\n
\"graphic<\/a>

Battery cart plan<\/p><\/div>\n

The next problem was, where would they go? The garden shed has a concrete floor, and I realized they would partially fit under shelving located inside. If I had a way to roll them out for easy service, they wouldn’t take too much space. My friends at Vintage Auto agreed to weld up the cart I designed. Storage problem solved for the time being.<\/p>\n

\"photo <\/a>
Beautiful welding, ready for paint <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"photo <\/a>
A quick coat of paint <\/div> <\/div>
\"photo <\/a>
Finished Battery Cart <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

300 Amp Wire<\/h3>\n

Now on to cabling. The inverter is rated at 4000 watts<\/a>, and accounting for inverter efficiency and the 48-volt DC supply, we would expect a 95-ampere current drain. The inverter can supply more power \u00a0though — up to 12,000 watts peak. Brief surges of up to 285 amps could be expected. Just to be safe, I decided on 0\/1 rubber-covered welding cable<\/a>. Perhaps overkill, but I like that. The cables weren’t hard to assemble with the copper terminals<\/a> and hammer-actuated crimper<\/a>, and I had the them done in no time. I also added heat-shrink tubing with internal adhesive<\/a> to prevent corrosion inside the crimp.<\/p>\n

\"photo <\/a>
Making battery jumpers <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"photo <\/a>
Crimping the lug <\/div> <\/div>
\"Finished <\/a>
Finished battery cables <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

With a shunt for metering installed on the negative lead, and a 200-amp breaker, we were ready to power the inverter<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"photo <\/a>
Batteries with jumpers <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"photo <\/a>
Ready for service! <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may recall from an earlier post that the Solar Powered Rainwater Project requires substantial battery storage. In our original calculations, we decided we would need 15,796 watt\/hours of storage to provide three days of autonomy (or days without sun). <\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,9,65,5,7,189],"tags":[190,242,239,191,192,193,194,23,195,230,243,196,26,24,197,198,211,209,210,208,199,200,207,201,241,202,100,203,204,240,19,206,205,212],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-texas","category-greenhouse","category-maker","category-projects","category-rainwater","category-solar","tag-amateur","tag-ampere-hours","tag-battery-bank-capacity","tag-build","tag-charge","tag-controller","tag-deep-cycle","tag-diy","tag-equipment","tag-grid-assist","tag-grid-tie","tag-ham-radio","tag-how-to","tag-howto","tag-interstate","tag-inverter","tag-kill-a-watt","tag-kilowatt","tag-kilowatt-hours","tag-kwh","tag-marine","tag-mppt","tag-off-grid","tag-panel","tag-panel-wattage","tag-pwm","tag-rainwater","tag-renogy","tag-solar","tag-solar-panel-wattage","tag-storage","tag-teardrop","tag-trailer","tag-wb0mmc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Battery-cart-with-batteries.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}