# basic solar 101



## ranger4327 (Dec 11, 2008)

New, very new to solar...... was looking for some good, easy reading to help understand the concepts. Volt, amps, watts, etc....

Any good info out there? I recently purchased a 12 volt, 100 watt panel with a DCM battery and having fun messing around with it.

A lot of the reading I do seems to confuse me more.....

any thoughts?


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## biggkidd (Aug 16, 2012)

Try amazon for free kindel books, I've found a few on there.

Good Luck Solar is new to me too.

Larry


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

http://www.amazon.com/Solar-Electri...F8&qid=1387536666&sr=8-1&keywords=solar+books


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

I believe his name is Jeff Yago (sp?) he has been writing articles for Backwoods magazine for several years. It is pretty good basic stuff.......
Check the archives at Backwoods . . . . .they are a sponser here on HT


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Link to Jeff Yago's online article at Backwoods

http://www.backwoodshome.com/author_index.html#Y


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## ranger4327 (Dec 11, 2008)

good stuff.... exactly what I was looking for !!!


thank you !!


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## Zapthycat (Jan 7, 2014)

Hope this isn't a necropost... but...

This comes up on a simple google image search, and it looks fairly simple. I'm not "from" Missouri (yet), but you (google) still has to show me in order for me to 'get it'.










One of the things I like about Solar home systems is the ability to wire a wind generator right on in. In the winter (or night) when things aren't as sunny, you'll still be charging your batteries with one of those thankfully


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## biggkidd (Aug 16, 2012)

That diagram could get you in trouble without more info. It is showing the batteries in series and earth grounded. So I would *GUESS* thats a 24 volt system. I have never earth grounded my batteries either. So to me it raises more questions than it answers. 

Larry


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## Zapthycat (Jan 7, 2014)

biggkidd said:


> That diagram could get you in trouble without more info. It is showing the batteries in series and earth grounded. So I would *GUESS* thats a 24 volt system.


It's from a UK website. I learn from seeing, of course I would do better research when assembling the system, but this gives a good visual idea of what your system would need to consist of.

I'm a visual guy so I just gotta see. 

Something like this is helpful but a little overwhelming to the untrained eye (me).


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## woodhogg999 (Oct 18, 2010)

HI,I had a small system yrs. ago and i started with 6 volt golf cart batteries ended up with 20 of them and had a 12volt modified sine wave
inverter which work but some things hooked up to it take it personal,had a tv burn up because of it,best to use pure sine wave inverter the power from it is supposed to be purer then utility power.
On the battery issue they are the weak link in the system because they go
bad within a few years so you need to figure out where you want to be and
buy all the batteries you think you may need within the first 6months after
that any that you add later will be pulled down to the level of the oldest ones.
The lessons for using A.E. can be expensive if you do not a lot of research.
Some people have been known to use a battery out of a forklift and the biggest draw back of that is they really heavy,what i learned from using the golf cart batteries was i should have gone straight to something order of L-16 batteries you should research these,but all of this depends 
how big of a system you going to put in and can afford.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

These guys are helpful, their catalog is free and goes over many of the basics...

http://www.backwoodssolar.com/


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## Alaska (Jun 16, 2012)

ditto on the backwoodssolar guys they do a great job.


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