Quote:
Originally Posted by mike31154
Ha, ha, not yet. I keep spending all my money on backcountry ski trips in the winter. These frivolous trips actually serve as inspiration though, since most of the lodges, huts, chalets have some sort of solar array or water powered generator to provide power in the boonies. I always take a little time to drool over their panels and power management components. Since BC Hydro is poised to start cranking up their rates in the near future, I think I might cough up for a couple of panels in the 200 watt range this year to get the ball rolling. Purchased a wind generator on sale from Can Tire last year, but haven't set it up yet. Turns out the winds here in Vernon aren't really consistent enough for meaningful wattage out of a wind generator. But it is the sunny Okanagan and I'm thinking the solar panels will work well, with the wind generator as an occasional supplementary source to charge up the battery bank. I may end up supplying the majority of the lights in my house with DC voltage instead of 115 VAC and run LED bulbs in the fixtures straight off DC.
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I in fact was gust brain storming a bit about this.
se if hydro is going up to 0.13 to 0.15 a kwh, pannels run from $ 100 to $ 200 (for DIY on ebay) it might be intresting.
what will bring it in the $$ is the batery's and converters, however if you would run a frag tank on the pannels, than it would not matter when the light is on ore off, and there must be a way to direct feed the led's from the panel.
this way the led will dim as sun is going down and go back on when there is sun/light, but this would not matter (cant get it more natural than this)
might still need a driver, but keep it as plain as you can, oterwise the $$ ad up to fast.
in fact same thing you can do with 24v DC pumps like I think the tunze.
so when evening comes, pump output would be low to non, and then when sun gets up in the morning, pumps start slowly to turn, and flow is variating during the day as light intensety is going up nd down.
again also with the pumps, you cant get it more naturalthan this (you do still need some pumps to run all day !!, ore go on only 16 houres a day)
all interesting to se how to do this, with as less technology (battery's and inverteres ) as you can