Need Suggestions for a Battery

[Ozarks Tom]

The other day I bought a 45 watt solar panel set with charge controller, and a 400/800 watt inverter. This is hopefully sufficient to power my remote alarm receiver, and re-charge some small batteries.

I don't want to go down to the auto parts store and ask for the biggest, baddest battery they have, only to find out at a critical moment they didn't know any more than I did.

Suggestions?

[PD-Riverman]

Originally Posted by Ozarks Tom

The other day I bought a 45 watt solar panel set with charge controller, and a 400/800 watt inverter. This is hopefully sufficient to power my remote alarm receiver, and re-charge some small batteries.

I don't want to go down to the auto parts store and ask for the biggest, baddest battery they have, only to find out at a critical moment they didn't know any more than I did.

Suggestions?

A good "Deep Cycle" battery is what you need. If you had 2-6 volt or 1-12 volt golf cart battery would be good.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Marine deep cycle battery should serve your needs. I wouldnt get one at a local parts house though, too often they have several years on them sitting in the back room. Walmart sells enough of them to keep a fresh inventory.

[JohnL751]

So far, everyone is telling you the same thing only in different words and they are all exactly right. I built batteries for over a year, thirty five years ago, and they haven't changed that much. Two six volt = one twelve volt. When you look at two batteries that look the same size, the heavyer one is the best of the two.

[Harry Chickpea]

A 45 watt panel will rarely put out 45 watts. Figure that you might get 40 watts for 8 hours summer, 30 for 5 hours winter.

40 x 8 = 320 watt hours per day.
30 x 5 = 150 watt hours per day.
320 watt hours = 1/3 of 1 kwh.

Batteries are expensive. With that, I'd be tempted to just buy a bunch of AA size rechargables at Harbor Freight and rotate them out, rather then spend money on a lead acid cell that such a system will kill within a year.

[Ozarks Tom]

The transformer for the receiver says: AC Input 260ma, DC Output 900ma.

That seems to be very little draw, will the 45 watt panels not keep up?

[Explorer]

Some electronics will not work with a Modified Sine wave inverter.

[PD-Riverman]

Originally Posted by Ozarks Tom

The transformer for the receiver says: AC Input 260ma, DC Output 900ma.

That seems to be very little draw, will the 45 watt panels not keep up?

The 45 watt kit will handle that with no problem as long as the power pack will run on modified sine wave. The 45 watt kit has a different charge controller now than the ones I got with the several kits I own so I am not familiar with it. ALL the charge controllers for the several kits I have quit, but I just bought a 7amp controller for around $20 to replace them. The One and only kit I bought new, the controller failed, HF sent me another controller and it quit after some time. A lot of people buy these kits thinking they will be able to run their homes(LOL) and have their power company to disconnect them. So finding a used kit it easy sometimes. A 45 watt kit is not alot but if what it produces is stored into batteries you can do more with it than you are thinking. If you buy a bigger inverter and hook to your battery/s you can run a circular saw, electric drill even a 1000 watt microwave for a few minutes every couple days. Just using HC figures above you could run a 60 watt light bulb for a several hours at night if each day stays sunny(A CF light bulb for Hours and hours). Don't let people offend you by saying you bought something that is junk. I have several of these kits and have used them for several years and Love having them. You just have to keep in mind that they are a small kit and do not expect to much out of them. I had one that run my aquaponic garden pump for the growing season. I got one on my tractor shed and I used the 2 lights that came with the kit to light up my shed when I go out there at night to mess around as well as I having a bigger inverter so I can run a saw, drill etc and I run a 115 volt fan during the summer often when I am working on something under the shed. Keep in mind I can not run the fan for hours per day every day, but I am not doing things under the shed every day. I got one 45 watt kit on my chicken house that keeps the batteries charged for my automatic chicken doors to operate as well as running a light about 2 to 3 hours per day in the mornings before daylight. My chicken house is a 1/2 mile from the closest electricity so using the 45 watt kit helped ALOT with setting up my chicken house.



Just for info I do have a big solar array with several thousand watts of panels but I still like my 45 watt kits for remote operations. I used ONLY one of the panels from a 45 watt kit hooked to a smaller battery(about the size of a lawn mower battery) for 6 years to run the 12 volt lights in the camper I stayed in by the lake. I only used the lights when I went in at night to shower and get in bed but I never had a problem except for changing the battery one time.

Use your kit, hook some smaller things to the inverter or battery if 12 volt, monitor the battery voltage under load. If the battery gets to weak your inverter will shut off but you need to learn about how much you can draw with out letting the battery get that weak---that the inverter shuts off so your battery will live longer. Have fun.