What size solar panel?

My apologies for quoting you out of context.

Hi, bit late in the day now but I should've caught up with sooner to compare notes.I've been off-grid for 20 years and made some mistakes - still am if my 18 month old batteries are anything to go by.Will get back to you though !

That sounds bad Solar. I've never seen anyone's batteries play up that quick, and I've seen some pretty abused ones. Something must be going wrong huh!Internal short in one battery! Resistance somewhere. Faulty controller.
Do you have good gauges so you can monitor the ingoing and outgoing amps!
I was lucky enough to find some big gauges, like 150 x 100 mm, out of an old workshop tune-scope. They were for fuel mixture and revs and stuff but I recalibrated them and made new scales and they are mint. I can glance at them from across the room, or even from outside thirty foot away, and tell what's going in or out. I've got one for windmill amps only, and another that monitors the wind and solar amps, so I can figure which is wind and how much is solar, and there is a volt gauge. Best thing I've ever done to the system.

I had to move everything to a temporary enclosure while getting a deck built and got the new batteries then and need to move everything back to hopefully their permanent position under the northern corner of the deck (walking height underneath ) so everything is a mite makeshift as it was supposed to be sorted before now, ie last summer.The rubbish summer solar-wise and a few other things got in the way but it's proceeding now.I have some good approx. 100 by 100 mm meters ( $4 each off Trademe ) I'll fit then and check things out thoroughly.My old batteries were a set of 6 Yuasa paired( 2><2 volt cells per case ) 550 Ah cells which you'd appreciate .A steal at $200 which gave me about 10 years service !I'm still 12 volt at the mo but will rewire to 24 v once everythings moved, restrapping the panels then. The Xantrex controller and Selectronic inverter will do either voltage and I have an Air turbine to use but I'll need to look at options for back-up generation for the calm, dull times. Using a small diesel and 12 volt car alt. now but a plug in charger may be better than getting a 24 volt alt !My system grew like Topsy through earlier batteries and a sq. wave inverter etc and the lack of net access for on-line info sharing 20 yrs ago didn't help so I learned a bit by making mistakes and wrong choices !:-)

Solar, just to clarify, you have 100 separate 100x100mm panels! What total wattage!

mechnificent, what's you total collection/storage values! I absolutely love the idea of solar power.but the set-up costs just don't seem to add up unless you are trying to offest a remote grid connection cost.

Hi Smac. I've got 240 watts of solar and a 400 watt wind-generator, and a sach engine with a car alt attached, but I haven't used the sach in years.

The secret is that you have to pay for what you want. If you are in the habit of consuming a lot of power then the mains is the cheapest way to get a lot at a good rate.
If you have a simple life, and set your house up to compliment the alternative power(gravity fed water, gas cooking, solar water heating and a wetback fire), with few electricity dependent hobbies, you can have enough power for the essentials(fridge, lights, stereo, laptop, few power tools) at a very minimum price.

Sounds like me Solar, the system grew and the house wiring is a shambles. twelve and 240 all muddled up. Those sound like the good batteries alright. I used to have deep cycle but when I went to replace them I found they were too expensive. I can get semi-deep truck/tractor batteries at trade, so they come out way cheaper. As long as you have enough battery capacity to ensure they don't go too low during cloudy days, they last just fine. if you have enough batteries you can afford to have a slightly lower solar array, it will produce plenty on sunny days and build up the batteries. If you have small batteries you need to push a lot of charge in at every opportunity so end up getting more panels than you really need on at averaged monthly consumption. well that's how I found it anyway.

As we both know though, you can spend thirty grand on a supposedly inexhaustiblesolar system. and then gobble all the power up and be all surprised and disillusioned when the power goes off and your batteries are sulphated.

No, you read too many 100's there and that's a couple of ammeters that I have to wire in some time. They're 100 mm or so square.I have 260wattand 1475watt panels, so 1170 watts or 1.170 kW.Not enough, as I lose a couple of hours charge in the mornings due to a hill to my N E and east and the hills seem to cause local clouding too.

Bit late getting back here.Yes, the Yuasa battery was excellent and I bought 1100 Ah worth at 12 volts for $200, unused and uncharged for 12 months ( they'd been bought for another installation and not used ) but they came up well.12 years later - 18 months ago- I e-mailed the agents and was told replacements would be $7200 or so, but was advised the cheaper alternative which I did. From what you said to smac I guess you do have an electric fridge then, as I did without one for 10 years but still needed frequent backup generation during autumn/winter at least as I only had 260w and 275wthen and no way with the typical solar here could I have run a fridge. When I bought my dual temp unit I also bought a dozen more 75w panels ( cheaper by the dozen ) as the fridge/freezer is supposed to use 460 kW/pa or well over one a day.You must have very good sunshine hours, a good turbine ( mine, not so ) and/or a very efficient fridge !

Oh and luckily small diesels sip - mine's 1/2 a litre/hour - as I'm still burning a little now, summer!

Morning Solar.
Yeah I'm up in the far north and we get the winter sun. I live on the side of a hill too, just below the ridge, and keep the trees cleared to the skyline to the east, and the west drops away so we get sun long hours. The windmill is on the ridge that is at right angles to the two predominate winds so the windmill goes quite a lot.
My fridge is small(100 litres) and electronic. It only runs at about 1.3 amps normally, with a boost setting if you need to fill it up with warm beers, of 5 amps. I'm a bit of a "vege", so the fridge doesn't need to hold much.mainly beer. Oh, and the under the house is like a cellar of sorts.

For the workshop we've got an old nineteen-thirtys, CS lister that runs on waste oil. It's got a duel fuel with diesel as well for easier starting in winter.

I used a good old meat safe under my place too until I got the fridge, prob should've looked around but it was cheap enough so I spent on panels instead finally buying the dozen before the pv price started diving. In hindsight I also should've built up on my hill like a neighbour did but he paid a few extra grand to get grid power up there whereas my solar hours would've been better and the turbine hugely better.When I switch to 24 volt I'll look at putting the new turbine up there as less voltage drop with the higher voltage of course. It's 100 meters but no trees nearby which I've got running interference where it is now. The inverter also has better output with 24v going in. I wanted a Lister too but ended up with the 6 hp Yanmar instead. It's a bit revvy compared with a Lister I think . Any idea if Yanmars run on waste oil !It's cheap enough on diesel but free waste oil would be better !