Solar Update:
May 17th, 2002
Lot of progress: Panel #4 is now on the shed, and I completely re-wired the connections from the panels to the shed's disconnects. I now have a junction box at the panels which connects via 3/4 inch conduit to the inside disconnects. The 30amp disconnect is now wired for 24 volts (via 8 gauge wire) and 12 volts (via 10 gauge wire) on seperate fuses.
Extremely neat looking and professional.
In addition, I bought another charge controller for the 12 volt devices, and tied the MSX-60 and MSX-20 panels together for an 80 watt charging system. My T145's are now being fed.
The system for charging the tractor is turning out to be serious overkill: I can charge the tractor in a day after an average mowing session. So far I have not come anywhere near the point of burning down the batteries, no matter how hard I push the tractor.
So now I have 300amp/hours of power at 24 volts, and nothing to do with it. Where should I put all the power?
Answer: Sell it back to the utility.
I have an idea: If I buy a Trace MicroSine 100 grid-tie inverter, I can use an extension cord to sell power back to the grid. However 100 watts per hour isn't much....
Unless I run it 24 hours a day. If I hook it into the 24 volt battery core, I can discharge the batteries into the grid (sell them down), then charge the batteries at full steam with the panels. Given that I have 7,200 watts of battery power, I could sell 4,800 watts over two days and still generate that amount in the 4 hours of sun that we typically get....
Wow. I could be running 100 watts into the grid 24 hours a day! That's a total of 72kw/hrs a month. And if I need the power for the batteries, I could just turn the Micro-Sine off and let the shed batteries charge...
Not a bad thought really. I need to get one of those things and try it out.