Solar Update:
October 27, 2001
Well, another weekend of working on things. The leaves are finally starting to fall in the yard, soon the trees will be bare at last.
Last weekend I installed a 30 amp Cutler & Hammer disconnect for the solar panels. Cabling the Romex was a real pain, but it's finally in. I can now shut down the roof panels with the flick of a lever. I used a box with 100,000 amps rating. I think the panels will produce that much current the instant before our sun finally goes nova, so I should be covered.
Next step is to finally install the fuse and disconnect for the UPS unit. I think I bought a 60 amp disconnect box (also 100kAmps) and a large amount of #4 gauge wire. Since the wire will be handling 60 amps tops, and the rating is 110 I should be fine.
The first step will be to wire from the batteries to the disconnect. Then I will hook the disconnect up to the inverter and wire the inverter into the shed mains. With that done, I will then be able to run 1,400 watts of power on the inverter. Things like the vacuum, big drills, and my power saw will work perfectly.
Next I intend to run a 6 gauge wire set from the batteries to the other end of the switch. This will be my connection for the solar power system. The solar power system will consist of the ProSolar charger, the panels, and a takeoff of 30amps for the lights.
The next step will probably be to install a very small AC panel in the shed and hard-wire the APC UPS inverter into the panel. I'm thinking something like a 15 amp main, with one circuit breaker going to just about everything in the shed. Or maybe I will start re-running all of the items in the shed using separate breakers.
After that I will need to install another panel; this one being for the DC loads. Once again, 30 amps should be fine for the mains, with 5-15 amps for things like lights.
Then I can look into putting in DC plug fixtures :-)
Meantime, it's bedtime.