Michael Qulek

You can operate a standard AC-powered well-pump via solar.  I have a 1hp pump 380' down the well-hole, powered by a Schneider XW+ 6848 sine-wave inverter fueled by 4500W of solar.  The solar charges the 48V battery bank, and the bank fuels the inverter.  The 6848 has the starting surge capacity to start heavy loads like a well-pump, which starts with about 9200W (< 1 second), and runs at about 2000W.  I find I can generate the 2000W required from ~8am to 4pm.  I've since added another 3000W of solar facing due West, which allows me to pump later in the afternoon till past 6pm.  My pump produces about 300 gallons per hour.

When shopping for an inverter, you need to know the numbers you are working with before you start buying solar equipment.  I have a clamp meter that can read "inrush current", which is the starting surge that electric motors demand.  They are typically 3-5X the running wattage.  You place the clamp around one of the power wires (not both), press the inrush button, and start the pump.  The inrush current is reported in Amps, which you can convert to Watts by multiplying by your AC voltage.

Please note that a lot of cheap imported inverters will state how MUCH they can surge, but that number is of little/no value for heavy starting appliances.  What you want to pay close attention to is how LONG the inverter can surge.  Cheaper inverters may claim they can surge to 200%, but that is only for 8-16 milliseconds.  Quality inverters surge for 5-60 seconds, totally adequate for starting a well-pump.  In illustration, my XW+ can surge to 12,000W for 60 seconds.  So, it starts my big pump effortlessly.

A good rule of thumb is to have 2X capacity for every component.  So, if you have a pump that needs 1500W to run, make sure you have at least 3000W of solar. Also, have at least a 3000W inverter to run that 1500W load.  As a general rule of thumb, you end of spending less money overbuilding, then underbuilding.  Finding out a smallish piece of electronics can't handle the power demand means you have to then sell it and build a bigger model.

One of the great things about designing you solar system around the well-pump, is that most likely is the single biggest load you will ever run on your homestead.  So, if you system can run your well-pump, it pretty much can run just about anything else.  At my own homestead, I've done just that, and have all AC appliances in the cabin/workshop.

With our 8000BTU wall unit, starting around 2:00pm, I run it full blast during the day, getting the upstairs as cool as I can, to ~70-72F.  With both South and West-facing solar arrays, I can keep the wall unit running with zero battery depletion till about 6:30pm, at which point the solar resources drop down below the ~750W (maybe 1000W total) needed to run the unit.

At that point, I start adjusting the temperature up to ~74-75F so the unit switches over to cycling on and off because it's reached it's set temperature.  What I've found is if the upstairs is already pre-cooled, I'm only keeping the unit turned on till about midnight.  At midnight, the outside air temperature has dropped below ~74F, and I simply turn off the air-con, open the windows, and run an electric fan instead.  Because the air-con is a wall-mount, it does not interfer with windows opening and closing.

So, no matter how many kWh of ac power I consume during the daytime, I'm only consuming about 2-3 kWh of power till sunrise the next morning.

No matter how hot it's been during the day, I have not yet had to run the air-con after midnight.  This might not be the case though if I was in a more humid SE US location?

The seeds are the sexual progeny of the parent, so there there HAS to be some variation.  During the sexual process, there are two primary mechanisms taking place, the swapping of whole chromosomes, and secondly "crossing over" between chromosomes.

If we are talking about a self-fertile variety, the male pistol of a flower fertilizes the female staman of the same flower.  Since the chromosomes can assort independently of each other, the proportions of each can change from generation to generation.

In "crossing over", segments of what was originally on a female derived chromosome might hop onto the male copy during meiosis, and vice-versa.  A gene sequence that was once on the male copy is now on the female copy, and what was on the female copy is now on the male copy.

If you want to have a guarrantied copy that's identical to the original plant, you need to pinch off branchlets and root them in water.  Only then will the tomatoes be identical to the parent.

There are table-top propane burners you can purchase.  In my own cabin, I used one for years before I bought a standard gas model from Home Depot.  I suppose you could even set it on top of your regular stove as long as none of the burners can turn on.  It ran to a 5-gallon barbeque tank I squirreled away under the table I was cooking on.

That would allow you to pressure can anything you want without acidifiers.  Once you the ability to pressure can, a new world will open up for you.

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:We don't currently use any major solar, other than some small rechargeable items with built-in solar panels. I want to change that. My plan is to start putting up solar panels next year, then add batteries, inverter, charge controller. Then, as various appliances need to be replaced, I want to replace them with 12v. Eventually we should have the whole house running on solar, or close to it, leaving the grid wiring in place if we still need it for a few things (like the two window AC units that keep us cool in Kentucky summers).  

I would strongly admonish you to skip 12V, and graduate directly to 48V.  Did you know that at the dawn of the 20th century, 6V automotive electrical systems were the standard?  By the 1930's, everyone could see the limitations of 6V and starting moving to 12V.  By the 1950's, 12V was ubiquitous.  Today's new generation of electric vehicles are all 48V, and 48V will be the new standard of the future.  You might as well get on the new standard now.

I myself started out at 12V, and attempted to run my own homestead cabin on a 12V to 120VAC system.  It worked, sort of, but left a LOT to be desired.  Certain LARGE items, like the 240VAC well-pump absolutely could not run on a 12V system.  I graduated to 48V in 2017, got a dual 120/240VAC inverter, and have been powering my well-pump with that ever since.  My 48V system powers everything else effortlessly.  Running your power at higher voltage allows you to use thinner copper wire, which is obscenely expensive now.

All the 12V/24V DC appliances out there are overpriced niche products, and you end up spending less money overall going with a standard AC system, with mass-market appliances bought at your local store.

Don't start buying stuff until you've fleshed out a plan.  A lot of those "great deals" end up costing more in the long-run as you attempt to fit them into a system.  Put together a plan and we here can help you troubleshoot the design so you can have the best operating system.

Solar panels have become so cheap now that I personally when the whole-AC method, and went with standard AC appliances I bought at Home Depot.  With a 18cuft refrigerator/freezer, I find myself consuming about 0.8kWh in winter, and 1.8kWh in summer.  With 15 300W panels wired 3S5P, I can keep the batteries fully charged even in the rain on a December day.  Do NOT try to buy panels online from Amazon or Ebay.  Shop for local panels on Craigslist, and buy locally with cash and carry pricing.  I would ignore anything less than 3W/$ for brand-new uninstalled panels, and I think now 5W/$ is a good deal.  Bring a voltmeter with you if you are concerned about panel quality.  Don't buy anything with a Voc more than 10% less than the documented Voc pasted on the back of the panel.

I taught myself to weld a couple of years ago, mostly to build the array frames for our off-grid solar homestead.  I'd say that a smaller 120VAC MIG welder is the way to go.  If you select flux-core wire, shielding gas is NOT required for regular steel.  I got a Lincoln Electric 140A model, that I've used on-grid, off-grid, and powered via a generator.  If you do add a gas cylinder, it expends the materials weldable to stainless steel and aluminum, though I have yet to attempt welding either of those.

There is a learning curve, and the very, very first frames I build were of such low quality that welds cracked as I dropped the frames into place.  They did get better as time went by.  Have to say though by now my welds are starting to look professional, and I go out of my way to build/fix things by welding them.

I think it would be highly recommended that you outline that what you are creating is a carbon monoxide generator, and you must take the precautions required for working with a poisonous gas.  It's very important to understand that CO is an accumulative poison.

Sounds like your panels might be adequate.  What are their specs, and the specs of your panels?  Which Vitron charge controller did you get?

I myself am an proponent of rotating ground mounts, and I've constructed four different versions of them now for my various array frames.  Here are some pics.  The bulk of the materials are schedule 40 steel pipe, and half and full channel unistruts.

You don't mention anything about the solar resources used to charge this system.  That is going to be very important.  What's going to happen when winter storms blow in and you can't get sufficient charge for weeks at a time?  Will there be a backup generator?  I could envision your batteries being totally drained by day 7 of an extended storm?  Will there be periods of time you are away from the cabin, or will you be there 24/7 to tend to the system?

For my own 48V system,I started with 4500W of panels, in five arrays, all facing South.  I later upgraded the system with another 3000W facing due West to catch the late afternoon sun.  This was done to prolong the time I could keep my well-pump, and air-conditioner running in the late afternoon without any battery depletion.  The South-facing arrays start getting shading around 4:30pm or so, and are all in complete shade after 5:00pm.  With the Western arrays, I can keep the well-pump running till 6:00pm, and the air-con running till ~7:00pm, before the battery starts draining.

What's the reasoning for keeping the battery outside?  Is it the potential for a run-away battery fire?  If that's the concern, why build the enclosure right up against the wooden wall of the cabin, made with especially flammable materials?  If in fact the battery were to catch on fire, the outside wall would light after just a minute or two, and then work it's way up to the roof.

Since my battery bank is in an unheated North-facing utility room, I went with lead-acid Rolls-Surrette batteries.  After 5 years, they are still performing like new, with all twelve 4V batteries reaching full charge by the end of the day, even in the rain.  On a sunny day, ~ 10:00am.  The key for keeping lead-acid happy is abundant charging.  The legacy of the many, many, many dead off-grid systems comes from the chronic undercharging resulting from implementing too few watts of panel charging.