We’re well on our way to going completely solar powered in our public areas. We’ve got a 160Ah battery, 2000W Inverter and 300W folding solar panel. This is a bit low-end power-wise, and a bit upper-end price wise, but it’s completely portable. So in-between Blaze times I’ll use it to power my telescope setups when I go up bush.
The battery and inverter will be in the shipping container, with the solar panels on the container roof. I have a rotating platform ready to mount on the roof, so the panel can be adjusted to follow the sun. That’ll be adjusted manually during the day using ropes a few pieces of yachting hardware. 240V power from the inverter will support the LED lights and fans in our public spaces. Within the shipping container we’ll be using 12 volt power to recharge batteries for our headlamps, electronic devices and portable power tools.
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2 comments
extremelyirritating@gmail.com
It will be interesting to see how a set of solar panels on a rotating platform on top of the shipping container will behave in high (Kulin) winds. It won’t cause the container to blow away, but the array might rip away. We have the option of dropping the solar array – which is normally ‘propped up’ into a flat position, or turning the array sideways into the wind and locking it in that position.
The pivoting platform is a 2 metre aluminium ladder in real life, bolted down to a vehicle wheel hub, which in turn is bolted down to the container’s steel roof using the wheel nuts (and big washers). The power line from the solar array goes through the middle of the hub and through a similar sized penetration in the container ceiling. There’ll be a mechanical ‘limiter’ on the pivoting platform to restrict it about 70 degrees rotation – which will allow it to follow the sun over 9 hours. Manual rotation and intermediate locking of the pivoting platform will be achieved by a 2 guy lines attached to the ends of the ladder which are operated from the ground.
extremelyirritating@gmail.com
Having solar power doesn’t mean we don’t have to get our public-area-electrics Tested & Tagged to certify they’re safe. Blazing Swan has set a tentative date of 8-9 March to do this for free – in Perth. We’ll need to work out exactly what we’ll neeed T&T’d and get it to them on that day. We’ve got over 160 metres of vs extension cords (far more than we need), and actually almost no power boards. So that will need sorting out between now and March.
We’ll alo be putting an RCD on the AC circuit(s) coming out of the inverter. If there’s an RCD built into the inverter (I won’t know until I check after delivery) having a second (or third or fourth) one each of the AC outlets MIGHT increase the chances of having just that line ‘trip’ (good) rather than the entire inverter (not so good, but still much better than someone being electrocuted). However, the RCD closest to the fault on a circuit with multiple RCD’s isn’t always the one that trips.
Finally, even though we have RCDs, the AC power coming from our battery will still (definitely) have the potential to kill someone. Which is fine – we’re used to working around 240V in the home and traditionally in mains-power supplied Theme Camps. WHAT WE NEED TO DO THOUGH, is have signs in appropriate places WARNING people that our AC circuits could still be energised even when mains power from Blazing Swan is OFF. I’ll get a dozen of these signs at $2.40 each.