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Post by rangers on Aug 18, 2016 18:19:01 GMT -8
Howdy Yall,
I recently purchased the 400W starter kit, and I plan on installing the kit on my van. It'll be a completely off grid set up with two 12v 125AH batteries and the renorgy 500w inverter. Hopefully some of yall have done a similar set up in a van, I wanted to know what yall have done as far as connecting the lighting in your van to the inverter, or to the battery bank itself?
What do yall recommend?
Thanks,
Steven
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Post by jsb2000 on Aug 19, 2016 5:15:22 GMT -8
I wanted to know what yall have done as far as connecting the lighting in your van to the inverter, or to the battery bank itself? Hi Steven, and welcome! In my opinion, whenever and wherever possible, you should connect devices to the batteries or to the load terminals of the controller. You should only run the inverter sparingly, and use it for line powered devices for which you can't find 12VDC alternatives. Inverters are inefficient. There's always some degree of loss from taking 12VDC and converting it to 120VAC. Better to go with 12V lighting (preferably LED lights, which are generally the coolest, most efficient, longest lasting lighting sources available!. |
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Post by rangers on Aug 19, 2016 11:29:33 GMT -8
I wanted to know what yall have done as far as connecting the lighting in your van to the inverter, or to the battery bank itself? Hi Steven, and welcome! In my opinion, whenever and wherever possible, you should connect devices to the batteries or to the load terminals of the controller. You should only run the inverter sparingly, and use it for line powered devices for which you can't find 12VDC alternatives. Inverters are inefficient. There's always some degree of loss from taking 12VDC and converting it to 120VAC. Better to go with 12V lighting (preferably LED lights, which are generally the coolest, most efficient, longest lasting lighting sources available!. Thank you for replying, the process has been pretty confusing so far. This sounds like really solid advice and was the route I was looking on going, but wanted to get some opinions before taking the leap either way! |
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Post by frank on Aug 21, 2016 9:31:10 GMT -8
for lighting in our tiny house we use under cabinet led lights that were originally wired with a transformer on the end. I cut off the transformer part gave that a toss on the scrap pile. as long as the transformer output is 12 volt, you can use any led light that comes with a transformer. we also use low voltage 12 volt dc landscape lighting, for the staircase. the 12 volt flood lights look like track lighting. we also have solar power 12 volt flood lights outside for yard lighting, these are separate from the tiny house electrical. those 1146 bulbs are power hungry and don't give off much light when compared to a led. we have over 50 solar powered lights outside and 4 led lights inside.
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Post by Admin on Aug 23, 2016 9:29:22 GMT -8
Hello Steven,
Like JSB and frank mentioned. If you can run a load on DC as opposed to AC through an inverter you are going to use less energy because of the inverters efficiency. Keeping it that way will make sure your batteries are lasting as long as possible.
-A.L.
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Post by rangers on Aug 29, 2016 12:35:59 GMT -8
Thank yall for the valuable information! I decided to order some 12v LED recessed lighting and was able to test it by connecting them directly to the charge controller. I connected the battery which is a 12v 125ah sealed battery, connected to the Renogy 40 amp MPPT charge controller. The wires coming directly off the charge controller to the light switch immediately started to melt when I began toggling the on and off switch.
Has anyone seen this happen? Is my wiring too thin coming off the charge controller? Would the amperage cause this? The wiring was rated to 14 volts I believe.
This is how I had everything connected for the test of the lighting...
12v battery -> MPPT charge controller -> 18 gauge wire -> Light Switch -> 18 gauge wire -> LED recessed Lighting
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Post by jsb2000 on Aug 29, 2016 13:52:13 GMT -8
Is my wiring too thin coming off the charge controller? Would the amperage cause this? The wiring was rated to 14 volts I believe. If things started to melt, then you're definitely drawing too much current (amperage) for the wiring you're using to handle. Either you have a short or your load (LEDs) is to blame. You need to look at how much current your lights are specified to draw. Then, you have to see if the wire gauge you've chosen will handle that. In my opinion, 18 gauge wire is insufficient for most solar applications. What's that...between 3.5 to 9.5 amps depending on how many strands per wire you have? WAY too easy to exceed that and start melting things! |
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