Solar Phase 2

The 12v DC system is underway. Solar PV, in other words. Yesterday evening I dug out a set of Topray 12W TF panels, ex my old shed, which have been sat in storage for a year. Two good output panels, one marginal and one very low indeed - probably faulty. Shelve that one for later fettling.

I took one good panel over today and temporarily mounted it above the solar thermal collector.

This position is not optimal, but gets solar input for the same early morning period as the thermal panel. 

The panel is connected via the Maplin charge controller to a battery in the plant room. The output from the battery is wired into a Zig SP-4 switch panel recovered from a scrap caravan. This piece of kit has a 1991 date-stamp on it, so it's pretty vintage, but as it is a simple switch panel with just a good/bad LED battery condition indicator, there's not too much to go wrong with it. The left hand switch allows selection of caravan or car battery. In this setup, I'm going to have two selectable on-board batteries so I can switch from one to the other when the charge state gets low. The pump switch would normally operate a Whale pump in a wheelable water barrel for caravan use, but here it is used to power the electronic differential thermostat for the solar water heating. The Lights switch function carries over directly, and is used to switch DC lights on and off. The Aux is spare for now but I may use it as an inverter control switch for off-grid AC mains.

I also salvaged a pair of 18W tubular fluorescent 12v lights from the caravan, so I am using these as my backup 12v lighting system. One of these is mounted in the kitchen, shown above, and the other will be installed in the office area. The 12v lighting circuit will also power my LED pelmet light in the kitchen and reading lights in the office area.

The above picture shows the kitchen light and the Zig control panel.

The kitchen has now been cleared up a little and is pretty much up and running for brewing up and hot hand wash. Unfortunately I ran out of coffee granules today so had to resort to a few random teabags I had sculling about....ewwww.

And with the floor swept and a doormat installed, we are looking almost like a finished item now. Just the final cladding on the front wall, trimming round the ceiling and some cladding in the loo, and we have an office almost ready to start kitting out.