Solar panels for dummies!! Also horse showers...

[SatansLittleHelper]

Please excuse the stupidity of myself but can anyone tell me what they use their solar panels to run?? How do you know what wattage (or whatever it is) to buy etc?? Can they run multiple items?? Are they reliable??

As for the hot horse showers...can they be used without a tap supply, such as from a barrel of water etc or must they connect to a tap??
Thanks in advance

 

[Kunoichi73]

Posting to see what the answers are. In thinking of getting solar lights for my shed gym.

 

[[153312]]

@I'm Dun

 

[SEL]

Mine run lights - some directly but one panel tops up a car battery which has 4 stable lights running off it.

I'd really like to know if anyone has any good answers to your shower question. I'm not on the mains at the yard and our water is pumped into a tank. The pressure is awful.

 

[ycbm]

Don't even consider the idea of running a horse shower from solar SLH, heating running water takes far too much energy.

You need batteries to store in, enough sunshine to charge them, and an inverter to turn the power to 220v. What you can run off them then depends on the size of your battery bank and the size of the inverter. To heat anything much both of those will need to be flipping huge.
.

 

[Goldenstar]

You need a tap for a hot horse shower they are powered by gas from a bottle .
We run a static caravan on the beach it’s two leisure batteries one panel and a inverter you can run the lights as much as you like , use a cooker hood , but you can only run one of little chest fridges in the sunniest weather .

 

[I'm Dun]

Please excuse the stupidity of myself but can anyone tell me what they use their solar panels to run?? How do you know what wattage (or whatever it is) to buy etc?? Can they run multiple items?? Are they reliable??

As for the hot horse showers...can they be used without a tap supply, such as from a barrel of water etc or must they connect to a tap??
Thanks in advance

What do you want to run? I can run lots. Some people run washing machines and driers and all manner of things. But that comes with a cost. And in winter its next to impossible to run purely on solar.

But if you tell me what you want to run, I can work it out for you.

The basic premise is solar panel on the roof, into a charge controller, then into a battery, into an inverter to convert 12v to 240v then out to power whatever it is you need to run. Theres a bit more to it than that, but thats the basic idea.

I'd skip all of that and get an ecoflow portable powerstation and use the solar to charge that. In winter you can charge it at home. You dont need to worry about batteries and wire sizes and fuses and inverters. And while they look very expensive they actually dont work out much more than the kit you need to run safe solar, and in the case of the smaller units they work out significantly cheaper.

Joolca showers can run without a tap. They are a fantastic bit of kit.

 

[SatansLittleHelper]

Don't even consider the idea of running a horse shower from solar SLH, heating running water takes far too much energy.

You need batteries to store in, enough sunshine to charge them, and an inverter to turn the power to 220v. What you can run off them then depends on the size of your battery bank and the size of the inverter. To heat anything much both of those will need to be flipping huge.
.

Sorry, I think you might have misunderstood, I don't want to run the shower from the solar, I know these run off gas. I think I confused my post

I'd skip all of that and get an ecoflow portable powerstation and use the solar to charge that. In winter you can charge it at home. You dont need to worry about batteries and wire sizes and fuses and inverters. And while they look very expensive they actually dont work out much more than the kit you need to run safe solar, and in the case of the smaller units they work out significantly cheaper.

Joolca showers can run without a tap. They are a fantastic bit of kit.

I should have thought to ask you!!
It's mainly lighting and possibly the energiser for the fence?? Will have a look into the things you've mentioned....off to Google!!

 

[I'm Dun]

Sorry, I think you might have misunderstood, I don't want to run the shower from the solar, I know these run off gas. I think I confused my post


I should have thought to ask you!!
It's mainly lighting and possibly the energiser for the fence?? Will have a look into the things you've mentioned....off to Google!!

Its ok. A mutual friend messaged me a link. When you work out what you want to run drop me a message. lights and energiser are easily and cheaply done.

 

[Esmae]

We have a solar panel on the roof of our yard. It runs through a charge controller to a battery and runs 14 LED lights and the electric fence. My understanding is (and I am useless with these sorts of things) that it all depends on battery storage. Our lights have enough battery storage to run the lights for 5 days if something broke. Our electric fence is quite extensive and has never gone down in the 10 or 12 years(can't remember) we have had it. I don't run anything else from it (that's choice) but it has been, and is, brilliant. We have a gas stove for the kettle.

We have mains water at the yard but I must say that I found the hot shower a bit unreliable due to low pressure I think. Suspect that those things may have improved since we had one.

 

[jsprince]

I have a solar power which runs my electric fence, the panel can also be used to have usb items plugged in and has a charge controller it is a 100w, it also charges a very large leisure battery.

I did think about connecting to the grid but cost is extortionate, last quote was 95K!! EEEK

So have also had a diesel generator on site to power things but that has now broken, which is a pity as have barn all wired up as three phase.