Light Activation Switch

auntyange

albyota wrote: »

I too have this set up, using a light dependent diode and a relay and via a 16 Amp contactor supplying the immersion heater, (average 1kW - 1.9kW (3kWp system) from the PV, the rest from the grid,) took a bit of setting up to get the light / shade level correct. I am also using a battery charger during the day 9am to 4pm to charge / top up a 110Ah leisure battery, then feed the battery through a PSW inverter to run the house lights in the evening, oh and I also programme the air source heat pump to come on at midday for an hour to boost the hot water cylinder.

Grid.....? 'where we're going........we don't need' Gggrids. 'Great Scott Marty' BTTF

Hi all,

We use a small solar panel in our caravan to charge our leisure battery to use for lights etc, have now got panels on roof at home and I was wondering what a PSW inverter was as it seems wasteful not to store some of the power to try to save some of the electric, if it can be done in the caravan why not in the house????

Thanks

Angela

albyota

auntyange wrote: »

Hi all,

We use a small solar panel in our caravan to charge our leisure battery to use for lights etc, have now got panels on roof at home and I was wondering what a PSW inverter was as it seems wasteful not to store some of the power to try to save some of the electric, if it can be done in the caravan why not in the house????

Thanks

Angela

PSW stands for Pure Sine Wave, so is perfectly balanced from DC to AC better for running electronic devices as it is a smooth current waveform.

Yut_Man

AuntyAnge. Yes you can use the power on your roof in the same way you can in your caravan. A few people on these forums run a system like this. They have it setup in such a way that when the panels are generating power a charger charges batteries. From the batteries they go through a PSW invertor which is then attached to their TV, hi fi systems. This way they can use the power in the evening. I looked into getting a similar system but you need a good rechargable battery that can take this type of recharging cycle. A normal car battery type will not do the job. You need the type that they use in caravans. I believe a good source also for this type of battery is golf cart buggies or electric wheel chairs. but they are expensive. I came to the conclusion that the expensive outlay would never be returned in the electric saved. however since you already have all the equipment required all you would need to do is arrange a system where your charger is activated when the sun is up. A small solar panel and relay works well and is simple to setup.

EricMears

Yut_Man wrote: »

you need a good rechargable battery that can take this type of recharging cycle. A normal car battery type will not do the job. You need the type that they use in caravans.

A 'caravan battery' would indeed be better than a car battery but even that isn't ideal for the job. What you really want is a set of good quality AGM batteries (as used in Uninterruptable Power Supplies).

I actually have a UPS but can't justify the additional expense of uprating the batteries enough to cover my overnight baseload from solar panel supplies. That's not to say someone else couldn't take a different view - if you'd like some pointers to (relatively) low cost suppliers of AGM batteries, feel free to PM me.