This is my first real solar panel (I had a "toy" 20W panel already). It is a 102W beauty from Evergreen Solar, which is one of the few PV panel manufacturers in the US (though they just opened a plant in Germany). In full direct sunlight I have measured over 6 amps output. I rarely get that except during the 6 week summer season here.

This is my charge controller, a Prostar PS-30m. I bought it because this line was the cheapest charge controller that featured 4 stage charging and had a display. It can accept up to 30A input, which will allow me to add 3 more panels of comparable size. My plan was to add a panel a year, around tax refund time. It hasn't worked out like that. The charge controller is the "brain" of the system, charging the batteries and sending a steady 12V out to you loads.

This is my battery bank. I have 2 x 100Ahr deep cycle trojan batteries wired in parallel for 200Ahr at 12VDC. I could have wired them in series for 24VDC (which the PS-30 can handle) which would have cut down slightly on line losses on my less-than-optimal 12AWG wire run, but I had planned on tapping the DC directly to run stuff. Never happened. Actually the Ahr capacity is a bit sketchy, since you never want to discharge below 50% (and ideally not below 80% to ensure battery longevity) so you don't REALLY ever have your full capacity. Also it depends on how fast you discharge. At higher rates, it works out to less Ahr. Or something like that. I have them outside, but I don't have to worry about freezing even in NW Washinton because I live on Whidbey Island which is surprisingly mild compared to just a few miles inland. It freezes infreqently and usually warms up quickly right after dawn, so I'm never charging a "frozen" battery.

Here you see my inverter, a Xantrex 400W, which takes the 12VDC out of the controller and converts it to standard 120VAC. Actually it's not "standard" in that the output is a "modified" rather than pure sine wave, which acts like noise to your loads. For example, on a standard TV you would see faint horizontal lines. Not enough to notice right away, but once you do notice it it will drive you crazy. Also some devices give off a humming noise, like my old crt monitor. I bought this one becuase it was a good compromise between cost and power, and because I got the employee discount at work. Unfortunately, it's only after you open the package and read the fine print that 400W really means 150W if you use the standard cigarette adaptor, and 320W if you wire it directly to the 12V source. I think that is deceptive advertising. Almost immediately I wanted a larger inverter, but I decided it wasn't worth it and that it could wait until I had more money.

This is my "solar powered" mower. Actually it's just a Black and Decker rechargeable 24v mower that I CAN charge with solar power, if it were more conveniently located. It draws a little over 2 amps when charging from empty, and tapers off as it reaches full charge.

This is the coolest thing I run off solar power. This is my new laptop. I've always wanted one, and when my old computer died I finally got one. It's a real energy-sipper, using only 5 amps when it's really thinking hard and spinning the hard drive/cd/dvd. Otherwise it normally draws less than 2 amps. Which means when it's sunny I can run my laptop completely off of solar, AND be charging my main battery bank if it is low. Of course I can still run my laptop off solar even at night, because I'm really running off of the battery bank outside. It's been suggested that it would be more efficient to charge your laptop using solar, then use only the internal laptop battery, but I'm too lazy to plug and unplug stuff.

Ok confession time. I don't always run my laptop off of solar. The reason is because especially in the long dreary winter months I'm only ever online at night, and I'm worried that when I discharge my main battery bank then there won't be enough sunlight the next day to charge it back up. I have enough capacity that a couple of days/night like this won't matter, but we go for weeks at a time without seeing the sun, and eventually the batteries would get too low and be damaged (you don't want them to stay discharged too deeply for more than a few days). Of course, I've never actually sat down and calculated how much time I could be on with no sun, but I'm hyper paranoid and don't want to take any chances. If I had at least one more panel, then I would feel more comfortable that I could reasonably recharge the batteries during a short day, even in overcast weather. I've measured more than an amp out of my single panel with hazy gray skies, even with a light drizzle. Heavy cloud cover however completely shuts down the charger as if it were nighttime.

The future of my system is I want to add more capacity. Like I said I can add up to 3 more panels before I have to change out the charge controller. I would like to have a larger inverter, maybe even a pure sine wave one, but I'm hoping to eventually be settled down somewhere where I can have a "real" setup. Professional grade systems use a much more powerful charge controller which is also a pure sine wave inverter. Some allow grid-tie, so that you don't have to have dedicated "solar" loads, but that you mix your solar electricity with that coming from the grid. I'm working on another page to show how this would fit into my overall dream house.