Cabin Lighting

nasty

I want to get away from using our propane lights in our off grid cabin. What would be best 12v or 120v with inverter? Probably 3 fixtures in the kitchen and a few for living room and loft. Only going to be on for 4-6 hours a day in the spring/summer/fall. Then I mothball my solar for the winter because we are not there enough. I know it probably has to do with what type of light and all but I dont have any idea what I want to use yet. Just looking for suggestions on what people prefer to use CFL, LED....What type of fixture would work best? Does track lighting with a tranformer use more power?
400 watts of panels, 4-225AH batteries wired for 12v. 1000w pure sine wave inverter. Location is interior Alaska which gets a lot of sun in the summer months.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

niel

Re: Cabin Lighting

hmmm, good questions. first of all it is normally more efficient to run dc than to be changed to ac, but there are 2 main drawbacks to running dc. 1> higher v drop losses which could mean the need for larger wire and 2> higher expense for dc bulbs. as to which you may prefer is hard to say and even picking a type of bulb doesn't solve things as they can operate in different temperature areas meaning the light could favor one part of the light spectrum over another. the cfl type has been notorious for flickering or being dim in the cold, but these are more common and cheaper than their led counterparts right now. cfls have been improving in their abilities to operate in the cold.

this may sound dumb, but do you have a neighbor that may have cfl and/or led bulbs for you to see if you like the light? i realize that some neighbors could be very far away and is why i think it dumb of me to ask. you can't even compare what the light looks like in a store when the stores are usually flooded with strong florescent lighting. it's akin to checking a tv in a store to find it looks different at home.

it may also depend on if you already have wiring in place to accommodate either the dc or ac power. odds are the ac power is available to all areas now and led lights do come on right away and do well in cold temps. ultimately you will have to make the final decisions.

i don't have or am familiar in the uses of track lighting to comment on that.

waynefromnscanada

Re: Cabin Lighting

A 1000 watt inverter if WAY overkill for a few lights and will consume a lot of power just to keep it running, even without any load, or with just a light or two on. By example, I run this computer, all my inside and outside lights, the TV and satellite receiver, and many other assorted smaller loads on a single Morningstar pure sine 300 watt inverter that's been running 24/7 for 4 years now. And yes, it routinely runs them all at the same time. My "big" inverter is only ever on and in use when needed for the big loads, such as the water pump, washing machine, microwave, toaster - - you get the idea.
As for CFL / LED lights - - - I had CFL's both inside and out for well over 20 years. The LED's are so superior to the CFL in so many ways, that the CFL's have now all been replaced, every last one. Just pay attention to the "color temperature" of the light. Most, including myself, prefer a lower temperature light for inside, roughly 3000k, but for outside, the higher color temperature light of around 5000k is far more natural "feeling" and doesn't make snow seem brown. Everything outside looks natural and right under 5000k lightening, but tends to be harsh inside, where traditionally for many generations we've been used to a warmer, softer light source in the range of 3000k.
Why do I like the LEDs better? One of the biggest things is instant on full brightness. No more waiting for more light before you can read the paper. No more waiting for the FCL to warm up before you can see who's in the back yard. No more dim outside lights in Winter, regardless of how long they've been on. No more broken glass and the possible mercury issues. And they use less power! But investigate before you purchase, as there are so many different designs of LED "bulbs". Many of the so called flood lights, are instead, narrow beam spots. The ones with a rounded, frosted, half sphere as the light emitting area, tend to be very good. Also watch if they are to be used outdoors, many are not designed to be exposed to moisture (same with CFL) but recently there have become available, LED "bulbs" that are designed to withstand damp locations.
12 volt or inverter? I've found the 12 VDC LEDs very sensitive to battery voltage. Light output may, depending on design, drop off drastically as your battery voltage falls at night. The 115 VAC lights do not, + far higher quality ones are readily available.
And cost? Yes, like CFLs when they first came out, the LEDs are expensive, but worth it if living off grid. However the price is dropping and will continue to drop, just like happened with the CFLs.

vtmaps

Re: Cabin Lighting

waynefromnscanada wrote: »

I've found the 12 VDC LEDs very sensitive to battery voltage. Light output may, depending on design, drop off drastically as your battery voltage falls at night. The 115 VAC lights do not, + far higher quality ones are readily available.

Nasty, what wayne wrote is important. LEDs are the bulb of the future, and they don't seem to like 12 volt systems because of voltage fluctuations. In another recent thread someone asked about using 12 volt track lighting without a transformer (run 12 volt directly from battery to tracks). Same issues came up with respect to voltage stability.

One more thing about 12 volts... during charging the voltage may get up around 15 volts. The overall voltage range of a 12 volt system may therefore be 11.5 to 15 volts. That's a large percentage range. That may play havoc with all sorts of loads, not just LED bulbs. My advice is go with an inverter.
--vtMaps

nasty

Re: Cabin Lighting

Excellent information. Niel not dumb at all there are some places up here that are very isolated. I actually have neighbors a short half mile walk away not sure what type they use though. The kitchen is new construction so I wired it with 12/2 and the cabin is log so I can run new wire fairly easyily. I was leaning toward 12v because I didnt want to run my inverter just for a few lights like Wayne also thought. Never occurred to me to run a smaller one. With my big inverter I have a remote inside that I can turn it on with. That is probably what I would want with a smaller one also so I dont have to listen to the noise of the inverter with it inside. Would the inverter have to be pure or would modified work? Any suggestions for a small inveter with a remote? Thanks for the help.

vtmaps

Re: Cabin Lighting

nasty wrote: »

Would the inverter have to be pure or would modified work? Any suggestions for a small inverter with a remote?

Pure. Sooner or later you will plug something in that will be harmed by the modified square wave (MSW). Only down side of pure sine wave inverters is that they tend to have a higher no-load draw (tare load). Many/most (but not all) MSW inverters cannot be wired into normal house wiring because the ground cannot be bonded to neutral without sparks and smoke.

I am in the process of researching (and pricing) a small inverter for my system. My big inverter draws 20 watts just being turned on. My CO detector draws 1 watt. If I buy a small inverter I expect to save about 330 wattHours per day. That's enough to run a super efficient chest freezer! The big inverter will be turned on a few hours/week as needed for laundry, etc. I don't need a remote for the small inverter since it will be always on.

I have a 24 volt system, so something like the morningstar 300 is not an option. I am particularly interested in Victron. They have a new line of pure sine inverters with very very low no-load draws. I may buy a 700 watt inverter with a no-load draw of 5 watts (search mode = 2 watts). I don't need 700 watts, but I can't find anything else in the 300-400 watt range with a lower no-load draw. Sadly, they are a bit pricey.

Wayne's suggestion of the morningstar 300 watt inverter is a good one. I know several folks like their exeltech inverters, and they have some low no-load draws.

--vtMaps

samuel

Re: Cabin Lighting

Awesome question! I'm running a 3000W inverter in my families cabin and have some 12V DC appliances (LED lights and a charging station of 4-automotive style 12V outlets).

Running the LED lights that I have straight off of the batteries (with fuse protection and a small Blue Sea distribution/fuse block) has so far yielded no problems. With LEDs advancing as they have there have been no compromises (except for initial cost at the time of purchase). As far as lighting goes, nothing weird will happen with flickering or dimming lights or timers, but when I plugged in a NiMH batter charger into the auto-outlet the pulse charging from the AA/AAA charger managed to flicker the lights a touch. Suspect appliances like this could be direct wired to the battery with their own fused line. The long run from the batteries in the garage, up to the attic, down the wall, underground 30-40 feet to the cabin, and then 20 more feet to the fuse block using 40% 14-3 trench log and 60% 18 AWG track lighting wire + another 30 feet to the interior lights and outlets has not resulted in any performance issues other than the very specific AA/AAA charger/flickering issue. Also, using traditional 110V light switches has not been an issue either. As others have suggested, AC switches may not have the expected lifespan when used in a DC system if the DC power is >25% the rated AC voltage of the switch. So far I can attest to no issues when following this rule.

So that's the performance side. Selecting components is the other side of the equation. Two sources of components that I have used so far are LED track lighting components (since many track light systems are essentially taking a 110V AC power source using a mini-inverter to convert to lower voltage DC current) and RV/Marine components. There are some great bulbs in the RV/Marine category. These lights use traditional light sockets (E26 screw in base) and run 12V. In this category you can also choose to use fluorescent bulbs as well (which currently are about 1/2 the cost and 2x the power consumption as a comparative LED)

Now for the all-important color issue. LEDs and CFLs it seems have always tried to emulate incandescent light characteristics. They don't do it perfectly LEDs at least are rapidly evolving. I attached a good reference on light color. I don't own rights to the image or know where I got it - just that it's useful and I've had it for some years now.

Attachment not found.

Lastly, some more links. An LED bulb that I have good luck with (at a decent price).

A link to a few posts: 12V LED install (exterior), and 12V LED intall (interior)

samuel

Re: Cabin Lighting

Just thought I'd add one more thing about lighting color (kelvin scale). I prefer 6500K for bathroom/kitchen lighting because of the pure white color, and warmer light (2700-3000K) for living spaces. Get above 6500K and LEDs get blue, below 2700K and LEDs get reddish. Outside of the 2700-6500K range LEDs will look very unpleasant. Also, I'm finding that 400 lumen is about equal to 30W incandescent.

icarus

Re: Cabin Lighting

Simple answer,, Suresine 300 by Morningstar! A great inverter, true sine wave, very efficient, low stand by current, very reliable and very reasonably priced. 300 watts, with 600 surge capacity for a fairly long time.

Tony

waynefromnscanada

Re: Cabin Lighting

icarus wrote: »

Simple answer,, Suresine 300 by Morningstar! A great inverter, true sine wave, very efficient, low stand by current, very reliable and very reasonably priced. 300 watts, with 600 surge capacity for a fairly long time.

Tony

Totally, completely agree! They're also silent, and with generous heat sinks, no fans are needed, or used. They run cool.

nasty

Re: Cabin Lighting

This palce is great! Thanks for all the useful information. Will do some more research and get something installed. No hurry to do it as we are already at
~18 hours of day light. The sun sets at around 22:30 but it stays light for a while after that so can continue to use the propane lights for the short time they will be needed. We do use small 12v rv type lights for reading in bed and they seem to work quite well. Thanks again everyone.

icarus

Re: Cabin Lighting

Additionally the Shursine 300 can BR word with a simple remote switch!


Tony

lamplight

Re: Cabin Lighting

this sounds awesome.. can you clarify Tony on the remote switch? I looked it up it says 55 miliamp standby... granted super low but still something n a smaller system. if there was a way to remotely power it off completely when unneeded id be sold. I'm thinking of adding one of these to my system after reading this post as my larger inverter doesn't work so good in "auto sleep" mode for the lower power loads i run so it has to be disabled, thus runn ing with a pretty significant self consumption. if i added one of these i could run my low power loads way more efficiently...


like samuel has said I've also have no issues with all kinds of 12v led lights i run direct off solar...(except as others have already said , long runs for higher load things are a problem). just don't run them in the day while absorbing but with inverters like this one and such low standby its making the direct 12v savings pointless if i have to run an inverter anyways!

waynefromnscanada

Re: Cabin Lighting

lamplight wrote: »

I looked it up it says 55 miliamp standby... granted super low but still something n a smaller system.

That's only about 1/2 ah overnight this time of year, I think you'll find it well worth that consumption and in the end, not really noticeable.

Dill

Re: Cabin Lighting

that's a crazy awesome standby power, my Xantrex Pro Watt 1000SW draws about .4 amps (~400 mah) at idle!

RandomJoe

Re: Cabin Lighting

Actually, it's better than that. I just put mine on a WattsUp meter, the 55mA is *standby* draw meaning the inverter is enabled but no loads greater than 10W are present so it's just pulsing the AC occasionally looking for one. When I switch mine off with the remote switch, the meter only shows 10-20mA (it actually spends most of its time at 0.01, occasionally changing to 0.02). The specs say 25mA AC OFF.

And yes, I would also recommend this inverter!

ywhic

Re: Cabin Lighting

So the Samlex SA-1500-24V (1500w pure sine) model I am looking to get says:

No Load Current Draw ≦1.5W Saving Mode which don't sound good..

The Samlex PST-100S-24A (24v also) (1000w pure sine) is saying <0.6 A whichs sound better than the 1500 model..

The Samles SA-1000-24V (1000w pure sine) says:

DC INPUT CURRENT AT NO LOAD (Power Save on) 0.15 A
DC INPUT CURRENT AT NO LOAD (Power Save off) 0.75 A

The irony is the surge for the 1500w unit is the same for the 1000w unit... both are 2000 watts..

This has me rethinking my inverter plans again.. ughhh.

I wish Morningstar made a 24v unit..

waynefromnscanada

Re: Cabin Lighting

ywhic wrote: »

I wish Morningstar made a 24v unit..

That is truly something that puzzles me. I contacted them a while back and they informed me that "We have no plans to make a 24 volt version".
Just doesn't make sense to me at all. They make a 50 Hz 220 volt version, could it really be that much of a problem to go 24 volts input? I don't get it.

Cariboocoot

Re: Cabin Lighting

Math is a wonderful thing.

How many Amps is 1.5 Watts on 24 Volts? Answer: 0.0625. Are you sure that wasn't 15 Watts? (Which would be 0.6 Amps.)
The Samlex PST-150S-24A specs say "idle power draw less than 1 Amp"
I think it's probably the same on the 1000 and 1500 Watt versions.

It's going to use more than the MS 300 because it's a bigger inverter.
Cheer up: my VFX3524 uses 6 Watts (0.25 Amps) in standby mode and 23 Watts (0.95 Amps) running, and I never use standby.

ywhic

Re: Cabin Lighting

ywhic wrote: »

So the Samlex SA-1500-24V (1500w pure sine) model I am looking to get says:

No Load Current Draw ≦1.5W Saving Mode

No thats direct from the manual I just PDF downloaded..

icarus

Re: Cabin Lighting

The remote is pretty simple, you just wire a single pole switch to the two terminals on the inverter. Opening the switch (low voltage, low current, you can run it on #16 lamp cord) shuts the inverter off.

Quite frankly, I don't even bother to shut it off as e draw is so small.

http://www.morningstarcorp.com/en/support/library/SureSineENG_R2_1_08.pdf

T

lamplight

Re: Cabin Lighting

and everyone teases me for having 12v battery bank

what about using a dc-dc converter for you 24V and UP people? I'm not sure what kind of losses are involved..i have seen good quality ones on some solar sites..

i don't know why i was asking about the remote.. this would be for my low level loads that never go off.. i think I'm going to get one of these it will make a big difference in the winter months here. what i need to get is the remote for my samlex/cotek if i have this running. love this forum.

waynefromnscanada

Re: Cabin Lighting

lamplight wrote: »

and everyone teases me for having 12v battery bank

what about using a dc-dc converter for you 24V and UP people? I'm not sure what kind of losses are involved..i have seen good quality ones on some solar sites..

Unless you have some minor item the requires 24 volts, don't go there. There would be no advantage, only losses to use a DC to DC converter to take 12 volts and up convert it to run a 24 volt inverter.

westbranch

Re: Cabin Lighting

Lamplight, which model Cotek Industrial inverter do you have?

lamplight

Re: Cabin Lighting

westbranch wrote: »

Lamplight, which model Cotek Industrial inverter do you have?

hi
pretty sure it's this one.. don't have manual handy but this looks right.. I have been able to run anything in the house off it.

http://www.chargingchargers.com/inverters/sk1500-112.html

roughly, used 2 years .. no problems until this recent gfci outlet failure but was easy to replace.

westbranch

Re: Cabin Lighting

thanks, good to know. I am looking at this model, the ST1500/24/115 with auto transfer switch. http://www.cotek.com.tw/pro34450.html

nasty

Re: Cabin Lighting

I have decided to order the Suresine 300 to use for my lights and other small loads. I just want to be sure that I should be using the same grounding rod for both inverters correct? Is there a way to use the same distribution panel for both?

vtmaps

Re: Cabin Lighting

nasty wrote: »

I have decided to order the Suresine 300 to use for my lights and other small loads. I just want to be sure that I should be using the same grounding rod for both inverters correct? Is there a way to use the same distribution panel for both?

If you want to use one or the other inverter but not both at the same time, you can use a transfer switch to power your distribution panel from one or the other.

if you want to have a few 'high power' outlets for the large inverter and a few 'low power' outlets for the small inverter, you should have a separate distribution panel.

--vtMaps

lamplight

Re: Cabin Lighting

suresine 300 says it can deal with input voltage of 10-15.5v which is also a bonus for people like me with high absorb voltages.. my cotek/samples shuts off during some days depending n temp compensated absorb.. very good, worth mentioning

nasty

Re: Cabin Lighting

vtmaps wrote: »

If you want to use one or the other inverter but not both at the same time, you can use a transfer switch to power your distribution panel from one or the other.

if you want to have a few 'high power' outlets for the large inverter and a few 'low power' outlets for the small inverter, you should have a separate distribution panel.

--vtMaps

I was thinking seperate curcuits for for "high power" and "low power" but would be easier for wiring if they used the same outlets. Transfer switch is a good idea. Any suggestions? Never used them before. I will do some research also. Thanks

westbranch

Re: Cabin Lighting

In case you haven't read this one, there may be an answer there to your question about using 2 inverters.

http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?15705-using-2-inverters-one-300W-larger-1000-2000-W

hth