battery banks "Thinking out loud"

Re: battery banks "Thinking out loud"

Windridder--Make power at home is almost always a waste of money for the ebook or whatever they are selling. Even you, I guess, don't think it is worth buying their ebook.

-Bill

Re: battery banks "Thinking out loud"

Deep cycle batteries... There are less expensive brands and more expensive brands... There are flooded cell (less expensive) and AGM/Sealed (2x the costs). And there are traction/fork lift batteries which can handle higher currents, deeper cycles, but they also can be less efficient (upwards of 2% per day power loss for an old set of cells).

My self, I like to recommend one or two parallel strings of large AH / Capacity cells vs 10 parallel strings of small capacity batteries.

And if you parallel two or more strings of batteries, you should put a series protection fuse/breaker on each string (which drives up the wiring costs and complexity of the bank too).

There are a couple of battery FAQ's which will help you understand the batteries better:

Deep Cycle Battery FAQ
www.battteryfaq.org
Parallel Wiring for Battery Banks

Our host sells batteries that they believe to be good vendors--both lower cost and higher cost ranges...

You can start there--but since batteries are very expensive to ship, many times you will end up working with a local distributor when everything is taken into account.

Since batteries are so expensive, many folks start with a low cost set first (like golf cart 6 volt cells) and run them for 3-5 years--then buy a better set (perhaps even AGM) once they have worked out the issues with their system.

AGM's are about the perfect battery (no maintenance, more efficient than flooded cell batteries, more efficient, cleaner, etc.)--however they are expensive and not very tolerant of some mistakes (like over charging). Flooded cell can take more goofs--assuming you keep them at level with distilled water and don't boil them dry (or let them sit for weeks/months below ~75% state of charge--which will kill most lead acid batteries).

For wind turbines, typically, they use diversion controllers--basically the battery charge controller just dumps excess power to a load bank (electric heater). Not as accurate method of charge control--so you need to watch your bank closely (under charging and over charge are both very hard on batteries).

Are you looking for brand names, sizes of cells, 12 vs 48 volt banks, or what...?

If you are interested in building a wind turbine--A couple of very good websites to visit:

www.otherpower.com (DYI wind turbines including a forum)
www.builditsolar.com (many DYI energy projects)

Building a working and safe wind turbine can be a very interesting project--but it is not simple and easy to do well. Put it at the top of a 60'+ tower and installation costs + maintenance become major issues too. The other missing element with solar of any time is LOCATION--if you don't have the sun or the wind--then no matter what you put out there--collecting useful amounts of energy will be difficult.

-Bill