Your guide to smart, optimal, self-sufficient energy.
Your guide to smart, optimal, self-sufficient energy.
Watts (Power), Watt-hours (Energy), Amps (Current), Amp-hours (Charge), and Volts (Potential) are the units used to measure electricity, and they are often confused and ununderstood. After reading this quick article, you’ll learn about what these units represent in a battery, and you’ll also learn about concepts like charge…
In this article, I explain how to correctly size the wires that you need to connect your solar panels to your charge controller. After reading this, you’ll learn about wire size and ampacity, wire insulation, electrical codes for sizing these wires, temperature correction factors, etc…To make this guide…
In this article, I explain the difference between wiring solar panels in series and wiring them in parallel. You’ll learn about voltage, current, and power in both configurations, and you’ll also learn how series, parallel, and series-parallel connections are achieved. Solar panel series vs parallel: What is the…
Fuse and other overcurrent protection devices are an essential part of any electrical circuit. In this article, I’ll explain why you need fuses between your solar panels and the solar charge controller, and I’ll show you how to correctly size these fuses. Do you need fuse between solar…
Do I need a fuse between charge controller and battery? The answer is yes, you do need a fuse between your charge controller and battery bank. Should an overcurrent occur, you would want to have an overcurrent protection device (OCPD) placed between your charge controller and battery. An…
The size of the fuse that you use between your battery and inverter will depend on: The amount of current (Amps) that you’d like the inverter to be able to pull from the battery. The amount of current that the wire between your inverter and battery can safely…
There are 3 variables that determine how thick a battery wire should be: The maximum desired voltage drop, which should not exceed 3%. The thicker the cable, the more efficient it’s going to be. The maximum amount of current (in Amps) that’ll be flowing through the wire (from…
Undersizing your wires can lead to unwanted power and energy losses and potential safety risks. And, since copper wires are expensive, you also don’t want to oversize your wires too much. Below you’ll find a calculator that will help you find the right cable size to connect your…
In this article, you’ll find a tool that determines the wire size in AWG and mm² that you need to connect your battery to the inverter for you. If you’re interested in how the tool works or would like to do your calculations manually, I’ll also explain how…
Unlike circuit breakers, if a fuse blows you’ll have to replace it. And since replacing parts every other day is the last you need, you’ll have to size your fuse in a way that it only blows if your system is at risk. However, if the fuse is…
The size of the inverter that you need will mainly depend on 2 factors: The power usage and type of appliances you’re trying to run on the inverter. The specs of your battery bank. In this article, I explain how these factors come into play, and I discuss…
Assuming you want to charge the battery on a daily basis, there are a couple of factors that determine the amount of solar power needed to charge a 100Ah battery: The amount of energy (in Watt-hours) that you take out of the battery on a daily basis. The…
