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Caution. If the battery has been severly degraded a short may have developed in one or more cells. The result will be that the battery gets hot. Very hot. I had one get hot enough to crack the case and leak acid. To be safe it is best to current limit the power supply to 200 ma or less.

Most municipalities have a fire code for placement of panels. They usually require at least 18 inches from the ridge. I'm not sure if they would enforce that for a shed, but you might want to look it up.

Most installers use the date the equipment was first put into use, even if you paid for it in a previous year. IRS tax code for solar credits is about as vague as all other tax laws. You're probably safe if the equipment you purcahsed has never been used for a credit in the past. One possible...

If I'm reading your cost chart correctly, it looks like you are getting an 80 % tax credit on the panels. About 42 % on the AC300/B300.

Unfortunately it was too tempting to not joke about it. I did locate an ebike motor that was only 250 watts, which puts it slightly more in the "doable" category. 250 watts would only add an assist. That with the drag from a 250 watt panel would probably make it just as hard as no panel at all.

Maybe so, but what if it takes you two days because your dragging a solar array with you. Two days of lost wages can be pretty expensive.

I built my batteries myself out of 18650 batteries that I got cheap on ebay. I also got an inexpensive BMS. The case is just phenolic board and some high density foam then wrapped in PVC shrink wrap. Not sure if you can beat the price with a solar panel, a way to either mount it to a bike or...

Not too long ago I experimented with radiative cooling. The temperature of space is somewhere around -450 degrees F. The amount of heat radiated from the earth has to equal the amount of solar heating for the average temperature on the planet to remain reasonably constant. Most of the radiative...

I have an electric bike. I have three batteries for it. I rotate them so that one is fully charged at all times. One is on a solar charger and the other on the bike. The time to fully charge one is about 4 hours, so every morning I have at least two fully charged. On a long ride I can keep an...

Do me a favor and block me again.

I don't mind if you irratate me, just be careful to not make yourself look dumb.

Without net metering, most of the newer electric meters used by the power companies will spin forward whether you import or export. The amount you are exporting gets added to your bill, just as the amount you import. So you may be paying them to give them power. If you get net metering, you'll...

It would be helpful to know where exactly you are measuring the 11 volts. Is it at the battery terminals, the inverter input, or elsewhere.

My statement was "everything when determining fuse size or type for an inverter". That a far cry from everything. Ohms Law has a few centuries of success. It's been referred to as simply a definition of conductance which is the reciprocal of resistance. I've successfully designed several...

The 400 amp fuse better be able to handle 600 amps for a short duration of time.

I believe what you mean is: ohms law doesn't account for everything when determing fuse size or type for an inverter. I totally agree. I was merely answering the posted question, that no one else seemed to have answered at that point in the thread. I have no issues with the plethora of responses...

The Question that was asked by the OP: Ohms law answers that question.

Sorry, I was replying to Checkthisout. He did get one thing right. He frustrates me.

Ohms law also works on the surge current capacity. Anyone working on solar better at least know ohms law.

That formula is on the chart I referenced. Upper left middle of the pink area. You gave me the impression that you could do it without Ohms law.

It's not my formula. It was developed by German physicist Georg Ohm in 1827. I'm sure the designers of those inverter specs you posted used it in determining the recommended fuse size. Do you think they do it by trial and error?

The questioner requested formulas. Could you please provide your formula? And do it as a function of manufacturer, model number and wattage please? And do it with no refference to Ohms law.

Since when did ohms law become obsolete? Wattage is a measure of power. Everyone knows that fuses should be sized higher than power (wattage). The previous posters made this fact clear.

Formulas from Ohms law:

Prospective buyers might want to keep an eye on the politics! The prices have been low and continuing to drop because the chinese got around the 30% tariffs by marketing through other asian countries. New tariffs, favored by a majority of house members, if enacted would expand the tariffs to...

Agree. It's not going to be optiminally efficient, but how many generators are?

Can we conclude that using an inverter on a Prius for low power applications may not be quite as efficient as hauling a generator around but it's OK?

Unless they have a big battery bank to charge.

I wasn't "telling you" you how to refer to anything. I don’t know the terminology that service professionals use, but it's clear that you understood what I was referring to. In your original post, you didn't say that the "fixed rate" 4kwH generator was going to be charging batteries. Nor that...

With a Prius it's more appropriate to refer to the synergy drive system being ON, rather than to use the term "sit and idle". I've run an inverter off the 12 volt system many times and the ice engine doesn't turn on every time I put a load on the system. The IC engine only comes on occasionally...

What do you mean by "typical idle charge rate"? Comparing a typical 1.5 L engine to a similarly constructed .5 L engine is an unfair comparison. The prius engine has a lot of controls (electronic and mechanical), which may produce higher efficiency than a standard gas generator engine. Even at...

The gas engine only starts when the battery is low. The gas engines in prius's run very efficiently, probably more so than a standard gas generator. Is that 10 amps from the traction battery or from the 12 volt battery?

Prius's have a 12 volt battery that is charged directly off the traction battery. I'm not sure how much current it can supply but I used one to run an inverter and it worked fine. The gas engine would start ocassionally to keep the traction battery charged which would keep the 12 volt battery...

Chckthisout done gradgiated from the 5th grade. He dunn need no higher edjumacation, he got common sense.

Definately don't remove the ground to the inverter. Thre may be a way to connect an array ground to the house ground. How far is the array from your houses ground rod?