Most excellent Dude... 1000 times over...that is just awe inspiring... Gafarmboy if you can not protect what you own, you won't own it long.
TnAndy, Beautiful, Where I am is steep sided and I wish I had an area suitable for a pasture. Great goat country with a lot of poison oak. lol
TnAndy, I've gone back to the first posting and I didn't see the address or the date/time of the open-house/party. Would you mind reposting that? Thanks. Kajun
Pic of the inverter/etc and batteries. The hanging black wire will eventually tie to the Tri-metric battery monitor, and the yellow extension cord is run upstairs now for a power source until he gets his main panel finished. To the left is his main 2500gal plastic tank for his water supply. ( fed from the roof gutters )
Wow what a nice set up. If he needs to adopt anyone to leave it behind to if he ever moves on to the after life. I'll gladly volunteer. lol
Not my rig, but, I recognize the batteries as deepcycle 6 volt golf cart batteries. 8 of them. I can find them wholesale down here in florida for $80 to $120 each.
If you look at the Batteries in the picture closely, I believe that they are L16s, and not T105s. The L16s are the most common Lead Acid Batteries used to power Inverter/Battery Systems with Inverters over 3Kw. be mistaken about the specificsLooks like they are wired in a 48 Vdc Bank, which would make sense, with that Outback Power Inverter/Charge Controller Setup. I could be mistaken, but that is what I see... YMMV...
They are Deka brand L-16's. Obtained from the local Deka dealer in town. 6v, 400amp/hr Price was about 250+tax. Typical golf cart batteries are 6v, about 150-200amp/hr, and about 1/2 the height of the L-16 ( and thus about 1/2 the price)
Wired in two strings of 24v, Bruce ( hard to see in the photo). Gives an 800amp/hr bank, which is 5 days reserve for his situation ( the loads in the cabin ) at 50% Depth of Discharge ( DOD ). He has a nice Kubota diesel generator for backup.
I had the same setup initially when put my system in place, then about a year into it, I ran up on the deal of a lifetime on some Absolyte GNB II sets. Online buddy of mine out in Kansas working for a cell phone company selling out to a new company, and he was told to "get rid of everything in inventory".....which included one used set and two new sets of the below....a 24v 1200amp/hr set of AGM ( absorbed glass matt ) type batteries, which cost about 15k new.....and he was to sell them for scrap....about 300 bucks. I drove 18hrs straight to Kansas ( almost to Colorado ) to get them, and hauled them home, two sets in my pickup one in a single axle trailer. 9,000lbs of batteries ! Each of them are 2v cells ( they have two connections per cell ) and each individual cell weighs about 250lbs. 3 cells each to a metal case, making up 6v per "layer"....then the layers are bolted together on those flanges sticking out the sides. The connector plates are solid copper bars with a tinned coating ( look like steel but aren't ). To move them, they come WITH their own custom lifting straps and hooks/buckle deal that connects in on the bolt flange. We used my tractor front loader to lift one case at a time, and set in place. Since these are a sealed unit, you can mount them in any direction. They also require no water to be added, since they don't off gas when charging. You DO have to use a GOOD charge controller with fractional set points, as these are more sensitive to charging requirements than the typical wet cell battery. IF you know anybody in the cell business, you might check around, because my understanding is it's pretty standard policy to replace these batteries at 3-5 years as routine.....and these are designed to last 20 years, depending on the number of cycles they are used. Most time in cell use, they are NOT used....they simply sit as backup for power outages, and thus a 5 year old battery will test out almost the same as a new one ( which was the case with the ones I got ).....and the cell companies typically sell them for scrap lead price.....what I paid.
Andy, your right , that was the deal of a lifetime. I don't normally get jealous of other people's solar equip, but you managed to get me there. Great !
Great Minds find the same type Deals.... I got a bank of Absolyte IIs from a USCG contractor that was removing them from a Mountain Top Radio Site, for one days labor, in helping do the removal. They were less than 4 months old, and have been running my Winter Shop and ISP Hardware and Servers for 8 years, now. Still test out at 90% capacity, and charged by my Trace U2624 Inverter/Charger. Way out of my Price Range, any other way, for sure.
Old Fart Senior Member, from one to another anyway, I am getting jealous of you to. I wish I could find a deal like that. When one does come across, I am broke. When I am flush, no deals. I see you have one of the oldie type Trace inverters. I have seen a lot of them around here about 15 years ago, but most of them have been fazed out by and by.
