12V Beginner Friendly Solar System Packages! Budget and Performance

so today's video we're going to cover beginner friendly 12volt systems with my new hardware recommendations for 2024 and on the left we have a budget system and on the right we have a performance system and the price difference is substantial but if you want something that will last for decades you should go with this one now first let's look at the budget system now this system you could throw into an RV a van or pretty much anywhere you please now I don't think it gets easier or cheaper than this you have one large battery so you don't have to wire up four small batteries which is a big pain in the butt you have inverter mounted to the wall with some screws and then we have some pure copper cables that connect the two together so we have a negative that connects to the negative and a positive that connects to the positive and then I connected a solar charge controller to the inverter's terminals with an inline fuse that you can buy at any automotive supply store now all this system needs is some solar panels that you can connect right here and then you have a complete system that can charge and discharge on its own and to turn it on we press the power button and then you connect your loads right here and once the battery is too low this will start beeping so then you have to wait until the solar charges the battery up again now this system is very easy to scale cuz you can always add more batteries and you can add a larger solar charge controller and Heck if you want to change out the inverter you can do that in minutes as well this is as simple as it gets now for the performance package we're using victron and victron has a module for everything and you have to wire everything up individually but it's still simple so as usual we have a battery an inverter in a solar charge controller but we connect them all together with the links distribution bar and if you want to install a second solar charge controller or a fuse block you can connect it right here as well and the distributor is connected to a links shunt and this connects to all of your batteries down here now this shunt can tell you the Capac capacity of your battery bank or you can use the victron communication from the Epic battery to work with this inverter now victron also sells the servo GX and it will connect all of these devices including the battery so you can remotely operate and control your system but that costs a lot of money or you can have these devices work without communication or you can check on individual components with Bluetooth so for example the solar charge controller you can connect it to your phone and you can see how much power is coming from your solar array so it's really up to you and how much you want to spend or you can get rid of all of this and just connect the inverter straight to the battery and then throw the solar charge controller on there somewhere some people like it simple like the budget system then some people want all the functionality now the solar charge controller is connected to some solar panels that are outside and we have a positive and a negative as long as the voltage of this solar array is below 100 volt I can safely connect it to the solar charge controller also make sure you have a 12vt inverter if you're using a 12vt battery and then you just put everything together and I have a video on how to make these cables if you don't want to make the cables you can buy the cables readymade now on this system if you have readymade cables you could build this in a few minutes you throw this on the ground you screw this and this into the wall and then you hook it up with a screwdriver in a socket and I'm sure someone online is selling a hookup kit just ensure that you use the right size fuse and conductor for your solar charge controller now for these systems we don't need a fuse because this battery has one built in and this BMS has its own overcurrent protection so as long as the cables are properly sized which I recommend two wat or 4 o gauge cables you shouldn't have to add a fuse and this distribution bus bar has a fuse for the solar charge controller and this solar charge controller has a fuse right here now I don't see a problem connecting a second battery but if you connect a third and a fourth I recommend using a bus bar on the wall and then connect that bus bar to your system with a t-class fuse but for most people this capacity is just fine and if you need more capacity a second battery you can wire up just fine without a fuse just ensure you're using the proper size cable like I said 4 o gauge for 12vt is best but you can get by with two o now both of these solar charge controllers can handle 100 volt DC from the solar panel array so if you put like four solar panels together in series and it makes about 80 volts you can safely connect it to these solar charge controllers but there's also a minimum operating voltage and for 12 volts that's typically 20 volts but I recommend most people keep that voltage above 40 volts so right now this one is connected to a 40 volt array that's a good voltage for charging this battery and that's pretty much it I mean I don't think it gets easier than this I think the hardest part is putting the solar panels somewhere and then running the wire all the way over to this controller actually a good tip for the beginners is do not connect the battery until all of this stuff is wired up and then do not connect the solar panels until it's nighttime that way you're not working with a higher voltage and these batteries you can't turn off like a 48v battery so yeah make sure you connect everything together and then connect the battery last you follow those steps I don't think you can screw this up now if you want to save some serious money and build a super powerful system you should step up your voltage to 48 volts and I'll show you a small mobile 48 volt system that you can build as a beginner now for the money I don't think you can beat this and this little system on my website gets more traffic than all the other 12vt systems combined the features of this system compared to the last two systems is hard to beat this thing can handle 5,000 watts of solar it has a 3,000 W output we have 5 KW hours of battery and it's easier to build check out how small these cables are to connect the battery to the all-in-one unit and this all-in-one has the solar charge controller it has an AC battery charger and an inverter all in one box and this cable connects to an outlet so you can use the AC battery charger then I connected a surge strip so I can connect loads to the system and then the solar panels connect down here and building the system is dead simple this cable actually comes with this all-in-one and then I threw everything onto a hand truck so I can roll it around so overall it's the same cost as the budget system but it's more efficient it has way more power especially the solar charge controller those other ones can only handle like 400 maybe 600 watts this thing can handle 5,000 watts and you can connect Wi-Fi monitoring to this device or if you have 240 volt loads like an EV charger you can connect two of these in parallel so and then you'd have a 10,000 watt solar input put so for the money it's hard to beat 48 volts and they're easier to build these cables are much cheaper than those 4 o gauge that you use with the 12vt now this system you can use in an RV or a van and it's very easy to use this to power 12vt devices you can add a converter to this battery just hook it right up because it has its own inline fuse and I actually have a tutorial video and I also have a bunch of schematics on my website now if you want to build this instead of a 12vt system I'll have a link below um I hope you guys like this video I try to make it as beginner friendly as possible everything is like just a couple wires and that's it so please let me know in the comments if you have any more questions and I will see you in the next video thank you bye

Channel: DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse

Views: 304,368

Keywords: off grid solar, will prowse, diy solar, cheap lifepo4, beginner solar system, 12v solar system, how to build a solar system

Id: xb_ixg1eilU

Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2024