I thought some of you may be interested. They do not include a battery, but the costs seem reasonable:

http://www.renogy-store.com/Solar-Starter-Kits-s/1477.htm

Some of you may be able to recommend them or not so please let me know if the prices seem reasonable. I am tired of the cheap little solar lights on the dock posts that barely last 3 months before death. I want to put in some dock lighting as well as an underwater lighting system for those occasions we want to see what is going on under there. Pond is too far from the house to make running wire practical.

Thanks,

Thanks for posting that!

ls, hopefully highflier will see this and check in. Looks interesting to me, also.

+1 I added the link to my favorites. Don't need any now but I see all their products have 5 star reviews

I've checked these guy's out in the past, and prices have always seemed reasonable.

I found another place that has decent prices on many different brands/components, but I'm more geared toward AC and not DC production.

I wrote up a rather lengthy reply to this earlier, but deleted it.

Carry On...

I would then run 12v MR16 LED lights at the dock in natural white 4500K. You should be able to find the MR16 in 2-3 watts each with about 60 3528 LEDs that make about 9 lumen each. About 500 lumens for 3 watts in 12 volts is the new norm. Make sure the LED is capped with out a large heat sink.

Light per watt is the the best out put you can find in 12 volts.

Cheers Don.

Don't be deleting those lengthy replies! or at least copy, paste and pm it to me first!

Thanks for posting this , it helped

Tracy

I am a firm believer in if your making DC then stick with DC. Making AC from DC is wasteful. Making the extra sign wave then using 10X the voltage makes no scenes to me.

Brush-less DC motors LED lights what more dose one need?

Here’s the confusing part about BLDC motors. Though they’re called DC, they actually are running from an AC power source that comes from a DC power source. What? Here’s the Wikipedia explain: “Brushless DC electric motor (BLDC motors, BL motors) also known as electronically commutated motors (ECMs, EC motors) are synchronous motors that are powered by a DC electric source via an integrated inverter/switching power supply, which produces an AC electric signal to drive the motor.“

JKB correct me if I am wrong but weren't we having an issue finding the GAST compressor we wanted in BLDC?

Not much available out there.

The real advantage of a BLDC motor is the coils are switched in sequence with the rotor position, resulting in a high efficiency conversion of energy. This is similar to what brush DC motors do, only rather than "switches" being on the rotor that wear out, they are realized using solid state switches that don't (field effect transistors, or FETs). An advantage is speed can be directly controlled by altering the switching rate, where a brush DC motor you cannot do this.
Operations like running a compressor which sits at the same RPM for days on end would not take advantage of a BLDC motor. A simple synchronous AC motor is fine since they are made to be efficient with a 60hz sinusoid waveform. You are simply replacing the BLDC controller with an AC inverter. Pretty much the same thing at the end of the day only at a fixed RPM.
Where a BLDC motor may have an advantage is at initial startup. You could ramp the motor speed up gradually, resulting in a smaller current hit which could mean an easier to realize solar system.

Not all brushless motors are AC controlled or operated.

Any good examples for like pumps and compressors?

Liquid, I wanted to thank you for that link. I have 18 acres in the Piedmont area of NC and I put a cabin on it this past fall. I am interested in making it totally solar reliant and I've found "stuff" along the way but not total systems like your link had. Looks good.

LS,

I have used a few of their products in the past, and I have moved on. They are okay, but they only do PWM charging. In the best case, you will be using about 70% of your solar power, and most times far less. Now if you only need a little power, it won't matter and their stuff will work fine. But if you need more power and every watt counts, look for a MPPT controller. Build your own cables. look into trackers. And learn,learn, learn.

I have been playing with more power lately and every watt matters, so I am playing with MPPT controllers.

Just got a text from our ABB rep that the Solar Drives are in the US system now. Something to consider. He's gonna email me a spreadsheet with all the numbers.

Sweet! I am all ears!

I was already looking at their premium kits as MPPT makes best use of the solar panel and battery, where most of the expense lies. Pay a little more up front, gain a lot more later.

100W
http://www.renogy-store.com/100W-12V-Polycrystalline-Premium-Kit-p/kit-premium100p.htm
200W
http://www.renogy-store.com/200W-12V-Polycrystalline-Premium-Kit-p/kit-premium200p.htm

But yes, they do seem to have a decent selection.

One of my many projects I have worked on was a MPPT controller for unattended utility meter collection. (A small part of a much larger project) The collector needed a solar-powered ability when line power was not available at the installation site. I managed to get efficiency so high that the solar panel could be cut in half from the original PWM-style installation. Due to politics, my controller never made it to market, and a crappy OTS controller was used instead :-(.

Got some good info today and downloaded the updated manuals, but only glanced thru them.

I am encouraged on how simple this could be to run high efficiency 3 phase motors, or as well, PMAC (big brother of BLDC motors) on Solar.