Wardenclyffe Tower

I've known for a long time I wanted to go totally off grid my retirement home I'm building is that! I first started out with a small 900 wat inverter purchased at Canadian Tire and a 40 amp Trace charge controller with 3 Shell 75 watt panels and two 12 volt deep cycle batteries from Cosco! Hey it ran all my lights a tv and radio in the trailer from a 100 extension cord from the house under construction!

The good thing about solar is you can always added to it( more panels,charge controlers etc...) I've since added 3 more 75 watt and 2, 80 watt shell panels and a Trace(now Xantrex) DR2412 inverter (modified sinewave) and replaced the batteries with 6 volt (I believe they are 240 amp hour) golf cart batteries ( a bank of 12 batteries) ,added a AirX 400 watt wind generator for back up power on a 60 ft tower. I'll posts some pics later when I have time to scan them!  I just added a Trace TM500A Battery Status Monitor so I can keep track of the systems status with out having to run into the basement to check things! (Comes with a 50 ft cord to place it up to that distance away)

Very cool setup... nice that you have both solar and wind too... less chance of downtime. 

Your Status Monitor looks cool too... i see you can see all sorts of statistics.   What would be nice is if they made (inverters?transfer switches?) that let you say .... 'WHEN im getting over 600watts input OR battery level > 90% then enable these extra 2 circuits on my circuit panel'..  that would be too cool for prioritizing electrical devices/circuits... have you ever heard of such a thing?   I guess that functionality is less important if you can run home automation hardware (on prosine/true sine?) that can get access to status information.

wctadmin:

   What would be nice is if they made (inverters?transfer switches?) that let you say .... 'WHEN im getting over 600watts input OR battery level > 90% then enable these extra 2 circuits on my circuit panel'..  that would be too cool for prioritizing electrical devices/circuits... have you ever heard of such a thing?  

Well you can do something simular but u need a dedicated charge controler that has the capability the Trace 40 amp can do it Not sure if the 60 can But I know the 30amp can't. You set it up so once your batteries reach a certain level this kicks in and sends the voltage else where, most users connect a water heating element to this. when using solar you want to make use of every bit you can get My 40 Amp Trace charge controler will be utilized for this down the road, that was one of the reasons forr starting with that charge controler. Down the road I want to convert to Outback products (they're true sine wave and seem to be built rugged! My supplier has been using the same inverter I have for over 8 years  without any problems so it looks like it will be a while before I have to Update that!  When your looking for a supplier it is good to find one that uses what they sell my supplier lives totaly off the grid as well and he tells me he won't sell anything he hasn't tried his self! (a bit of a plus)

Just a few pics of my setup

I'll add better pics of the solar panels later.for now here is an old one panels are located above the 3 skylights

I picked up some more Shell 75 watt panels (Shell was bought out so if you can find some you may get them at a bargain) and will mount them to a pole so I can rotate it towards the early morring sun and tilt them based on the seasons. My current pannels are mounted to the roof and are in a fixed position (picture only shows six) .

Very cool, hope you dont mind i changed/fixed the image links.  Seem's angelfire was blocking retrieval from site until i pasted the url's into new browser window... at that point the images were in my cache and the pictures showed but i fixed for other new viewers.

Your setup looks very impressive... is that Thermor device an electronic wind guage? That would be pretty good data to see.

 Hey I don't mind the link change I was a little worried about it displaying correctly but they seemed to work from my end.

Note: I added a pic of the panels (shows only 6, I have 8 up there now)

Yes the Thermor device is actually a wireless weather station which displays time,wind speed and direction,indoor and outdoor temp, barometor,humidity, rain gauge and displays a forcast.

The pic of the Turbine (not the best 150 feet from cam ) shows the wind gauge below and to the right otf the turbine

The transmiter is located bottom of the tower and the transmite range is100 ft. The unit remembers the highest readings as well as the lowest and may be reset.

  Wow.  if i had that house i would never leave...

Looks like a nice place to step out of time and leave schedules behind (other than day/night solar schedule ).

Do you intend to retire there?

Looks like your system is very capable now... enough to provide a very good quality of life completely off the grid!  With all that roof space i sure you might end up expanding again.  Had any luck with the turbine yet... i bet on rare days you get nice bursts of power to charge up your bank?

Also, is it my imagination or is the solar industry starting to reach critical mass and drop prices?  I've only recently been interested but it seems alot of new breakthoughs and products are taking place.

Thanks! The place is slowly coming together! The plan is to retire there but not for a few more years.I'm hoping to put in an Outdoor Wood Furnace this year to supply heat for the colder months (fireplace just doesn't do it)

The wind turbine supplies just enough power during the winter months(but I'm not there most of the time then) I'm told a larger turngine would work better (larger blades means less wind needed). I had thought I would get more wind than I do but windy days usually means cloudy ones there so I'd rather have the sun. I have seen days where I get 30 amps comming off the turbine but it is usualy only short bursts I get 40 amps steady from the panels on a sunny day.The solar industry is showing some signs of promise ,there has been alot of movement in the last couple of years with controlers,inverters and other devices. Panels haven't changed much (have seen a solar paint being developed) but as more people jump into the GREEN POWER the prices are dropping  My first 75 watt panel cost me over $700 cnd the last ones I got were just over $400 cnd.

I love not getting a hydro bill for the place

I'm realy watching for major developments in batteries(power storage) and fuel cells(hydrogen storage). Possibly down the road a fuel cell may be added. I'm told they fit well with solar panels (best way to create hydrogen) I'm just waiting for the parts to get more reasonable!

Its been a while since I updated so here is a progress report!

Outdoor wood stove works great even with softwood !

I added 8 more solar panels (696 watts/40.8 amps) to a pole so I can rotate it for morning to evening sun! This litterly tripples the amount of power they produce!

Added a Magnum pure sine wave inverter this allows all my electronic devices to run smoothly and there is little to no noise from wallwarts!

Now I can start with some Home automation as most of this stuff requires pure sine wave power!

Althought the Xantrex TM500A Meter battery meter which gives more detailed info on my battery bank the inverters needed a Remote which displays lots of additional data .

I'll add some pics as soon as my wife gets them on the PC from her cam!