Our friends at GreenPowerScience.com have released an excellent solar panel diy video. Dan Rojas explains some basic terminology and shows you what both small and large solar kits are capable of.

Dan shows you how he has 3 regular car batteries hooked up in parallel. He also has a 12 volt jumper battery hooked up in parallel to the 3 batteries for a total of 4 batteries in his battery bank.

You want to get battery leads from an auto supply store basically they are the same thing that you would hook it to your car with but they allow you to hook them in parallel.

By hooking these batteries in parallel, our voltage is still 12 volts, it doesn't change the voltage what it does is that all the batteries draw down equally.

For your house, you want to use a deep cycle battery. The fundamental difference between deep cycle batteries and regular car batteries is that car batteries have more surface area and they are designed to kick out a lot of amps so you can start your car. Deep cycle batteries are usually bigger and they are spaced out a little more. They still produce the same cranking amps but they produce a longer flow of energy. Car batteries, if you drain them all the way down and recharge them again, maybe 20 or 30 times, the battery will be ruined. Car batteries just can't handle that. Deep cycle batteries are designed to do exactly that, deep cycle. They are designed to be pulled all the way down and then charged back up.

Here is a company that makes cheap deep cycle batteries and sells them on Amazon:
Deep Cycle 12V Battery

Next you need an inverter. This inverter is a 750 watt inverter. What the inverters do is that they convert the direct current (DC) from the batteries into alternating current (AC) that you can use for your house. Now this is called a modified sin inverter. There are pure sin inverters out there which are actually much better because they give you better voltage flow. Modified sin inverters are generally a lot cheaper and you can get them in higher output models for the price. The major difference between a modified sin inverter and a pure sin inverter is that pure sin inverters produce a cleaner energy flow and they can run more complex things. With a modified sin inverter you can't run all digital clocks, also some computers have problems running off of them. If you are just running some lights off it or something like that, save your money and go with the modified sin inverter.

This appears to be one of the cheapest pure sin inverters on Amazon:
400-Watt Pure Inverter

Again, the inverter is hooked up to any one battery in your battery bank which is where it is getting its energy from.

Now a lot of my friends are buying an interesting solution that combines both the battery and the inverter into a single pack that is portable so that it can be moved around easily. Amazon sells this Xantrex all-in-one solution here:
Deep Cycle Battery With Built In Inverter

The solar panels are hooked up to a control which is then hooked up to any one of the batteries in your battery bank and they will charge all the batteries.

The best solar panel that you can buy that is weatherproof and has a 25 year warranty is here:
Solar Panel

Now if this top of the line solar panel is too expensive for you, don't worry. Northern Industrial makes a cheaper solar panel that still has a good 15 watt output. You can see it on Amazon here:
Northern Industrial High Wattage Solar Panels - 15 Watt

Note that we don't just hook the solar panels up to the batteries. Instead we hook the solar panels up to a controller. The purpose of the controller is to prevent overcharging of the batteries and also to let you know that the solar panels are doing their job of charging your batteries.

Here is a very popular 7 amp charge controller:
Sunforce 60012 7 Amp Charge Controller

Here is a bigger 30 amp charge controller:
Sunforce 60032 30 Amp Digital Charge Controller

If you are interested in a bundle pack that has everything, here is an inexpensive way to buy solar panels, a deep cycle battery, a controller, and an inverter on Amazon:
Solar Panel With Controller, Inverter, and Battery

For more great information and a review of the top solar panel diy guides, go to Solar Panel DIY Guides Reviewed and don't forget to watch the video below, cool stuff!

Duration : 0:9:28

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