Simple DIY Home Solar Project - Off Grid Garage - Part 1

How to produce your own free electricity... Recently embarked on a new project and decided to learn a little more about producing my own electricity. After hours of research on Youtube and Sunsprite Solar's fantastic website, I finally purchased a basic 40w solar panel kit, complete with 10a charge controller.

Within a relatively short space of time, I had connected up all the system components and the appropriate battery and solar charge lights were blinking away nicely. Success, I was now producing my own electricity... Can it really be that simple ?

Well the straight answer is, Yes ! Essentially, all you require for a basic home solar setup is : 1. Solar Panel 2. Charge Controller 3. Battery

I decided to purchase the 40w AKT Solar Panel Kit from Sunsprite Solar, which included a monocrystaline panel with 5m of heavy duty cable complete with MC4 connectors and a 10a MPV charge controller. This cost me £89.99 and I have to say I am very impressed with the quality of the components I received. I also purchased 4 x 7ah sealed lead acid batteries (£27.00 from ebay), which would form my battery bank. Any sort of deep cycle leisure battery, UPS or alarm battery will do, depending on the size of your system and what you intend to power from it. Then its just a simple case of connecting the three components together, as per the easy to follow schematic instructions printed on the front of most charge controllers.

I wanted a bit more functionality adding to my system, so I included a few extra items, such as a fuse panel, switches, 12v to 240v 400w inverter and a 4 gang power strip. These are not essential for producing your own electricity, but gives you more control over your system and allows you more options for what appliances you can supply.

Now that my system is up and running, I plan to add more monitoring features, led lighting and a 12v socket on the control panel. Eventually I would like to make my entire garage completely off grid, so there will be more posts to come in the future, as and when I expand my simple diy home solar project.