Hey Tom! I don’t really buy bits in “sets” I typically just buy each bit as I need it. I’m a big fan of amana tool for my hand routers and spetool for my cnc routers
I love this, Dan. Last I heard you were living in AZ again. LMK if you wanna connect and I'll pay you to help me setup a portable solar setup at my rental in The Valley, and I'm not BS'ing. You know AZ energy prices come summer time, best to use that God given sun to help us and extract that energy. Cheers. (I'm 100% serious btw)
I would expect that to run this setup for a full day's work off grid you would probably need to at least double the amount of solar panels and batteries. Having said that you get a lot more effective sunshine than we see here in the UK so it might just be a case of more battery storage. It would be worth trying that if you do feel the need to upgrade before spending out on more panels - after all, you might just end up saving a fair chunk of money that way. Also I would generally caution you with regards to these no-name batteries. They are quite often not what is advertised and can be electrically dangerous in the long term. As part of best practice I would only want to buy them if I had not seen an independent review of them.
Yeah the truth is, this setup could not run my cnc machine all day. With the sun in the perfect spot, I’m getting about 450w, which is a tad less than what my cnc machine and dust collector draw while in use (not counting start up). So with this setup, I can run my cnc machine for about 2 hrs without sun, and probably 3-4 hours with direct sunlight helping. But I don’t run my machine for more than that during the day, and most of the time I’m working on guitars I’m not using hardly any power (mostly hand tools). So it’s working for me for now but I would like to double the battery bank. As for the no name batteries, someone has to test them! May as well be me 🤷♂️
$1000 to save approximately $50 to $100 a month with about a dozen potential points of future failure that will need replacement, repair of tinkering within a year. how is the longmill holding up? I'm becoming less and less impressed with mine every time I use it.
Firstly, my longmill is amazing! It’s a small guitar factory. I’m still using it very basically though, limited by my software skills. As for the solar setup, did I mention in the video anything about saving money on my power bill? I’d be shocked if I saved $50/mo. Maybe $10/mo is my guess. I saved $3.5k on installing a sub panel for grid power. So my system has already paid for itself twice
Hi Dan, just curious how the solar setup is working for you? I’ve been wanting to build something similar and wanted to know if it’s worth spending the money on it. Thanks
So far my system has worked extremely well for me! I haven’t run out of power yet and I’ve used all my high draw tools and run the cnc, router, and dust collector simultaneously for more than hour long carves. No problem!
That's a nice little setup. Nice to see the 3000W works well. My 2000W struggles in the heat in my shed when I fire up the table saw, so I have an idea what to upgrade to. I was able to fit three 380W panels on top of my 12' x 16' shed. You should be able to fit plenty of power on yours.
I was in the same boat as you. I tried to fire up my dust collector with my UPS which has a 2000w/3000w max inverter, and it “did” start it. But it struggled like crazy! It wasn’t a smooth start at all. But since it started with the 3000w max, I thought a 3000w continuous/6000w max would be much smoother. I was right! Very happy with this setup.
Yeah man! The only difference is that you need a 240v inverter. They sell them on Amazon, they are probably more common on your European Amazon, but I’ve seen them on the American Amazon too.
I actilually work for ac company they sells inverters, so that’s the one thing I know about. Your return from the solar panel is huge due to your amount of sun. You still think we could generate that amount of power with overcast days. Or do I just need more panels than you.
Hey Dan, re: that funky display on the inverter: it looked like it only happened with the motors, and given their sound, they sound like universal motors. IIRC, those generate a fair amount of electrical noise. I wonder if that noise on the line is messing up the display. It'd be interesting to see if it dose the same thing with any high current draw device (e.g. an electric heater) or just the motors. The lights didn't seem to cause a problem with it. Just a thought. Peace!
Hey Harley, thanks for the tip brother! I’ll try it out with a heater and see what happens! I know the shop vac and dust collector are induction motors, not sure about the router.
Hey Dan, FRIGGIN AWESOME! You did say “Energize me” at the end. Synonymous with some other battery company :). Actually all kidding aside, I’ve literally got the same situation as you… Tuffshed shop outside my house w/extension cord running to it shop all wired up thru it, and the cost of a new panel/wiring to the main panel in my house $$. This is so timely for me! Seen some other videos on solarizing shops, but you laid it out well, thanks! I’m hoping to do this project this year, and would be a no brainer for sun power over here in Jacksonville FL. I do wonder how it would fair running the CNC, shop vac, and occasional other power turn on’s like small air compressor re-charges for clearing dust, or turning on a 2nd router, or small table saw? Anyway, love it man, thanks!.
Can it run all of those at the same time? Definitely. Can it start them all at the same time is the issue. Mine setup can start the router and the dust collection at the same time without flickering the lights, that’s pretty impressive. The dust collector always dimmed or flickered the lights in grid power, so I have more available power than a 20a circuit. An air compressor also draws a lot of current on start up, but as long the other tools are already running and not starting at the same time, it should be fine. I know a table saw is no problem because I tested mine!
I originally came to your channel for guns and guitar stuff but I love all of your additional diy projects. I'm stealing this design to power a shed and off grid aquaponics garden with rain barrel collection and on demand water pump for a hose bib.
Something else you might want to look in to are self-resetting circuit breakers. Really good for those few circuits that are usually fine, but can pop if someone forgets that only one big thing can run at the same time. (I...probably need to get one for the circuit that I run my microwave and deep fryer on...)
That’s actually a great idea. I probably will get some of those. However, it won’t help if it’s the GFCI circuit that trips, which happens half the time with my outdoor receptacles. Not sure why those pop before the breaker sometimes.
This is a great DIY setup, thanks for all the great info and tips! would like toi swee you grow this a bit - more panels, more batteries, and see how iot holds up.
I would like to see me grow this a bit too! We’ll see how well this holds up to actual everyday use, then I can determine if I actually need more. I’m guessing more batteries definitely won’t hurt.
It definitely would, it just depends on how many watts the heater uses will determine how long it can run for. A 1500w heater would run for an hour and a half on my battery setup. If it’s getting good solar charge during that time it would extend it to 2-3hrs. If the heater doesn’t need to run continuous, like on for 5 minutes, off for 10 minutes, then you might be able to run it all day with good sunlight.
@@GunsandGuitars Swype typing while walking the dog after watching/listening to the video turns into all kinds of weird things! I'm definitely not building gutters! Guitars, yes, gutters, no.
I built a portable power station for my art festival booth, built it into a husky stackable rolling tool cart, with one 100amphour lifepo inside but put a plug to outside to add a second external battery that I can swap out if needed, renogy 2000 inverter with an external switch mounted to the cart, renogy solar controller with bluetooth monitoring, bus bars, 12v outlet, USB / pd charging outlet, solar input jack and an external battery disconnect switch so I don't have any parasitic drain when I'm not using it. I have four 150 watt renogy flexible solar panels that Velcro onto the roof of my tent with heavy duty wide Velcro strips. The solar alone powers my lights, charging, etc, then I run a few wood carving tools doing demos at my shows. I don't have any battery drain with this setup, even on cloudy days, even in the rain unless I run the power tools. But I can just plug in another battery if I do get drain. Built this after years of using deep cycles, fold out solar panels with cheap solar controller and small inverter. that setup didn't keep up and my lights would go out mid show in cloudy days. Now I've even lent power to neighbors lol
That sounds like an awesome setup! I’ve thought about building this out in such a way that it’s portable, so I can use it for camping, etc. but I decided this will be a permanent install because of the size of the panels. I’ll build a more portable one later.
