How to build basic solar power system

Basically before we install a solar panel system in our home we need to consider what is your purpose of having a solar power system in your house. If you will use solar systems to power your house day and night consumption or for emergency use only or to power a certain equipment in your house. You need to compute the power consumption of your equipment for example your purpose is for lighting's only in case of brown for a short period of time you will only need a small solar panel charger, 12v deep cycle battery, PWM or MPPT charge controller and an off grid power inverter. There are two kinds of power inveter ON GRID and OFF GRID inveter.  ON GRID inveter connects directly from your solar panel to the alternating current in your house, while OFF GRID inverter connects from the battery and convert your 12 volts dc into  alternating current 110 to 220 volts to power your equipment's. In this tutorial we will talk about how to set up a solar power system using OFF GRID POWER INVERTER. Let say you have three  25 watts CFL bulbs to power up by your solar power system (3x25 = 75 watts) your power inveter should be at least 100 watts or more and you need also to consider how long it would be battery load will last. Bigger battery AH capacity the longer it will last. for example if you have a 120AH battery (x) 12v  you have 1,440 watts stored in your battery at full charge divided by 75 watts  your battery will up to 19 hours at full charge.  

You don't want to drain your battery frequently because it will shorten the battery life most of the battery last from 3 to 5 years if you maintain them properly. Ok let's start.

Materials 

1. Solar Panel ( I'm using 100 watts but any unit will do 10, 50, 150 watts etc.)
2. 12 volts Deep cycle battery ( I'm using 2SM car battery)
3. PWM or MPPT Charge controller ( I'm using MPPT 20A  since it has better performance than PWM) 
4. OFF GRID power inveter ( I'm using 1,000 watts 220 volt power output)

At the back of solar panel you will see two terminal one is negative and the other is positive to identify which one is a positive, look for the blocking diode and see where is the grey color is connected it should be the positive terminal. 

Connect a wire to each terminal 

Then connect the two wires to your charge controller be careful with polarity positive to positive and negative to negative . Connect your charge controller to your battery bank be careful with the polarity. Most of the charge controller has a 12v DC out load coming directly from your solar panel in the morning you use it to power your radio lights etc.

Connect your power inverter to your battery (red for positive and black for negative). then turn on your inveter and  plug in your lights.

That is the basic way to build a solar power system. You can add fuse and breaker for safety and protection. 

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