[lynnandrob]

hi everyone

i need help creating a solar powered battery bank to run my securiy system + burglar alarm and some lights.

my problem is,we bought a house that is off grid and only has mains water(no gas or electricty)we intend to renovate the property now and get connected to the uk national grid in a couple of years as the connection is 40k+.but unfortunatly thievs keep nicking anything they can lay thier hands on.what i need are diagrams of how to set up a solar powered battery bank that will run a security system,burglar alarm.a couple of security lights and a few lights inside the house for when we stay there.
the house lights will be energy saving bulbs about 11w.
the security system - i cant really find any specs in the paperwork i have,but have found the same/simular system as the one i have from the same place i bought mine from.it is a robox Home CCTV security camera system DIY DVR KIT iPhone USB,
power supply DC 12v/2A
power consumption 10w(without HDD)
as for a burglar alarm we hav'tn bought one yet as there is no piont untill we can get a power source sorted out but have being looking at the
AB8-burblar alkarm & gsm autodialer as this will let us know by text if the house has being broken into and can be reset over the phone.
the electricle specs say
Electrical
Operating Voltage 9-16VDC (12V nominal)
Current Consumption - No Alarm State 11mA (12V nominal)
Current Consumption - Alarm State 13mA (12V nominal)
Relay Solid State
Real Output 60VDC, 50mA, Protected
Tamper Switch 12V max, 50mA max
RFI Immunity to Continuous Wave (CW) 10 - 1000MHz 50V/m
RFI Immunity to Amplitude Modulation (AM) 10 - 1000MHz 20 V/m
RFI Immunity to Pulse Modulation (PM) 10 - 1000MHz 20 V/m

Internal sound bomb:
twin piezo sounder
108dB sound output
80mA current consumption
55x85x32mm
white abs casing
12 VDC
the only security lights i can find using led's and a motion sensor seem to be 220-240v with 3w power consumption
any help would be greatly appreiated

rob

[mab]

Hi,

Not sure where to start with this; Sizing battery and solar arrays is a bit of a black art - it depends on how much sun you get where you are, whether you are there to monitor the system or if you want it completely autonomous, if you want 100% power availability in midwinter, etc

firstly, if you want to run your CCTV (current consumption 11w) 24/7 then you will need quite a big battery & solar array for the winter months:-

For the battery - 11w @ 12v is almost 1A or 22Ah/day. If you want a battery to power that for, say, a week of overcast in winter that's 155Ah. Assuming you don't want to ruin your battery you want to keep it >50% charged (and ideally, for long life you don't want to use more than 20% normally), then you want at least 310Ah.

to recharge that battery in a reasonable time on the odd sunny winter day then you want at least 100Ah/day - and midwinter that's about 4 hrs - is about 25A so you're talking about 400watts of solar panels minimum. Plus you would need a good solar controller that can handle >25A

That's before you consider any of the additional loads.


the burglar alarm is much more realistic at 11mA - that's just 1Ah/ 4days assuming if's not going off all the time, so a 100Ah-ish battery would be OK and a small 20W panel. If your lights are occasional use then you could still get away with that battery and perhaps a slightly larger panel.

Not trying to put you off, but unless you want to spend serious money, you need to stick to small loads that are designed to run from batteries - the numbers I've quoted are a bit 'plucked from the air' but are in the right ball-park.

If you're planning to stay off grid and are going to buy a big battery/inverter/solar array etc anyway (and if I were you I would seriously consider it), then that changes things as money spent on agood large battery, solar array & controller would be an investment (as long as they don't get nicked).

[lynnandrob]

after all the great advice ive recieved on here and other forums i think the way for me to go for now is with the generator battery bank as almost all the system is still in place and then fit some solar panels later on when the property is more secure.

[lynnandrob]

hi guys,

The outcome for the security system is not a good one.

as i mentioned in a post previously the system is off grid and 2.5hrs drive away from where i live,it also needed to be able to last at least a week before id be able to get down and recharge the battery.

i ended up getting the brotherinlaw over to set the camera system up for me.
in the end i had to buy a 12v/240v inverter as the alarm system needed 240v (for the bits hidden in the control panel),anyway we connected the system upto the inverter and the inverter to the battery
(so far so good )

turned everything on,nothing happened  just a buzzing from the inverter.

30mins later my broinlaw finds the problem,it turns out that when you turn the camera system on you get a power spike that was execeding my inverters (1600w)max power.
he worked out that if you turn the system on without the cameras being connected,then connected the cameras one at a time you could lower the power spike and get the system running,we left it running over night and in the morning my better half informed me the inverter was making a loud/funny noise and not wanting it to blow up she turned it off.i tested the battery and found out it was almost flat(i was sure it had being full the previouse night)
my next problem was to see how good the battery was and how long it would last,
i got a sealey digital battery analizer,recharged the battery and set every thing running again.
at 7am the battery was reading 12.77v
8.20am -12.37v
11.am - m12.17
2.pm -11.97v
meaning it was going throu a 80ah battery (full to flat) in just over 12 hrs.(this was just the camera system not including the alarm system,lights ect)

[suziequeue]

I am going to respond to this - not because I have anything to contribute I'm afraid but because I want to keep abreast of this thread and if I respond than any new responses get flagged up.


Very interested. We want to do this too.


Best of luck

[mab]

Hmm.

with an 80Ah battery you're not going to be able to run anything via the inverter 24/7 unless it's an exceptionally efficient inverter. Is there no way to get a camera system to work directly off the battery?

Or use the battery for the alarm (looking back that used much less power and would work off 12v), and forego the cctv for now?

[honeyend]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ltl-Acorn-5210M-12mp-Trail-Camera-Solar-Charger-MMS-GSM-To-Mobile-Or-E-Mail-/170823649570?pt=UK_SportingGoods_Hunting_ShootingSports_ET&hash=item27c5e20922

Doesn't solve all your problems but I have bought this only £80 has aback up batttery sends it straight to your phone easy to set up       http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230925946645 ,I think you could sort this out to run from a 12 volt

[lynnandrob]

hi guys,
thanks for the links honeyend,since starting this thread ive bought a couple of trail cameras
(Acorn 6210mmx and reconyx) the acorn cameras are quite crap,the night pics are very poor quality and only any good upto 10ft/15ft and if the subject is too close you just get whiteout,i think so far ive sent 6 back  all had faults with the mms side of the camera,ive now got their top model with the arial on the outside unfortunaly these have their own problem (not storing numbers/email taking pics when ever they want)a gerat site for antone with this camera is " Wildlife & Countryside Services forum ).
the reconyx is by far a better camera,good quality night pics ect,the down side with this camera is it costs twice the price of the acorn 6210mmx and doesnt send you mms (just takes pics).

hi mab,
idealy i wanted the alarm and camera systems setup together,both would send messages to my phone i could then have gone onto the pc and seen what was happening throu the camera system,unfortunatly even with only 4 cameras working it goes throu juice like theres no tomorrow.if it had being able to run for a couple of days i was going to connect it to a solar panel to keep the battery topped up,but by the looks of things id need lots of batteries just for the cameras (not forgetting you cant keep draining the batteries too much without damageing them )  + once they were drained the whole system would be usless and easly nicked.

[AndynJ]

Hi, sorry I've only just seen this post
I have done similar in the past and intend to do an off grid shed project this winter.
I installed electrical components some being 12v straight from battery then an inverter to run the 240v products attached to this I had a tiny generator sank in a box in the ground that switched on automatically linked to a digital volt metre, biggest problem we had was with lighting we tried pir's they seemed to cause spikes that would trip the balance really quickly gen would kick in but the system had shut down needing resetting, we tried a timer again with bad results in the finish we installed a light sensitive cell which in turn activated the lights which then stayed on all night, fuel usage jumped to 1 gallon every 3 days though we only had single battery and a tiny solar panel.
Cut a long story short get a genny

[Cactus Jack]

I live totally off grid. The only way to this successfully is to invest a large sum of money.
Cheap inverters use a large amount of power just to run themselves, mine cost £3000
Batteries, well you can't have enough of them, and they must be deep cycle type ,not car /lorry batteries.
If you run a 48volt system that's probably the best, but big bucks.
I have a 24 volt system and I run a 24 hour camera system, internet, pump for aquaponics, large fridge freezer and a separate chest freezer as well as lights. Ok it's very sunny here and usually I only have to run the genny when using the washing machine.
As a general rule of thumb, work out what you think you need then quadruple it

[Dundonald hens]

You need to buy a few 6 maybe beep cycle batterys the higher the amp the better link them together get a genny and a 240volt charger and charge them during the day when you are there and have the solr panels s a trickle charge for when you are not there

[cloddopper]

The latest led pir flood lamps that you connect into 240 volts are interesting .
 I got two just after crimbo ( £24 each ) .. the connection leads on the lights are very short ( 100 mm / 4 inches long ) sealed with a squashing gland  and siliconed up ..

So I unscrewed the back cover on the light   and hey presto an electronic  transformer inside the case .  I think the stepped down voltage was 40 volt DC , I cut the feed wires , slid on some heat shrink sleeving stripped the ends and resoldered the wires to 40 foot of new cable before putting a hair dryer on the heat shrink and using silicone gasket sealant to reseal the unit making it IP 65 safe .

So in theory you could  use 3 x 12 deep cycle batteries in series to get the working voltage and use a small  wind turbine to keep them topped up ..that would solve the loss of power/ drain during night & you'd still have the lights and alarm .

 Just as a point of interest they are similar to ebay item number 121251143701 the
 10 watt white is amazing and they don't fall apart if you knock one to the floor from 500 mm up .