solar power battery backup for my apex?

[saltbitten]

here is my plans for my backup for my apex.I found a 55 watt amorphous solar charging kit from coleman it has everything except the battery. I want to use a marine battery for the system to run A heater and at least two 1050 korelias that are hooked up to my apex.the reasoning behind this system is that when we lose power it is often for a longer period of time than a ups and a regular battery can handle so that is why I want to throw the solar power in I hope that it can keep the battery charged long enough to run just the essentials. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated

 

[saltbitten]

I got two napa premium deep cycle batteries today with a battery reserve capacity of 185 each and a battery weight of 59lbs each which according to wikiapedia {Reserve capacity minutes (RCM), also referred to as reserve capacity (RC), is a battery's ability to sustain a minimum stated electrical load; it is defined as the time (in minutes) that a lead-acid battery at 80 °F (27 °C) will continuously deliver 25 amperes before its voltage drops below 10.5 volts}which should be good enough for what I need.the solar panel kit is rated at 55 watts I don't know if that is broken up between the 3 panels or if that is 55watts per panel I do know though that it is expandable so I can add more panels. I just don't know how thats beneficial to me, I'll have to learn more on that. My solar charge controller is 7amps with a cut out at14.2v and a cut in at 13v.I have both a 200watt and 800 watt modified sine wave inverters I know that isn't the preffered inverter but that's what I have for now.I don't no what can be ran on those.but hopefully the basics.and at least my 12v power to the apex.if not an EB8.Here is a few pics so far. including the70 gallon stand I will cut down to house the whole setup.



Attached Thumbnails

 

[saltbitten]

I think the system is going to work nice. Now I have tested the charging of the solar panels and they are charging. and I ran down one of the batteries yesterday trying to start a car and then I left it on the car all night so it was down quit a ways.I got the system up and running today with the drained battery and the charged battery. At 4 oclock indiana time I put 2 lights on the 800 watt inverter at 31 watts between the 2 of them {a 16 watt florescent spotlight and 16 watt led worklight } I don't know the amps though. but they were going strong for 4 hours +. it sounds like the inverter I have is not the best for ac motored equipment so I am assuming that means ,sump and skimmer pumps are probably not going to do as good as most of the other stuff because I think they run an ac motor or am I wrong ..Here are a few pics that I took today while I was setting it up and there is a pic of the panels on the roof. and pic of the stand after I cut it down I built a plexi pan to help in case there was some kind of leak. better to be safe then sorry and also a pic of the system running.

 

[Jake1]

good idea

 

[Akwarius]

I have a silly question. What role does the apex play during an outage? The ability to monitor ph and orp?

 

[CJO]

It sounds like a neat idea, but I couldn't follow everything you had typed.

The Apex can control what stays on and what turns off during a power outage, it can also send you a text that the power is off (assuming your internet connection is on a UPS).

Does the solar panel have protection so that it turns off after the battery is charged?

CJ

 

[saltbitten]

cj Im sorry I copied and pasted my post from one of the other forums I posted on about the idea so I hadn't had the time yet to edit out the questions that had been asked thats why it's all messed up as for your question on the charging the solar panels and them shuting down it has a solar controller that runs at 7amps it will turn on at 13 volts and shuts off the charging at 14.2. I just checked the volts with my meter and they are at 14.6. I still need to get a switch to automatically change from ac power to inverter power in case of power lose. fixing my post right now. hopefully thats better. LOL

 

[bct15]

Why not just have your powerheads and whatever else on the solar panel charged battery at all times? Save a little on the electric bill, and not have to worry about power outages.

 

[saltbitten]

bct I do plan on running a few thing on the inverter I don't know what yet llike I always say if its free its for me .I'm concerened that if I run the inverter constantly that might be a problem and kill the inverter and the batteries prematurely. And I don't know if the power would be stable enough power wise to run my equipement on all the time I just don't know enough about it to be that comfortable I need more info before I can do that.

 

[dhutcheson]

I am using a similar type of system. I keep the deep cycle batteries on a battery tender system and then have a solar charger for backup. Also keep in mind you can also hook the deep cycle in a car or truck that can recharge to capacity with the alternator fairly quick. As a back up I will run a pump to keep some flow, and a heater, for summer I keep several bottles of frozen rodi water I am comfortable that I can maintain up to 1 week at acceptable levels or without the use of a generator.

 

[saltbitten]

if I can do some programming to my apex so I can shut everything down but the controller a pump or two a heater and my led bar since that will use the least power.I'm not sure how to get it to realize the back up is on instead of the ac power .if there is any programming help out there for this please let me know because I don't have a clue I figure my inverter can run this stuff for several hours and still be trying to charge the batteries with either solar or my car .

 

[CJO]

With the newer firmwares for the Apex, you can plug your EB8 into the battery backup and then plug in a power supply to the wall and connect it to your Apex. When the power supply goes dead, it knows that the power has gone out.

CJ

 

[saltbitten]

so there is no programming needed then

 

[CJO]

Yes, you do need to program it to tell it what you want to do when the power goes out.

CJ

 

[saltbitten]

so I would guess something like

If power OFF = heater1 ON
or something else

 

[CJO]

Something like that. Personally, I wouldn't use the power command to control your heater unless it is to keep it off to conserve power. This is what I have under my return pump:

If Power Apex Off 001 Then OFF

This turns it off if the power is off for more than a minute.

CJ