looks good and a lot of amps there. you will get about half the rated amount so like 12 amps. that will keep any small battery bank charged.

Aside from the solar panels, the connectors to wire them in paralell, and some wire, is there anything else you guys think I'd need, considering I'm trying to use the GZ installed charger?

Seems like I need some kind of converter/plug to go into the GZ, to the powerpole.

Is your greenhouse connected to your cabin so it can provide heat in winter?

I've never used any fancy connectors* to wire solar panels in parallel. In series I'm sure you know they have the right connectors when you buy them. Parallel connections are often just made in the inverter for me, but if not that or a special combiner box, I use trusty wire nuts. They are trusty if you do a good job.


*

I don't really get what you're saying.

The connectors you posted a photo of: My understanding is that I use those to connect the panels, and then need a cable to run to the charger. In this instance, I need to connect to a power pole port, which is something I don't really understand.

I don't know what the "power pole port" looks like, but you said "connectors to wire them in parallel". Those are connectors that wire solar panels in parallel. On the bottom one two negatives go in the bottom right and they are combined into one negative. The top one combines two positives. Instead of "connectors to wire them in parallel" you can just wire nut the three ends together. But, your "power pole port" comment makes me think there's a device that will have terminals which will do to the combining of strings in parallel.

Maybe you're not clear on wiring in series vs. wiring in parallel?

Possibly, but I think I do. I understand using those connectors to wire positive to positive, negative-negative.

So those are then wired to the charger, which on the GoalZero is built in. The specs I have say:

GZ uses the 8mm plug for their proprietary gear. I guess I'm just not totally clear on what the "Power Pole" is.

This is the email from GZ support:

They sell an adapter of course, but it's $45, which seems crazy.

No .... How would the greenhouse provide heat?

The things in the picture I posted are "MC4 branch connectors".

Like I said, I'd just wirenut the things together, but that's still after using just a regular MC4 connector and making a home run. I wouldn't cut the connector off the solar panel and put it in a wire nut. Most of the wire from solar panels is very finely stranded and not suitable for that. And since you don't have an MC4 crimper (I presume) you'll just be buying pre-made connections, so maybe it's just as well to buy the branch connectors.

$45 is nuts for that. You can buy an Anderson powerpole connector crimper (not something I know about - I'm just googling it) for about that price and then the connectors are a few bucks each.

You gotta do this stuff right though. Bad connections/crimps/splices are bad. Sometimes like burn your house down bad.

I just saw these and wondered if a similar system would help you? Obviously adapted for your situation. It may not be feasible for you but I thought it was an interesting concept.

Greenhouse effect ldo.

But seriously, firewood is a decent source of BTU's. It can be used on demand. It's cheap (you probably have 20-25 million BTU's in that cord of hardwood; equivalent to about 250 gallons of propane give or take. Put another way about 50 bbq grill propane tanks worth of heat); and did I mention is works on demand?

Solar insolation on the other hand is on the order of 100W per square foot in full sun. (around 340 BTU/hr per square foot of sunlight) A greenhouse will only trap a relatively small percentage of those BTU's, not to mention your somewhere in the frozen north where the sun basically never shines etc etc. Of course your greenhouse will put out the least amount of heat when you need it the most as well. And then you need to power a fan or something to move the air from greenhouse to home.

tldr; stick to firewood.

Well, the whole point of a greenhouse is that it gets warmer inside. If you attached a greenhouse to my house when it's 50 degrees outside and sunny in CA, it would easily warm up the house. If you did the same thing and it was 10 below where you are it'd have to be really well insulated glass or you'd be freezing your house.

Or you could put your whole house inside a greenhouse I guess.

I worked at a guy's house, a very old guy - the kind who tells you their life story - and he wanted to build a pyramidal glass structure on his roof with a small black pyramid inside and then direct the warmed air into his house. He was checking if I wanted to build it and out of town I might have been interested, but I wouldn't want to go through permitting for anything weird, especially in Irvine where he lived.

It was as much a question as a suggestion. Couldn't remember where exactly Sapo lived. I still think it's an interesting solution but powerwise/climate it may not be appropriate.

The thing I notice about those people with the house inside the greenhouse is that they're rich.

Lol that's true. The first one isn't like that though but it's still being done with mains power, so is hardly off grid.

I'm going to guess it'd take about 500 years for a greenhouse to pay for itself as a source of heat in sapo's climate.

i dont understand the power pole thing either. the way ive done solar is to mount panels run wire to batteries and just before the batteries install a regulator so you dont overcharge. then run from your batteries wires to what you want to power or run wires to plug ins on the wall..

if you want to run just one wire from your batteries as they arent close to your appliances then you use a buss bar. which may be what the power pole is.

and 110v things you just have an inverter on the plug in

but since you have a generator you needn't worry about using too much 12volt as its easy to bring the batteries back up.

if you use propane for refrigeration, cooking hot water, and back up heat possibly then you can save a lot of worries. which i assume you do already. the heat part is so that if you leave for a time the water doesnt all freeze and things you dont want to like plants in the house.

You could always buy a couple bitcoin mining rigs, power them with wind and solar, and use the heat they generate to heat your house.

Assuming bitcoin doesn't plummet into the ground...

I'm actually supposed to be working on a story about bitcoin's energy use soon. Maybe I could expense it as research.

And, yeah, I understand the greenhouse idea now. I'd actually though of something similar before--a friend has a solar kiln and the temps get crazy, what about something like that, which might have a smaller footprint, and then a simple duct and fan system to move the air?

Yeah, would not work in the winter. Might be most effective at raising summertime temps over 100 though, which I can do without ...

Maybe just build a geodesic dome over the cabin and call it good.

In all seriousness, I'll likely be sticking with wood for .... ever. But I do cook with propane outside. I want to start cooking on wood outside, maybe get some kind of wood burning range. I would like to find more ways to utilize what's on the land, and the abundance of wood is an easy way.

Gonzo has spent most of the winter staring forlornly out the window.





Last night the weather report said clear skies but that doesn't mean you wont get a couple of lake effect inches anyway. Unfortunately, I left the generator outside and the tarp off the wood. .... Ah well, temps will get up to 50 this week at some point.

I wouldn't mind of winter started to ease up, but asking for that in mid-February feels insane.






This last photo doesn't do justice to how gorgeous it can be. Something about sunrise and frigid temperatures ...

I saw a video article somewhere where a guy had a handful of mining puters in a room, and had built a box and ducts around them to feed the heat into the rest of his house.

Or just put some triple pane windows into your walls. Use industrial strength shades in the summer.

They call this a barbecue grill.

Most wood burning stoves have a flat top surface that you can probably cook on. Only room for a couple pots or pans though.

I bought this a little over three years ago but have never used it much. It takes 8 D batteries.



Could I crack this open and rewire it to run on the 12v battery systems? I mean .... 8 1.5v batteries is 12 v, right?

This seems like a doable project that could turn an under-used lantern into something useful.

You don't know how it's wired. It may be partly series, partly parallel.

It looks like the knob is for intensity? You could start at the lowest voltage (1.5) and work your way up. Maybe the manual has some info or you can get some info from Coleman.

costco has had one for 20 bucks thats led and last for a long time and you can get blasted out with light on high.

in my camper i use those puck and bar led lights with aa batteries for night reading. they seem to last for a year or so. i wont even consider wasting batteries an any of my regular or florescence lights nowadays.