Lyndhurst Garden House

Lyndhurst Garden House
Lyndhurst Garden House

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Window AC from solar power ? Looks doable!

I get 280W solar panel installed on roof with suitable wire to inside.  I get 120 amp hour 12V AGM battery.  I get one standard charge controller.  I get Xantrex 1000 or 2000 watt sinewave inverter.  I get short 3' very fat (0g or whatever) cable to connect battery to inverter inside shed.  I put CO detector on ceiling (also detects H2, which shouldn't be a problem anyway).  I get 5000 BTU air conditioner, rated 5 amps.  I know that the "5 amp" motor load is not a difficult load, non-resistive.  But shouldn't this setup be able to run it for a few minutes to nearly an hour every week?  5 amps load at 120V A/C means about 50 amp draw from battery.  That's a big de-rating from the 2000W resistive capacity of the inverter, and battery should have no problem with that level of draw.

The idea is not that I run A/C all day long every day, but rather I run A/C an hour or less once a week, while getting something out of storage and/or putting something else back in.  The rest of the time, during daylight, the battery is slowly recharging.

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