DC Wattmeter is an excellent replacement of Meralco's Kuntador

I never really thought of getting a DC Wattmeter to monitor my electricity consumption but since I am using solar energy, having it is a necessity.

I decided to buy 1 pc from where else but ebay and after 1 month of waiting, it finally arrived. So excitedly, I immediately tried it for 5 days and well, its performance is beyond my expectation. The device I bought tells a lot about the current solar installation setup that was not even possible to know just by using an ordinary voltmeter and the other excellent feature of the device is that it does not even needs a battery to power it up.


I was really so amazed by it that I want to share what I got by selling it locally which I am currently advertising in my sulit.com.ph store. 

My First Ebay Order Arrived Last Week

After almost 2 months of waiting, my first order finally arrived last week. It's a LM2596 Low Ripple DCDC Step Down Adjustable Converter (Wide Input 4-40V) max. 3A.

This is just an electronic widget and so upon receiving, I rushed to Quiapo's Raon and bought a small enclosure and hired a technician to assemble it for me a minimal fee of Php 100. And here is the final product:

This enabled me to charge my 6V vrla batteries to power up my usb fans. Here's my current setup:

  The 6V 19AH battery bank is charged 2hours per day and is enough already to power up the 2 usb fans all day long.

I Upgraded my Solar Installation

I upgraded my solar installation from 180Watts PV + 83AH Battery Bank to 260Watts PV + 170AH Battery Bank. I almost doubled the capacity because I have several new appliances that require the upgrade. These new stuffs that I got is the CCTV set I installed consisting of the DVR(48Watts), 4 security cameras(48Watts) and a TCL 15" LED Tv(20Watts).

My current upgraded solar installation can not support the 24-hr surveilance operation of my CCTV so I bought a mechanical timer to automatically turn on and off my cctv at certain specified period.

I also noticed lately that the location of my PV's is not highly optimized, I am losing at least 1.5 sun hours everyday but because it's almost summertime, that is not really a problem because I am able to get adequate energy to charge my PV's and aside from that, I bought a new Solar Charge controller. This device boosts the voltage output of my PV panels from 12.6V to 14.6V so that it will efficiently charge my battery. It also has features like over-charging protection(it stops charging my battery if it senses that the battery is fully charged), it also isolates my PV panels from my battery bank which means, at night, when there is no sunlight, my PV will have 0 voltage so the tendency is that my battery bank will in turn treat the PV as load, therefore, electric current will flow through my PV and this electric current will damage my PV. But upon buying my PV, I always ask the shop owner to add 6A rectifier diodes to isolate my PV's but this still not enough protection and the solar charge controller simply maximize the level of isolation of my PV's from my battery Bank.

I am also thinking of connecting my Solar Installation to the power grid in the near future just to to do some experimentation since one of the great topics nowadays is the pricing schemes of net-metering. The Philippine Congress and Energy Regulatory Board has not come out with reasonable pricing schemes but the Law on net-metering has already been approved. Probably we will have to wait at least 2 years. So for now, anybody with Solar Installation can enter into a net-metering arrangement with their local electric utility companies but they can not expect any pay at all, but they can expect that their electric bill will go down significantly.  This means that even if they consume far less than they send to the power grid, the excess will serve as a donation.

I did not find it! But I got an alternative solution

After almost a week of hunting, I did not find an existing electronic gadget that I called in-line isolator but I got an alternative solution. I've searched everywhere, almost all electronics stores, online shops and even the wikis, I am so surprised it does not exist.

My solution is quite simple and straight forward but I still need to upgrade it in the future. What I did was, I bought 10 pcs of rectifier diodes which are rated at 6Amps/500Volts and connected them in parallel. The basic idea here, is that all 10 diodes have equal resistance(if any) and therefore the current that will flow in them will be equal, and at the same time having them connected in parallel would mean they can be a lot stronger to withstand any electrical sparks. I am now using it  and it is doing its job flawlessly.

The only problem I encounter is that the power supply has lower output voltage than the battery, so as a result, it will only be effective if its output is boosted up to 14 volts so that it can charge the battery. I feound electronic widgets that will solve this problem and I am still waiting for them to arrive because I imported them from China via ebay.

In-line Isolator is perfect for my need!

I just figured out lately that the 3Amps fuse of the power supply I used to charge my isolated 28AH battery is always being destroyed each time I use it. It took sometime for me to figure out what's causing this frequent breakdown.

What I found out is that at the beginning, the battery is very weak so it is only capable of sending out less than 3Amps. When its terminals are connected to a load(my 12V 3Amps power supply), the battery acts as a load instead to the power supply since the power supply can send 3Amps max. On certain occasions but lately, it is more frequent, that whenever I connect the battery to the power supply, the battery is adequately charged but not to its maximum level but it can be capable to send out more than 3Amps. That is the time when the 3Amps fuse which acts as a circuit protector gets busted.

So I have identified the problem, what I needed is an electronic device that will totally isolate my power supply from the battery and that even if the battery is adequately charged should not prevent my power supply from doing what I wanted it to do and that is to continiously charge the battery. So for now, I am searching the web for an in-line isolator, preferrablly should have the following features:

1. Prevent my 3Amps fuse from getting busted 
2. Should allow my 12V 3Amps power supply to continiously charge my battery.
3. Should be capable to handle at least 36Amps or more since my 28AH battery  is still somehow connected to my main battery bank which is at 72AH already
4. It should be a full product not in the form of electronic widgets.

I would really so be very happy if in the next few days I would be able to find a product like this locally. I know that such a gadget will be difficult to find.

LED Tv's should have built in batteries

Nowadays, LED Tv's have power ratings between 20Watts and 100Watts. At this power ratings, lithium ion batteries can easily power these devices. A 12AH Li-ion battery can easily run the 60W tv just like my ChangHong 29" LED Tv for at least 2 hours when fully charged but I would prefer the battery to be at least 20AH.. This would be a great power saving feature.

Just imagine, if your home is powered by solar energy, this would really be an excellent feature because I don't have to buy extra battery to power my tv. Another advantage of having an internal battery is power consumption and battery usage can be more efficient than using an external battery just like what I have observed in my power consumption using batteries to power my whole house.

So as a conclusion, a tv with a built-in battery is cool!

What can I do with 150W SOlar Power + 83AH Battery Bank?

So what can I really do with 150W SOlar Power source + 83AH Battery Bank with the sun shines normally without rain or typhoon? Or in other word in a normal and typical day? It has been 4 months and I had never really thought of this question because everyday, I have to spend sometime outside so I am not able to really measure or give accurate measurements of how much energy can be spent with this power source.

So today(Dec 21, the supposed end of the world in the Mayan calendar), I never really went out just to get the most accurate measurement. Here are the things I did  whole day:

1. 6:00AM to 6:30AM - The  sun begun to shine so I initially let my system charged up.
2. 6:30AM to 7:00AM - I begun to charge my 4.5ah and 5.7ah LI-ION Battery that I use to power up my 2 usb powered fans.
3. 7:00AM to 10:00AM - I turned on my 48W ChangHong 29" LED Tv with my 20W Solar Fan turned on
4. 10:00AM to 10:30AM - I charged my 45W MSI U270 Netbook and turned off the tv
5. 10:30AM to 11:30AM - I let the whole system store energy again by disconnecting power consuming loads such as my 20W electric fan and 5W LED Light Bulb and my power inverter.
6. 11:30AM to 3:00PM - I turned on again the tv with fan turned on as well.
7. 3:00PM to 5:00PM I charged my netbook
8. 5:00PM to 8:00PM I just watched tv with the solar fan turned on and my 3W, 1.5W and 6W(led Christmas light) LED Lights turned on
9. 8:00PM - 6AM - I just used the solar fan and the christmas light turn on the whole night and still running normally.

These things could not have possible if I went out at 3PM because some burglars are sabotaging my setup.

At least with this experiment, I am able to know the maximum usability of my current power source but still, this is not enough to power a small refridgerator probably a 48W can be adequately powered continously by a 400W Solar Panel plus 240AH battery bank.