I'm trying to figure out how I can my grow room setup purely off of solar power. I can't really find any complete (and free) information on everything I need. I mean first off there are so many different aspects to take into consideration that I just really don't have the first clue about. Solar panels of different wattages, deep cell batteries of this magnitude, inverters, and something about volts and amps and shit I'm confused again. I'm really not that bad, but it just seems like the information I find on making a solar panel generator is just not informative enough. I'd really like to get a solar panel "generator" set-up where my panels sit outside all day, excess energy is stored in the batteries, and then eventually used to power my fans, airstones, lights and the such. My problem is I can't get any specifics, like how many panels (and what rating they need to be) would it take to run a 250w set up 12 hours a day. But my questions really apply to how do I find out what size inverter I need to handle the pull, and what inverter would I need if I decided to run a HPS lamp? I read somewhere that the initial pull of just a hair dryer on high would be too much for the particular system I found the plans to build. So I definitely need some help taking this bigger, and better. Does anyone have a good knowledge of electronics, and harnessing solar power, or can point me in the right direction?
I've not a solar engineer, but I did stay at a holiday inn once... lol. j/k... I have been reading about building a solar panel array for my house. I just happened to run into my dad's co-worker in the supermarket, a few weeks ago. This guy built an 8 panel solar array for a machine shop. I asked him about building a frame for the backyard to hold two sets of solar panels. From what I learned from him, you can buy any solar panels and wire them to a series of car batteries. You wire it up to a power converter / generator and that's it. As for how to actually wire, it's like cutting stereo speakers and twisting them together. Here, I also came across this tutorial. Basic Tutorials: System Overview for Solar Energy Systems