IMPORTANT!!!: Before commenting, please read the notes below.
Again Ronnie humored me and showed me that the fan will run and his drill off of the solar kit. Not bad for a start. Now the next test will be can it run my grow lights…………..We will keep you posted.
A Couple of Notes:
1) The solar panels are not (and are not capable of) powering the fan by themselves. They are charging a 12 volt dc marine/rv battery, and the battery is connected to an inverter that converts the 12vdc to approximately 115-120 volts ac. So the battery/inverter combination is providing power to the fan, and the solar panels recharge the battery when it is not in use. We take the battery and inverter with us when we go off-grid camping and it will provide power for several days or more to charge cell phones, laptops, and cordless tools. When we get back home we reconnect it to the solar panels and they recharge it. It also serves as a backup emergency power source at home in case we lose electrical power.
2) Several people pointed out that the issues with the fan running rough were most likely due to the inverter producing a modified sine wave instead of a pure sine wave. Modified sine waver inverters like ours are less expensive than pure sine wave inverters and work perfectly fine for some things. However, some sensitive electronic devices don’t work very will with them, and motors – such as the one in our fan – tend to have issues with them also. We are mostly using the battery/inverter combo to recharge cell phones, laptop computers, cordless power tools and so forth, and it works fine for those things.
Links:
Testing with an Excalibur food dehydrator:
Post time: Jan-04-2017