Newbie Post/Solar Question

[hayduke]

Hey Now,

Getting my newbie post out of the way.

I'm currently running a Butterfly Labs 7 GH/s Jally, with a 10 GH/s on the way and found this site via Google looking for a way to hook my my 2 miners (13V 6Amp) up to solar panels to reduce my electric costs.

I don't want to use batteries or a 110v inverter, seems inefficient. Seeing as how I live in Florida and it's sunny most of the time, I figured why not?

I found a thread on here discussing the issue, but as a n00b, I can't post to it for 4 hours.

Anyway, has anyone done this?

Thanks,

~ hayduke

[mjc]

Are you only going to mine 5 to 6 hours a day?  With solar you will have to store in order to use the balance through out the night.

That said the cost of KW/hr is pretty expensive, generally $0.50 KW/hr for solar and if you buy it it's only $0.15 KW/hr.   

Solar is not free, if it were we would not have an energy crisis.  :-)

If you want to do solar just to do solar, and you only want to use solar 5 to 6 hours a day, you will need an inverter.  Solar generates DC and the miners run off AC.  You could possibly convert to DC but then you would need a custom AC/DC Converter in order to run when solar was not available.

[Stoic Joker]

Seeing as how I live in Florida and it's sunny most of the time...

Nothing topical to add ... Just thought I'd say Hi from a fellow Floridian.

[Flashman]

I believe you can skip the inverter, but you'd still want a charge controller and battery in the system to smooth the output, otherwise they'd be dropping offline for every cloud. Also in very bright sun the output may climb to 18 or 19V from the panel and not sure the Jally would like that.

[hayduke]

Are you only going to mine 5 to 6 hours a day?  With solar you will have to store in order to use the balance through out the night.

Thanks, guess I'll need some storage. Didn't consider that. But I don't want to do a grid tie-in, I was thinking more small scale just to run the miners and nothing else.

That said the cost of KW/hr is pretty expensive, generally $0.50 KW/hr for solar and if you buy it it's only $0.15 KW/hr.  

Solar is not free, if it were we would not have an energy crisis.  :-)

Haven't done the math with FPL, but living in Florida, the sunshine is pretty abundant.

If you want to do solar just to do solar, and you only want to use solar 5 to 6 hours a day, you will need an inverter.  Solar generates DC and the miners run off AC.  You could possibly convert to DC but then you would need a custom AC/DC Converter in order to run when solar was not available.

AH! Thanks bro, so I'm gonna need and inverter and a line conditioner?

My goal is to put some small solar panels on the roof, run wire into my bedroom specifically to run the miners and nothing else. Not doing solar just to do solar, figure I'm in FLA, why not?

~ hayduke

[hayduke]

Seeing as how I live in Florida and it's sunny most of the time...

Nothing topical to add ... Just thought I'd say Hi from a fellow Floridian.

Hey Stoic! You East or West Coast? Or NSA? LOL….