IMHO

You don't use step-downs or regulators - you use proper solar charge controllers that are designed for the job. Not only do they "step down" the voltage, they maintain the most efficient load on the panels to maximize PV efficiency, and use smart charging techniques (including scheduled over charge) to maximise battery life.

The cheap ones are essentially variable PWM regulators, the better ones implement MPPT technology.

There are several ways to implement tracking, but the gains vs costs are usually only worth it if the system is so large it's in the mega watt range. The extra 15-20% you can get from tracking can also just be made using 20% more PV panels and a good MPPT charger or inverter. In most domestic systems, and extra 20% PV is going to be a lot cheaper than a tracking system.

Question:

can you make a 220v refrigerator or window air conditioner run on 12 volt by changing the motor that drives the compressor to a 12v motor and the fan to a 12v fan ?

Yeah maybe have to change some relays and small stuff , but use the basic "box" that holds the lines , coolent , evaporator etc

Just wondering if we are trying to re-invent the wheel ?

It's possible, yes, but you're probably just better off buying a more energy efficient fridge, and taking the 10-15% inverter hit. Most fridges use induction motors - you're not improving upon the energy usage of that by going DC, even if using $$$$ brushless motors.

in 2015 i used up 39,000 kWh. 5 months peak consumption was ~4,000 kWh

a question for the learned offgrid, free energy, free distilled water solar eggsburts experts:

how many m² of photovoltaic panels do i need to go offgrid even during peak consumption months and what would be the total estimated cost including all accessory parts?

Here's some simple ballpark math for on-grid:

Assumptions:

4.5 hours harvesting/day

10% losses for grid tie

50 Baht/Wh installed price

Math:

In order to make 4,000 kWh in 30 days, you need to make 133kWh/day, which in 4.5 hours of sun means 30kW/hr. Add 10% to cover inefficiency and that's 33kW/hr

33,000 x 50 Baht = 1.65M Baht.

Note: that's an awful lot of panels (110 units of 300w PV, which are roughly 2M x 1M in size each).

For off-grid batteries, use the following assumptions:

Depth of discharge: 20%

Days of Autonomy: 2

Cost for lead acid: 3 Baht/Wh

133KwH x 5 (for DOD) is 665kWh x2 (for 2 days autonomy) = 1,330,000 Wh x 3 Baht = 4M Baht.

You'll need 10% more panels to charge them than the on-grid numbers above, plus you'll need multiple chargers, big DC wiring, and several banks of parallel inverters.

Gut feel, about 6.5M Baht.

Hey IMHO come and see me. I can do it for 2/3 of your price..........

2/3rd of this price is just the batteries - the only way you're doing it cheaper is with less days of autonomy (i.e. your system won't still power the house after a few cloudy days) or you're pushing up the DOD and costing the client a new bank of batteries more regularly

Anyone can do it cheaper... but it will be a false economy if you're changing batteries more regularly.

Seeing as you've got this system figured out though, I'm curious how you'd configure the battery bank(s) The most I can get into one bank is 96x 2V/400Ah - so it would take 9 or 10 separate banks - which also means 9-10 sets of inverters and 9-10 solar chargers. Wow.

In short, it's just a hypothetical system anyway... it's not workable.

in 2015 i used up 39,000 kWh. 5 months peak consumption was ~4,000 kWh

a question for the learned offgrid, free energy, free distilled water solar eggsburts experts:

how many m² of photovoltaic panels do i need to go offgrid even during peak consumption months and what would be the total estimated cost including all accessory parts?

Here's some simple ballpark math for on-grid:

Assumptions:

4.5 hours harvesting/day

10% losses for grid tie

50 Baht/Wh installed price

Math:

In order to make 4,000 kWh in 30 days, you need to make 133kWh/day, which in 4.5 hours of sun means 30kW/hr. Add 10% to cover inefficiency and that's 33kW/hr

33,000 x 50 Baht = 1.65M Baht.

Note: that's an awful lot of panels (110 units of 300w PV, which are roughly 2M x 1M in size each).

For off-grid batteries, use the following assumptions:

Depth of discharge: 20%

Days of Autonomy: 2

Cost for lead acid: 3 Baht/Wh

133KwH x 5 (for DOD) is 665kWh x2 (for 2 days autonomy) = 1,330,000 Wh x 3 Baht = 4M Baht.

You'll need 10% more panels to charge them than the on-grid numbers above, plus you'll need multiple chargers, big DC wiring, and several banks of parallel inverters.

Gut feel, about 6.5M Baht.

You can use 5watt led bulb.

Can a 10wp panel produce 50-60watt per day?? If so,put in paralel extra batteries for the longer life of the batteries. Or use 2x 7ah. Such batteries are not so expensive.

How much charge you'll get into batteries from a 10Wh panel depends on several factors - weather, mounting location, wire length, cell quality, even the charger type (PWM or MPPT). It would be reasonable to assume 4-5 useful harvesting hours/day, and 20% losses - so 32Wh to 40Wh of actual battery charge on a sunny, cloudless day.

In indonesia:

https://m.tokopedia.com/ecolife/paket-lampu-pju-solar-sel-mini-cocok-ut-jalan-lingkungan-perumahan

This one is all buildin and cheaper:

https://m.tokopedia.com/utashop/lampu-tenaga-surya-penerangan-jalan-umum-pju-12-led-solar-panel

OK not quite was I was expecting... with 2x 6V 4Ah cells, and using a 10W panel + 7W LED, it has only ~5 hours runtime/night - and even that's running the batteries to > 70% DOD, so they'll probably only last a year.

@imho,

Till now i did talk abt indoor supply of solar electricity.

I was thinking of 2-3 lanterns for my backyard later like attached pict from someone in indonesia. He uses 5watt led bulbs. Per piece about +/- 2650 baht incl 7ah battery and wires but excluding the steel pipe.

About your other needs,its the choices you made. I am happy what i have and also if i can realise my plan to cook using solar power

Got a link to a vendor that sells what's in your pictures for under 3K Baht? Doesn't have to be Thai...

1. it would be interesting to see a 12v Air conditioning set-up with auto parts for a room ,

2. again has anyone done it ?

3. how much temperature drop do you get

4. and does it cut the humidity too

1. the principle and the required parts are the same like a conventional split unit except that the compressor is belt driven by an electric motor,

2. yes i did many rainy seasons ago in the African bush,

3. depending on compressor size and power supply the same like a conventional unit,

4. of course!

When you guys get an A/C going, don't dismiss the potential to use the condensate derived from the humidity in bold above.

I've measured the TDS Total Dissolved solids as near zero and its drinkable in that respect.

No hormones or pesticides from rivers or dams that aren't filtered out with reverse osmosis filters as with in-home or vending machines.

It's the same principle as natures dew and just need to keep the A/C clean and free from dust.

No mozzie fogging nearby lately?

Cover the bucket with a lid with a hole for the tube for extra cleanliness.

At the very least is good for car battery water and car radiators.

Here in Oz they were selling machines to produce pure drinking water using exactly the same refrigerant principle.

Not real good in dry climate.

Is there cheap water-quality lab testing for bacteria near you? Probably not applicable anyway.

Free solar power, free hot water, free pure water. Good luck.

I think I'd probably want to give it a very big dose of UV irradiation before I drank it

@naam,

Many households have a combi fridge/freezer. If for example above the freezer an extra compartment will be buildin and one way or another also cools that compartment is it possible without extra wattage. The freezer and fridge inner space will not be effected if that extra compartment have an outside hole. In that extra compartment is a fan that blows cool air out. To where? Up to you. You can use insulated flexible pipes.

Also imaginable for only a freezer.

Just a thought......

Every refrigerator has a maximum amount of cooling power (BTU), and that doesn't include very much overhead - just enough to keep temps stable on extra hot days, or for those who like their beer extra cold. Not the kind of reserve capacity you'd need to keep another enclosed space cold as well.

And even if you did plumb in another insulated box small enough that the refrigerator could actually keep it cool too, it's not happening for free... it will use more power.

Compared to AC's, refrigerators have tiny cooling capacity - like 500-1000 BTU (maybe 1200/1300 for a really big fridge) - typical household AC's are 9,000 to 35,000 BTU.

The other thing to remember with fridges is, they put out more BTU as waste heat than they do BTU as cooing. The harder you make them work, the hotter they're making the room they're in.

I think the savings are not so important as actually having fun doing it. My system would take ten years to payback during which time I will have gone from the temporary supply to a normal tariff supply (mine is a hybrid system). Also electricity prices will not stay the same during that time. There is also the feelgood factor of knowing that you are helping the world in your own small way.

I hear you, I'm just trying to imagine what I'd be able to run off such a system.. And I'm still thinking

My first thought was my outdoor garden lights - I have 20x 7 watt LEDs for that, so for 12 hours runtime (overnight) that's 1,680Wh - still significantly more than such a system could support. TV? nope, the combined usage with media players and hi-fi would mean only 2-3 hours/day. Computers? nope, they need to run for much, much longer. Small fridge? also nope. Pump? no chance with the amount of water used at my house.

None of my loads are small enough

I suppose it could be used to power phone/tablet chargers, but for that it'd be overkill

@naam, there are also other models with power cons up to max 500watt only.

@jingjoe,i agree with your KISS principle. For me its a challange to be not depending on the grid, gas and other fuels.

Lets say i need a system of 300wp. Already have 80wp which i will use for my lighting and waterpump. The planned extras is for electric cooking and also to be on the safe side when i use other appliances in the evening. Lets take an example of the extra investmen needed as i am still living in thailand and buy at amornsolar (.com).

Roughly prices

2 x panels 120wp 9.000 bht

1 x charge controller 2.000 bht

1 x expensive inverter 9.000 bht

2 x batteries 12.000

With roughly total 32.000 baht investment only i can be offgrid with the same comforts as i were ongrid and also not depending on gas/fuel. If i only use the inverter for cooking max 30min per day i in fact dont need an expensive inverter. Can be half of the above price. I think i keep it simple this way

Ive seen grid-tie and offgrid examples and i think WOW....why so much???

Pict with the current real amorn prices.

2x 120Ah batteries gives you a total of 2880Wh, which means about 1400Wh of safely usable capacity - or 1000-1200Wh after you factor in some losses. Can you really get by on just 1 unit/day? That's offsetting just 150 Baht/month of electricity usage.

About the cooking with an electric Wok. Its just an idea for the future. Perhaps@Muhendis can predict the lifetime of the battery if I draw daily 200-400 watt hour using for example 125Ah battery. Also an inverter of lets say 2000 watt will not last forever. Financially speaking, is it then worth to cook like this.

Ok George I'm going to start with the basics. Please humour with me if you already know this.

125Ahr........ What this means is that you can take 125 Amps from the battery for 1 hr. At the end of that time the battery would be discharged and close to death. It would ideally need to be fully recharged to minimise sulfation before you use it again. That is a cycle. Deep cycle batteries are good at this type of cycling due to the construction of the plates etc. You may be able to get up to 500 cycles like this but 300 is more likely. Generally it is preferred to keep the depth of discharge to somewhere between 20% to 50% This will extend the life of the battery but at the cost of only using part of its capacity.

Your 125Ahr 12v battery according to Ohms Law will drive a 1.5KW load for one hour (12v x 125Ahr) so by reducing the maximum discharge to 50% you would reduce either the time for a 1.5KW load to 1/2 hour or drive a 750 watt load for one hour. this will add many useful cycles to the life of your battery but unfortunately it is not a proportional relationship. As time goes by the plates will degenerate, internal resistance will increase and the dreaded sulfation will occur. This can be minimised by regular maintenance. If the battery is FLA (That's the one with screw caps to allow topping up of the acid with distilled water and to allow readings of the SG to be made) then you can keep an eye on the acid level and apply a desulfation cycle ever so often.

If you draw 500 Watt/hr per day then that would be the same as 41.7 Amps/hr (500W/12V). Using your 125 Ahr battery and limiting yourself to 50% capacity then you would be able to use the battery for 1.5 hrs before recharging. I'm sure you can now work out a few other scenarios from this.

Your idea that a 2KW inverter not lasting for ever is possibly true but if it is designed and built to a reasonable standard then the likelihood is that it will be replaced due to better things becoming available rather than old age or component failure.

If you are interested in further reading about batteries you might like to google "Battery University".

Good post, and I realize you kept this as simple/basic as possible, but there's still a couple of points I'd like to clarify for the readers:

1. There's no way you can discharge a lead acid battery 100% even more than a few times before it's kaput - and ech time you discharge it fully, you won't get the same amount of charge back into it again. Anything more than about 80% DOD is going to reduce it's cyclic life very, very fast. The lower the DOD, the more cycles you'll get though, as you noted.

2. The amp-hour rating on a battery is generally specified as it's 20 hour rate, not a 1 hour rate - i.e. that 125Ah battery is actually rated to supply 6.25 amps for 20 hours. If you pulled all it's capacity in just an hour, you're not going to get anywhere near 125 amps out of it, and you'd probably also shorten it's lifespan to an amount of cycles you could count on your fingers Read about Peukert's Law for more info on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peukert%27s_law

For those wondering, yes, the Thai Netflix does indeed have Ultra HD 4K titles - if you search for "4k" you'll get the full list..

But there's a few things you need to do to see it.

First, you're going to need either a Roku 4 or a FireTV 4K box. No other devices I've tested will even display the Ultra HD 4K label when browsing, let alone stream it.

Next, you need a HDMI input on your TV with HDCP 2.2 support - even if the screen is 4K you won't get 4K content without this.

Then you'll want a high speed HDMI cable, the most expensive Netflix account, and you'll need to have enabled the "High" setting in playback preferences.

From there, all you need to do now is free up enough bandwidth... My router shows that a range of about 10-25mbps are being used, when I actually get 4K to stream. If anyone/anything else starts using my bandwidth it very quickly rolls back to 1080P and around 8mbps though

Sometime in the past 2 days, LG pushed an update to my 4K TV and I now have the Netflix app on it, and it also supports 4K.

The TV app version even has a special section dedicated to "Ultra HD 4K" titles, so you don't have to search for them, and the phone app works as a remote control for it too (just like a Chromecast) - indeed using the app to "cast" to the TV is the quickest/simplest way to launch the Netflix app on the TV (less remote button smashing)

Has anyone here with a Thai Netflix account checked to determine WHERE the content is being streamed from? Have they hosted/mirrored it in country via a CDN, or, it's being pulled from abroad?

Sweden is the what the ip geolocates to, but the latency would suggest it may be closer. I'm a little surprised, it works so well I thought maybe they had one of these bad boys in Bangkok:

http://gizmodo.com/this-box-can-hold-an-entire-netflix-1592590450

In the server world, there's nothing too spectacular about these boxes

You can put together a 288TB box with 2x 10gbps NIC's, 48 CPU cores and 1TB of RAM for less than USD $4000/mth at IBM for example. A small drop in the ocean for a company like Netflix

Their calcs on how much content gets stored are way off too... there's no way Netflix are only storing one size of video and one audio stream for each title. They'll be storing 360P, 480P, 720P, 1080P and even 2160P for some titles, plus they'll be storing stereo and 5.1 sound tracks in several different languages. You just don't transcode on the fly because that won't scale... CPU is too expensive and power hungry, storage however is cheap

I got Ghost Proxy installed on my Minix and can now enjoy House of Cards Season 3 as well as a few thousand extra titles.

You're not getting it in HD with a generic Android box though

Quality of Iflix is not to be compared with Netflix. But the Thai subtitles are a plus for some people.No Netflix series though. Getting the picture on your tv is only possible with an hdmi cable or chrome cast. Netflix supports AirPlay for iOS devices. Iflix only support screen mirroring.

+1 The iFlix picture quality is absolutely horrific compared to Netflix.

Has anyone here with a Thai Netflix account checked to determine WHERE the content is being streamed from? Have they hosted/mirrored it in country via a CDN, or, it's being pulled from abroad?

Netflix uses Amazon Cloudfront and Akamai CDN's - so for us that means, ex-Singapore.

For those wondering, yes, the Thai Netflix does indeed have Ultra HD 4K titles - if you search for "4k" you'll get the full list..

But there's a few things you need to do to see it.

First, you're going to need either a Roku 4 or a FireTV 4K box. No other devices I've tested will even display the Ultra HD 4K label when browsing, let alone stream it.

Next, you need a HDMI input on your TV with HDCP 2.2 support - even if the screen is 4K you won't get 4K content without this.

Then you'll want a high speed HDMI cable, the most expensive Netflix account, and you'll need to have enabled the "High" setting in playback preferences.

From there, all you need to do now is free up enough bandwidth... My router shows that a range of about 10-25mbps are being used, when I actually get 4K to stream. If anyone/anything else starts using my bandwidth it very quickly rolls back to 1080P and around 8mbps though

Hola.org still works

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928340/ultra-popular-hola-vpn-extension-sold-your-bandwidth-for-use-in-a-botnet-attack.html

Yeah, there have been a few scare articles like this. Just turn it on when you need it, off when you don't

When I'm using it, there's not a lot of bandwidth left for them to borrow

After using Hola for a year or so, I read about some of the stuff they are doing. I saw a CSS entry on one website that seemed to set Hola ads. So I removed it from Chrome.

After signing up for Netflix I tried Hola again. When watching one movie (PC connected to 48" Ultra LG TV), I saw significant degrading in the resolution. So I removed it immediately.

That bandwidth you think Hola are not borrowing ....

But, as Thais say, "Up to you."

In Mac OSX, Hola exists only as a browser extension, not a background service. Close the browser and it's off, turn of the plugin and it's off.

I just did a test install in WIndows, and on that OS it installs a background service that's always on. OK yes, that's scary!

Hola.org still works

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928340/ultra-popular-hola-vpn-extension-sold-your-bandwidth-for-use-in-a-botnet-attack.html

Yeah, there have been a few scare articles like this. Just turn it on when you need it, off when you don't

When I'm using it, there's not a lot of bandwidth left for them to borrow

As I mentioned above, complaints about the limited content and/or censorship on the new international versions of Netflix are arising elsewhere, not just here in Thailand.

From CNBC out of Singapore:

One thing about the article, though, is it really doesn't address how much of the missing content issue in Singapore is related to that country's particular censorship laws vs. how much is related to Netflix simply not providing, or being able to provide, certain content outside the U.S.

From the Netflix Thailand site, there's lots of regular TV show content from the U.S. that's simply not available on Netflix Thailand, and that's clearly not because of censorship issues, because most of the commercial network TV series shown in the U.S. aren't going to run afoul of censorship rules here in Thailand.

Some Singaporeans are pretty unhappy with Netflix

Video-streaming service provider Netflix, which launched in Singapore last Thursday, is already getting flak from some Singaporeans for limited content compared to its U.S. service.

Singapore's monthly pricing ranges from $7.65 (S$10.98) to $11.83 (S$$16.98), cheaper than rates in the U.S.

Reasonable as the Netflix monthly fees are, some customers are disgruntled about the fact that Netflix Singapore looks nothing like the U.S. Netflix.

House of Cards, Arrested Development, South Korean TV dramas and Chinese Kungfu movies are among the missing content in the Singapore version of the service.

Some took to social media to express their displeasure and complain about the city-state's tight censorship.

MORE:

It's all just licensing:

A check by Channel NewsAsia also revealed that some of Netflix's original shows are not available in Singapore - such as House Of Cards, Arrested Development and Sense8. The Netflix spokesperson said that for some of these shows, this is due to rights issues.

"Most of our originals content will be available globally," said the spokesperson. "However, with the likes of House of Cards, we didn't negotiate global licenses to the content and so the rights sits with other platforms."

"We may get them back in some of our new markets, but have nothing further to announce at this time," he added. "With regard to our fully owned and produced Netflix originals moving forward, these will all be available to every market and go live at exactly the same time globally."

Season 3 of House Of Cards aired on RTL CBS Entertainment HD in Singapore on the same day as its launch on Netflix in the US.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/netflix-becomes-global-tv/2405016.html

As a global broadcaster, I anticipate we'll see Netflix winning a whole lot more contracts as time goes on...

The question is: is it worth the asking price right now? For me, it's so cheap it's inconsequential, but if ~$10 is a lot of money to you, sure wait it out I guess.

Hola.org still works

works fine on most android boxes I have tired, i.e. MX, MXq, M8 but you need to update to the latest version

It will work on these boxes, yes, but it will be limited to 720P maximum resolution... which may or may not bother you I guess.

Approved boxes (AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, Chromecast) are able to support 1080P and in the case of Roku4 and FireTV, 4K.

Nvidia Shield is 4K certified for Netflix too

I watched "The Ridiculous 6" in 1080P late the other night, great pic and no buffering. TV isnt 4k so I don't know if it would have streamed or not - traffic dependant I guess

I did a lot of testing on it when they first released HOC in 4K around 2-3 years ago - before they had all the resolution/device/HDCP2.2 limits.. Back then, If you could watch 3x Netflix 1080P streams concurrently, you could watch 1x 4K stream, smoothly.

If the connection was only good enough to support 2x 1080P streams, 4K would stop and buffer a lot, but with all the changes to their tech since then more likely you just won't get 4K at all if it detects that.

works fine on most android boxes I have tired, i.e. MX, MXq, M8 but you need to update to the latest version

It will work on these boxes, yes, but it will be limited to 720P maximum resolution... which may or may not bother you I guess.

Approved boxes (AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, Chromecast) are able to support 1080P and in the case of Roku4 and FireTV, 4K.

Alas, best they will do is sd, so not even 720. I musts admit however that the stream does improve once buffer is full, not quite as pixelated as my initial impressions led me to believe.

They should be able to do 720P even through a web browser, no?

I dont want to read the entire thread so Forgive me if this was already mentioned. "Iflix" is cheaper (100 baht/month) with more content.

I signed up for their free trial when they launched, but the PQ seemed to be only SD. Their FAQ seems to suggest that hasn't improved yet either:

https://www.iflix.com/frequentlyasked.html#UYiipgE8Ykpymlit.99

Can I stream iflix in HD?

Patience you must have, Yoda. Our team is working hard to make this happen for you. Stay tuned.

Maybe it's improved but they haven't updated their FAQ?

I've no interest if it can't do at least 1080P.