Quote:
Originally Posted by porsche4life
Red is your product something that people would actually search out on Amazon?
If not, is there really a benefit of going through them and paying the fees?
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I am now manufacturing a line of Domestic Solar Energy Systems. I want to sell the 300-1500 Watts systems on Amazon. They are fully setup, plug and play from the user stand point.
We've been selling custom designed Industrial Solar Energy Systems, mostly for off-shore uses. A company in Mexico asked us to design and start supplying systems for the domestic Mexican market. I based my system off a design they have purchased before from Northern Tools. Except:
1) My system is complete and fully assembled. All you have to do is use the polarized cables to connect the panels to the control/battery box and plug your appliances into the outlet.
With the Northern tools system, you have to figure out how to connect the charge controller to the battery system, along with the panels.
2) The Northern Tool system uses a transfer switch, which is not a bumpless transfer. On our system, you are connected to the inverter all the time. You can select recharging the batteries from either Solar or from the mains. And if you have a generator, it will condition the power, along with allowing you to have quiet overnight power.
3) They use a super-cheap square-wave inverter, which means you shouldn't be connecting it to motors. I use pure Sinewave inverters which is what everything is designed to use.
4) The Inverter is way oversized to the battery. They are using an 1800 Watt inverter on a system with less than 1000 watts of storage. And at maximum draw, you'll be lucky to get 15 minutes out of the batteries. All of my systems are designed to give you at least 4 hours of operation at maximum power.
5) The Northern tool unit uses a super cheap on/off charge controller. My systems use an MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) controller which will harvest about 15-30% more energy from the Solar Panel.
6) I use 225 Watt Solar Panels, where they give you an old 100 Watt panel. They need several days to charge the batteries, while my system will charge in one day, while still provding some extra daytime power.
The plug and play systems range from 300 Watts to 1500 Watts. Each one will last a minimum of 4 hours at maximum power. Surge power is double the rated power. The designs are for running refrigerators in rural areas. If you put a 150 Watt refrigerator (4.4 cu ft) on my 300 Watt system, it will run 24/7 with no outside power. The 1500 Watt system will handle a modern 25 cu ft!
The idea was to provide power to places where electricty is intermittent / unreliable. If you use more power than the panels/batteries can provide, you can switch over to the mains, which will recharge the batteries while still feeding the inverter.
I also package 3000 Watt (120V) and 8000 Watt (220V) systems, which are designed to be integrated by an electrcian into house wiring. Again, the packaged design allows any electrician with basic house wiring experince to connect this system up.
The 220V system will handle a 1500-2000 square foot house including a 2.5T central air conditioning system!