Solar Panel To Battery Help

[PureHarvest]

So I did some searching online to figure out how to recharge my marine 12 volt battery with a solar panel.
I'm confused.
Basically I use a battery to run my pump for nutrients. It runs 3 minutes, 8 times per day. There are two hours in between waterings.
Trying to figure out what size panel to recharge this battery.
A lot of them seem to just provide enough juice to keep an idle battery from discharging.
I want to actually charge mine.

My pump is AC but I might get a DC so I don't have to use an inverter from the battery.
Pump specs:
Material metal, aluminum
Power Source ac
Voltage 115 volts
Wattage 104 watts
Amperage Capacity 0.9 A

I will return with battery specs shortly.

[PureHarvest]

Here is the battery:

IMG_1105.JPG

My inverter is 400 watts.

[kevrow73]

I've used a system like that before. It was only used when I went away for a few days so the size of panel wasn't a problem for me. I would recommend using a 12v DC Caravan water pump, one of those worked fine for me.

[Ricky Shaw]

Always rounding corners, streamlining. That is a very nice quality Pure.

[Worth1]

Wrong battery for application.
You need a deep cycle battery that has the amp hour rating on it so you can figure out what you need.
The amp ratings on your battery are in cranking amps and cold cranking amps.
This is the amount it will put out for about 30 seconds and then be recharged quickly.
You need to look at solar powered gait openers to get any kind of good information you can use.

Worth

[PureHarvest]

It is a deep cycle battery.
Is t the RC on the label "resting currency"
It says RC 150

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

It is a deep cycle battery.
Is t the RC on the label "resting currency"
It says RC 150

Yes but it isn't the same thing.
RC means reserve capacity.
This is the amount of minutes the battery will discharge 25 amps at 80 degrees until it reaches 10.5 volts.

https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/arti...-basics.html#4
Worth

[Worth1]

I also want to add you need to dump the AC pump and get a DC pump.
Any time you change voltage and or go from 110 vac to low voltage DC you use up electricity.
I looked into putting low voltage DC lights in my yard and did the calculations.
I was going to use more electricity than if I would have went with 120 VAC lights.
This is the reason all of your irrigation systems use 24 VAC in their zone wiring.
In your case you are going from DC to AC.

[Worth1]

You are going to have about 20 hours of use with a 5 amp draw.
So this would be about a 100 amp hour battery.
Since it is a deep cycle battery you can get away with it because it was meant to be used on a trolling motor and to be ran down all the way but you wont be.

Worth

[Worth1]

Here is a link that will get you what you need.
Worth
http://www.solardealz.com/Solar-Gate-Charger-s/1836.htm

[PureHarvest]

Thanks for the info Worth.
Still trying to figure out what size panels

[Worth1]

If you can give me the power consumption of the inverter I can figure it out for you.

Or tell me what brand and model it is.

[zeuspaul]

You may want to post in a solar forum. Arizona Wind and Sun http://www.solar-electric.com/ has a good one. http://forum.solar-electric.com/cate...attery-systems

[PureHarvest]

Originally Posted by zeuspaul

You may want to post in a solar forum. Arizona Wind and Sun http://www.solar-electric.com/ has a good one. http://forum.solar-electric.com/cate...attery-systems

I don't need no stinking solar forum!...
I have Worth!
But I will still probably check that out at some point, thanks!

[PureHarvest]

Here's all I have on the inverter:

IMG_1110.JPG

IMG_1111.JPG