Listening off grid with batteries

T bone
Interesting reading. Thank you.
All new single family homes Vancouver BC , must have an electrical monitoring system/display on the main floor.
This is in order for the occupant to monitor their usage. In theory they will see a direct readout and should learn to become more frugal with their usage.

Peter
Have three kajak waiting for you.......... should you come up.
Anytime you should get up here your welcome to stop by.

Bjesien
House plans are completed, next phase is structural, heatloss calculation,
then comes the electrical. Based on the heat loss, this will determine the amount of power that I will require for the geothermal. This is what will draw the most amount of electrical energy in the home.

The plan is to have have photovoltaic panels on the roof structure and to have some micro hydro from the creek.
A generator is presently being used for the construction of the house.
Once the home is completed it will be then used for topping up the batteries.
Not sure on the size of the battery bank that I will need at this time.
Have allowed for a space that is L 14'x W 6'x H 10' for the batteries.

The inverter makes two grids one.
Sorry, but I do not understand. Could you please explain to me what you mean.
What I was thinking of is have two completely different electrical systems set up.
One for the domestic use, and one for my room.

Thanks for the help,

Don't current solar panels each come with a small inverter? Isn't it easier to move the AC around as opposed to DC? Won't there be less loss this way? You can re-rectifiy it at point of use....for battery charging.
All the listening room needs is a sub panel, right?

How are you handling lightning / surges?

http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/8301-11128_3-20006619-54.html?tag=mncol;posts

link to microinvertor article

You might also consider setting up a wind turbine to supplement the solar. Most of the people I know that run solar though have come to rely on the panels alone though, as there are no moving parts.

As to the system, Getting the most efficient speakers you can will make a huge difference in what you can get away with in the electronics. IMO tubes sound better but they consume more energy too. Its the constant loads that will be drawing the batteries down. But you might be able to do a smaller amplifier.

I have built several small amps recently that might have some possibility. One is a small OTL that needs a fairly high impedance speaker (32 ohms or more) but you can get a fair amount of power out of it if you can provide the the speaker.

The second is a push-pull amplifier that uses a pair of type 45 power tubes. You could also use 2A3s but the idea is a low power amp. This one I made makes about 5 watts but due to the low power has very good bandwidth, far more than you would get from an SET that size, but due to the 45s and no need for feedback, has much of the musicality of SETs combined with greater bandwidth and transparency.

Running such an amplifier directly off your batteries is not practical, due to the B+ voltages involved. You still have to make voltage conversion, so you will need an inverter somewhere. Its to your advantage to run the inverter elsewhere (as in your main power system), as AC power transmission is a lot easier than DC.

Sounds like a really cool setup!!

Atma,
See my post above. Inverters are now being 'distributed' and are at each panel.
In bright sun, you get about 100 watts per square meter (yard?) of area.
The 'where do you put the inverter?' argument harkens back to the early wars between Edison and Tesla/Westinghouse over AC / DC power systems. The advantages of early inversion to AC are huge.
Trouble is, you change BACK to DC to charge batteries, than again BACK to AC this time to distribute to what / where it is needed.
Boats over a certain size tend to have double electrical systems. The DC system of the boat...starting, running lights, communications / navigation and some utilities VS a 2nd 'shore power' system of a regular breaker box and 110 distribution. Boats, especially larger ones, will have a 'genset' which will provide AC and DC for battery charging and 'boat stuff'. The boat people are adamant in opposition to physics in that they measure everything in amps, not watts.

As for off-grid equipment which is more efficient....I would suggest fairly sensitive speakers and a lower power 'd' amp. 'd' amps are most efficient at higher powers, being not much better than a reasonable A/B amp at less than half power. If you are off-grid in a cool or cold climate, some of the inefficiency of tube gear can be recovered as heat for the house and 'defer' those energy costs. A trivial example is my Sony SXRD TV with a 180 watt lamp. This guy kicks out enough heat near enough to my thermostat to make the rest of the house colder....since the darn thermostat thinks it's warm enough.
In the summer, the extra heat causes the A/C to run more........

As for inverters for electronics, make sure they are True Sine Wave. I'd guess all of the low power units used in cigarette lighter plugs are some kind of modified square or triangle wave. I have one in the car for my laptop and to charge my cell phone, being too cheap to buy a car charger, since I already HAD the inverter. I wouldn't trust the sound of a boombox running off that thing.