My plane is based at the Lincoln Regional Airport, North East of Sacramento, a 20 minute drive from my home in Roseville.
I was lucky and at the right place and and right time and was able to purchase a small 'T-Hanger' on the North side of the
airport. The hanger was not only a dry and safe place to store the plane in, but was a great investment. Hanger
space is rare and expensive to get into. The only real problem with this hanger is that the rows of hangers on the North
side have no utility power. It gets dark out at the Lincoln Airport at night so I had to do something. It so happened
that an area of interest for me is Solar Electric power, and I had almost all of the parts to build and install a fairly substantial
solar system into the hanger.
The system is designed for moderate use, such as weekends and the occasional
evening. I only installed 2 100 watt pannels as that was all that was needed to keep the batteries charged during the
week. The large battery capacity and large inverter allows for high current usage on the weekends and allows the rest
of the week to recharge the batteries.
One of the most handy tools in a hanger is the air compressor and I wanted
enough surge capacity to start and run a small compressor. I also found an electric leaf blower is a great way to keep
the hanger clean. Both these devices draw about 100 AMPs at 12 volts so my system was designed to sustain 170 AMPs.
The special DC Circuit Breaker will trip at 175 AMPs and disconnect the batteries from the system.
All wiring
is installed using flex conduit and standart electrical boxes to keep it compliant with city code and make the installation
safe. The system has aover $4000 in parts, but I had many of them as I was building a solar system for home at one time,
so I just moved many of the parts to the hanger and installed there.
This simple installation has been working great
for the past 5-6 years. All the power I need out in the hanger.
Below is the wiring diagram for the project:
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Close up of inverter, diconnect and connections, 40Amp charge controller is behind the Disconnect box. |
Solar pannels prior to mounting on the frame and installing to hanger roof. |
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These are the 2 Pannels mounted to the frame and installed on the hanger roof. I made the frame adjustable but
have not needed to readjust the pannel angel for different times of the year as I do not ever use more power than I can currently
collect
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The whole Solar system is held in this 5 foot tall 19 inch rack enclosure. The electronics and power handeling
hardware is mounted above and the 6 large storage batteries are mounted on shelfs below. I used 20 AMP plugs to connect to
the hanger wiring I installed to allow for easy dicsonnect.
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