solor panal help ?

[crown]

 was wondering if i put sky lights in bus garage will the solor panal work ? thanks john

[Jeremy]

As long as there's light they'll work - but obviously they'll work much better if direct sunlight is hitting them straight-on. Anything less than this optimum will result in a reduced power output from the panels - whether it's still sufficient for your needs will depend upon how long your piece of string is.

Jeremy

[Oonrahnjay]

was wondering if i put sky lights in bus garage will the solor panal work ? thanks john

     I think that Jeremy is right on the details but I'd sum it up in general by saying that I'd think you'd get such poor performance that you'd say "they don't work" like that.  you would get next to nothing out of them (unless the skylights were flat plain glass - then you'd get little more than next to nothing out of them).  Just my opinion.

[crown]

 i was hoping they might keep the batterys charged ?

[Oonrahnjay]

i was hoping they might keep the batterys charged ?

     Big issues - how clear are the skylights?  How much of the day does the light hit the solar panels?  Will be solar panels be pointed toward the sun?  How much of the panel is shaded are areas that aren't skylight - and for how much of the day.

     And also, are you talking about using power or purely keeping batteries up while stored with no loads on them?

     I think that you'll find that the power will be very low, unless you can get really good answers to the questions in the first paragraph.  How much power will you need to keep batteries up?  How much power will you make?  Only when you answer those two questions -- with *real life* numbers will you know.  I stand by my guess that you'll have a hard time making such a system do anything for you.  But that's only a guess with very little hard info.

Bruce H,   NC   USA

[Seangie]

John,

Would it make more sense/easier to wire a panel on the roof and just run the wires down into the garage and just swap the panels when you are parked?

Not that having a skylight would be a bad thing but that might also bring some unwanted heat into the garage (I'm assuming costa rica)

-Sean

[crown]

 thanks for all the help .was just thinking the solor would keep up the batterys but the shop will be
fully wired so i can use a smart charger insteed of the cost of skylights will be building the shop
in jan/feb and sean its mostly around 78 year round except today a crazy cold front came out of
nowhere bet it droped to 68 frezing to us thanks john