23 Sep ’16
I am new here. I've been lurking a while and found many good ideas. This seems to be a place with a lot of experience being shared.
I am currently an off-grid weekender. I have been for 20+ years. My place is located in the Ouachita Mountain range in eastern Oklahoma. Many of my neighbors are full time homesteaders and I see that my experience is "play" while their experience is "work" and real life. I'm approaching retirement and looking forward, but with some trepidation, to sharing more of their experience. After all this time, I'm still a newbie and intimidated by full time homesteading.
I have a question to pose if anyone will help me. I have been powering my cabin three ways, 1) DC, through battery bank charged by solar and generator 2) AC, from battery bank, through inverter and 3) AC from generator. I have three circuits, one for each method. I generally power lights and wall outlets through inverter AC. I have a couple of wall plugs for generator AC. I power a ventilation fan, ceiling fan and composting toilet fan by battery DC.
I am disappointed with my inverter choices. I'm averaging about 2 years of weekend service before they die. I haven't been buying very expensive models and I assume that's the problem. I have to do something and before I go spending bigger dollars for a better inverter, I'm wondering if I would be better served by investing in DC LEDs and switching my lighting circuit over to the DC circuit.
None of my neighbors are running DC. Everyone is using an expensive inverter and are happy with their choices. I'm looked at strangely as I'm advised to not do it. Can anyone offer an explanation of why DC for lighting is a bad choice.
Welcome @primal-ways , I would switch over to the DC lighting, not sure why people are giving you flack over it, it is the basic mantra of going off grid solar, switch as much as you can to 12 volt dc to keep the system as energy efficient as possible due to loss with an inverter.
Porkchop has a great breakdown of the system he built for his previous home
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