The No-BS Guide to DIY Solar

Book excerpt: In the second of my No-BS series I tackle the solar power hurdle, drawing on my decade long off grid journey. The No-BS Guide to DIY Solar focuses on creating a robust and extremely powerful solar system similar capable of being scaled from the tiniest off-grid application all the way up to full household systems on an attainable budget. Unlike many of the DIY Solar books out there, this guide is built from first hand experience and addresses issues as broad as wind resistance, mounting solutions, turbine integration, and sourcing used components. This book consists of 142 pages broken down into seven chapters which are: Safety, Tools, Planning, Panels, Wiring, Charge Controllers, Batteries, AC Inverters, Shopping Tips, Wind Integration and Diagnosis The guide walks you through determining your energy usage and needs, storage amounts, locating panels and many, many other topics. Although a seemingly daunting task, this book makes it easy with plenty of pictures, careful explanations and a sprinkling of humor. This book will be useful to everyone from the novice to the expert alike.