Quote from: alh on July 23, 2017, 08:43:01 PM

Quote from: tbonetony on July 21, 2017, 07:38:31 AM

i am a newbie to home ownership and am considering adding solar panels to my roof. One thing I just noticed from many panel specs: they are 12V DC.

Is there a way to hook the panels directly to a rig, bypassing the inverter etc.? I know battery is needed for overnight operation but I just want to know if this can be done, why or why not.

Thanks.

This can be done if you have a small miner, one or two solar panels, and a 12V battery, all in very close proximity to each other. One key item to remember is that with say a 1Kw miner, that's 83+ Amps at 12V. That's a bunch of pretty serious wires to carry that current. If you have enough panels to produce 1KW, it isn't practical to place those close to the miner and the battery. When you get to tens or maybe a hundred feet of cable to carry 80 Amps at 12V, it gets to be pretty cumbersome. Just imagine what it would be like with 10 Kw of solar panels.

Just like with electric companies, it's much better to use a higher voltage with lower amperage to transmit power over distance (e.g. miles). Same principle for a solar setup since you don't want a mass of heavy gauge wire to connect all the components, just on a smaller scale. You don't want to lose a lot of power, just in the wiring. You see this at all levels of a power distribution system where it's more efficient to use a higher voltage to get a lower current (e.g. 240V or 480VAC for high power applications).

Thank you. I completely missed out on the amp aspect.