The BRAT Beta Program

[dapdan]

Wow,

I sent out my email 7 months ago and then looked on in envy as others got to play with their Brats. Is this light at the end of the tunnel. I am not sure if I should hold my breath. I will be happy to recieved one or two anyways even if it is half of a year later.

Maybe i will have better luck when the beta inverter units are being assigned. Hint Hint.

Cheers...

[Halfcrazy]

DapDan
Kim should be getting in touch with you today, Sorry for the delay but we had very few boards in the beginning and we ran out before I caught on

[dapdan]

Ryan,

No worries. She did email me yesterday. I am replying with the info she requested. Better late than never  . Now... where do I sign up for the beta inverter? .

Damani

[CDN-VT]

I also received an email from Kim last fort-night & will be picking mine up .

VT

[dapdan]

To All,

I have recieved the Brat in good condition and it is a beast of a controller. I was not expecting it to be so big. I quiried " why would they ship such a big box for one pwm controller", then I saw why. It is a beauty. Now to hook it up. One almost don't want to for fear of scratching its lovely form.

Cheers...
One happy camper
Damani

[Mtn Don]

I got mine a week ago and hope to have it installed on the trailer within a couple of weeks. Need to mount the panels first (on the roof). Thanks very much, it looks good. The clear case could be painted to match the trailer exterior, as long as a strip would be left clear to view the LED's across the top. I don't want it inside if I can avoid it.

[xolar]

I started installing my first Brat controller as a led garden lighting system, hopefully I will be able to get it running this weekend.

[Westbranch]

Can you tell us a bit more about the whole system?  tks

[xolar]

In response to Westbranch,

This is my play around cabinet, I used to have a Beta Kid, 2-Astronergy 245 in series, 300 watt Koteck inverter, and a sprinkler timer.  I was using the kid to charge a battery bank (Same one) that allowed me to automate my grundfos sqflex.  I live on a half a gallon a minute well, the well log for the foreclosed house I bought was inaccurate and the 6 gpm pump required me to run it in bursts to harvest as much water as possible.  Unfortunately my pole got hit by a extreme twister and it ripped the panels out of the Iron ridge rails, the tbolts literally ripped through.  Since then I have ran 120/240 out to the White box and have the pump running off inverter power, i am able to harvest way more water by pumping it every twelve hours and the consistancy of the constant power has made it way easier to calculate the needed running time.  I use a irrigation timer with a 24 vac relay to control the well and then the garden system and it works great I call it the poor mans PLC.

The current project that I have in the White box is

1- Evergreen 100 watt module
1 - Beta Kid
1 - 17ah AGM battery
currently 2 din breakers, 1 more and a splice block to come for the lights.  I had an old 12 volt landscape lighting system from my old house that I dug out and found that the flood fixtures will work with these awesome 12vdc led bulbs from Lowes, so I am going to put a couple of lights around the pole area, and a few in the garden to light it up in the evenings as it gets 100-114 here frequently in the summer and after installing solar all day I usually prefer too wait for the evenings to play around in the garden. The only down side is we have a CRAPLOAD OF RATTLE SNAKES my dog just got bit the other day, this is why you will see a bunch of lighting projects coming from me. 

Attached is another light project I have going, this is a old GE light with glass bezel (Rare Find) I picked up a solar rope light kit from Home depot and wound it up inside and it looks like fire flys I was killing time until the Kid's came out and I will now be sticking some sort of 12vdc LED with a 80 watt Shell module and a kid and a 7 ah AGM stuffed inside the bezel.

If you want to see some other (I think Neat Stuff)
https://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Coast-Sustainables/113295778708585
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CI90MX8k8IHxWUnnuBrtw/www.westcoastsustainables.com

Jason

[xolar]

I know this is the Brat section but this is the Kid running the Irrigation timer and the well previously !

[dapdan]

Midnite

I hope this modification finds favour with the engineers. I present the metered brat ....

Cheers..
Damani

[Westbranch]

doesn't look like it is working yet...

[dapdan]

West,

Ha Ha, Captain obvious. I will remedy soonest.

Cheers...
Damani

[xolar]

The Brat is working great and the lighting portion is working great as well.  I found 12vdc replacement bulbs at lowes for landscape lighting and have one of them installed next to the standard bulb can you see the difference?  the only thing I have left to do on this project is trench to the garden to add more lights!

GREAT JOB ON THE BRAT!!!!

[Westbranch]

which is the led ?  the one on the left of the pic?