Listening off grid with batteries


Finished the design phase for my new home which will be in a remote off grid location. The design and modeling process has taken over a year. Absolutely amazing what can be done by a talented architect, computer modeling, shading,virtual tour etc. Now it's down to the music room details before we start.

Electric Power will come from solar and micro hydro. Gen set for back up, but only as a last resort.
Does anyone here on Agon have any first hand experience with this kind of set up.
Thinking of a split electrical system where one grid is for the hifi and the other is for the home. Some say it's a waste of time and money but I want to get it right the first time.
Is this necessary when using a solar set up ?
Building homes for 25 years but this will be my first off grid home.
rugyboogie
You might also consider setting up a wind turbine to supplement the solar. Most of the people I know that run solar though have come to rely on the panels alone though, as there are no moving parts.

As to the system, Getting the most efficient speakers you can will make a huge difference in what you can get away with in the electronics. IMO tubes sound better but they consume more energy too. Its the constant loads that will be drawing the batteries down. But you might be able to do a smaller amplifier.

I have built several small amps recently that might have some possibility. One is a small OTL that needs a fairly high impedance speaker (32 ohms or more) but you can get a fair amount of power out of it if you can provide the the speaker.

The second is a push-pull amplifier that uses a pair of type 45 power tubes. You could also use 2A3s but the idea is a low power amp. This one I made makes about 5 watts but due to the low power has very good bandwidth, far more than you would get from an SET that size, but due to the 45s and no need for feedback, has much of the musicality of SETs combined with greater bandwidth and transparency.

Running such an amplifier directly off your batteries is not practical, due to the B+ voltages involved. You still have to make voltage conversion, so you will need an inverter somewhere. Its to your advantage to run the inverter elsewhere (as in your main power system), as AC power transmission is a lot easier than DC.

Sounds like a really cool setup!!
Atma,
See my post above. Inverters are now being 'distributed' and are at each panel.
In bright sun, you get about 100 watts per square meter (yard?) of area.
The 'where do you put the inverter?' argument harkens back to the early wars between Edison and Tesla/Westinghouse over AC / DC power systems. The advantages of early inversion to AC are huge.
Trouble is, you change BACK to DC to charge batteries, than again BACK to AC this time to distribute to what / where it is needed.
Boats over a certain size tend to have double electrical systems. The DC system of the boat...starting, running lights, communications / navigation and some utilities VS a 2nd 'shore power' system of a regular breaker box and 110 distribution. Boats, especially larger ones, will have a 'genset' which will provide AC and DC for battery charging and 'boat stuff'. The boat people are adamant in opposition to physics in that they measure everything in amps, not watts.

As for off-grid equipment which is more efficient....I would suggest fairly sensitive speakers and a lower power 'd' amp. 'd' amps are most efficient at higher powers, being not much better than a reasonable A/B amp at less than half power. If you are off-grid in a cool or cold climate, some of the inefficiency of tube gear can be recovered as heat for the house and 'defer' those energy costs. A trivial example is my Sony SXRD TV with a 180 watt lamp. This guy kicks out enough heat near enough to my thermostat to make the rest of the house colder....since the darn thermostat thinks it's warm enough.
In the summer, the extra heat causes the A/C to run more........

As for inverters for electronics, make sure they are True Sine Wave. I'd guess all of the low power units used in cigarette lighter plugs are some kind of modified square or triangle wave. I have one in the car for my laptop and to charge my cell phone, being too cheap to buy a car charger, since I already HAD the inverter. I wouldn't trust the sound of a boombox running off that thing.
I'll be building a house with out an AC connection for the time being, I'm wondering if anyone has some more recent info. on solar powered HiFi. So here are my off the wall questions.
Is it possible to build/buy "half" a regenerator DC to AC? Obviously that is what an inverter is, but I'm talking quality along the lines of PS Audio. It seem like a waste to convert DC to AC just to run it through a regenerator AC-DC-AC, then back to DC inside the amps. Does anyone have any info. on how clean the AC from a Tesla Power Wall is? I'm not buying one but wonder about their technology. I've got two PP tube amps and hope to keep using them. Is this even realistic?
What about battery?DC powered HiFi gear. I image some improvements have been made since this discussion from 2010.