Solar chicken coop

[Goingbush]

Some of you may be interested in my old Chicken coop,
had it rigged so that the slide up door would open and close 20 mins past dawn and dusk every day. It never failed.

I actually had it online so that people could see and hear the chickens and press an on-screen button to dispense some feed,

have uploaded the web files to here http://goingbush.com/chookcam/

obviously the video feeds not working because its all gone now, but if you press the 'About" button you will see how it all works. Easy done.

heres a screen capture I took one day after about a gazillion people pressed the feed button and emptied half the hopper, after that I put a timer so that it would only dispense after a delay.

feedercam.jpg

I pulled it down a few years ago when we bugged out, I moved the coop and chickens to my brothers house, still going strong,

[Tex]

GB, it's odd that you bring up the subject of sloar powered chicken coops. Unssenone and I were just talking about this subject today. I have two fairly large oilfield buildings and the plan is to repurpose one of them into a chicken coop and I wanted to use solar power to keep the heat lamps running. For the Hostile Native's birthday lastyear I bought her a solar powered door opener, but I decided to not hook it up until we get the new coop up and running.


Tex

[Goingbush]

Looking at the pics in another thread I see a lot of snow about your place in winter,
Might not be a great outcome unless you keep shovelling the snow off them, but certainly they are most efficient when cold and in sunlight.

my solar was just for the cameras and the door motor , but Im thinking heat lamps are going to need some grunt.

[unseenone]

I think it will work, but an easy way to remove / keep the snow off will need to be devised. The main thing is to figure out the power requirements for the heat lights, and light (led). Then the storage can be figured out, and the inverter can be specified. The number of panels, and other stuff will be obvious at that point. GB, sounds like you've had some experience on this, so any ideas will be helpful.

[Tex]

Looking at the pics in another thread I see a lot of snow about your place in winter,
Might not be a great outcome unless you keep shovelling the snow off them, but certainly they are most efficient when cold and in sunlight.

my solar was just for the cameras and the door motor , but Im thinking heat lamps are going to need some grunt.

The only time of the year that I would worry about snow possibly sticking to the panels would be in the spring. In winter, the snow is usually dry with real small flakes and the wind keeps it from sticking. This time of year though, the snow is wet and fat and extremely sticky. I'm thinking the angle that the panels would have to be sitting at would maybe help keep too much from accumulating on them. Of course, a good cloud cover sure wouldn't help them brew much energy though.


Tex

[AD]

I think it will work, but an easy way to remove / keep the snow off will need to be devised. The main thing is to figure out the power requirements for the heat lights, and light (led). Then the storage can be figured out, and the inverter can be specified. The number of panels, and other stuff will be obvious at that point. GB, sounds like you've had some experience on this, so any ideas will be helpful.

Dont go with heat lamps for everything. Get the backhoe out and drop in a few hundred feet of plastic pipe 6 feet under ground and use geothermal heating for the main load(running a 12 volt pump to circulate water) and supplement with electric heat.

Earth berm the sides for added insulation.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/2943/geothermal-energy-what-is-it-and-what-are-the-opportunities

http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-Geothermal-system/

http://www.buildmyowncabin.com/geothermal/diy-geothermal.html

[Tex]

The chicken coop Un and I were talking about is one of the oilfield buildings that are out by our existing coop. The pipes 6ft underground wouldn't do much for use here. Most people that have something like that, have it in the concrete foundation of their home. Six feet is too deep for that to work here and the building in question is set up on skids. The berm wouldn't realy work either. The building is 11ft wide x 25ft long. We are planning on having runs off of both long sides.

We have to be able to run the heatlamps in order to raise chicks and we could use those same lamps to give the grown birds something to stand by in the dead of winter. We also will have the solar door setup installed. Doing geothermal and earthberms would be way too expensive to consider for a chicken coop and it may be that even the solar is not cost effective. We will have to see.


Tex

[AD]

The geothermal system can get you to ~55 degs for the cost of a 12 volt pump in the building. I know you need the lamps for the chicks, the geo could keep the coop comfortable. It can even cool it in the summer.

[unseenone]

AD, others.. The Oil field buildings are on skids, meant to be dragged around. I believe what Tex is thinking, is a total system, built on to each building, just enough to run heat lamps (3 x 250 watts for X hours a day / night, and some lighting. If he bugs out or moves, they are completely self contained on the building. It will continue to work, even in transit. Perhaps he will want to add the automatic doors, and a thermostat switch for the heat lamps.

Just a few tidbits for Tex to chew on, we will need to begin filling in the blanks.

X 250w solar panels per building
1 XXXX watt 24v inverter

X LED lights

X feet of wire

XXX amp hours of storage required

1 Solar Controller probably 45 to 60 amp non - mppt

I think it might be worth while to run a 24 volt system, which is ever so slightly more efficient.

As usual GB has sorted some of this cool stuff before with his automatic doors, and such.. very cool GB.

I really like this simple explanation of calculating your power requirements.

https://www.arkportablepower.com/Solar-Power

[AD]

AD, others.. The Oil field buildings are on skids, meant to be dragged around.

Really? Like the one WE saw that he was going to turn into a Ham shack?

[unseenone]

ya, you know that's BS, he's never going to get it done!!

[AD]

Ya the next thng he will tell us is he does not have time cuz he's getting ............... A welding truck going or some lame ass excuse.

[Tex]

We were supposed to be getting another couple of buildings, but the oilfield rep flaked out on us. The building that was supposed to be set up for all of my stuff got commandeered by the Native. I have been banished to the old homestead house for all of my toys and have been working on that. Maybe you two guys wouldn't mind coming up and giving a hand with everything that needs to be done?


Tex

[unseenone]

Here is a handy calculator I found cruising looking for a solar battery topper for the car..

http://www.batterystuff.com/kb/tools/calculator-sizing-a-battery-to-a-load.html

[W.Lynn]

Un, that is so very geeky-cool, sure beats figuring out with pencil and paper. Have you punched in the numbers of any of your projects to see how close it comes to what you figured for the same thing?