I was reminded the other day in an email how important it is that some parts of a renewable energy system be the highest quality that you can afford. For some, that may run counter-intuitive to the what you read on the site as we teach you how to save tons of money by building your own renewable energy equipment.

You may have noticed that I don't really recommend using PVC blades for wind generators any more. The reason being that you can double the power output simply by spending 150 or so. Plus, PVC blades can fail if they're not prepared correctly.

That's not to say that you shouldn't build your own wind generator because you should... it'll save you lots of money. You should make sure that some of the parts you buy are quality parts (namely the blades and motor). Sure it may cost you more now, but you'll be producing twice the power safer.

That brings me to inverters. I had an email the other day from a guy who had blown up two inverters that he had bought. It was a troubling problem for me because the only thing I could think of was he'd wired his batteries in series instead of parallel. The high voltage would have probably killed the inverter.

That wasn't the case though because his battery bank was 14 volts fully charged. I got an email later in the day telling me had solved the problem.

I figured out the problem. I bought a pair of inverters designed in China and could be remotely turned on and off. The bottom line is that they couldn't handle the input current. I tested my setup with my old dumb inverters and everything ran fine.

If anyone asks for a recommendation.... Tell them not to purchase Express Power inverters or anything made in China.

I know the temptation of a 1KW inverter for 500 or a wind generator motor for 25, but the sad fact is in the long run it's going to cost you more money to use cheap components. I can personally say I'm guilty of trying to save money like this, but it has cost me quite a bit more in the long run than if I had just forked out the extra cash in the beginning.

So just remember, there are certain places you can skimp and certain places you shouldn't. If you don't know you can always leave a comment or contact me.

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