Thread 2926704

Previous >>2903345

I will Get a Huge 167ah Battery this year.

Reminder to read shit before axing stupid questions.
https://rentry.co/solarshit
https://rentry.co/heatshit

Currently "cooling with heat pump" is being updated in heatshit, as I experiment with my system more. Did a lot of work changing the distribution design and implemented reversed flow/return for radiator cooling. Might make a video or stream later to go over the entire thing.
Cooling an entire not too well insulated house eats up a fuckton of power though, it's doubling my power consumption.

>>2927613
I'm into soft, sensual, kissing.
I like to make love.
How will going solar affect this?

>>2927633
Pros:
1. You can run electrical sex toys on "free" electricity
2. In your soft sensual love making moments you do not have to be distracted by stray thoughts of high electrical bills
3. With solar and possibly a heat pump, you can achieve better thermal comfort in your home, on the cheap, contributing to a good environment for love making
4. Buy a jacuzzi and run it for free, make more sexy times
Cons:
1. Talking about your cool solar setup to women will not make their peepee harder
2. In extremely first world places, your HoA might bully you, interrupting your sexy times by resident Karens ringing your doorbell to tell you about how you may or may not be violating the HoA ruurus
3. You could pay many hookers for the price of the solar system

>>2927634
>1. Talking about your cool solar setup to women will not make their peepee harder
you dont talk to the corrects girls or use the correct words. alternative girls like that, you just need to use more hippy words
i almost get laid recently like that talking about solar, insulation, passive houses and canadian wells, but then i was barely able to contain my cringe when she was bullshiting me with astrology and i fucked up

>>2927637
>talk about solar, insulation, passive houses to w*man
>responds with astrology
I think I'll just die a virgin instead.

>>2927638
you dont get always that back, it is just what the last time happened
i am an astronomer, i was cringing haaaaaard

bump

Had a power outage for about two hours. Ran my fridge off a battery / inverter. It was eating around 200 watts. I used my battery ryobi fan and aimed it at the coils / compressor. Power use dropped to around 190 watts.

What are my chances on smuggling lifepo4 cells on my check luggage? Airfare and taxes are like 150% the cost of the cells.

>>2930176
0%

But if you manage to stuff them in your Shoes then you are Gucci.

>>2926704 (OP)
Anyone ever run their reptile room off solar power? I am looking into buying a snake soon and I want to use solar power for the heater and thermostats

>>2930744
It's going to be exactly as inconsistent as any other solar application. If at all viable, it's always better to do whole-house applications than "small" individual projects. Quotation marks because you'd probably still need at least a half-size 200W-ish solar panel, maybe even a 400W if you want it to work somewhat in the winter.

>>2930766
>If at all viable, it's always better to do whole-house applications than "small" individual projects
Why?

>>2930782
Because cost usually scales better. For this reptile thing, if you made a simple DC system with DC heaters and battery, you'd be looking at maybe $200-$300 cost (guessing, because I don't know how big you want to make it and what conditions it is in), with maybe 10-20% system utilization (because you have to scale it to winter consumption if you want it to be pure solar), so you're saving maybe $20 a year. A whole-house system is around $5-6k, but it might be saving you $1k+ a year.

>>2930744
buy two solar panels, one bigger and one smaller, connect them directly in series, put the smaller one in the terrarium bellow the sand, earth whatever, it will be used as a diode heater, maybe insulate bellow it, now you just need a thermostat capable of cutting of dc, a fuse that kind of basic electric stuff
>>2930791
well the trick is to not use a battery or a controller at all. dirt works as a thermal battery

>>2926704 (OP)
Greetings, Gotten my hands on a cheapo hybrid inverter that runs on 48V and has a RS485 port. No panels yet.
Ordered 2 identical 24V lifepo4 batteries for it on sale. Pic related. Both batteries have internal BMS for their cells but no output port. I reckon these 2 batteries would be better off balanced between themselves as well. Would an external BMS be up for the tasks (i.e. hook it up to the +&- on the batteries but not to their internal BMS'es) or should I crack the 2 batteries open and connect the external BMS to their invididual cells directly?

>>2930881
Probably thinking too hard for the grade of the battery. Top balance them on 24V in parallel at the start, then check them here and there if they are mostly the same voltage. Even if there is some capacity difference from the factory, it shouldn't drift significantly. And then if it does, you can worry about it then.
Chinks have these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008869277316.html balancer units, but if you end up with this, make sure to fuse it and don't put it near anything flammable.

Conversely, a good 16s high current BMS is at least $100, closer to $200; if you're gonna spend that much on balancing alone, you might as well just build the whole battery from scratch, probably end up with something better than C-grade Aliexpress packs.

>>2930814
>dirt works as a thermal battery
If it's enough for the terrarium, then yeah. Getting an AC backup heater for winter days is probably also much cheaper than any kind of battery setup.

>>2930885
Thanks, guess I'll be using them without an external BMS for a while. The batteries themselves are to be placed in a non-flammable environment though there's to be a long line of breakers about 1 meter directly above them.
The reviews on these chiesiums are surprisingly decent, apparently some folks have been running them for years with little to complain about; I've been planning on getting another pair to bring the system to 200Ah if these two (+ the inverter) prove to work well. A $100-200 BMS is justified in my eyes in this case.
The problem with BMS'es in general from a newcomer's perspective is that most of the time they're either already installed inside a commercial battery or are more of a DIY solution wherein they're wired to individual 3V cells. Just surprised there's so few examples of something in-between i.e. this particular case with 2 commercial batteries in series. I'd assumed these can just be treated as 2 basic cells, i.e. internal BMS take care of the 3V cells and the external one balances the two sums.

Guess we'll see how it goes, maybe I'll follow your other advice and just make somethng custom out of cells and a proper BMS. For now the immediate concern was that the system would immediately go up in toxic smoke due to no balancing between the two 24Vs.

>>2930900
>I'd assumed these can just be treated as 2 basic cells, i.e. internal BMS take care of the 3V cells and the external one balances the two sums.
That's exactly what the aliexpress thingy does that I linked.
>For now the immediate concern was that the system would immediately go up in toxic smoke due to no balancing between the two 24Vs.
No, only if the batteries had some massive fault. The BMS would always trigger a disconnect from overvoltage.

I just like custom builds because I know what cells are inside and what BMS I am using with what voltage thresholds, as opposed to mystery meat, but known brands can be okay. Or stuff that Will Prowse tests and tears down, you can see what's inside and how it works.

>>2930905
Oh alright, my bad. Couldn't figure it out until I found a picture showing that the part that goes into the 4 pin input port is just 2 pairs of positive and negative terminals. Will probably get one (or something similar) just in case, cheers.

Is going all out on Maxeon 7 panels and a 180 kWh Anker battery solution the most retarded thing one could do?
(main motivation behind all of this: spite)

>>2930918
For panels it's pure quantity > quality nowadays, for batteries it's quantity > quality as long as you have some bare minimum. Inverters are arguable on price/quality, and with safety devices you definitely want quality.
Maxeon have their warranty going for them, but why Anker batteries?

Getting my 7.5kW penis extension next week, gonna have almost 13kW total. Should hopefully cover most of the running costs of the heat pump, saving about $2k a year on gas.

Still working perfectly. Probably the first time getting the hv pack down to around 70%.
Whole lot of grinding/welding I've been putting off.
Still only have ~1.2kw of panels so I must have used a little over 6kw lel

Getting a new shed soon. Quote for running power out to it is insane. All I really need is some lighting. Are there any good options to simplify that as much as possible like maybe some sort of lights made for an RV that I could run straight off 12v? I've got deep cycle lead acid batteries scavenged from a UPS but I wonder how they'll handle hot cold cycles seeing as they've meant to be for indoor use. Are the hobo freight solar kits good enough for something like that or are they too shit even for this sort of thing. I'd want to run some decent flood lamps for maybe like 6 hours tops so I can work on my cars behind the shed.

>>2934731
Work out the watts of the lamps you want and post your approximate location. "Solar generators" would probably be good enough.

>>2934789
Mid-Atlantic. The solar part of things should be viable. I've got people around here that are full solar and there's a couple little solar farms that are supposedly viable. I'm more looking to see if my poorfag batteries will work and some suggestions for the lights.

>>2934731
just use 12v led strips, or go to 12v lamps and bulbs. that is what i used in my house until i finish fixing it and live there. temporary construction site connections are stupidly expensive here
you will need a solar panels, charger, battery, wire, fuses and switches, that is it, no need for a kit. given that you have the batteries is 100 bucks at most not counting the panels, some more if you go premium like victron for the charger
you can also get car lighter sockets so you can plug car usb chargers and other useful stuff

>>2934863
You can get 12V/24 chink truck lights that are decent in all kinds of wattages, you can use those for floodlights. Spend at least a little on the charge controller though, that's the one part that can potentially catch on fire. If possible, go for a 24V system over 12V, since lights are still easily available for 24V and you can save a bit on wiring and reduce amps. You can still get a fairly cheap 24V-12V converter to run car stuff off if you ever need that.
The absolute cheapest charge controller that might go without catching on fire is something like this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006973513514.html
Avoid those $20 small blue ones like the plague, they claim anywhere between 20-100A rating but are actually at most capable of 5A safely, and they don't have proper internal limiters.
You can get away with cheaper MIDI fuses for fusing the system. 1-2 400W solar panels should do, ideally in series.

>>2934870
>car stuff off if you ever need that.
most car stuff can be found as a 24v variant or working on both voltages as big trucks are 24v

>>2934865
>>2934870
Bitchin. I can work with that. I'll see what AliExpress and eBay can net me and do some wattage calculations.

>>2926704 (OP)
I want to buy a battery that be be discharged and charges at the same time, to power a tiny computer plus the computers screen 24/7 so other than the port for input power from the solar panel, it would need a minimum 3 USB ports.
There are lots of batteries like this. But the place I need to run it has horrible winters and it will get down to maybe -15F at worst. So the night will be long and cold and the computer will still need to run through the night. What kind of battery is one supposed to buy for this type of area? What do Alaskans buy which also has 3 USB ports on it?

>>2935215
The battery charger/inverter and the computer will both put off an amount of heat. Perhaps get a big storage tub and insulated it a bit and just put the whole setup in there. Have them take care of each other then take the lid off in the summer. I don't know how much heat a PC would really put off for something like that but I figure if it has no room to breathe it'll be decently warm.

>>2935215
LTO is very low temp resilient, but as >>2935343 says, with enough insulation you should be able to trap residual heat from the electronics. Think 20cm thick polystyrene box, air sealed.

If you were ever wondering how bad it is when a tree shades most of your solar panels in full sunlight, I have the answer for you.
At 1PM the shadow moves to only cover 3 panels, at which point software limitation kicks in for legal reasons, so real performance at that point could've been higher, but the entire morning being fucking dead is the tree.

>>2936861
Funny how YT just showed me a video of guy testing the effect of shadows in various positions and coverage with solar panels just before my monthly check up on /diy/.

>>2934731
the 12/24v solar charge controllers often have a load output, if you run your led lighting out of that you usually also get undervoltage protection so you don't have to worry about leaving the light on for too long

>>2935215
some bms boards have output pins to wire up to a heater, so you could send the solar power to some sort of thin-film heaters placed between your prismatic cells until they're up to temp
otherwise your bms will stop your lifepo4 cells charging at below 0 celcius anyhow, assuming you put the thermistor somewhere sensible

>>2936861
series or parallel panels?

>>2938184
Series, parallel would be maybe somewhat better. I've hit 6kW after cutting some branches, at least.

>>2938377
Series is definitely worse for when panels might be clouded, as the current must pass through all panels. But then again, parallel is worse for needing thick wires and splitter cables. Some combination of both is probably best.

I'm thinking of building an outdoor weather + air quality station. I'm talking arduino/esp32 type project. Where I can build the thing and leave out there year round to ping data to my house. It will have temperature, humidity, wind speed, particulate matter
Maybe I'll add more sensors later if this works. I want to put it in a little dog house type box outside with the solar panel on the roof of it and the electronics+battery inside.
What kind of solar setup do I need?

I was thinking a 12V lead acid battery. Maybe a 10W-20W panel. Some basic charge controller. Am I on the right track? It's probably oversized to run some little Arduino project but I don't know of a smaller scale setup. I thought of repurposing some 18650 solar light. But lithium is supposed to be no good to charge below freezing.

> If your application strictly requires charging a battery in freezing temperatures, lead acid can theoretically go all the way to -40°C - with many caveats
Where I am the temperature range is -20C to 35C (-4F to 95F). Realistically the cold temperature range is -10C to 0C. Maybe a few days year does it go to -20C range. I read elsewhere that lead acid can also freeze??? But this here guide says it can do -40C with caveats. What are the caveats?
I can't tell who is being pedantic internet nerd vs practical use.

Am I overthinking or can I just make some basic 12v lead acid setup. Then make sure my electronics sips little battery as possible so it's basically always near full charge.
I've already made battery powered temperature/humidity sensor and PM2.5/CO2 sensors. They operate at very low poll rate for long run time. I'm looking to make larger scale weather station thing. I don't know what I'm doing with this solar stuff.

>>2939938
Within the scope you have, there's a plethora of options.
I'd say the easiest option by far is to just get a large enough NMC 18650 battery that it can outlast the winter. These esp32 sensor projects can have very very low power consumption if they are sufficiently optimized, you can run one for several years off just a single 18650 with a single charge.
Now, since you want a weather station, weather station will probably have sensors that run on interrupts, so you can't utilize deep sleep mode and as such won't get the ultra low power consumption, but you can still achieve about 50-100 days off a single charge of a single 18650 with light sleep and some reserve for broadcasting data in intervals. Get 3 18650 in parallel and you should easily get through winter. Repurpose a 5V solar power bank's circuitry or whatever else for charging, maybe give the esp32 functionality to disable charging when it detects enclosure temperature under 0C. There are lots of various solar-lithium charging modules on aliexpress, you can even just get a 5V solar panel and connect it to a USB-to-18650 charging circuit's input.

More complicated options would be LTO, Na-ion batteries or an insulated enclosure with a built-in heater that uses the solar panel to heat the enclosure before starting to charge the NMC battery.
>caveats for lead acid
Decreased capacity, decreased efficiency, risk of freezing if you discharge the battery too much when it's too cold. Lead acid is still workable, I just wouldn't use it in any project, because the longevity of the batteries is so bad even without the low temp factor.

Insulating the electronics box really well could also be enough to maintain 0C+ inside even without additional heating. Maybe putting a tiny resistor on the solar side to dump like 0.1-0.2W inside the box all the time from solar.

big oil won
they laugh at solarfags

>>2939970
Chinks will laugh at big oil soon enough. Arguably already laughing.

Given electricity is 20 cents a kwh it seems a waste to generate it oneself. For me I prefer having batteries and power stations just for those rare occasions when I get a power outage.

>>2940093
A solar system is somewhere in the range of 5 cents per kWh over 20 years, it's even worse if you already pay out of the ass for meme generators as "backup".

>>2940094
And as soon as you think of running a 1500 watt electric heater it makes solar/battery look foolish.

>>2940110
Because of what?

>>2939950
>More complicated options would be LTO, Na-ion batteries or an insulated enclosure with a built-in heater that uses the solar panel to heat the enclosure before starting to charge the NMC battery
Honestly Na-ion wouldn't be hard to do properly, the worst thing about that chemistry is the large voltage range, you wouldn't be able to use something like a HT7333 to step the voltage down to 3.3V with minimum quiescent current like you can with NMC. If you wanted to run the MCU off a single sodium ion cell with no step-up converter it would need to be able to run at like 2.9V, which may not be suitable for an ESP. Apparently the units without internal flash memory can run down to 2.3V, so it might be an option, but I'm unsure about the RF parts. Running 2S or 3S means cell balancing if you plan on charging them in situ, running 1S otherwise means both step-up and step-down.

As for charging, the CN3795 is an excellent variable voltage low-power "MPPT" solar charge controller, suitable even for tiny panels.

>>2940110
Because gas heaters or heat-pumps make more sense than ever trying to use a 1500W heater on an energy budget?

Is it me or is the government auctioning off all it's solar panels for nothing right now?

>>2942389
Old solar panels are literally worth less than nothing. Not because they don't perform well, but because anything under 400W will have you waste more money on the mounting frame components than it would cost to buy brand new panels.

>>2942449
Not when I mount them with 2 by 4 lmao

>>2942449
I am just throwing those things in the lawn or jerry rigging shit with scrap metal.

>>2927613
Thanks for the great solar guide, anon. I wish everything was written in 4chan style, textbooks could reference "being (financially) raped" or getting "jewed" and it would make them a lot more entertaining.

>>2927638
Show name?

>>2943048
Boku no Pon

>>2943097
Can’t find it on nyaa

>>2926704 (OP)
I've had a cheap 6kwt inverter with batteries but no panels attached running as backup for a while.
Instead of having it run in bypass mode 99% of the time I've wired a reserve input switch (pic related) and have kept the inverter mostly turned off. I've tested it a bunch of times and it worked well.
Finally bought a few panels recently, hooked them up, the inverter recognized them. Switched it from "UTI" mode to "SUB" as that seemed to make the most sense.
Ran the test by switching the relay to manual mode and flipping the switch from utility to backup — just like many times before. This time however lights flickered and went out. Backup mode hasn't worked since, whether on auto or manual. Utility/mains mode runs fine.
I now read 240ish ohm resistance between backup line in and load line (the two bottom left connectors) when in backup mode. Not sure if it's always been like that. Running off utility/mains a similar measurement (common power in to load; i.e. top left to bottom left connectors) reads 0ohm which makes perfect sense.

Reading through testimonies, apparently these kind of devices with red-colored switches are designed for petrol generators whereas for inverters/solar one has to install a similar-looking thing but with a green flag/switch, though I don't see how a simple relay that can survive whatever waveforms cheap petrol generators throw at it would get fried by a "pure sine" inverter. Don't have an oscilloscope to test what it looks like, particularly when the switch triggers, sadly.

Currently torn between ordering the green-colored version rated for inverters or a basic manual 3-position tumbler and forgetting the automatic thing. If these reserve input switches get fried by abnormal waveforms, maybe it's best to have one installed so that it takes one for the team instead of my pc.
Also not a fan of how close the pins on the control line are to each other, the wires are practically touching, sneezing on them would close the circuit.

>>2944467
Does your inverter not support various grid modes? Nowadays even $300 inverters tend to have that backup functionality built-in.

>>2944623
Mine was like $250. It has the following modes (assuming we're talking source priority selection):
—Utility first
—Solar first
—Solar-battery-utility (SBU)
—Solar-Utility-Batter (SUB)
—SUF (SUB+feedback to the grid)

I had it on Utility-first (due to not having the panels) and it worked well.
After installing the panels I switched it to SUB.
This is also when the relay in question fizzled out upon setting the doohickey on manual and flipping the switch from mains to reserve.

Despite the fact that the entire circuit can just be run through the inverter, I'm not planning on having the inverter online at all times because there's going to be hours, days, weeks, possibly months then the panels (3x550W) won't be producing enough juice to make up for its own 24/7 operation. Hence the switch that allows bypassing the inverter entirely so that it can be kept offline. I could just replace it with a tumbler and switch circuits manually but, assuming a 3-positional tumbler with an uncoupled position in the middle, flicking such a switch would probably power off the electronics around the house which would be a nuisance.
Having watched some more vids of users showcasing the aforementioned green-switch version (pic related; this one is 3-phase but it's the same deal), things get more confusing because the authors themselves often find it doesn't work as they expected it would and also don't color-code their wires and swing their camera wildly.
I could just order one and test it, but wouldn't want to wait for it to arrive then leave it lying around if it doesn't fix the issue. Imo the most important mystery to figure out here is what could go wrong with the original reserve input switch which I'd assumed was just a couple of magnetic relays in a fancy box; guess not. If I don't figure this out through videos and advices soon the reasonable thing would be to rip it out and see what's inside. Could just be a loose connection somewhere.

>>2944467
>>2944639
Ok upon opening this magic machine I've figured it out. May as well post it here on the off-chance some control freak makes a similar addition to his wiring and runs into the same issue eventually.
The insides are split into two compartments.
On the right there is a basic control mechanism (mainly this relay: https://www.finglai.com/products/relays/electromagnetic-relays/MY4/ and a pair of bridge rectifiers) along with some kind of pistons that push the lever when in auto mode. That side has a bunch of dielectric lubricant snot.
The left side only has the relay. In order for the circuit to complete the pair of moving contacts obviously needs to make the contact with a pair of stationary ones. Anyway, one side of the neutral moving contacts had a miniscule amount, booger-sized drop, of the snot from the other compartment on it. I'm actually surprised it was enough to insulate the connection.
Cleaning the snot up obviously restored the conductivity. The switch works fine with solar panels and inverter in SUB mode.

>>2944639
But if your inverter has that grid mode, then what are you using the switch for? I assume you don't get instant switching with this setup, whereas the inverter may or may not have proper UPS switching, if it does, it's a bit of a waste to not use it, depending on the application. I guess if you only need fridges and lights to work, then the delay is fine, but computers presumably don't survive the switchover on that.

>>2944684
It's mostly a trust issue; before getting the solar panels the only power coming from the inverter would've been coming from the grid (whether it would be delivered via a bypass or pre-stored in the batteries) and the inverter itself is chinesium, so, just in case, the switch was to bypass the bypass. It's a simpler device with fewer things that could go wrong (though they did kek).

Now that the panels are here, its use case is rather specific, yes.
Still, the thing is it cost as much as a manual tumbler, which would've been a necessity one way or another, and offers the same functionality on top of the automatic thing.
As mentioned above, the manual tumbler would've been there to gain the ability to take the inverter offline for maintenance or saving power at night or in winter. No need for it to run its fans all day.
This automatic switch also has NC and NO contacts on it. These can apparently be used to also start a backup generator, apparently. Ergo theoretically one could also wire them to turn on the inverter itself. They could also be hooked into a ESP board that would relay the status of the grid somewhere, but I haven't gotten around to that either.

Which brings about another point worth reading more about, which is monitoring the status remotely, or at least not limited to the tiny screen on the inverter itself. The "smartESS" (what an amazing name eh) app the manual suggests requires registration for some reason. Looked into it briefly and the only solutions so far have been the smartass app, some paid, but apparently decent, software or a homeassistant integration. The latter suggests an available api, so there's hope for a telegram bot or a standalone webpage setup.

>I assume you don't get instant switching with this setup
With this relay the switching is instantaneous, lights don't even blink. Haven't tested how the inverter would react to a sudden loss of grid connection while under load, probably just fine too.

Would this work anons? Might upgrade to 3S2P if i have to

Price wise, what am I looking at if I want to power a couple of 300 watt led grow panels, a large filter fan and large dehumidifier in my unfinished 15x15' basement?

Ideally just panels that charge batteries I can plug a few things into. Doesn't need to touch the grid at all.

>>2945169
Probably, I've never made mini niggerrig systems. But always expect chinkshit to be at least two-fold overrated, so if you buy something rated for 5A, it can possibly handle 2.5A safely.
>>2946385
How well do you want to be covered in poor weather? How much longevity do you want for the system? If you just want to toss something together for fun, it's probably doable around $300-500, assuming DC only, no inverter. Also "couple of 300W led grow panels" being 2 or 5 makes a huge difference, as well as the amount of hours you want per day.

>>2942710

I visited some folks in Appalachia who are.... doing it with less and always have been. I didnt pull out my phone basically out of respect.

When I got home, I built my second solar array, basically as an experiment and riffing on a theme
like, I saw such hack, makeshift, inspirational, tempermanent half functional shit I wanted to like, do the same with actually making enough clearing to get sun.
pic incoming when daylight happens

>I think I'll just die a virgin instead.
Bro thinks he can change his zodiac sign

>>2947512
>>2927638
whoopsie

our home solar power system upgrade arrived today. 182% PV array expansion. 100% *usable* Battery storage upgrade.

current PV: 2440W
after install: 6940W.

current storage: 300Ah FLA
after install: 300Ah LiFePO4

It's a grid-tied, non-exporting system. this will put us off-grid most of the time. it will make 120% of our daily load during the 9 cooler months, and it will cover 80% of use during the 3 hottest months of the year. we will keep our grid connection for all the obvious advantages, but will only be paying the basic connection fee 75% of the year. I expect to see our yearly total expense drop by 85%-90%.

it will likely take all month to get it fully installed and online. I will start digging the holes and setting the posts tomorrow. i/we have been saving and planning this for 4 years.

>>2948543
Nice, good luck. Did you buy a pre-made battery or a /diy/ pack? If the latter, watch out for the many pitfalls of chinking, dead shorts with the frame from poorly located screws, undersized breakers/fuses on high currents and such.

I also got my second solar system installed just recently, 7kW on a 10kW Deye inverter, but it was all done by a company, I'll only be adding my /diy/ battery at a later point.

>>2948549

our systems, including the software that operates, are very similar.

ours has been all DIY install. we even installed it at one house, then removed it and reinstalled at our new house when we sold/built/moved.

we went with pre-manufactured, UL listed batteries that are approved by our inverter manufacturer, have full closed-loop communication, built-in heaters, BMS and wifi. I was willing to pay for the warranty, reliability & home insurance approval.

>>2948543
>300Ah
>no value given for voltage
Guess you mean 12v then or some shit.
Enjoy your 3.8kwh of battery
Whole thing sounds small as fuck

i want to do a ghetto setup for power cuts, just need something to power an inverter (2000 watt) enough to power a kettle/ air fryer and some lights, also ukfag so 240V.

got an old moped 100cc, will a motorbike battery power an inverter? can i pull one of the headlight bulbs and get my 12v to power the inverter from there?

could also run the moped off a car battery, would the bike be able to keep the battery charged enough?

also how long would a 2000w inverter run for off a fully charged car battery?

also retarded so try to make your answers, simple. thanks

>>2949060
People usually talk about 48V systems, though if >>2948543 is talking about 12V then that is indeed small as fuck. 7kWp isn't that bad for grid-tie.
>>2949101
>will a motorbike battery power an inverter?
Yes, but not for long at 2000W
>can i pull one of the headlight bulbs and get my 12v to power the inverter from there?
Yes, but it will catch on fire. You should run thick cables, at least 16mm2(ideally 35mm2) if you don't want to catch on fire at 2000W from a 12V battery.
>could also run the moped off a car battery, would the bike be able to keep the battery charged enough?
Theoretically yes, if you can fit it on the frame
>also how long would a 2000w inverter run for off a fully charged car battery?
If it's a 90Ah 12V battery, then it's 12*90 = 1080Wh capacity, ~1000Wh / 2000W = 0.5 hours. But the real, safely usable capacity of SLA batteries is much lower than rated, about 50-60%, so it's more like 0.3 hours at 2000W.
Also the internal draw of these small cheapo inverters is around 20-40W, so even if you do absolutely nothing, the inverter would drain the battery in about 20-40 hours. You could reasonably power a laptop, small lights, make one coffee worth of hot water once.

Anyone on here experienced with solar submersible pump kits? Any recommendations on brands to get or avoid?

I'm going to need to dig a couple shallow wells for livestock water and set up some solar wells to keep some water tanks full.

>>2949113
I have used a 55 gallon seaflow pump in my RV, it plugs into 120, but 12 volt is available too, I already had a 12v volt 45. It can handle sea water; salt is corrosive as fuck.

Would I be better off getting the 800 watt or two 400 watts bougerv solar panels? I can't find any information.

>>2950510
What is the voltage of the 800W panel? What is the minimum voltage of your charge controller? Also is that actually 800W or you misreading a listing? Because 800W is a very non-standard wattage.
The theoretical 800W panel would also be gigantic and a pain to handle for one person, so probably 2x400W is the way to go.

>>2950571
I can't find anything on their website, so I am thinking it's two 400 watts put together. Same with voltage. I should call them and ask because it's not described at all.

I recently bought a 310W Longi solar panel, but have yet to generate anything yet. It's been cloudy the past few days so I'm sure that's been playing into it. But, I may have damaged the panel trying to get it through my window. How can I test the panel without direct sun?

>>2951298
Well for starters, slap a multimeter on the leads when it's exposed to at least some outdoor light, and check if you have voltage. If you do have voltage, you could theoretically connect it to a resistive heater or something to see if it can also deliver some power, but if you have absolutely no idea about electronics or Ohm's law, then probably best not to try it.
Check your inverter(if you have one), see what its minimum panel voltage is, you could be under the threshold with just a single panel.

>>2951300
I've tried that but I'm only getting a half of a millivolt. The Mega Oupes I have isn't registering anything.

>>2951302
Post pictures of where the panel is and what you are doing with the multimeter. Even if it's overcast, panels should have pretty high voltage when open circuit.
The Oupes thing, if it's this one https://manuals.plus/tr/oupes/mega-3-3600w-solar-generator-plus-manual has MPPT from 18V so it should work with the single panel.

>>2951305
Sun's out today at least but I'm still in the shade for now. I was measuring every hour still only getting about the same throughout the day. At night I was reading 0 so there is something going on. Panel has an Voc of 40.

>>2951320
have you opened the plastic box on the back?

Now the angle is off and that's not helping. But the previous set up I had was still producing some wattage at this angle (when it was getting sun.) The reason I'm worried about it being broken is the thing was subjected to torque based tension when I was trying to get it through the window. I've dropped panels in the past and gotten away with it, but I've never tried to twist one.

>>2951321
Since putting it outside no. I know the thing was good before putting it out there but as soon as it made it to the spot I needed, it's been nothing.

Worth noting there is 3 junction boxes on the back, I've only opened 2 the positive and negative ones.

>>2951325
i have never seen that

>>2951326
Here's the back side

>>2951320
>>2951325
Check the boxes if there is voltage in them while exposing the panel to some sun. Even in that shaded condition, you definitely should have near-full voltage open circuit. I'm assuming you are open circuit when measuring, i.e. panel not connected to anything but multimeter.
You can also test for internal short with ohm-meter in 200k range, but only do that in night time. And you can test the bypass diodes, forward should be ~0.5V, backwards should be OL.
>>2951327
Also maybe hook the multimeter in for voltage reading as close to the panel as possible, just in case your wires have breaks in them.

>>2951327
maybe the diodes are in there?

>>2951328
I was worried you were going to say that those boxes are a bitch to open. I'll keep you posted if I see anything unusual. If not I may have to go back to my old setup.

fuck

>>2951328
From what I could scrape away there is some voltage (11.9V) but the panels at the wires is still only a few millivolts

>>2951335
So either your wires are bad or some part of the panel is internally shorted.

>>2951336
it has to be the panel because at the actual connection point I'm still only getting a few millivolts.

which probably means it's totaled, yes?

>>2951337
Oh so some diodes have voltage but the cable connection point is dead? Then yeah, panel is probably fucked. You could remove some of the diodes strategically and harvest some of its internal strings for power, the ones that aren't damaged, but it might not be worth the effort.

>>2951340
not with all that white gunk shit in there. So how do I dispose of panels?

>>2940110
>using resistive heating
NGMI, bud
Might as well keep fattening yourself up for when you are eaten

Thoughts on Jackery generators?

>>2927613
your solar guide mentions "overpriced" stuff, but what is the best stuff out there? assume a 20K$ budget.

>>2952076
oh and this is for an off grid setup

>>2952076
Deye inverters are the best value on the market, as far as functions go. You can get a 12kW unit for about $2k. They can be paralleled for up to 10 units IIRC, but for residential you should be fine on 12kW. Buy a self-starting generator as backup, then spend the rest of the money spamming batteries and solar panels. You should be able to get about 30-50kWp in panels and 100kWh in batteries if you /diy/ everything at $20k. If you can't /diy/ everything for legal reasons, get a company to install the Deye with a barebones setup, legalize that, then divide the rest between panels and batteries. You can also buy decent pre-made server rack batteries on the cheap now, but they're still about twice the price of /diy/. Will Prowse is always reviewing these, so just watch a couple of his recent videos and pick from that if you're inclined to buy.
Alternatively you can buy fartsniffing brands like SolarEdge, Fronius, Enphase, or at worst, Victron, where $10k will go towards doing the same thing the Deye does for $2k, and some can't even do the same thing after all the money. They will also usually eat your retirement fund in battery costs.

>>2952076
get an efficiency study by an engineer/architect that has nothing to do with any system supplier
often fixing some inefficiencies first is better than spamming more solar. you end with a more comfortable house, and less shit that can fail or wear

>>2952136
>>2952115
thank you for the good advice!

>>2952136
>efficiency study
You could buy a chink thermal camera and 10kW worth of panels for that.

>>2952184
its less than 1000€ in my country, and involves more than just heat

Big upgrade 2/3 installed & online.

replaced 4 year old FLA with 3x LifePO4 for 15,000Wh usable storage. added 2225w panels for a total of 4665w PV currently. I have another 2225w that I am in process of installing now. finished post holes this evening. will start cutting & welding support posts & mount rails this weekend.

even with only half of the new array up, it has been life changing.

grid-tied, non-export.

>>2951333
dont cum in the pv panel anon.

Adding Tigo optimizers to half of my second string because the shading is just insane. If one side of the string is finally in full sun, another tree shades a panel on the opposite side. That's 8 out of 16, quite possible that I'll need 2-3 more to reach half-decent performance.

I had a gross misconception about bypass diodes, that they bypass a panel when it is fully shaded. It's actually the opposite, bypass diodes only work if the panel is partially shaded and the partial shade is asymmetric between internal strings of cells, and if you are fully shaded, the entire string drops, or if the internal strings are all partially shaded, the entire string drops to the performance of the worst performing cell string.

>>2955582
Gotem plugged in. Install is simple and straightforward, accessing the backside of the panels maybe a bit less so. Will see on a sunny day how much of a difference it makes.

full system upgrade online. one full week tomorrow. it's incredible. 100% load coverage during solar hours, batteries charged by ~13:00 and able to carry us through 23:00 most evenings/nights off grid. set TOU to switch back to Grid at 40% SOC. we only buy power for ~7 hours between 23:00 to 7:30. that's a 75%-80% reduction in Grid usage. bills should drop by ~70% on average. that means many months it will just be the base connection fee.

full system upgrade online. one full week tomorrow. it's incredible. 100% load coverage during solar hours, batteries charged by ~13:00 and able to carry us through 23:00 most evenings/nights off grid. set TOU to switch back to Grid at 40% SOC. we only buy power for ~7 hours between 23:00 to 7:30. that's a 75%-80% reduction in Grid usage. bills should drop by ~70% on average. that means many months it will just be the base connection fee.

Finally independent. Feels good.

Watching lifepo battery prices drop like a catholic girls panties on prom night, how much lower can they go???

>>2956397
Realistically, not much lower. You're already mostly paying for shipping costs. ~$40/kWh is probably going to be the floor, currently at $50-55/kWh. I'm thinking about replacing my home battery with those new 600Ah cells (and thus bringing it from 16kWh to 32kWh), and using the home cells for my second solar system that currently doesn't have a battery. The Grade A EVE cells are about 110 euros a piece at nkon, that's not bad for EVE.

Anyone know at what point your utility willstart squaking about excess power generation?

>be my friend
> permit for the basic California 10kw basic system
> double the system output after final abd PGE PTO
>still not wiping out hisNEM 2.0 “tru up”
> adding more panels mebbe max it Enphase maximum of 64..

profit?

>>2956401
allieex is selling 280ah ecoworthys for 231 bucks free shipping. rught now… What is that per kw?

>>2956207
my brother in law used to get checks from his muni utility in CA…

NEM 1.0 master race…

>>2956404
If he limits his inverter to 10kW export, then they shouldn't care too much unless they are autistic enough to look at satellite images on how many panels each house has. If he doesn't limit his inverter, they will figure it out sooner or later and he will probably get fined.
>>2956406
$58 per kWh assuming it actually has the rated capacity. Which would be really good for a completed battery, the nkon cells are without case or BMS. But alas, I wouldn't trust home storage on aliexpress batteries, those are more for like an off-grid shed or whatever.

Whaddyall think of this scenario:

Taking my shop off grid.
-need split phase 220 for minisplit, welder.
-running standard (murrican) size refer/freezer 24x7
-

wish list:

EG4 split ohase 6000 w inverter/charge controller eg4 server rack 51.2v batts x 4

-materials on hand:
-16 250watt BP solar panels (salvaged from a homeowner replacement job)
-piles of Iron ridge 14’ rail
- boxes of leftiver IR and unirac flash foots, flash loc comps etc
plenty of wire.

>>2956418
It's fine. But don't expect those panels to do well in the winter, might need to top up with generator now and then, depending on how much you work in the shop. Minisplit heating in winter would also be a challenge. Also learn everything about safety elements and grounding if you are doing a full /diy/ job. Use proper solar wire for connecting the panels to the inverter.