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Disclaimer: I mention vendors below and use them as an example and as reference. This should not be considered an endorsement of said vendors! In light of Will's recent video and some of the comments both there and on the forum, I thought it would be a good idea to do a full cost analysis of a...

I'm writing this post since it seems there is a lot of confusion (especially in the comment section of a certain youtuber in Australia) on why both MOSFETs in a typical single port BMS are controlled individually and why/how this works when they're in the same series circuit. It will hopefully...

Let me know when I can buy battery packs off-the-shelf, insulated and heated, with easy maintenance for anywhere near the price I make my own. There will always be room for DIY since it's not just about price: it's about knowing how the system works, being able to fix it when it breaks with...

I thought this deserved some attention: the forum just reached 100k users! Well done @Will Prowse and everyone else contributing to making this place excellent!

Ok, I need to get this off my chest. It's been bugging me for some time now, and a recent YT video made it worse. Terminology matters. A lot. In engineering, words have specific meanings and these terms help us communicate ideas and concepts correctly. When people start assigning other meanings...

Probably not really feasible, but I'd like to see off-grid set-ups from around the world, where they all have their unique challenges and solutions.

Keeping in line with the whole low-cost solar system, building my own braided bus bars, etc. I thought I would see what it takes to build a low-cost ground mount for those 500W 96 cell panels (1310mm x 1956mm). My goals were to make the whole thing simple to build, with minimal tools and simple...

My braided bus bars:

This is a recalculation based on the situation today, of what I did last year. Disclaimer: I mention vendors below and use them as an example and as reference. This should not be considered an endorsement of said vendors! Let's start again with leveling the playing field. The EG4 is a 5kWh...

Part of that means being able to guide people to the stuff they need. This automatically means pointing out where to get them. To be honest, I'd rather have a vendor engage on the forum and have a two way communication in the open, than some he said/she said over Alibaba. Much easier to call out...

So after running my 32 EVE cells for the past 6 months I decided to pull my weakest cell and do a capacity test. Tester used was a CBA IV, at 20A discharge (can not really do a .2C test right now). Result: Ignore the bump at the 50Ah mark, I tightened the nuts better around that time - but...

If she did not have that fuse, this would have been a lot worse... Definitely worth the cost of the Class T fuse.

So, instead of just doing the usual and buying some Victron and Batrium equipment and calling it a day, I went shopping on Alibaba and Aliexpress to see if I could build my entire 32x280Ah and 10kW solar panels system for under 10K Euro, keeping in mind the power and charge requirements - so not...

Some of us on this forum took a risk several years ago when we first bought these cells, before anyone on YT even knew about them. I did that because a) I was looking for something else besides Winston cells and b) If these cells worked, they would be able to get me the amount of storage I...

Sometimes (especially these days now that we see the sun again) I forget I'm on solar. I rarely check on it at all - I've got other things to do with my time.

Until I see some evidence to the contrary, I do not believe this is due to a LFP explosion, off-gassing or otherwise.

Most of the time, someone (me included) will make a post in the thread pointing out the correct units. Nuking the post is not useful, but corrections made in responses help educate people.

Ok, this has been grinding my gears to the point where I'm annoyed with it, so I just wanted to write it down here. I see statements like this all over the net when it comes to cell capacity testing: - "you need to divide the Wh reading by the nominal voltage of 3.2V to get the real Ah...

Another 36 solar panels, 410W, for 99 Euro each.

Ok, update time. Finally had some time to have a look at the new BMS. The new one on the right, old one on the left. They're both 100A versions to keep the comparison easier. The port to the right of the GPS/RS485 label is the display port. As Dave Jones would say: "Don't turn it on. Take it...

First test version of my flexible bus bars, with nickel plated contacts. Nickel plating was done with nickel acetate, made with vinegar and a pure nickel bar used for electroplating.

I'm posting this in a thread here since it might be useful for people. Please keep in mind that the below calculator contains bugs and doesn't do error checking - it's literally been 5 minutes to put together. Ok, so what does it do? It calculates the maximum open circuit voltage you would see...

As some of you may know, I'm in the process of moving my batteries into a new enclosure. Reasons: it's more organized, space is better optimized, and I can add more batteries more easily later if needed. This is the first time I took these apart since I built them somewhere early 2020. I bought...

What do copper pipes say when they leave? Cu later!

Spam Bots pushing whatever they can trying to overwhelm a system. One of the issues is that the posts all started a new thread, and that this is harder to deal with to just designate the user as a spammer and delete all the posts. It's something that should be addressed in an update to the forum...

You will always need more batteries and panels ;)

So, time for an update again! - Solar panels and charge controllers No problems what so ever. I bought some other panels in the mean time (36 x 410W Astronergy panels as mentioned in the post above, of which I kept 16 myself). This brings the total to 16.5kWp installed. Those additional panels...

Yeah, the first time you deal with those size of panels, you go: what the F**k did I get myself into...

Same here with AWG. Sure, let's indicate bigger conductors with smaller numbers. Oh no, we reached 0, let's go 00 and 000 and 0000. Yeah, makes sense 👌

We're not usually editing posts, but for the safety of the poster I've removed email and home addresses from the initial post and all replies.