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A few years back I purchased a dmppt450 from Electrodacus but did not have enough solar panels to use it. Now I have some more panels and ten 16 gallon plastic barrels with 18awg wire for some tests. It should be rather automatic which was the selling point for me. There wasn't any technique I...

Am I not wrong in thinking "when conditions get worse" almost nothing you can do will get you much heat? Doesn't that account for a very small percentage of total heat production? It sounds to me like most of the time 1000w of panels will give 600-900w of solar. Those bad times you are talking...

Watched your video, thank you for sharing. I like the idea of using your sand to get water out of wood or to make quick lime. Cleaning out the garage today, and found two bags of sand. At the very least I should do an "experiment" where I heat the sand enough to dry it out... :) I know this is...

Any projects that have progressed with the sand batteries? In the US there has been a recurring joke about retailers selling 8 hot dogs in a pack vs 10 hot dog buns. This happens with solar panels and heating elements; both come in fixed and often incompatible combinations. I like the idea of...

I found attaching busbars and bolts and nuts to be neither time consuming nor much of a PITA, which is how many bare cells are combined. It was way easier than the mental energy needed to design a system. Someone who finds these things difficult would not typically want to diy a solar system in...

I don't know why so many continue to encourage fellow DIYers to buy costly, premade 12v packs and then link them all together in some way that is or isn't recommended by the manufacturer. Sidestep most of the issues discussed above by purchasing your own bms for whatever voltage you decide...

I've used LTO pouch cells in relatively low power applications with no bms at all. If you avoid a bms for whatever reason, I think it would be nice to have a small screen that displays the voltage of each cell in series so you could self-monitor. At the very least a single total voltage...

I had a longwinded explanation typed out, but the short answer typically is, "get one more panel." I am aware this is often not available or affordable on other solar setups which have panels in series to get higher voltages. This flexibility is another advantage for the Electrodacus system...

What types of numbers are you getting from these four panels? I have ten 250w panels hooked to my sbms120 and it can produce over 1850w in full sun.

Check electrodacus's site as he just posted some info comparing 3 x 255w and 3 x 260w panels on a sbms0+dssr50 vs 6 x 260w panels on a sbms+Victron 50a mppt charger. It looks like on a sunny day the mppt was around 5-6% more efficient. It will be interesting to see his results on overcast days...

I should also point out the cost. I can occasionally find the Ushaped Midea units on facebook marketplace for $100-150 used. I picked one up on clearance at walmart for $200 a few years ago at the end of summer. And not only is it more powerful and energy efficient, it sounds somewhere around...

I have a somewhat similar system. I use a U shaped Midea window AC that is 8000btu. My much older traditional 6000btu AC window unit would occasionally trip up my inverter when it started and other things were being used in the house. My newer midea has never caused an issue. The difference is...

I saw my purchase as directly economically supporting someone I hope will be around in a few years to build other products (or maybe help me troubleshoot). I could have easily spent a lot more money on Aliexpress or Amazon and received various black boxes that I wired together with no...

One person's primitive is another person's simplicity and elegant design. What type of system were you attempting to set up that couldn't be done with the Electrodacus system? I have a 4000w cheap inverter using 200ah 8s 24v lifepo4 battery. The sbms120 keeps my cells voltages very close and I...

I just noticed on his forum Dacian purchased a Victron mppt unit and is currently testing it with a similar dssr50 and sbms0 setup side-by-side. I look forward to his results in the next few weeks. I'm happy enough with my sbms120 that in 2.5yrs I haven't considered switching but just added more...

I just wanted to add I've been using 16 of these 32650 premade packs for over two years as a 24v system and they've worked well. I haven't checked the capacity lately but haven't felt the need. My guess is batteryhookup stopped selling them because they sold out, but I'll maybe have to read up...

I want to find a way to use two old home theater subwoofers with failed amplifier boards. I also have two Jensen XDA92rb car audio amps which run on a typical 12v car battery, around 240w rms @4ohm (600w peak) which matches well with the subwoofers. I have a 24v 200ah lifepo4 battery charged...

I seem to keep reading over and over that white "something" is really the best source of reflected light. I like your idea of using the water to cool the panels, and you would have a decent supply of it nearby, and power to run a pump when it was sunny out.

That picture you posted seems similar to the individual lto cells I picked up a while back. Never seen them put together before. I wish I had that many... I think mine are 10ah, 2.2v flat pouch cells. I believe they are to be charged to 2.85v and you stop discharge before 2v. They have similar...

One idea that isn't mentioned much is to hook up solar panels outside and wire them up to solar panels inside. Panels are basically just large surface area diodes that can dissipate heat, and you can more easily keep them near the max power point of the outside panel and get a bit more energy...

I'm no expert on this (pardon my terms), but I believe the correct answer would be to focus on the ohms. There are many youtube videos I think that try and fail to really explain this in a simple way. In this case with resistance heating (no inductive motor, etc), AC and DC operate essentially...

But generally, shouldn't a well-educated person purchase a 3000w/12v inverter expecting to never get anywhere near 3000w? For the price, it could work well as a 1500w or 2000w hard limit inverter... since you are the one designing and using the system. For what its worth, I've been using my...

Yes, I shall hense forth and with great haste be banned from further "inteligent" discussion... You've made my day. :)

Sorry, yeah like one of those. The power supplies needed can be crazy expensive, but if you have a huge DC battery from solar... Same with some audio equipment I've noticed.

Is there already a thread? I've seen a few decent designs for DC induction heaters which can get hot enough to melt aluminum. With enough solar you could skip the expensive power supplies and it all suddenly becomes quite inexpensive. Add in some insulation...

"All goes to custard" made my day. I've never heard that before. Thanks. My high temp concern is certainly more for water because runaway could mean steam and pressure and problems. I've seen people discussing various heating elements can have plastic which melts well before the limit of the...

In my thought experiment, a water tank heats up and there is some energy storage there, but the water tubes heating the floor would make the mass of the wood floor the actual battery storage. My thinking is you don't need to "release it when you need it" if your house is already warm. I could...

Not the way I'm proposing it isn't, but if you can't access underneath the floor it would complicate things for sure. My issue with air sand is you have to still somehow move the heat around with fans. I have just heard too many people gushing about radiant floor heat and I've liked it the...

MyK3y, is this inside your house or underneath and outside? I was leaning towards water for storage because I can keep a tank in my basement, then use a dc water pump to circulate hot water through some pex tubing. I was going to mount the pex tubing underneath my wood floor, then attach...

Hey, thanks for sharing. My solar panels have an indented area on the side profile of the aluminum. It feels like a perfect place/size for a rubber garden hose to go. Then you just push the panels and the hose acts a bit like a gasket. It wouldn't be perfect for drips I'd argue it doesn't have...

I'll admit pouring my dehumidifier condensate into the toilet tank after a flush. I'm less excited about using it to shower or wash my hands or drink because I've read too many in depth discussions of what these companies coat their radiators/coils with.

Any time I find a decent ground mount idea I find something to dismantle the idea, often it becomes quite expensive. I was contemplating a solar pergola to shade my porch and back of my house (southern facing, yeah). I'm the guy who would live in a geodesic dome but I've read enough to...

Just wanted to say thanks for coming back and sharing your photos. It is rare to see a question, then read comments, and then see a final product.

"DC bench power" for these isdt chargers just means you can adjust the voltage and current output on a screen. They have presets for lifepo4, lead acid, etc. They didn't have a setting for lithium titanate at 2.8v so I had to manually set it in the "DC bench power" mode. Just a screen in the...

Maybe not exactly what you are after, but I often use a charger made to charge various size lipo batteries. ISDT is the brand, and mine does 8s at 20a. It also has a "DC bench power" function that can use anything over 12V and can downconvert as low as you want or upconvert to 30v at 10a. They...