Hello wise people.
First-time poster.
I foolishly never asked for help building the original, and decided I needed to ask for help before I drop $2k on new batteries.
Q: Can I keep my setup, primarily as-is, and swap in some 24V Lithium battery solution that will best use the system's potential...and do I have anything in my setup which would be harmful/reduce life of the Lithium batteries?
For 5 years this system charged (12) lead-acid 210aH golf cart batteries. 3 strings of 4batts x (6v) = 24V.
So I believe it was 3 serial strings in parallel - 24v @ 610aH.
It was mostly guess work on panel potential vs batt capacity.
I calculate the lead-acid battery pack had 15.1kW capacity. Maybe 8-9kW usable.
6 x 370w Silfab Panels (DC). 2 banks of 3 panels each. Each bank of 3 panels connected in parallel to one CC.
I use two EPEVER 40A Tracer 4210AN MPPT 100V charge controllers.
I have a WZRELB 3000watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter 24V DC to 120V AC 60HZ (1st one died at about 10 months, the replacement is still going for the last 4 years)
I primarily used this for charging my Chevy Volt with approx. 16kW battery capacity.
Depending on C. Wisconsin temps, the car would go 30-44 miles on a full charge. My battery bank on a sunny summer day could charge the car up to 21+ miles after I got home at night. On sunny weekends it could charge the car all day, too, while banking any overage.
I can replace the EPEVER charge controllers if it will make enough of an improvement to warrant it...but would rather not. I THINK they are doing fine...but perhaps they aren't the right tool for the job or I could configure things better.
Hopefully that is enough information to go on, any help would be appreciated.
I will see if I have some of my hand drawn schematics to illustrate.
I can't swear how I have the panels wired (serial or parallel) but I can go trace my wiring to know for sure. But each bank of 3 - 370 W panels is dedicated to one EPEVER 40A Tracer 4210AN MPPT 100V charge controller and I believe how they are attached to the CC is in parallel.
I initially had 8 batteries when launched in January, upgraded to 12 almost immed. Also I was wrong about the car's batt. capacity...likely it was closer to 15-16Kwh
Notes on primary uses:
For about 3 years this worked well, dumping as much as I could from my solar battery bank into the car with the 110v, 8a Level 1 charger (approx 1500w) coming from the WZRELB inverter. Using a 220v, Level 2 charger is more efficient but wasn't feasible. I would switch the car charger (manually) to wall-outlet (grid) power when my solar bank was empty. The batteries were starting to disappoint after about 3 years. I managed to water them fairly religiously but then got lazy a couple of times after the 3 year mark and didn't do the batteries any favors. Very rough calculations, for about 4 years I was able to provide about 60% of my hybrid electric car's electrical miles using sunpower...possibly 30k miles. At $3 a gallon, that would be $2150 in my case. No idea how much eff. I was losing between panels and batteries, or batteries to car. Prob. 15-20% overall at least. But this whole system is all localized, the panels are ground mounted outside against the garage, the controllers and batteries just inside that same wall and the car parked on that side of the garage. It has been reliable and effective, if not ideal or best efficiency.
First-time poster.
I foolishly never asked for help building the original, and decided I needed to ask for help before I drop $2k on new batteries.
Q: Can I keep my setup, primarily as-is, and swap in some 24V Lithium battery solution that will best use the system's potential...and do I have anything in my setup which would be harmful/reduce life of the Lithium batteries?
For 5 years this system charged (12) lead-acid 210aH golf cart batteries. 3 strings of 4batts x (6v) = 24V.
So I believe it was 3 serial strings in parallel - 24v @ 610aH.
It was mostly guess work on panel potential vs batt capacity.
I calculate the lead-acid battery pack had 15.1kW capacity. Maybe 8-9kW usable.
6 x 370w Silfab Panels (DC). 2 banks of 3 panels each. Each bank of 3 panels connected in parallel to one CC.
I use two EPEVER 40A Tracer 4210AN MPPT 100V charge controllers.
I have a WZRELB 3000watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter 24V DC to 120V AC 60HZ (1st one died at about 10 months, the replacement is still going for the last 4 years)
I primarily used this for charging my Chevy Volt with approx. 16kW battery capacity.
Depending on C. Wisconsin temps, the car would go 30-44 miles on a full charge. My battery bank on a sunny summer day could charge the car up to 21+ miles after I got home at night. On sunny weekends it could charge the car all day, too, while banking any overage.
I can replace the EPEVER charge controllers if it will make enough of an improvement to warrant it...but would rather not. I THINK they are doing fine...but perhaps they aren't the right tool for the job or I could configure things better.
Hopefully that is enough information to go on, any help would be appreciated.
I will see if I have some of my hand drawn schematics to illustrate.
I can't swear how I have the panels wired (serial or parallel) but I can go trace my wiring to know for sure. But each bank of 3 - 370 W panels is dedicated to one EPEVER 40A Tracer 4210AN MPPT 100V charge controller and I believe how they are attached to the CC is in parallel.
I initially had 8 batteries when launched in January, upgraded to 12 almost immed. Also I was wrong about the car's batt. capacity...likely it was closer to 15-16Kwh
Notes on primary uses:
For about 3 years this worked well, dumping as much as I could from my solar battery bank into the car with the 110v, 8a Level 1 charger (approx 1500w) coming from the WZRELB inverter. Using a 220v, Level 2 charger is more efficient but wasn't feasible. I would switch the car charger (manually) to wall-outlet (grid) power when my solar bank was empty. The batteries were starting to disappoint after about 3 years. I managed to water them fairly religiously but then got lazy a couple of times after the 3 year mark and didn't do the batteries any favors. Very rough calculations, for about 4 years I was able to provide about 60% of my hybrid electric car's electrical miles using sunpower...possibly 30k miles. At $3 a gallon, that would be $2150 in my case. No idea how much eff. I was losing between panels and batteries, or batteries to car. Prob. 15-20% overall at least. But this whole system is all localized, the panels are ground mounted outside against the garage, the controllers and batteries just inside that same wall and the car parked on that side of the garage. It has been reliable and effective, if not ideal or best efficiency.
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