diy solar

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  • Post in thread: State of charge chart

    You’re sort of missing the point. You could interpolate between those two incorrect points on the chart and you’d get 61%, but that wouldn’t be a good estimation of the actual SoC. It could be 40% or 70% at that voltage. Or if there’s a large load it could be 80%. Or if you’re charging it could...
  • Post in thread: theoretical order of cell by capacity

    For me it's cell number 8 in a 16s pack, so I guess that makes me the 1% and there are 99 batteries out there with a first or last bad cell to balance things out. Or maybe on the typical 4s battery, half of the cells are the first or last and so it seems like those are the ones that fail most...
  • Post in thread: BMS with limited load current

    The latter, they just cut it off. Limiting current draw needs to be done on the load side. Yes, the JK BMS's can adjust this up to the rated value. Not sure about others.
  • Post in thread: New solar panel voltages?

    I would just ignore those nominal voltages. Years ago when people where using PWM controllers, 'matching' panels to battery voltages made sense. But MPPT controllers are cheap enough now that there's really not much reason to use PWMs. What that's done is made it so that panels don't have to...
  • Post in thread: Charging EG4 Power Pro batteries in parallel with EG4 Chargeverter in a emergency

    I don't see any problems with this. I also don't see a necessity to disconnect the inverter, though it won't hurt anything.
  • Post in thread: Volt-Amps and Watts

    There's just so much wrong with this. This part is pretty much correct. 'Sine' wave, but the intent was clear enough. Sign Sine wave starts at 0 deg peaks at 90 deg and drops to zero crossing the zero axis and peaks at minus 180 degs, then peaks again with opposite polarity at or 270 degrees...
  • Post in thread: Initial charge for lithium iron phosphate batteries.

    This is likely not really a problem. Your connection scheme is ok. Not as good as bus bars, but totally fine. Because LFP batteries have a such a flat charge/discharge curve, minor differences (in battery characteristics, cable lengths, connection resistance, etc.) can cause batteries to charge...
  • Post in thread: Balancing multiple lifepo4 batteries

    Ah, I see. Wiring them together in parallel won’t help you. Having them at the same voltage tells you nothing about SoC (edit: unless voltage is above 13.6V), and that’s what you need to get equal. I don’t have a suggestion for how to balance those batteries with only a 48V charger. You might...
  • Post in thread: Can LifePo4 cell capacity be determined through charging up (as against discharging from 100%)

    Yes, this should work well. The Ah to charge and the Ah to discharge should be at least very close to the same with LFP. Energy (Wh) will be different, but as discussed elsewhere on the forum, Ah is a better capacity measure anyway. One thing to consider is at what current you’ll stop charging...
  • Post in thread: Starting Solar Assistant without internet

    You’re right that SA’s website says it should already come activated, but it looks like that’s what’s missing. You may need to connect it to the internet (just once) and click that green ‘Register Site’ button at the top. Then it should work with no internet afterwards.
  • Post in thread: Paralleling Generators?

    Check the documentation for your solar generator, and unless it specifically says that you can do this, don't do it. The problem is syncing the AC sine waves and keeping them in sync, which usually requires some sort of communication.
  • Post in thread: Cable management is lacking...

    If you don’t have code requirements for metal conduit and just want to make it look tidy (and protect from things catching on it), cable raceway is an option that’s not too expensive:
  • Post in thread: Running out?

    A few things: Count on Starlink drawing more like 50W in heavy use, maybe 30-40 on idle. Turn off heating for the summer, it'll push that up to more like 200W intermittently. I'm guessing the cabin is in Canada, so overnight low temps could be enough that heating activates. Don't neglect the...
  • Post in thread: Can I just set the panels on the ground?

    Just making a note on your silence about the fate of any bystanders... ;)
  • Post in thread: Do I really need to put cells under compression or just be able to withstand expansion?

    The manufacturers also say to put these cells in an EV and charge and discharge them at 1C, but none of us are doing that either. Our use case is vastly different from what the cell manufacturers intended. In my opinion the majority of us will calendar-age these things to death long before we...
  • Post in thread: Consumer Nuclear Batteries Goodbye Solar and Lithium?

    "The half-life of that company was somewhat shorter than expected." This is gold.
  • Post in thread: Power Queen LiFePO4, BMS cuts off charge at low voltage

    This is pretty much what should happen. The charge curve is very flat, so you're storing energy without the voltage changing much. This is 3.525V per cell, and really not that bad. At this point, your battery is charged. This is a good thing. If it's accurate, it means you have more...
  • Post in thread: Have any of you all looked into building a Tesla magnetic Wheel?

    Exactly. And if ‘they’ (presumably oil companies) knew about it and were keeping it from ‘us’, they would definitely be using it in their own processes. And working in that industry for 20 years, I can assure you they are doing no such thing.
  • Post in thread: Please check my diagram

    Not to harp on this too much, but your diagram isn’t correct. Your negative cable from the battery needs to go: Battery -> BMS -> Shunt -> Bus Bar The shunt needs to see all current going in and out of the battery on the negative side.
  • Post in thread: Shorted 12v, 4 Lifepo4 (280aH) battery

    To be blunt: Don’t fuck around with cells in series without a BMS. Just don’t. I’m guessing a BMS wouldn’t have helped with whatever happened, but still. Disassemble your battery until the BMS arrives. If you measure each cell with a voltmeter individually and they all show 3.2 to 3.3, the...
  • Post in thread: 48v 16 cell.. do i need to charge individual cells before I put in series and charge?

    This will work but take a long time. If your cells are nearly empty, it will take 74ah * 16 cells / 10a = 118 hours, or about 5 days. If you want to speed it up, you can assemble into the final pack (with BMS!!) and charge with the Multiplus until the BMS cuts off charging, then disassemble and...
  • Post in thread: Mitigating Inverter Noise--Convection cooling or placing at a distance outdoors?

    While maybe not impossible, it's generally better to have your batteries and inverter close to each other. Otherwise you spend a fortune on very large gauge wire to deal with voltage drop on the DC side. If you're really only talking about 200W of load except when running the minisplit, you...
  • Post in thread: Fuse for 60watt 24v panel

    You don’t need a fuse for a single panel going to a charge controller. Fuses protect from overcurrent, but you have no possible source for current other than the panel, and it’s short circuit current is only 1.83 Amps, which won’t hurt the panel, or the wire, or the SCC.
  • Post in thread: Remote monitoring four SP6548 Inverters

    Short answer: It's not possible. Longer answer: I don't think those Renogy 500A monitors are capable of communicating with anything. But even if they were, Renogy does a great job of making sure that their equipment won't communicate with anything other than their own monitoring solution (the...
  • Post in thread: 36/48V Lead Acid ---> 48V Lithium

    Agreed. Programming with the display is a pain.
  • Post in thread: First 24 v system

    No, the VA ratings are independent of the input voltage. Your 24/500 is built for 500VA only, and I think the continuous rating in those is a little lower, so your 500W heater will eventually overload the inverter. Might want to step up that size a little. What will change between a 12V and a...
  • Post in thread: Remote monitoring four SP6548 Inverters

    Also, this is a bad idea, but I see that others have been recently telling you this on another thread, so I will stop beating the dead horse... Now.
  • Post in thread: New, slightly confused

    That’s not an MPPT controller. From the Amazon description: I think someone on the forum has a rule of thumb that if the SCC has a USB charging port, it’s PWM with a sticker on it. And that’s what this is.
  • Post in thread: JK 1A or 2A?

    I guess it depends on how much of a rush you're in to get the five out-of-balance banks balanced... If it's no rush and they aren't limiting your ability to operate your system, go ahead and save some money with the 1A balancers. As long as you're regularly getting pack voltage high enough to...
  • Post in thread: New Solar Power Company, any 1 heard of Calpha Solar?

    That inverter is a rebranded SRNE: SRNE 5000W inverter
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