Most reacted posts

I am totally on your side. I had a builder put the first row on the roof, because I didn't want to fall off, but the rest are leaning against whatever is lying around. I think the tie it down for a cyclone mentality is for installers putting panels on rooves in crowded suburbs. You don’t...

Thanks @wattmatters. The battery will be in a shed, and the (Overkill) BMS will have a temperature sensor. But that is not in place while I am running capacity tests on individual cells. I am running the tests with the ZKE Tech 5 amp tester, so even the charge phase on a 304Ah cell takes days...

I've done a quick search on cooling and many solutions posted here seem heavily engineered and expensive. My offgrid solar system saves me about $2 a day from my electricity bills, so I have opted for using a cheap domestic evaporative cooler: That works quite well on its own, but I can...

Posted in error: I wrote a post complaining that the story didn't continue, and then realised that it went over the page o_O

I still have at least 6 weeks before any cells arrive, so feeling bored, I thought I'd add a financial aspect to the power and energy audit, making it a power, energy and financial audit. I've just rediscovered that the grid-tied Fronius inverter, connected to the panels on my house roof...

First of all, hello to the forum and thank you for having me on board. I don’t think I’m a typical member. I am not a DIYer. I did physics at school so I understand Ohm’s law, but I am not practical. I am here to overcome the ridiculous constraints of Australian regulations and the profiteering...

Not that easy in Australia as discussed here

I like your idea of using coolroom panels to construct a dedicated space for the battery; and using a second hand air con unit to cool that also sounds like a good idea. As you said we are not short of solar energy here, and hot days are mostly sunny, so the energy absorbed by the cooler would...

Yes the Apocalypse thing is (hopefully) tongue in cheek. Comfort is the top priority :)

Can one afford a spare wheel on a car? Manufacturer's don't give them away any more, but I still carry one.

Andy at the Off-grid Garage has an interesting post on this topic here. In the end I placed an order with Amy Wan at Shenzhen Luyan, not least because Shenzhen Qishou never got back to me to say they had any cells. Amy Wan sent spreadsheet test data on each cell, including the QR code, which I...

Yes, Western Australia - the most backward and restrictive state.

This is the off-grid system, using discarded panels (top diagram) This is the on-grid system (Bottom diagram)

Roughly 11 MΩ (10.8 MΩ and 11.3 MΩ).

This is the sort of solution I have been looking for and had been completely unable to find anything in that price range, so thanks for the post.

One of the things I have learnt with this project is that (second hand) solar panels are very cheap, but everything associated with them – solar rails, clamps, cables, connectors, isolators and labour – are quite expensive. My main motivation at this stage is science: how much energy can I...

I changed the angles of the panels today, to reflect the change of season (I am still waiting for the builder to fix the shed roof, but I am not chasing him because I am also waiting for the correct joiners for my solar rails). It made quite a differecne to the yield, and the battery went from...

Under Australian law, what they call Tier 3 batteries aren't allowed anywhere near a dwelling or place where people sleep.

Fair point, I should probably put that on my list of things to do. I also need a few more panels, because the ones I have are not filling the combined battery to capacity.

There is a structural problem with the shed roof, and it is really hard to pin down a builder to fix it, so this is what I am doing for now :oops: It might not be able to handle 70 mph winds, but the builder has promised to come soon, and I just want to start testing the battery.

The settings in the first screenshot are mine. Continued discharge current is mine. Most of the rest are unchanged from shipment. The OP explained the screenshot you annotated was taken from a video showing the cell voltage is jumping from 3.336V when idle (ie after the cell overvoltage...

I get a warning at 35°c and the battery cuts out at 36°. The aim of the cooler is to get the battery temperature back to the mid to late 20s.

When I first assembled the battery, I used a torque wrench to tighten the nuts securing the bus bars and BMS contacts to the level of tightness recommended by the battery cell supplier. As I loosened four of these nuts to remove cell number 4 for testing, three of them still had the expected...

Thanks for that. I think I'll order a spare for a rainy day.

Thanks for the link to "your story" @wattmatters . I'll enjoy reading that.

I do actually have four spare LFP cells, which for me is half a battery. So I think it makes sense to have a spare BMS as well.

Not really measurable. The inverter is off during the day, and the battery doesn't seem to generate much heat while charging. I am just mitigating the external effect of the hottest days, without spending a fortune.

Since writing this I have read an announcement that they will be adding a battery to the Merredin Solar Farm. The technology looks quite interesting, for large scale projects: https://ambri.com/technology/

I would be exaggerating to say we are on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, but it is usually pretty dry here. Sometimes we get a “heat trough” over us, and my intention is not to attempt cooling in those conditions, but rather to turn everything off until the weather improves.

I'm not sure I do either. When the battery is full and over voltage protection kicks in, it seems like a very flimsy device holding back a lot of current. I have manual isolator switches, and if I am home I switch off one array as the battery approaches full charge and the second array when it...