What Mini-Split did you use, and Why?

[Gotshocked!]

It's nice.
I don't care for it not wanting to turn off when it hits the set temp under the "follow me" setting and Senville agrees that that's not how it should work, so they sent a new mother board for me to install (yay).
It appears to use something like 1200-1300w early in the morning as I program it to shut off at night and turn back on an hour before the alarm clock goes off, so it's a bit of a pig for a little bit.
The pig tail was a wee wee wee bit too f''n short and I didn't feel like adding wire to it, so I used some left over conduit. Yeah, it's weird like that.
I didn't use the putty but instead sealed it off with caulk, roughly 1/5th of a tube. I just remembered to put down on my to do list to run a bead of caulk along the top of the casing. I installed it on a slope and this side of the house doesn't really get hit by wind driven rain, but just to be sure to prevent water intrusion.
I used a foil backed insulation and made a boot around the valves. The lines are encased in the original insulation all the way down to the valves.
This little unit and my high efficiency wood fireplace handle the heating for this 2,600 sq ft house easily, but II do notice quite the draw down oon the batteries, esp. on days like today with little solar production.

 

[ChrisG]

It's nice.
I don't care for it not wanting to turn off when it hits the set temp under the "follow me" setting and Senville agrees that that's not how it should work, so they sent a new mother board for me to install (yay).
It appears to use something like 1200-1300w early in the morning as I program it to shut off at night and turn back on an hour before the alarm clock goes off, so it's a bit of a pig for a little bit.
The pig tail was a wee wee wee bit too f''n short and I didn't feel like adding wire to it, so I used some left over conduit. Yeah, it's weird like that.
I didn't use the putty but instead sealed it off with caulk, roughly 1/5th of a tube. I just remembered to put down on my to do list to run a bead of caulk along the top of the casing. I installed it on a slope and this side of the house doesn't really get hit by wind driven rain, but just to be sure to prevent water intrusion.
I used a foil backed insulation and made a boot around the valves. The lines are encased in the original insulation all the way down to the valves.
This little unit and my high efficiency wood fireplace handle the heating for this 2,600 sq ft house easily, but II do notice quite the draw down oon the batteries, esp. on days like today with little solar production.

What size is that unit? My 24k Aura pulls a good amount of power every once in a while heating. Listed some power details here: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/senville-aura-24k-heating-results.72030/

I will say in the summer it sips the power when cooling. Have you seen it go through a defrost cycle yet, see a lot of ice on the outside unit.

 

[Gotshocked!]

It's the 12k. It's in the hallway between the bedroom and bathroom and it's offset from but faces the walk in closet which has no door, just like the entrance to said hallway from the bedroom. I don't think that's a negative? It's the best spot imo.
I'd prefer it to sip power in the winter because in the summer the panels will be twirling their thumbs for 1/2 the day.
It does defrost. That might be when it's using the most power. Not sure, but I recall it claiming to use a bit over 900w.
I'll check out that link.

 

[Gotshocked!]

It's much colder than normal right now. Roughly 0*. I'm looking at the 18kpv and the house is using 2600 watts? Fridge might be using a couple hundred, fireplace fan uses 60 watts, got a couple lights on and charging the battery for the ego blower.

I shut the mini off and checked the use on the inverter and it's approx a 2,000 watt difference!

This senville aura unit cannot heat the master area over 70*. Right now it's struggling at 68*. This area is a bit over 500 sq ft and the aura 12k is supposed to be good to 700 sq ft. It's supposed to heat down to -22*. Arctic? Maybe so, but it won't heat well.

From my 3 week experience, I do NOT recommend the Aura 12k for even 500 sq ft of space where you might actually get temps close to 0*.

 

[ChrisG]

It's much colder than normal right now. Roughly 0*. I'm looking at the 18kpv and the house is using 2600 watts? Fridge might be using a couple hundred, fireplace fan uses 60 watts, got a couple lights on and charging the battery for the ego blower.

I shut the mini off and checked the use on the inverter and it's approx a 2,000 watt difference!

This senville aura unit cannot heat the master area over 70*. Right now it's struggling at 68*. This area is a bit over 500 sq ft and the aura 12k is supposed to be good to 700 sq ft. It's supposed to heat down to -22*. Arctic? Maybe so, but it won't heat well.

From my 3 week experience, I do NOT recommend the Aura 12k for even 500 sq ft of space where you might actually get temps close to 0*.

This is why I went bigger with my Aura to 24k for the 1k sqft. Temps going down to -15 tomorrow and will see how it does. So far holding set temp at 0° outside. Too cold to be at the cabin so will be monitoring remotely.

Any chance you have a leak? Before releasing refrigerant, my nitrogen pressure test held at 400psi for 12 hours and my vacuum test held at 120 microns for 6 hours.

 

[Zwy]

It's much colder than normal right now. Roughly 0*. I'm looking at the 18kpv and the house is using 2600 watts? Fridge might be using a couple hundred, fireplace fan uses 60 watts, got a couple lights on and charging the battery for the ego blower.

I shut the mini off and checked the use on the inverter and it's approx a 2,000 watt difference!

This senville aura unit cannot heat the master area over 70*. Right now it's struggling at 68*. This area is a bit over 500 sq ft and the aura 12k is supposed to be good to 700 sq ft. It's supposed to heat down to -22*. Arctic? Maybe so, but it won't heat well.

From my 3 week experience, I do NOT recommend the Aura 12k for even 500 sq ft of space where you might actually get temps close to 0*.

The efficiency drops to below 100% at some point. What that means is once 1Kw of power is used to discharge less than 1Kw (3,412 but's) of heat, then it would be more efficient to use a radiant electric heater which is 100% efficient. While a heat pump might be able to heat to -22F, that doesn't mean it is the most efficient use of each Kw.

It is below 0F here so if my bank approaches over 85% SOC and I need a dump load, I will turn on a pair of radiant electric heaters. I usually don't wait until 100% SOC as I might not be able to have enough load to capture any excess. With battery capacity left, I can capture any available watts from PV.

 

[Gotshocked!]

This is why I went bigger with my Aura to 24k for the 1k sqft. Temps going down to -15 tomorrow and will see how it does. So far holding set temp at 0° outside. Too cold to be at the cabin so will be monitoring remotely.

Any chance you have a leak? Before releasing refrigerant, my nitrogen pressure test held at 400psi for 12 hours and my vacuum test held at 120 microns for 6 hours.
View attachment 189104

I don't think it's leaking. HVAC guys don't sit around for hours doing a leak test. My guy did something with the refrigerant to really clear the lines which took a little bit and did the pressure test for maybe 30 min.
I don't have a heat measuring device like what you have, but the outside line is hot to touch and too hot to hold. The heat inside is hot as well.

 

[Gotshocked!]

I noticed frozen water accumulated around the piece that connects the drain line to the mini's bottom "pan". This piece is not flush with the pan and easily allows water too accumulate around it. It backed up and most of the bottom portion of the coil closest to the "pan" is frozen. I melted most of the water, removed the problem piece then turned off the setting called "follow me" and it seems to be using a good bit less power. After awhile, I switched back to "follow me" and power use went back up. I wait awhile before observing the performance as I make changes. The ice build up is not good but clearly not my issue.
The tech dept manager (Mike) said "follow me" should shut down the head's fan (inside fan) once the set temp is reached. Mine does not and this is why he sent me a motherboard. I'm going to install this mother board in 2 days. It's been cold, so I haven't installed it yet but I thought my only problem was this program not functioning correctly and now I see it's hogging my f'n power.

 

[SupraSPL]

I just want to get some opinions on a couple different Mini Split Systems we carry and what you all think of them. We primarily push customers looking into ductless systems towards the Mitsubishi Mini Splits. They're easy to get ahold of (ductless systems are becoming more popular around here in Wisconsin, especially the heat pump & superheat options) and they're very easy to install.

One of our other main distributors carries Fujitsu. Now I've never had to service or install one of those systems, so I'm curious to hear from some of you guys that actually have had experience with them. Is there a specific ductless system you would recommend to customers? If so, what are the biggest differences you see between the two systems? (Besides the price)

I've tried to get some answers out of people at our distributors, but I can't have a conversation with them without receiving an extremely biased answer...lol. So I wanted to bring it here because I know I'm going to get more honest answers from people that don't strictly have a salesman's mindset. Let me know what you all think!

I'm not a pro but I recently installed the Fujitsu 09LZAS1 (the RHEEM/RUUD version). When you put it in economy mode it forces the compressor to limit itself to 60% max and that way you get the maximum efficiency possible, as long as you're willing to wait if it needs time to reach temp.

Because it's oversized for efficiency, the 9K size unit is rated for heat at 12K or 22K max. My house is 2500 ft² if you include basement and with a few rooms closed off, this unit keeps 1st and 2nd floor warm by itself, at 20F, using about 25kwh/day in economy mode. The efficiency is impressive (530% at 12K at 47F) and I figure if those numbers are possible and you are off grid or you believe the grid will become unstable, why F around with anything less.

Max draw in heating econ mode is 1300W (DC side from batteries). If you turn econ off, it will draw up to 2300W from batteries and cranks the heat, at a reduced efficiency. When cooling at minimum BTUs (3K) it is 820% efficient thats epic 28 EER. Mitsubishi 6K has amazing numbers also.

 

[42OhmsPA]

I'll have some Pioneer Inverter ++ 12k data soon, compress shut off as I was walking back inside.
Thermostat is set to 74F.
Based on prior numbers I'm saying around 1400W peak and 350W running.

Edit - top right corner is the temp at the aiming point. Other smaller fonts are highs and lows.

Edit 2 -
Need to get better data once I flip back to battery, I had to many other loads changing.

 

[42OhmsPA]

The jump to 1.4Kw just after flipping to battery is the water distiller, it uses roughly ~800W. The other continuous load would be the coal stove ~350W, I really need to upgrade that inefficient 800CFM blower I added....

Looks like the pioneer is using around 600W when it cycles.
I'm guessing the 3KW peak is a compressor on the fridge or freezer.

Looking forward to seeing how it handles single digits tomorrow.

 

[Zwy]

My Pioneer 12K draws 1400W easily when it runs the heaters in the compressor when first turned on before the evaporator fan kicks in. I set the temp to 84°F and let it run full bore when I use it. I draws about 600W to 800W when it is running. I've ran it the last 2 days during daylight hours as part of the dump loads. We hit a hot 2°F yesterday. I'm running a pair of 1500W radiant electric heaters too at full bore. I usually start up dump loads if it is early in the day and I'm above 70% SOC and the skies are clear. I'm using about 4000W for dump loads and once the battery hits 100% SOC I have nowhere else for a dump load. I should add more heaters and another battery but the house temp gets up to high 70's by the end of the day running all the heaters now.

The Pioneer has a mind of it's own. In the late fall it seemed to be in defrost mode all the time and didn't blow that warm of air some days. Now with it running at below 0°F it doesn't go into defrost often and blows warm air but I'm only running it during daylight hours after battery SOC is high enough. For this reason I will be installing a Senville Aura 18K in my kitchen this coming year.

 

[Gotshocked!]

I installed the new mother board and while everything was down, finished deicing the bottom of the coil.
I'll test the "follow me" feature again later today or tomorrow but I've determined it is that feature, the filthy pig that's been hogging my power.
When using no particular program, just regular heat, it seems to use an appropriate amount of power.
When using "follow me", the remote is the thermostat and without "follow me", the head unit is the thermostat.
In "follow me" mode, the remote reads very low, for example 68* but without "follow me" mode, the head unit, under the same circumstance, reads 76-78. The remote sits approx 4' lower than the head unit & 3' to the right of it, resting on a table. There's no way there's that much discrepancy between the two locations, or is there?

 

[Partimewages]

Stratification can cause that. Get s good temperature probe and check. Heated air tends to rise.

 

[1201]

My minisplits failed me on a massive scale these last three days. Every single one.

They are supposed to have 100% output down to 5 degrees. It was 11 degrees and they had no output. Just stopped heating.

Had to switch to many space heaters.

What a cluster

 

[Partimewages]

@1201
What do you have? Any ideas why?

 

[1201]

M

@1201
What do you have? Any ideas why?

Midea ducted. I suspect low refrigerant level(otherwise what else could it be?) . I also suspect they shipped low from factory. I did a vacuum test on two units for 1 hour each with no leaks and one overnight with no leaks so if it's low refrigerant then it was like that from the factory.

I could be completely wrong but I am researching as much as I can

 

[42OhmsPA]

The jump to 1.4Kw just after flipping to battery is the water distiller, it uses roughly ~800W. The other continuous load would be the coal stove ~350W, I really need to upgrade that inefficient 800CFM blower I added....

Looks like the pioneer is using around 600W when it cycles.
I'm guessing the 3KW peak is a compressor on the fridge or freezer.

Looking forward to seeing how it handles single digits tomorrow.

View attachment 189435

Set the thermostat for 74 before I left work. The water distiller shut off around 10AM.
Looks like my Pioneer 12k is averaging ~1KWh in single digits.

@Zwy which model Pioneer do you have?

 

[ChrisG]

M

Midea ducted. I suspect low refrigerant level(otherwise what else could it be?) . I also suspect they shipped low from factory. I did a vacuum test on two units for 1 hour each with no leaks and one overnight with no leaks so if it's low refrigerant then it was like that from the factory.

I could be completely wrong but I am researching as much as I can

Did you do a nitrogen pressure test? That's the important test as when refrigerant is released and unit is running these things can get to 300-400 PSI.

 

[Zwy]

Set the thermostat for 74 before I left work. The water distiller shut off around 10AM.
Looks like my Pioneer 12k is averaging ~1KWh in single digits.

@Zwy which model Pioneer do you have?

Only a few floor mount models out there for Pioneer. https://www.pioneerminisplit.com/co...lit-air-conditioner-heat-pump-system-full-set

That is the model number that supercedes mine. My model is 21.5SEER. It works OK but does use a timer for defrost. I never gave it a thought. This unit will draw 1Kw to 1.2Kwh in single digits, about what you see.

I do like the floor model for my living room, I hung it about a foot off the floor as there was an outlet there. My kitchen will get a wall mount, I did consider a ceiling cassette recessed but thought it might be a bear for cleaning.

I did add one of these later, https://www.pioneerminisplit.com/co...products/pioneer-wireless-smart-ac-controller. First one failed on second day, the replacement works fine. This allows me to be away from the house and turn the mini split on/off using my phone.