diy solar

diy solar

Who's in the UK and Ireland?

I bought cells in December to be delivered this afternoon. It’s been a long 76 days wait. They cleared customs with nothing extra to pay as far as I know. I was £575 for 8 272ah lishen cells, including delivery ddp. Seems to have been ok.
I live in a converted truck normally between Fraserburgh and Newcastle but can be anyplace. I know 560ah is overkill for a camper but at least it takes the pressure of in winter and hopefully I will be able to run my fridge next winter
Very similar situation, I'm down in Chorley atm. Just setting up a 24v 240AH system with 1000w solar. Have you got set up yet?
 
My batteries arrived this week. I ordered 8x 200Ah lifepo CALBS (Aliexpress) and 16 primatics turned up. Apparently they messed up in the factory but I got decent discount after messaging them. These are meant to be 120AH cells instead so I've now got 16x 120AH cells. I'll need to series and parallel them now to suit my 24v 8S (200A) BMS. I was hoping my local auto electrician would be able to top balance them because I don't have a variable DC power supply but they didn't either so I'm having to buy one on ebay now which is a shame because I'll only need it once hopefully. I'm wondering if anyone can give me some pointers about mains voltage chargers. I'm using these batteries in an off grid motorhome that I've converted so am relying on the 1000w of solar to keep them topped up through a 40A epsolar MPPT. I'm looking at a 24v 20A mains charger that I can use on the rare occasion I get a hook up or if I run the generator but there's 2 things. First is, I wont be able to regulate/set the charge profile like I can via the MT50 remote meter and secondly is it not possible to use say a 12v standard lead acid charger connected to the solar terminals of the MPPT and that modify the voltage?
 
Id be wary of using a leader acid battery charger. A 24V dc power supply can be used though. One with a variable voltage. I enquired on the forum about exactly this. They're only about £25 and you can get much higher than 20A.
 
Id be wary of using a leader acid battery charger. A 24V dc power supply can be used though. One with a variable voltage. I enquired on the forum about exactly this. They're only about £25 and you can get much higher than 20A.
Tell a lie the 24V ones are a bit dearer. About £50 for a 40A one. You can use it for your too balance as well, just be super careful with the voltage before you connect the batteries.
 
Id be wary of using a leader acid battery charger. A 24V dc power supply can be used though. One with a variable voltage. I enquired on the forum about exactly this. They're only about £25 and you can get much higher than 20A.
Do you have a link because I'm looking at this for top balancing

Although this goes upto 30v I thought because it was only rated at 5A it would take a long time to charge 240AH.
Are you running your van on 12 or 24v system?
 
Tell a lie the 24V ones are a bit dearer. About £50 for a 40A one. You can use it for your too balance as well, just be super careful with the voltage before you connect the batteries.
Id be stoked to use the same variable charger for both. Can you post a link please
 
Just
Very similar situation, I'm down in Chorley atm. Just setting up a 24v 240AH system with 1000w solar. Have you got set up yet?
in the process of capacity testing them. So far all good. Weakest one tested at 281ah @2.75v. Not bad for 272ah cells.
I’m going 2p4s as I only have 1 12v bms. I may add another bms at a later date and go 4s2p as I will eventually be running a bigger inverter to power a dishwasher as well as the rest of the truck.
having to buy the variable power supply was a pain but mine “broke” after I was finished with it and I sent it back to amazon for a refund
 
There was no paper work with the cells when They arrived. They cleared customs and I didn’t have to pay anything extra. I’m happy with that
 
It's quite common for shipping companies to give you an extra bill for administration expenses... Not much you can do about it. You got off lightly with just $24!
It’s one of them things, pay and get the cells, don’t pay and don’t get them.
I paid £575 in total for 8 272ah lishen cells delivers to my door. That’s just under £72 each including delivery and import I can’t buy lead acid or agm for that price if you cost it at usable amp hours.
 
I bought a 10a power supply, I charged two sets of 4 cells with bms to 14.4v disconnected and left to sit overnight. It took nearly 14hrs to top balance them from that point. It’s a long slow process but if done right it shouldn’t need done again.
once they hit zero amps I left sitting for 2 hours still connected and let the voltage settle. Then I switched the power supply back on and let them top balance again, that took about an hour.
I would rather spend the time doing it now than spend the time wondering why my cells keep coming out of balance at a later date.

*disclaimer* I am no expert, I have only done this once and am making it up as I go along. This is not advice it is only a description of what I’ve done and how it went for me
 
Just

in the process of capacity testing them. So far all good. Weakest one tested at 281ah @2.75v. Not bad for 272ah cells.
I’m going 2p4s as I only have 1 12v bms. I may add another bms at a later date and go 4s2p as I will eventually be running a bigger inverter to power a dishwasher as well as the rest of the truck.
having to buy the variable power supply was a pain but mine “broke” after I was finished with it and I sent it back to amazon for a refund
 
I've been looking since my last post for a bench power supply and the max I can find is 30V 10A but considering my capacity is only 5760 watts it'd be roughly 19 hours from 0 to full which it'll never be and I'll probably have a lower charge voltage maximise the lifespan. I haven't got to capacity test yet. I'll be scrolling through Wills videos when I get top balanced. I'd be happy with those results you got.
 
I connected the bms and charged with a normal 12v charger in packs of 4. Let the bms cut off when one cell hit 3.65v. Did both packs of 4 like that. I didn’t have enough busbars to connect them all up in parallel for top balancing, I ended up stripping 3 core mains cable. It’s about 1.5mm diameter solid copper core, wrapped it round each stud and tightened them down. I made up my own leads from the psu to the cells. It took a good few hours but at 10a it never really went much above 8a. Would take a lot longer with a 5a charger
 
I bought one of these for capacity testing
£14.27 30% Off | 150W adjustable Constant Current Electronic Load Battery Tester 12V24V48V Lead-acid lithium Discharge Capacity meter 200V/20A
Yeah I've just watched his video with it. If you fancy selling it on when you're done I'd be happy to buy it, save me waiting for it coming from China
 
I connected the bms and charged with a normal 12v charger in packs of 4. Let the bms cut off when one cell hit 3.65v. Did both packs of 4 like that. I didn’t have enough busbars to connect them all up in parallel for top balancing, I ended up stripping 3 core mains cable. It’s about 1.5mm diameter solid copper core, wrapped it round each stud and tightened them down. I made up my own leads from the psu to the cells. It took a good few hours but at 10a it never really went much above 8a. Would take a lot longer with a 5a charger
I cant do it that way because I only have a 8s BMS. I ended making the missing busbars with copper pipe. I've ordered the 30v 10A power supply so at least I can get on with top balancing them
 
Sorry I don't know what I was thinking - the 24V power supply won't be able to do your top balancing. You'd need one about 3.5V of course. I've got a 5V one here I'm going to see about extending the adjustment to 3-3.5v by replacing the variable resistor used to control the voltage. I've seen it done on a smaller one on YouTube. I'll find out I suppose.
 

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I've got a variable power supply but I don't fancy using it for much at only 10A. Happy to lend equipment but I'm all the way down in Cornwall.
 
Sorry I don't know what I was thinking - the 24V power supply won't be able to do your top balancing. You'd need one about 3.5V of course. I've got a 5V one here I'm going to see about extending the adjustment to 3-3.5v by replacing the variable resistor used to control the voltage. I've seen it done on a smaller one on YouTube. I'll find out I suppose.
Maybe the 24v one can be adjusted all the way down to 3.5V but it seems a bit of a stretch.
 
There was no paper work with the cells when They arrived. They cleared customs and I didn’t have to pay anything extra. I’m happy with that
I'd say they bypassed customs! Unless you've any paperwork for them? Happy days anyway, they obviously know what they're doing.
 
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