JeepHammer
Solar Wizard
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2019
- Messages
- 1,149
once had over a 100 Kwh of tesla model s batteries in my home.
would wake up sweating , no thank you sir....
again do what ever you want, but there have been far and far to many cases of home fires and people losing everything , just to cheap out a save a few buck, not being aware of the actual chemistry and risks involved..
LIPO shouldnt be in ones home, and not even near it for that matter
I've still got 4 packs. They're in an airtight steel enclosure encased in rockwool in a tiny outbuilding away from everything. The simpbms helps with my worries, but I still don't like it. If it goes up it'll suck, but at least it won't burn everything else down with it.
Retiring them at the end of this season.
I have a redundant solar field. Panel strings, charge controller, battey/batteries at the ends of the solar strings connected to a DC Buss (DC coupled).
With the more volatile chemestries out away from shops or homes, an insulated box with minor heat is all that's needed to be more than 'Reasonably Safe' with any chemestry.
I'm perfectly aware that a lot of city dwellers don't have room for ground mount panels, and I'm aware DIY batteries wouldn't pass city code inspections even if they were off grid, city dwellers being the least likely to be off grid...
I have no such restrictions, and being off grid I savaged what I could afford, and built within the education base I have.
It's not 'Code', it's not 'Perfect, it's not 'Pretty'...
However it is functional, redundant, and it's mostly 'Safe', can fail right where it's at and won't damage anything else, like burn the house or business down.
30 years of experimentation and education as I find it.
I can't say it's fool proof, the 'Great Coyote Fire' of 2015 proves there are some things that CAN happen. A coyote managed to get into a pouch cell battery box, the fire was mostly contained to the coyote, but there you have it. How a coyote got the lid off the battery box is still a mystery...
Scorched a post, damaged a panel, smoked the battery/box/charge controllers, but damage was limited to that ONE box/panel, more or less.
Since weight/space really isn't an issue for me, refractory cement (like in fire safes) and rock wool in common metal cabinets work just fine for me.
In 30 years I've used everything from military surplus aluminum or steel cabinets, to refrigerators to the big office copier cabinets, it really doesn't matter where the cabinet comes from...
Indoors it's LiFePO4 batteries as fast as zi can find/build them. With a big, long DC Buss they act more like capacitors than batteries internally in the system...
Sudden Big Amp draws in the shop especially, so it's the best fit for the application.
I'm sure if I had neighbors, they would complain the cabinets 'Didn't Match' or didn't have designer labels...
When I started 30 years ago, there weren't any 'Designer Labels', and like an old tractor the paint has faded on, they still get the job done just fine.
With DIY, it's about how it works, not what the neighbors think is 'Cute' or 'Expensive/Designer'.