Most reacted posts

So it has been a little over a year since I saw some YT videos about diy solar generators and decided to build one myself, not knowing anything about it. I began with a hand truck system and two 100ah 12v batteries. I bought 2 more later for more power and having 4 batteries felt the need to...

I first made a mobile hand truck system with two 100 amp hr lifepo4 batteries. It was great but I wanted more power, so I got 2 more batteries and converted the whole thing to a garden cart format. The batteries are wired in series parallel so it is 200 amps at 24 volts. I live about 13 miles...

I have not purchased anything from Signature Solar, but I can recommend San Tan Solar if you are looking for a good alternate. I live near San Tan Solar and went there one day to buy 4 used 250 watt panels. They were selling them for $90.00 each. It is a big long warehouse and you pay at the...

Bought 24 of the 38150 lifepo4 Headway cells from battery hookup and the pre made cell holder with busbars and put them together as battery. They were sold separately at the time I bought but I can see it is now available as a pre-built kit. So this is 12v 48ah 614wh. Here is a photo of it...

So I did make it out to San Tan Solar and I bought 4 Sun Power panels that are 250 watts each. They were selling them used for $90 each so I bought them and then the warehouse said they didn’t have anymore used ones so they gave me brand new ones for the same price! A pretty good deal. I wired...

I used .5 inch PVC pipe to make simple support stands for my pv panels. I calculated the optimum angle for my latitude using one of the online calculators for that and just measured out the length of pipe needed to achieve the angle. My panels are not permanently mounted anywhere, I just put...

I wanted longer run time from my solar generator so I swapped out the four 12v 100 ah batteries for two 24v 200ah batteries which doubled the capacity. According to the Ampere Time website and literature that came with the batteries these are 5120 watt hour batteries, but the math says 4800 so...

I live in AZ so no talk of off grid or prepping can be complete without addressing the problem of air conditioning, which, unfortunately, is a power hungry topic. With a whole home system or large backyard array this isn’t much of an issue, but that isn’t what I have. I was only able to afford a...

Super nice build, congrats! I think the cart system works great. It allows for a lot of on board power that dwarfs what could be had from the pre-built store bought units. Love the idea of the solar panel so the whole thing is a single self contained unit. Nice color scheme. :)

I have two SOK 100 amp 12 volts wired in series and a Growatt 3000TL LVM being charged with 4 HQST 100 watt panels also wired in series. This little system is a portable hand truck solar generator. I am having no issue with charging up either from pv or ac and then powering whatever I want...

Regarding over discharge, I do now have a battery monitor attached (see photo). This is a manual way of doing it but this battery is the least used of the batteries I have and is intended for individual uses as they arise rather than regularly powering something in a scenario where I start...

Is this inverter still available?

Filter guy did reply to me and confirmed my suspicion that I don’t need any bus. He advised a 150 amp breaker between the batteries and Growatt and the Anderson disconnect on the wires going out to the pv panels, simply for convenience as it will be moved around and the Anderson just makes it...

On pages 20 - 22 of the Growatt 3000TL LVM manual there are images of what the lcd screen will display. On page 22, the very last screen is supposed to be a battery SOC with an actual digital readout, not just bars of charge on a little battery icon. I have attached a shot of this page showing...

Ok, I got it all figured out. Sorry for being such a noob. Here is a shot of my mobile hand truck system powering a TV and a fan. It is two 12v SOK 100 amp batteries wired in series. I topped them off with wall power and am trying to run them down so I can recharge tomorrow using solar panels.

I have 2 12v 100 amp SOK lifepo batteries that I want to charge up separately to 100% before wiring together in series. I don’t have a battery charger though and I have looked at many battery chargers. There are a ton of cheap Amazon chargers, all seem meant for lead acid and mostly made by...

I have that inverter you are talking about. I am using 4 HQST panels at 20v in series so I am getting 80. The manual says the max pv array open circuit voltage is 145.

Here is the link for the one I bought if anyone is interested. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095LXKX6F?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Yes. 2 Zooms and 2 SOK battErie’s.

I have a Growatt 3000 24v unit. I have it connected to 4 HQST panels each is 100w, 5a, 20v. They are wired in series to the Growatt. I expected to see 100w, 80v & 5a approx. under full sun. The panel is showing 217w, 8a & 65v. How can this be? Also, the battery SOC indicator seems nearly...

The batteries are wired in series and the breaker (which never arrived today as it was supposed to. Sunday delivery from Amazon is always hit or miss) is between the batteries and Growatt using #2awg. Yes, at this time I am just going with plugging a power strip into the output female plug and...

Got it. Thank you!

Exactly. The photo shows the tv connected to a Winegard. I was surprised I could get about 70 channels with it (although that includes a lot of QVC and Spanish language channels), but still, not too bad. The Winegard is a powered antenna so I suppose I could try the old rabbit ears and save that...

The HQST panels are 5 amp panels. They are 21v and I will wire mine in series to get 84v. The max the Growatt can take is 145v so we are right in the sweet spot. As for amps, running parallel will add the panel amps together but not series, so with four 21v 5 amp panels in series the output will...

Regarding my situation, I did need to have the batteries connected. When I wrote the post I thought maybe I could just plug in the Growatt alone and work through some screens. That did not work. Once I connected the batteries, then I could plug it in and turn on or run just off the batteries and...

No BMS. so far no issues, but I don’t plan to overtax it. I don’t believe these cells have the same runaway potential that lithium ion does. One thing I wasn’t a fan of was the exposed busbar plates. Battery HookUp sells these batteries pre-made now and includes rubber side panels to cover the...

I have a couple Growatt 3000 24v Solar inverters and when I need to change out batteries or connect batteries to them after being disconnected I want to avoid the spark during the final connection. I have tried attaching a Brightstar 50 watt 6 ohm resistor between the last cable end and battery...

I have installed a male prong on the AC input and wanted to turn on the Growatt and run through some screens to familiarize myself a little before connecting batteries and pv. I plugged it in and turned it on and it won’t turn on. Do I need to have the batteries and panels connected first? I...

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum and new to solar so my question will be commensurate with my experience. I am building a 24 volt hand truck solar generator. I have a Growatt SPF 3000TL LVM, 4 HQST 100 watt panels which I will wire in series, 2 12v SOK 100ah 1200wh batteries which will be...

It sounds like you and I are doing pretty much the exact same thing. I have 2 12v SOK and the Growatt 3000 and they are mounted on a hand truck and I have 4 HQST 100w panels and 30 ft of 10awg wiring to go from panels back to the Growatt. I have much the same questions as you too. None of the...