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I have my network stuff and my servers connected to a UPS. If for some reason I restart the inverter or switch to grid I don't want the computer equipment to lose power.

I just installed two Victron Multiplus II 48/3000 in split phase. Besides the inverters I have a BMV-700 shunt (I had this before) and a Cerbo GX, which is not really necessary but is useful for configuration and data logging. My charge controllers are Morningstar, not Victron. They don't...

I have a 2970W array. Temperatures are usually around 30-35 Celsius. On a cold morning it may be some 20 Celsius but the sun is still too low to generate any significant current. By 10am it's already hot. On very rare occasions I've seen over 100% array rating for a few moments after a passing...

Well, consider this: 48V*1000Ah=48KWh 12V*1000Ah=12KWh The 48V battery holds 4x the energy. I think you meant having two same capacity batteries and comparing them using the same load. In that case the 48V system would probably be more efficient, as drawing less amps would mean less losses...

The Vmp seems too low at 12.9V, you need the voltage to be higher than that of the battery to charge it. If the panel is 10 years old it may output some 115-120W. Have you looked for a new higher capacity panel in your country? $124 for a used low capacity panel seems steep to me and I also...

Probably dead BMS.

Well I wish I had extra energy... I plan to install more panels to go from 2.2KW actual harvest to 5.5KW and inverters capable of split phase to go with the additional solar capacity. The idea is to be able to use the AC during the hot months during the day and/or during the night and not get...

Well of they hace no shade on them and they were working just fine before I think the problem might be a bad connection, so you would have to check all connections.

250Ah 48V battery will be the same capacity as a 1000Ah 12V battery. Physical size (volume) would be the same assuming both are the same chemistry. And yes, the 48V would last longer with the same constant DC load due to less losses. Edit: To make it easier to understand, imagine you got 12V...

I would build a new room just for batteries and inverters with dedicated climatization, would buy more batteries, would cover my whole roof with the highest wattage panels I can find and get all the additional MPPT controllers needed to connect them (probably those new 100A Morningstar...

I think you're better off getting a high endurance SD card, like Samsung's Pro Endurance line.

I would go with the cheaper ones and either install more of them or just enjoy the savings.

I've been partially off-grid since late 2019. The first months were a bit rough mostly because I've been using a computer UPS as an inverter (APC SUA3000) which cannot go over the rated output and turns off when overloaded and requires manual intervention to turn on again. After taking possible...

The first thing to do is find out how much your energy consumption will be and go from. As others have said, it's better to invest in good components, mostly batteries and charge controller. For anything over a 1000W inverter I would not install a 12V system, I'd go minimum 24V. Lower voltage...

I started my solar energy adventure 5 years ago. At that time lithium was absurdly expensive, at least where I live. I made a little research and got the best batteries I could find locally, which were some Trojan 6V 415Ah lead-carbon "solar" batteries. As my system was 48V it was 8 batteries...

I've had equipment working for years without powering down. Then the company moved to a new place, after installing everything back a VoIP PBX did not power on, it was dead.

If you want a 12V system then you'll need an SCC capable of over 100A charge for 1600W of panels or several lower amps SCCs to be able to provide the full charge of the panels. But you have to be careful not to exceed the battery's maximum charge current. Do you already have an inverter? It may...

What voltage and are your batteries? Don't connect the panels directly as you cannot control the voltage they're getting, you may damage the batteries. You can use multiple charge controllers to charge the same battery bank but each charge controller meat have it's own panel array.

Out of curiosity I watched the SCC screen at night after Ininatalled my system and take a look at it when there's full moon. I've seen something just shy of 2V and some miliamps, with the right LCC I could recharge some AAs or AAAs 😋

To change from one inverter output to the other you would need an AC transfer switch. To get one leg of 120V out of a split phase inverter you could use a autotransformer. You can always change the old PWM charge controller for a MPPT change controller and connect the old panels to the MPPT...

6 years ago I was on a budget and in a hurry to install a solar energy system because the political situation in my country could lead to extended and or frequent energy blackouts. I spent most of the money on batteries so I reused an APC SUA3000 that I got for ~$100 and with it I could power...

I'm new to lithium batteries, I come from 8x6V lead-carbon batteriesin series which had a balancer installed. Now I have 48V lithium modules in parallel. When in parallel the balancing between modules is not needed right? I would guess they balance out just by being in a parallel connection.

If there was a 180W panel that generates 850W then everybody would only buy 180W panels 😋 Maybe it is Wh as @yabert pointed out, but it would be less in reality, as in real world usage you'll get 80% of the panel's rating most of the time under full sun. You'll get the label rating and maybe a...

The answers you have received here are correct, you need way more solar panels than 800W for the 550W and 15h runtime. The Victron 100/50 won't be enough to charge the batteries and power ypur loads as you'll be limited to around 1400W of charging 28V x 50A). You'll need an additional charge...

Battery wires seem too thin for over 100A, I also see two wires coming out of the battery poles but they are not the same length. The shorter ones will get hot quicker than the longer ones. If you want to use two thinner wires instead of a thicker wire they should be the same length.

I recently installed two MP II 48/3000 in split phase. When I was deciding what inverter(s) to get I took a hard look at efficiency. I was considering a Growatt but was put off by it's efficiency of around 85%. Most inverters have its maximum efficiency at around 50% load. Before the MP II I was...

Seems like a very good candidate. Thanks!

6x200W = 1200Wp, which in a good sunny day will produce around 960W (80% of 1200Wp). When cloudy or early in the morning or late afternoon you'll see lower voltage. Also as others have mentioned Voc is the voltage with nothing connected, when there's a load the voltage will drop. The charge...

There are also PWM controllers for DC motors, you can find one that fits the voltage range of the panels. This can be found for about $10.

You have to decide what you want. If you want full off-grid then the system must be able to supply all your loads or at least the loads you deem as critical. Your solar generation capacity (how many watts you can harvest) must be enough to charge the batteries and power your loads during the...

The long distance between charge controller and battery means a big voltage drop and big energy losses. The lower the voltage the higher the losses. To compensate for the losses you would have to use a very thick very expensive cable.

Stand by batteries are not meant for deep discharge, you discharge them a few times and they're done. They'll probably work for a couple of months.

I searched eBay for a listing with this description and found it, indeed it says 400W but when you go to details it says: Features: Maximum Power: 400W Maximum Power Current(IMP): 2.77A Maximum Power Voltage(VMP): 18.0V Short Circuit Current(ISC): 3.23A Temperature Range:-40°F-180°F...

You don't need to your battery bank to communicate with the inverter in any way. Under some circumstances it may have advantages, but it's not required. Yo can set charge parameters in your SCC and cutoff voltages in your inverter. As an alternative you can calculate an approximate SOC using a...

That's strange. I have a cheap 300W heatgun I use for shrink-wrap tubing and a 1500W heatgun, both are a fan and a heating coil with a switch and neither give me problems. The other day the missus was using a hair iron and I noticed the inverter was doing a strange noise while she used it. I...

Well, it seems you can parallel batteries with very different capacities as long as they are the same type and voltage. You should not parallel a 16S battery with a 15S one.

Here are some photos I found from when I was installing the system. I have 2960W total in panels, a couple of times solar output has been a bit over the panel ratings. This happened during the rainy season on a day without rain, when it was cloudy and suddenly the clouds went away. The typical...

There was good moon last night, that's energy wasted...

As for the panels, let's say the label says 500W then what you'll get on a good sunny day is around 80% of that, which would be 400W at max sun. Let's say you get 3 hours of max sun, then we take 400Wx3h and we get 1200Wh of harvested energy. If you have 2 panels then it'll be 1200Whx2=2400Wh...

You should not exceed the 600V voltage of the panels are not rated for higher than that. The inverter you have has a maximum VOC of 500V and max 8000W input. I think you are confusing Volts with Watts. Chech the panel's VOC so that each series string does not exceed 500V but you have to leave...

Just to be clear, when going with two or more SCCs you have to divide the panels between the SCCs. You cannot connect the whole array to both SCCs at the same time. Eg. if you have 4 panels then you connect 2 panels to each SCC.

I had 8 of these batteries and they failed just shy of 5 years. I cared for them as it should be done but one time I was on a trip and it was very hot I did not water them until I returned. They started giving problems after that. I suspect they don't like hot climates and the datashet shows...

Victron inverters are not transformerless, they use toroidal transformers. The main difference between HF and LF inverters is surge capacity, where HF inverters have low to no surge capacity while LF inverters have medium to high surge capacity. Also, from what I've read, LF inverters tend to...

I've experienced this. I have 2970W in panels (330Wx9) and I usually get 2.1-2.2KW but with the cloud edge effect I got more than the panel's rating a couple of times for a few minutes.

There are cheap MPPT controllers that could work for that, like the MakeSkyBlue. I've read good things about these and they are like $70. If you have them already mounted I would use them. https://makeskyblue.com/products/60a-mppt-solar-charge-controller-w-wifi?variant=31426587918470#

With a battery balancer it's doable, maybe not optimal but much better than just connecting the batteries in series. Something like this: https://a.co/d/eEJ5urO

Glad you could solve your problem and that everything's working fine now. Enjoy the cool air.

You don't need communication with the inverter for the system to work properly. You only have yto configure the inverter as if it were a lead-acid battery but setting the propper voltages for your lithium battery. You have to keep in mind the following: * Limit charging current to the specs of...

This Friday night there was a thunderstorm. The SCC registered max 6W production and came out as "night mode".

Yes, you need two 12V in series to power the 24V inverter.

It's been like two weeks of rainy days with very little sun but today its been finally a sunny day (so far). Today's solar harvesting until noon has been about twice that of previous days for the whole day. Hopefully my batteries get a full charge today.

Hello, I have the 600mA balancer 8-17S version, mine came with a power button, once connected to the battery you press the power button until you hear a beep, once it beeps it's on and a light on the power button turns on.

If it's a DC motor I don't think there's a problem if the voltage is not exceeded to what the motor is rated for.

As far as I know many PWM controllers run off the panels, but it's better to look at the manual or spec sheet of a specific product.

I found some 433 to WiFi gateways that looke like the one in the manual, but I don't know if it'll work with your devices: https://www.mouser.com/c/embedded-solutions/ethernet-communication-modules/?frequency=433%20MHz There are also devices that connect to 433 for Home Assistant and Sonoff...

Hola paisano! I've had an offgrid setup for the last 6 years, sonfar I managed using a computer UPS as an inverter. Probably not the most efficient solution but it has worked so far. I will only change the inverter because I want 240V split phase, I currently only have 120V.

Just wanted to show you this peculiar graph from yesterday, I've never seen it behave like this.

The clamp will only measure current, you need to use the leads on the cable ends to measure voltage.

Providing the brand and model of the micro inverters would help us help you.

I was very lucky to get 2 TriStar MPPT-60 when I did, I got them for ~$370 each with less than 1 year of use. I suspect they were installed in a temporary installation in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria.

Not all my clamp meters measure the same but they are much closer to what the BMV-700 reads.

I read 9 pages of this and I'm really surprised how stubborn can some people be. So what happened? Did he finally "prove" his hypothesis? Did the batteries catch fire? Did he admit he was just trolling?

I just read this thread, great story! Enjoy your sun power!

At 12V the amp draw is 10x the amp draw at 120V. For a 1500W load at 12V you are already above the 100A rating of your panel. 120V AC wiring is not comparable to a 12DC wiring.

You'll have to connect the panels in series to be able to charge the batteries as the input voltage must be higher than the battery voltage. Vmp of those panels is 18.2V. 3 panels would be 54.6V. You'll be better off with panels that have Vmp between 50 and 60V and connect.them in parallel up to...

The SunKeeper goes up to 6A and is IP65 certified.

This looks like an amazing product! Has anyone here any experience with it?

Hello, If you only have one panel my guess is that the input voltage to the charge controller is too low, probably below that of the battery voltage. You need a voltage from the panels that is at least 1V higher than that of the battery to start charging, on some charge controllers it may be...

The other day I came across this, it seems to be for RPI devices running VenusOS. I have a Cerbo GX and I have no idea how to make this run there, I have not put much into it though. https://github.com/osaether/dbus-tsmppt How dobyou do that? I have a BMV-700 between batteries and everything...

Where I live there's no such thing as "free used panels" or even used panels for sale very often and everything is more expensive than in the US. But I got really lucky and got offered some used 6.5KWh NMC modules for $500 just after my FLA batteries died. An NGO closed and they had like 1500...

Usually yes but there are some legit MPPT controllers with USB ports, like the EcoBoost MPPT line from Morningstar.

Right in the manual. So I can disable the relay, and it should be disabled because the main panel does the NG bond. Thanks! Yes it does, at least under Linux. You can get a cheap PC with Windows and setup up remote desktop or something like AnyDesk and you can log-in right from your main...

As Rednecktek mentioned, a 3s2p would be ideal to not exceed VOC. Still 1.2KWp (around 0.96KW under normal conditions) seems too little for 14KWh of batteries.

What will you use them for? Any more details of what you want to achieve would be helpful.

That's a lot of failures to be a coincidence. Maybe you have a short somewhere or as others have said the humidity is affecting the device. It would be a good idea to have some equipment rated for humid conditions.

12V batteries in series is doable with a battery balancer, but a single 24V is preferred. The problem with the washer/dryer is not so much the constant power draw but the peak power draw while the motor spins up, the inverter might not be able to handle it. I don't think a 12V fridge is very...

Well 2150W out of 2430W is very good performance. You can usually expect around 80% of the rates performance, what toy got is higher than that. Under some circumstances the panel can go higher than their rated output for short periods of time, we're talked a few seconds to a few minutes.

At least your BMSes are reporting similar SOC although they have drifted from what the shunt reports. I have 5 JK BMSes (not the inverter type) and they all report very different SOC, but one of them is always very close to what my BMV-700 reports. The JK BMS is know to have bad SOC tracking...

How much power do you need? Cheap 3KW inverters are probably not pure sine wave. Pure sine wave inverters are not cheap. The cheapest thing you can get for pure sine wave output on the cheap is a used UPS. APC SMT or SUA lines are very reliable and can be found on eBay for very cheap. There...

Well, it seems choosing 95V as target voltage array is as good as it gets. This is today's plot. The mixed array (green) is on par and sometimes exceeds the power harvested by the array with identical panels. Yesterday I got the battery down to 48.4V and it was was charged by around 2:30pm...

That would be like 0.21C charge rate. 1C would be 280A. 0.5C would be 140A

Adding more batteries won't help you if you cannot charge them. More panels will help you get more charge when there's less sun.

I find it kind of hard moving 100lb modules around, I cannot imagine moving this thing, even with help.

$37k for a 10KW grid-tie system? Yeah, the utility company sure got screwed 🤣 It looks like having money in the bank bothers him so he finds creative ways to get rid of it. But using the AC is too much waste of money? 🤔

I'll also use fuses but I need something for quick disconnection, like a breaker.

Those SureSine sure look nice, I especially like the fanless design. The one reason I ruled them out is the inability to parallel them and/or make them work in a split phase configuration.

The only way to increase battery capacity is to add more batteries.

Document says charge and discharge current is 0.5C, maximum 1C. You can charge or discharge at 1C for short periods of time. It says 120 seconds followed by a period of no current of the same duration. This is to allow cooldown. Under normal use don't exceed 0.5C for continuois charge or...

To get the data from the TS-MPPT-60 I used this script: https://github.com/bicnz/tristar-to-telegraf But I had to modify it to get it to work on Debian 12 with latest InfluxDB. The modified script is attached. The changes are: Line 22: Changed to: Line 37: Changed to:

Exceeding VOC will result in equipment damage or fire. VOC should never be exceeded.

Also keep in mind that you won't get the rating written on the panel's label, you'll most likely get around 80% of that. So a 200W panel will output around 160W. For anything useful you'll need more than a single panel.

If you want to use a PWM SCC then the panel's voltage should not be too high from that of the battery or you'll lose a lot of energy.

Growatt's reliability seems lacking from that experience of yours. As a point of comparison I've been running my house from a 3000VA/2700W server UPS as inverter (APC SUA3000) since 2019. My loads are similar to yours, around 500-600W during the day, around 700W during the night. It's got some...

You can safely connect all panels to your AiO as long as you stay below the VOC voltage and leaving a margin for lower temperature because voltage increases with lower temps. Connecting half the panels to another MPPT might be helful if you orient your panels in a different direction. Also...

If only there was a proper manual that explained how it must be done it would not be a problem.

The solution I can think of is: install a battery monitor like the BMV-700 and set it to activate the relay at 20% SOC to turn on a Orion DC-DC charger. The Orion will be connected to the 48V system but will only charge when the relay from the BMV is activated. You can set the relay to turn off...

Yes, 3 in parallel.

I've measured 22KWh in a single day from my 3200W charge controller. I'm only overpaneled by 30%. There's potential for a bit more on a full sun day with no clouds.

Just be aware that if you add more battery and you increase consumption you won't be able to charge the batteries without increasing your solar array. That mini split will consume close to 1KW at full power and around 300W when just keeping the temperature. How many hours do you plan on using it?

The 100/30 will still límite out put because it cannpt charge at more than 30A. From what he's getting it seems the SCC is maxed out, not throttled.