Most reacted posts

What am I missing here, this unit seems like a bad choice if a person is looking for optimal electrical efficiency? I'm looking at building an off-grid cabin and will be using solar for power and a split unit for heating/cooling. I'm approaching this as: should I take some panels off the main...

Thanks for the input guys. Next time I'm in a store, I'll read the labels on all the pullout disconnects they have in stock and see if any have a DC rating. Worst case, this disconnect switch has a label on the front saying 240 VAC, 250 VDC: For $76, that looks pretty nice. I wouldn't be...

I powered it up Saturday. Thanks I cut up and welded an aluminum server rack to make a sem-portable battery & inverter unit. Twistlock plugs connect pv input and AC output.

Here's some followup for anyone who stumbles onto this thread in the future with similar questions. I did put a thermostat on a couple 7w heating elements. Here's the temp & humidity for the last couple days, measured inside the battery box. This morning the outside low was briefly 12F, and...

I'm no expert, just speculating, not offering advice. But I believe the consequence of what you describe is comparable to using an isolation transformer to prevent shock when working on electronics. To illustrate your point - A couple years ago I was melting lead on a hot plate and got a mild...

I plan to have 1 ground rod in the garage. Solar panel frames, the ground/nuetral buss bar in the breaker box, and the ground connection on the inverter box will all be connected to this same ground rod. I believe this means that if the inverter has ground-nuetral bond, it will be redundant...

service disconnect primarily. But if there was an emerency, I'd flip the switch (and if the switch was damaged in an emergency, ok) No compliance conerns. Its off-grid in a rural Kansas county that only cares about the building setback from property lines and their road. I could use coat...

I understand that AC rated switches shouldn't be used for DC, because of the difficulties extinuishing the arc with DC current. Larger air gaps are required, and if the switch fails to extinguish the arc it gets ugly. It occurs to me that outdoor disconnects used for air conditioners and other...

? I've been reading a lot of threads on here for the last few months, and I think I have my controller settings figured out, but want to run this by you guys. I have a LiTime 12v 100ah battery ordered, the manual recommends: I have a HQST charge controller that does not have a LiFePO4 setting...

Nothing I saw at Menards had a DC rating. On Amazon, I see several of the Siemens Safety Disconnect switches are rated 240VAC / 250VDC. 30 amp for $38.29 lever safety switch in box 60 amp for $64.99 lever safety switch in box It seems like there ought to be pullouts dual rated too, but I'm not...

So if the inverter (not purchased yet) does in fact have ground/nuetral bond, I should treat my breaker box as a subpanel (I forget the proper term), and keep grounds and nuetrals on separate bus bars. makes sense. I got a journeyman electricians license back in high school, but that was...

I'm building an off-grid solar system for an equipment garage. Its rural, and the county I'm in does not have electrical inspections. Code compliance is not an concern, but safety is. This video got me thinking about the value of my batteries and inverter being portable. I plan to cut up an...

I'm in south central Kansas. Abnormally cold would be lows of -5 and highs in the teens. It got that cold last week and the news said it was the coldest its been in a couple years. It was a total of 5 days where the high temp didn't exceed freezing. So I'm wanting to plan for that temp...

ok, so assuming I have it well sealed, if the temp stayed at a constant -5 F forever, I'd need 25 watts. By the time I get the rest of my stuff in there, I'll probably at be over that. Even in our worst cold days we're over that in the day time so it would build heat during the day. To be...

Around 240-250 VOC, under 20 ISC 12 305 panels in two parallel strings of 6 in series

I have a few small solar sytems for off grid projects. My batteries have low temp protection, but if its too cold for too long, the batteries refuse to charge lets them run down. I'd rather not waste power heating the batteries through the night or if its overcast and can't charge anyway. So...

a teardown of a the weize 100ah self heating battery. What's the build quality look like these days? What's the heating element quality? Does it have more temp sensors? Are the temp sensors maximum distance from the heating element?

I ordered a pallet of Hyundai 305w panels (HiA-S305HG). My first project will use a dozen of them, and I think I need to split them into two strings of 6 serial panels to stay under the 500v limit of the EG4 aio controller I'm looking at. From the spec sheet, VOC is 39.42 Temperature...

That's just the standard Weize 100ah. They now have a self heating battery with a heating element inside it. It will different internals and temp sensor placement will be more important.

I have a EG4 3kw inverter/charge controller. From my reading, it dynamically creates a ground-neutral bond when not receiving power on its AC input (i.e. the grid / generator input). EG4's assumption seems to be that with grid supplied power, the grid supplies the ground-neutral bond, and for...