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For the first thing i really don't want to spend the money to upgrade to Victron even though i want it. But the possibly more important reason is that I dont want to spend the silly amount of time i will spend playing with all the possibilities that the Victron interfaces give you. Like, i love...

You can't accurately test any high-current connection with a regular multimeter by measuring ohms. The reason is that most multimeters, even good ones, will generally only read down to 0.2ohms even when you touch the meter leads directly to each other. You can think of this as the resistance of...

I identify strongly with this statement. I was a professional auto technician (still am, just switched to teaching ~7 years ago) and have installed a tremendous amount of new AND used components and I personally don't put much value on warranties either. Not to say no company will do what it...

So i think it's generally accepted that using the gas formation of the battery itself is the only pragmatic way to 'stir up' the electrolyte that doesn't massively complicate things. But i also read that one of the enhancements made to EFB (enhanced flooded batteries) car batteries for cars...

As an ASE master tech with an L3 hybrid/ev cert, my opinion is its basically a pipe dream to get a conversion kit that doesnt cost 15k+ and at least a few thousand dollars in labor. Air cooled VWs are of course the ideal cheap/easy swap candidates but also barely a car by modern standards...

So ive got as far as opening the box ? and immediately i can say i REALLY like this form factor! It is small, the inset handles are located well and give me perfect confidence lifting it that the handles wont break or hurt my hand (unlike what passes for handles on a lot of the 12v stuff)...

My experience running a diesel heater is that the power wire is a little undersized for the amperage during warmup and causes an excessive voltage drop. For example, running my diesel heater on the full-length uncut power wires it came with, off a full size car battery, the controller reports it...

Watt's law says ~12v X ~35a = ~450w. I believe that spec is simply telling you that since the controller can only flow 35amps on its output side, you should never expect more than 450w of 'output' to a 12v battery no matter how much you hook to the input. I don't think that type of spec should...

That is pricey but looks nice. Doesn't have an internal solar controller though, which adds expense. I wonder if the 'solar input' terminals do anything besides jump across the inside of the case and hook straight to the battery circuit. :LOL: My experience so far has been that idle...

Targeted ads make me feel better because it means im being data-mined the most efficiently, and who doesn't love efficiency?!

If youre the kind of person who does a lot of tinkering and iterations its nice to have a log of some kind to remember why you did something the way you did, when future you has forgotten. ??

Sorry guys, i've been too busy to do much of anything with it. The only thing I've done so far was slowly charge it to full, and put a car battery 100A load tester on it to see what would happen. It did over 100a for several seconds before i said "cool, it's not broke" and had to walk away from...

I agree that buying 24v batteries will save hassle long term. With lifepo4 there is really no limit on paralleling because prallel strings will ‘balance’ to each other so well because of the low internal resistance of lifepo4. They also dont mind sitting at a partial state of charge and dont...

If a cart is already 48v that's all well and good, but what i did was take a 36v cart with a mechanical speed control (no electronics, just puts large resistors in series with motor based on pedal position) and fed it 48v. That combined with larger diameter tires means it will now, just barely...

I read an article about PFC that basically said 'customer on grid doesn't give a shit and adding this cost to the appliance is currently just making it less competitive in the market, but in the future things might tighten up to the point that PFC becomes normal'. That's what i took from it...

I go even further.. I keep changing the oil with 5-10 minutes run time in between, until it comes back clean. So this makes my first 'commissioning' (makes it sound more complicated than it is) of a new small engine take about an hour. It's crazy the amount of junk that comes out in the first...

Im glad you are on board with the mini split idea. I understand not wanting to do propane. If you want to focus on efficiency improvements first then you MAY consider as part of your outlay.. a thermal imaging camera of some sort! Cheaper ones are around $200 (except for some real low res...

Looks like you already came to the same conclusion i would have recommended.. just timer switches should be enough for you, and they're CHEAP! The water heater blankets aren't a bad idea but they have to be pretty cheap to justify themselves in my opinion. Newer water heater tanks are insulated...

Well, let’s see.. i ordered one. $216 with tax. Nov 14-16th delivery estimate.

It may have something to do with the capcitor inrush to the inverter tripping the bms overcurrent protection. Depends on what switch you mean. If it’s a battery disconnect switch that isolates battery from inverter, you would get inrush when you close that switch. Look up ‘precharge resistor’...

My plan all along has been to build a 'solar carport' for my panels, which are.. still laying on the ground after almost a year. :oops: Its the damn kids man. Don't make all the plans in the world, and have 2 kids, in the same general time frame. It is a rude awakening. ?

Recently I needed to replace an FLA battery in my little 600cc diesel Kubota tractor. I could have done the ~$34 thing and just bought another U1 riding mower battery from Walmart, but i wanted to turn it into an experiment instead. When i looked at lifepo4 options to use as an engine-cranking...

These pictures make me giddy. Someone was having a lot of fun. I'm slightly jealous. And this is coming from a guy who already has PLENTY of project ingredients sitting around on 5 acres.. I wish i could have talked to the guy!!

So my VERY weak understanding of USB-C is that the only way they get up to 100w is by going up to ~20v? I guess there is some communication in the protocol about what the recipient device can use as far as voltage or wattage, similar to the j1772 ev plug maybe? Like i said, VERY weak, passing...

So i would agree it's preferable not to physically alter the pouch in any way, but the fact that it ruptured there is not relevant to the actual cause of failure because the pouch wouldn't pressurize/swell enough to rupture it if nothing else were wrong. With the incomplete information that's...

So I went off grid in May with 10kw of PV, 10kw of inverter (2x5kw growatt), and starting with very little battery (but now have more). I live in San Antonio Texas and have ~950feet of water line to the house, about 12-18" down. Suffice to say during the summer i was able to ignore the water...

So as an ASE Master Tech I think some of yall would be surprised to find out how close to the alternator's rated capacity a vehicle's draw can be.. Most especially luxury vehicles in cold climates. Take something like an Escalade and turn on 2 rows of seat heaters, both blower motors on high...

THANK YOU for the update. There’s nothing worse than having a problem, finding multiple threads on the internet about the same problem, and noone ever comes back and posted what fixed it! You have fixed your inverter AND benefitted all future readers. ??

You can absolutely use a relay to trigger another relay. I think its a good thing you have multiple heaters adding up to 60a rather than one large one. I may be wrong but im thinking 750w+ of heat directly to an enclosure is actually a lot and you may end up needing less. Having multiple...

In my bedroom, roughly 160-180sq ft. It has an eco mode which will allow it to ‘turn off’ when it reaches the set temperature and then run briefly every 10 minutes to see if more cooling is needed (it seems without airflow, the interior temp sensors of window units in general don’t sense actual...