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I have 10 of these in the yard. I adjust the tilt each month to maximize the solar. The supports are 2" galvanized pipes cemented into the ground. I use super struts from Home Depot for the cross support of the panels. Everything is bolted together with 1/2" bolts. Things have been up and...

My battery pack is 128 LFP 280AH 48 volt system. It is self-balancing and keeps the cells within 10mv. I have 2 Overkill BMS 's and also two 5 amp balance boards. I balance just the top end of the Cells. The balance boards turn on at 54.2 volts to keep the Cells all good. Everything on the...

I found this thread to be rather interesting in a number of ways: OP had a simple requirement. Use the batteries with the inverter from 3pm-9pm to power around 1500 watts of load. At 9pm then switch the inverter to pass through. In other words use the grid to power the 1500 watts of load. At...

I just wanted to share my system and maybe give back a little bit of all I have gained from you. First a big thank you for all of your insight and knowledge. It was a big help on obtaining a quality system that should last for years to come. My wife was the great instigator of the project. She...

I for one will never go the route of purchasing a ready-made system. I just enjoy the DIY aspect of the whole process. Purchasing batteries that are put together and ready to go limits the experience and fun of putting together something unique and creative. Even if the price difference was...

This is my summary of the fire. The Cells are arranged in 16s x 6 with fuses between each bank. After the fuses the banks are then connected together with a copper busbar. In order for one of the fuses to blow, then there would need to be current flow of in excess of 200 amps. The fuses were not...

I purchased 16 of the 280 ah cells dealing with Jenny Wu from Docan and I could not be happier with the results. I did not top balance them before using them for a 48 v system. When the cells started to reach 3.5 V+ through the charge controller then I was able to top balance the ones that...

I never have top balanced my cells to 3.65 volts. It seems to me to be a waste of time and also lots of potential to go wrong and possibly reducing my cell pack capacity. I just hooked my 128 cells up to how I was going to use them and then hooked up my charge controllers and my inverters and...

I live in Maine and I can get our pool up to 87 degrees with 10 4' x 8' solar hot water panels. The water comes out at 130 degrees with a 5/8" garden hose. I calculated out the btu's and I think it was around 160 kbtu per hour. I picked up the panels on the cheap from someone who removed them...

I did pretty well for the month of December. I made 605kwh so far. I make sure the snow if off the panels and adjust the angle of the panels to help with the low sun position. My daily low was on December 18th for .94kwh. My daily high was on December 8th for 47.14kwh

I look at SS as just another company. I know a lot of people have dropped some serious money on their stuff. Also a number of people in this forum have had issues with some of their stuff that was purchased. It seems to me after reading all of the complaints and what not regarding SS then it...

AIO have much higher idle current than seperate components. I believe that DIY battery banks, Charge Controllers, Low Frequency Inverters in the long run are a cheaper and better than the AIO. You will probably pay more in the short term but I think that with the savings rendered by less idle...

I just added another 64 LFP Cells to my system to make a total of 128 LFP Cells. They are 280 AH Cells. I purchased them from Docan Power. All the Cells were pristine in appearance and the voltages were all within 3.304-3.306 volts except for one cell which was low at 3.256 volts. The cost was...

I would definitely buy from Jenny Wu again. My cells are performing outstanding. Over a year of use and balance of 8 mv for 128 cells. No issues with swelling or underperforming cells. I am hoping that the cells continue to perform for the next 20 years. I agree with the consensus that the only...

Hmmm. Maybe I should go with another 128 280ah Cells.

Not that big of an Arc? I wish that I would have saved my 200 amp disconnect switch that I ruined. I took it apart and the contacts had some nice big pits in them. If I still had it I would post the pictures. It totally destroyed my contacts. When I was a bench tech back in the 80's I use to...

I sympathize with you. Your build looked to be a professional build looking at your previous post. When fuses blow, then there is a root cause for the fuse to blow as I found out with my 93 Dodge Ram truck when one of the fusible links blew and the mechanic changed out the link without...

I see a number of the Magnum units on Amazon now. I am running two Magnum mspae 4448 inverters. They have ran rock solid for the year I have owned them. I use around 30kw a day through the Magnums. The Magnum expandability is really great. I am running two Magnums networked together and you can...

I am sorry that you experienced such extreme challenges on assembling your battery pack. I found it to be a very rewarding experience. First off, the compression thing is not for me. My Cells are not compressed and are doing fine. Top balancing wasn't for me either. It just seemed like a...

I originally was going to go with 6 volt lead acid batteries. They are rated at 75 amps for 120 minutes. They cost about $110 each. So each battery has 900 watts or .122 per watt. I ended up purchasing 64 LFP Cells (280ah) for around $9500. That figures out to 57344 watts or .166 per watt. Now...

I seriously doubt that you have 200amp batteries. The math just does not add up

In my opinion, one of the first things to do is to get rid of the gas heat for the pool. I have a 7500 gallon pool in the state of Maine and are running it entirely with solar. I heat with solar and run the pump with solar. To heat the pool I am using 12 flat panel solar hotwater panels. To...

After having my Magnum Ms-pae 4448 for a while, I can say that I am totally impressed with the idle current and efficiency it has. In Maine we have plenty of days without sun and the batteries have never discharged to the point of the inverter totally shutting down. I think the ide current is...

Windy here as well. This is what I use and built from material at Home Depot. Wind rocks it a bit but it seems to be working great.

This forum is an excellent way to get a positive outcome from SS. I don't think I would waste 2 hours of my time on the phone trying to get an inexperienced tech. A better approach would be to just describe what is not working on your equipment and then just reference: @SignatureSolarJames or...

I have purchased 64 cells in Feb 2023, 32 cells in Apr 2022, and 16 cells in Feb 2022. All of the cells came from Docan. The cells were all pristine with no bloating. One of the cells most recent purchased had a voltage variance it was 3.256 volts. The other 63 cells were between 3.304 and...

February, back off grid again until November.

I will give you an example of what I experienced today. It is a cold day around 20 degrees and partially cloudy. I have 4500 watts of panels. My peak power today was 5530 watts and 137 volts. I have hit 142 volts so I know the voltage does go up with the cloud edge. It is something to consider...

Without a generator, then it will be difficult no matter what you do. When the sun plays possum for days on end and the snow comes down for a few days, then it kills all your solar no matter what you have. I have batteries for 3 days and 42 panels and the months of Nov-Jan still find me needing...

He has 2 200 ah batteries. It will take a minimum of 40 hours to charge the batteries.

No it does not look good for you. The batteries are 110 x 12 = 1320 watts each. Lead acid you can only use about 50% so that means you have 1320 x 3 = 3960 watts /2 = 1980 watts available. A 2000 watt hot tub will suck those batteries down in less than an hour. It is not even considering the...

My Solar total is 8.163 MWH since November 21. I recently installed a Smart Shunt to check for efficiency of Kwh put in the LFP's vs Kwh consumed by the house, and I was very pleased that I was able to use over 93% of the power put into the batteries. That includes idle current draw of the...

The way I look at it may be different than others. I purchased 112 Cells from Docan and my experience mirrors @MrM1 experience precisely. The Cells work and as far as giving them a grade, to me is just a waste of time. Now that you purchased your cells then you can either test them to death and...

I would not use the busbars with the nut only catching on a few threads. I can see the stud stripping and then you will have major problems. It would be better to catch all of the threads. I am not sure how you could address it with the flexible busbars. I use 1/2" copper L pipe for all of my...

I have two battery banks of 280ah LFP Cells setup as 4p16S or 114,588 kwh. 128 total Cells. I just put up another 12 panels making it a total of 42 solar panels. Wintertime is tough in Maine to keep them all charged.

This is what I suspect that seems to make sense to me. The casings of the cells are shorted and when you move them it just makes it worse. I suspect that some of the copper shavings got between the cells and is breaking through the thin plastic insulation. When the cells are compressed then the...

I live in Maine where the temperatures can dip to -30 degrees and then if you have a partially cloudy day where the sun hits the leading edge of the cloud and boosts your solar way beyond the panel specs, then indeed the voltage can suddenly go over the max and wipe out your Charge Controller...

My wife loves her hot tub. I sometimes join her. It is definitely a electricity consumer. I think I figured it out to be around 3.5 kwh to 4.2 kwh per day. The 240 Volt 6kw heater was brutal so I rewired the hot tub heater to run on just one leg at 120 Volts. This made the heater more manageable...

I have had a lot of success with balancing a Cell pack with a light bulb. The trick is to only balance the Cells when the voltage is greater than 3.4 volts. The goal is for the Cells not to trip the BMS. I use these lights from Amazon with a jumper...

Are you planning on a 12 volt systerm? The only practical reason I can see for a 12 Volt system is a RV application otherwise 48 volt is far superior in every way.

On my DIY Battery Bank, I have 4 100-amp Overkill BMS. Two in Parallel x 2 to take care of my 128 280-amp Cells. I think that trying to push 200 amps through a BMS is just asking for bad things to happen. Say for example, that the BMS developed a short then you may indeed see the example of the...

Until you hook up your clamp meter over the wire from your red positive battery cable and let us know how many amps you are using out of your battery, then it is only speculation whether you have bad batteries or a large current draw.

I assume that your Cells were not fully charged. It would be nice if you had some data of actual Cell voltages while they are in absorb. You can watch the absorb and see when the current into the Cells tapers off to less than 5 amps. That will indicate a full charge as long as your Cell delta is...

I prefer to use my time other than top balancing cells. I just connect them up with a BMS. Connect the panels to the charge controller and the charge controller to the Cells and then let them do their thing. Once one of the Cells starts to go into imbalance, then I connect an automotive light...

I have found that it is best to avoid the temptation for a quick and easy solution to a Solar project. I decided to buy the most reliable stuff I could get my hands on regardless of what it costs. I probably have 16k+ of expenditures so far but it is working flawlessly without all of the issues...

I would recommend popping the top on the suspect battery and then placing a voltmeter between the post and the busbar while under load to determine if you have a connection issue. If there is not a large voltage, then you indeed have a bad cell. If you are going for a warrantee replacement which...

I used 1/2 inch copper L pipe which worked wonderful for me. It is very easy to cut with a pipe cutter. It works well at currents of 100 amps. I tried the cable with lugs and it just did not work with the current. Procedure: Cut the pipe to the proper length. Flatten pipe with a hammer or...

One of my cells in the Cell pack that I purchased and did not top balance finally started to go to 3.65v and cause the BMS to shut down. I was able to attach my car light setup to the cell and discharge it to the point where it was ok with the other cells. I found this to be relatively easy. It...

I ordered 12 Solar Panels with the 5% off $150 black friday shipping from SS. The only negative that I can come up with is that there was no tracking number sent. Finally called them on the phone. The call went through fine and got the tracking number and the panels were delivered the next day...