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Grid Abandonment by state: ( and septic, water too ) https://www.primalsurvivor.net/living-off-grid-legal/

You have to find out what the Grid Abandoment rules are for your area/PowCo You might get your house red-tagged by a building inspector if the PowCo reports it. The PowCo usually enters into a "arrangement" with the goverment to insure they will have enough customers to make running cables...

I'm not sure how to interpret that statement. My inverters produce 240VAC split phase (120V per leg) Hooking up a 12-30V LED is not going to end well. Do you have an example ?

I'd say a big fat no, if you are going to try to have any property insurance. a) LV lighting might be efficient at the bulb level, but the cable runs to the bulbs will need to be beefy 10 or 12 ga wire. b) Inspector is going to want to see UL labels for the sockets, bulbs and DC switches c)...

Overpaneling generally means higher wattage, not higher voltage, which is deadly to charge controllers Better controllers have output limiting and thermal foldback to keep the controller healthy when overpaneled.

Thats 2 tenths of a volt for margin. I guess it's ok. But there's something about holding/charging Li batteries at a high voltage for a long time. I think 5 minutes is enough, but they are your batteries and you have the manual.

I'm partial to the Schneider Electric solar gear The XW6048 inverter that I use, accepts 240VAC from either of my 2, 240V generators, and can use the AC power to become a large battery charger (over 100a @ 48V) It also has a Generator Support mode, and if you approach the programmed limits of...

So, if you are "creating" a Solid State Relay (SSR) they have nearly the same style of parts inside. And they also have engineering data sheets that describe "snubbing" circuits to damp out the inductive kickback when turning off and on. While it's DC, it can also "kick"...

I am concerned that your lead acid charger does not have the right voltage presets for your LFP batteries. What does your battery documentation say their max charge voltage is ?

Xantrex / Schenider electric https://solar.schneider-electric.com/product/xw-na-solar-inverter/

3kw is a lot to ask from a 12v system. Have you considered 24 or 48v

If you want to replace a bad Bypass diode in a PV panels' J-Box, you can use an "Active Diode" which is a FET switch purpose made for solar. Several companies make them , and they dissipate less heat than a Schottky diode...

Most charge controllers provide the blocking diode function, but if you want to waste some not insignificant amount of power forward biasing a diode all day, be my guest. If you want to replace a bad Bypass diode in a PV panels' J-Box, you can use an "Active Diode" which is a FET switch purpose...

Better calculate your power consumption for a 24 hour period. Then you need batteries to run that long. When we had fires nearby, the smoke was so thick, that the sun was not visible at noon. I had no solar harvest for 2 days. The light in my generator shed, was a 10W LED, way brighter than...

Their supplied opener inverter is likely mod-sine, which will "work" in a pinch, at the cost of overheating the motor because it's not pure sinewave

it's not good for your charge controller, when the BMS disconnects the battery. That action leaves the charge controller with only the solar PV input, which is often well above battery and planned operation voltage. Most Controllers require the solar be disconnected before the battery is...

Use the water to your advantage, set the batteries in the water, it will help keep them cooler from evaporation , water will also delay winter freezing.

Any commercial manufactured panel should have 3 bypass diodes built into it's J-Box at the factory. If the entire panel is shaded, the 3 diodes activate ( or as many as needed to bypass the shaded solar cells ) and the panel is completely bypassed. Now if you get enough panels or sections of...

try lugsdirect.com

That's a problem. Most factory panels have poorly engineered bypass diodes. No heat sinking, crummy solder joints, and whatever the cheap diodes the buyer found that week. Here;s a great read about bypass diodes & reasons ( hover over the link below, it should work, this board does not...

Recycle them for new ones. 6 yrs is past actual calendar lifetime for most SLA batteries. Being at low voltage is even worse

SLA batteries , at end of life, can heat up and gas, and so you need venting to get the gas (hydrogen) out of the structure. And most telecom batteries are rated for a dozen deep cycles, not hundreds of cycles

At 3V, some cells have been reversed polarized, not good. You may be able to get them charged somewhat, but you have lost a lot of capacity and lifetime. Be glad it was not an expensive Li battery !!

> Does the VOC drop with age of panels? I don't know. But likely not much, if at all.

I've read about dew harvesting netting material used to collect water. But you need enough humidity in the air to begin with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2011/03/07/the-fog-collectors-harvesting-water-from-thin-air/...

What i hate about many BMS's is the rats nest of wires, going to batteries, with little thought to safety. Oh and the bleeder boards that can go bad and kill a cell. Oh and the BMS that is really only half a BMS and you find out when your battery is shot. Consumer Education. Do you need...

Schneider Electric XW series of inverters would do it. Several models for different Grid voltages https://solar.schneider-electric.com/product/xw-pro-na-solar-hybrid-inverter/ ( and now I see this is a old old post, but the XW still would work )

I don't like to load inverters past 70% of continuous rating at ambient temp. You might have to look hard for the proper chart/graph that shows the data for your inverters

And don't forget that the 220A fuse , has to have wire rated for 220A .

As the solar charge controller manages the battery voltage, it's going to vary, and that's likely the source of the flicker.

Cement board or tile backer board is fireproof. Not the question you asked, but it may become important someday. Plywood is handy and easy to work with. It also burns when heated hot enough. ( from a bad controller or a hot connection )

I vote NO. Aluminun is a poor conductor. Soft material and threads gall quickly. But the worst thing is it oxodized nearly instantly with exposire to oxygen (in Seconds). The oxide is Aluminun Oxide, which is quite tough and used for sandpaper.

Just stop There is no AC neg or pos AC has hot and neutral. Neutral is supposed to be tied at one (only 1) point in the main panel, to ground. Hot wire is Black Neutral is supposed to be white Ground is supposed to be green. These are all standards you need to know before you pick up a...

90 acres, 5kw PV xw6048 inverter 800ah 48v NiFe battery Run 1,000' #2 aluminum wire to deep well pump, feeds 12,000 gal of gravity feed water for property. All is conventional house wiring, no tricks or shortcuts. Any $15 electrician can make sense of it, and that's the way you want it 2400sf...

You can build it cheap several times ( the path you are on) or you can build it properly, once. You need a 48VDC system, 240VAC inverter for the pump (pure sine) I started with 3,000 w of panels, which was ok in great conditions , adding another 2,000w array helped quite a bit. Your inverter...