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Is that all extrapolated from their marketing numbers or have you measured for yourself? 6.667 (kWh generated) / 33.41 (kWh total energy) = 19.95% efficiency 6 (kWh generated) / 33.41 (kWh total energy) = 17.96% efficiency If we assume ~$6/gal for fancy ethanol free gas in the US, that's...

Probably worth mentioning (at least for other folks that find this topic), power supplies like the ones for computers usually aren't designed for supplying constant current (CC). In other words they will try and hold their output voltage stable at all costs until you try and draw too much power...

Haha, don't beat yourself up. Lots of folks talk about "days of autonomy" (i.e. total kWh ÷ kWh/day) which is what you're referring to there. "Coasting" (as I'm trying to define it here) is a bit different. It's about the behavior that the system exhibits under real-world conditions. While you...

Not sure why (almost) everybody thinks I need "advice" here. I'm at ~48.6 degrees N so I know about seasonal variations in production (though maybe not as intensely as @upnorthandpersonal) - and yes my system is arguably oversized for the rest of the year too. That's not the point of this...

Not relevant. The question I'm posing (updated title to make it clear that it is a question) refers to the abstract reservoir of power a system has relative to production capacity and usage. Whether that reservoir is in one big battery or segmented somehow with a software control scheme...

I'd argue that you should replace "full" with "full enough", but otherwise that's correct. I should have specified that the idea of "coasting" as a system size metric really only makes sense in the least productive time of year. Most of the late fall and early winter I get that. A good day at...

We'll call the time where a system is neither all the way full nor too close to empty: "coasting" IMHO, time spent coasting is one measure of how well an off-grid system is balanced in terms of production capacity, storage capacity, and usage. Lots of ways to look at this, but; If your...

I think you may have missed the specific case I was talking about. I'm referring to dry never activated flooded lead-acid batteries. For example the Rolls documentation includes this; I can't remember where I saw the 5 to 10 years claim, but I'm pretty sure that's true. Presumably, storing...

There are a lot of trade-offs, but several of the flooded chemistries can be purchased as dry/empty cells and activated by adding electrolyte when needed. Some lead-acid battery manufacturers advertise 5 - 10 years of storage with minimal loss of capacity. Nickel iron batteries should store more...

I do have an ugly script that I use to produce summary metrics - interpolating and adding up data from my batteries/inverters/SCCs/etc. Maybe it will serve as inspiration since you could do something similar for down-sampling purposes...

I'm curious to hear what you learn/find. I also have this "problem", but I've just been assuming my metrics db would grow more or less indefinitely since storage is cheap. (My .tar.gz backups are up to ~11 GB now for 3.5 years of data)

You need to plan for the replacement cost of your critical hardware anyway and you'll learn a lot by living with a system for a while. So if your budget is $60K because that's what it would cost to get grid power, I'd argue for spending less than half that up-front on your electricity/energy...

This is a good point to bring up. That long tail (low) charging current for lead-acid batteries would be stupid to try and serve with a large generator under normal conditions. I think a fair number of folks here have large LFP battery banks which can take pretty high charge rates for long...

This. Curious if folks in this thread are measuring their own kWh produced & fuel usage and doing the efficiency math... See https://diysolarforum.com/threads/how-efficient-is-your-generator.50418/

One of the other fuses is for the 12v (cigarette style) socket on the front panel so you can put any reasonable size fuse on that e.g. 5A/7.5A/10A. I think it might be a 10A, but I'm not sure. In a pinch you can also "borrow" that fuse as part of the solenoid replacement fix (make sure to...

I don't know if anybody else here has done the same, but the motorized ball valve is working fine for me. (I only use propane.) The main downside I've noticed is that it is a bit slower than the solenoid so it more frequently takes the generator a little longer to start. i.e. it cranks for a...

Welcome time traveler! I'd be surprised if the solenoid makes a loud bang noise when it fails. However it is pretty easy to get these generators to backfire when running on propane if you shut off the generator via the start/stop button (or fob). I believe this happens because the start/stop...

Not sure why I didn't get a notification about your post @turbov6 It's not full off-the-shelf auto ATS functionality, but on page 2 of this thread I described the pins on the ATS plug which cause my XP9000iH units to start/stop. Using that (assuming your unit is the same), it should be possible...

This sounds awesome! I'd love to hear more about this! Can you share photos of the mill in action and the before(raw material)/after(finished) photos of a board you've made?

Maybe you're referring to my thread: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/living-with-the-duromax-xp9000ih.55122/ ?

When you start asking about "Best R-value", my mind goes to vacuum based insulation strategies. Almost certainly impractical, but fun to think about. :unsure: In practice, this is why you need the math @sunshine_eggo is pointing to. Engineering is almost never about "best" - but "good enough"...

For the DuroMAX XP9000iH, see my post here which would fall under the information category of AGS via relays. I haven't done it yet, but I have an Atkinson AGS unit that I plan to use to automate starting/stopping the XP9000iH via the ATS plug as I've documented in that post.

@OffGridInTheCity Did you get the EG4 Chargeverter(s) and do you have any efficiency data? Maybe you'd like to start that thread?

Update: I added the data for my system through the last generator run in the spring (April 23rd) to my initial post (page #1). My main takeaways (beyond the fuel type efficiency differences noted earlier in this thread) are: At around 60% of the nominal rating of my generator (on propane) I'm...

I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt this answer. When just connected together (addressed differently) via RS485/Modbus the charge controllers do not "share" any data with each other unless there is some kind of other (Modbus) "master" device also connected to the same (Modbus) bus...

Good to have you onboard. Please share anything you learn about these generators!

Presumably there's some sort of switching mechanism (relays/IGBT) behind the panel in that video. Obviously that would take power too, but the device has its own solar cells. I think this is one of those "devil in the details" kinds of scenarios where it's not intrinsically a bad idea, but would...

Microinverters apply their MPPT algorithm at a per-panel level so there is no need to "bypass" a given panel (though the strings of cells in the panel might still have bypass diodes). If there isn't very much sun, then the affected microinverter(s) will simply contribute less power to "the grid"...

If you get/have an Overkill BMS (or possibly another JBD BMS) you can refer to the Overkill Solar guide on alternative cell count configuration: https://overkillsolar.com/2023/06/30/bms-configuration-for-alternative-cell-counts/ Arguably this thread should be moved into the Danger Zone.

Should we assume you're implying (probably correctly) that having many different forms of answer for the same beginner questions would make a really great training dataset for an "AI" technique like ChatGPT/LLM?

Similar question; Does the noise happen if you turn off the inverter entirely?

I think @efficientPV is right. If your goal is just to measure, then a small panel and a data logger of some sort is all you should need. I think you just need to log the temperature of the panel and the voltage across a known resistance - ideally not the open circuit voltage. Since the...

I pretty regularly weld with my Victron Multiplus 24|70|3000 units (now using 240 split phase but for a long time I just used one @ 120v). I've wondered the same thing whether the sharp changes in current demand will reduce the life-expectancy of the units, but so far so good. (About 18 months...

Let us know how that goes! Edit: I'd also be curious (maybe in another thread) what your ESP8266 SDK/library stack looks like. I found the Arduino SDKs to be deeply unsatisfying (memory leaks and heap fragmentation are basically unavoidable with the core networking libraries), and the...