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Hi all. so this summer we did a storm damage replacement which ended with adding a new wind turbine and 4th charge controller. I extended the old wind tower from 52' height to 65'. Idea is for night time charging. We tried this 20 years ago with a pair of Air 403's and it didn't work so well...

Flickering. Just read many threads here. Some say its the lights, some the voltage. I think either way we didn't notice it with incandescent due to the time the glowing filament remained hot between surges or dips.... thoughts?

HELLO! after some talks and lurks and tears and jerks, we've decided on this to replace our storm damaged good ol' trooper AIR 403'S here is the unboxing. The unit is very solidly built (at least what you can see). I was pleasantly surprised. The factory didn't tell me it came with a diversion...

Replacing a small wind turbine. Hi I have a 100' run from tower to battery room (160' total wire length) System is 24V. The wire run is mostly buried 2/0 aluminum. I was thinking of using a 48V turbine to help with the voltage drop my logic being that some panels get up above 48V and the MPPP...

Hi All. Getting the occasional over current trip from the TRACE SW 4024 inverter. Manual for it claims 33A normal with 78A peak (output) I do not think we get a draw of over 40 AMPS even with surges. Especiall with a newer low surge sump pump. While I look for the culprit, WHICH is the 40...

So. Replacing two Air 403's with a single larger unit, looking seriously at iSTA BREEZE from Turkey, as Tumo from Japan. Does anyone have exp. with either? Goal is medium to low wind 200-600 watt supplemental charger, so prob 1500 watt unit is plenty....... thanks

Hi. so we have been talking and laughing about the trick of tilting down small towers (50-100') for service. I must repair after storms so here is what i think i want to so -retrofit while I have the lift and am changing from two turbines on a "T "mast down to one larger unit YES THE TREES ARE...

Hi. Tired of manual balancing last time I looked (2022) I didn't find a passive balancer for my battery configuration. Is anyone aware of a solution? It's like this illustration but with five 12V per bank not four. THANKS

Hi. Our system current;ly is supporting a 120V residential sump pump, which cycles relatively frequently, perhaps hourly in wetter weather. The draw is 30+ amps. the inverter supports 40. I need to load more onto the system to get best use, yet have to duck around the startup surges to avoid...

Hi all. So We get too much energy during sunny days. After a night of modest loads, (25-50AH) we are at 100% by 9AM. I am very worried about the batteries always being full as I read (here) that LifePo4 does not like full charge forever. Options are set the charge controllers to a lower limit...

Today the power went off on our street. we didn't notice for hours until we saw the clock was off on the 220 electric range. It felt pretty good to realize we didn't notice. Whether you went through all the build your own hassle to save money, be independent, or just to have backup, when you...

Hi All! Last week during manual balance I discovered that one of our LifePo4 (?) will only charge to 12.9V. ( I’ll bet it’s a bad bms) The factory has been good enough to send a replacement (hats off to Power Queen for painless support). We all have been taught that batteries should be similar...

Hi all. We have a pair of Southwest Windpower Air 403 turbines which were installed in 2001. A storm recently damaged them enough to warrant an insurance replacement. The pair are flown on a single 60' guyed tower with a "T" boom separating them. I believe they are max 425 watts each, 24V. I do...

One of the downsides of solar is the problem of introducing replacement (and therefore chemically mismatched) batteries after the battery banks age. I’m not referring to battery balancing. Replacing batteries often means buying all new because of aging and chemistry which you likely know...

Hi Just added a second Epever for a different group of panels. Running two Epever units, one a seven month old 40 amp unit, and one a week old, 30 amp. They both connect to the same battery buss with the same length of wire (3' of #6), however the newer one reads battery voltage about a tenth of...

Hi all. tall tree to the east of home blocks light until about 10 AM, this is our booster idea that followed some property maintainance. Surplus everything except the pvc box. The buried wire is #2 (in conduit) for about a 50 foot run to an unused PWM controller, which should be fine for this...

Hi our Xantrex SW4024 is throwing an ocasional error message after tripping its overcurrent. It is "overcurrent-yes". I do not believe we are overloading the unit during inverting/distribution, and the faults seem to occur during normal loading not when everything is happening at once, so to...

https://rumble.com/v1oed6y-oliver-explains-electrical-load-distribution-to-lisa.html

Hi Am wrapping up this years maintainance and upgrades and the system is doin well so far, however there is a point in the day when I get too much voltage at the batteries. It just gets to 100% and sits there until evening. I want to stay below 80%,I am setting up a diversion load , however...

hi. Looks like there are several vaugely defined less than great lithium presets.........Our old but good Xantrex inverter was made before lithium, so we just modify the lead acid settings to each correct parameter- works great!. is that doable on the 4210 series without the add on mts50?

Ok so now its time to commit my wiring harness to forever by soldering the crimps and split bolts. HOWEVER, while reading up about wire sizes on a few wire websites many point out that the current flows on the surface of the wire, and so of course the increase in wire size provides an increase...

Admin pls check this I want to adhere to rules. BUT. Has anyone else realized how far we are away from running society on wind and solar? We are here in this group talking about how to squeeze out a few watts to add a refrigerator to a 5kw - 20kw home system, and we, as a nation (US), are being...

how do you discharge an individual battery while manual balancing? I am charging some lifePo4's before grouping into a bank, and overshot quite a bit on one... I don't currently have a diversion load. Can I rig an AC toaster? I tried a jumper cable to each ear and that didn't help much.

On clear days we already produce more than we need in the daytime for just lights, fans, computers, and sump pump, so I am adding a relay to transfer the refrigerator circuit only when we are at float voltage. At night when we drop below float, the fridge stays shut mostly anyway, so it's a good...

Hi I just bought some panels from San Tan. good experience, they are set up with Zep grooved edges, where there is a sort of 1/2" slot around the panel edge. For rail mounts I could just screw through the aluminum (avoiding the glass), but does anyone have a tip trick for this frame config?

What about having timer switches on panels facing various orientations (all routed to one charge controller) which switch turn off the ones that aren’t producing due to time of day, thereby taking them out of the mathematical/ electrical equations, and keeping the array always efficient by...

I am about to exceed the capacity of a PWM 40 amp controller, at least on sunny days. Can I split up my panels, say four to six connected to each controller near the panels and have them all junction in parallel into the #6 run that goes to the batteries? The newer second controller would be MPPT

Hi Just saw a video "here" about simply plugging in a chest freezer and, using an secondary thermostat, running it at "idle" to be a sort of storage refrigerator. Has anyone done this? Am retiring a C40 and want to set up as a diversion load.

Does anyone make a smart transfer switch? Programmable, “in out” per circuit. Or at least remotely controllable. Idea is to load system more during peak sun hours, then transfer back to grid after dark (heavy loads like sump pump only). Its the DPDT switching that I haven’t found. There are...

What are snail trails and are they bad for used panel buyers? I am looking at some used panels which have them. A wholesaler in Arizona.

Hi. For a 24v system, where all panels are in paralell what voltage would be preferred in new panels? I see voltages ranging from 20v to higher than 50, what's the deal on all that?

Hi. So if two batteries in series get doubled voltage but keeps same amperage how are the watts factored in or related in the formula? (to the equation not a battery test) ALSO If two solar panels are wired in series to get doubled volts what happens to the watts and amps produced does one or...

While adding 4 more panels below an existing 4 we changed a few angles. The uppers are re-set closest to year around average angle, and the lowers and set for summer for now. The outer two of the uppwer are tilted 2.5" each toward their own hoeizon. AM hipong to gain a few extra minutes of...

Well one would think I know better. Nicked the tempered lens. Voltage tested identical to it's neighbor, so I siliconed and sealed an 1/8" thick polycarbonate sheet over it. The sheet is less matte finished, more glossy will that hurt?

HI. We have a trace SW4024. 1-One feature is a search mode where the inverter , instead of being on. is idling, looking for reasons to be on, and sends out a tiny search pulse looking for a load request (my own lingo sorry). When you switch on a light it knows and quickly inverts. This method...