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His concern was getting his 24v unit to at least error beep with a 12v battery connected, it won’t do a thing until he connects a 24v battery.

You need 24v I played with mine by using a couple of car batteries in series until the real batteries arrived.

The battery is the must have to start it up, the solar input is not needed.

Thanks plenty to study and change over.

Thanks for the advice and schematic. I posed this as a “shack” system, my loads never exceed 200 watts and run mostly at 110-120 watts. It’s enough to charge phones, run two 15 watt led desk lamps and a PC. There are a lot of low cost, non-programmable but decent charge controllers and...

Perfect, exactly what I needed, and is what Ped was saying. But for those who did not see these links and reading about battery first! It was logical to think a disconnected battery would screw up a controller and the answer is, it simply is not an issue.

Thanks for the input.

I have read my product specs carefully and there is no mention of any system to alarm me when the voltage is sort of low but above the low voltage disconnect so I’ll try your suggestion to see what it does but doubt anything will happen until 11.1v. Will and every product instruction and you see...

In a simple low cost shed system using 400 watt PV panel, a single 12 volt 200 amp gel battery, an EPEVER 30 amp charge controller, and a 2000 watt inverter you have low voltage disconnect on the charge controller and inverter that kicks in at 11.1v, way too low to prevent damage to the battery...

Yep wrote it too quick from work, 8 cells, but the main point was how to find out how to assess the problem. No obvious swelling. I kept a cell meter 8 connection intact and could cycle through the voltages of the cells and they stayed voltage matched on occasional testing. I just put it aside...

I have 8 of the generic used Chinese lifepo4 100-amp cells assembled into a 24v battery with a Daly 40 amp BMS. When charging the battery with my MPP Solar with correct lifepo4 settings I smelled a chemical fume right at the start of the charge, so I quickly switched them off. I checked the bus...

Yes I did just read "One Second After" a fictional tale post EMP, perhaps that put me in the frame of mind to think about such things. I suspect the battery (with a BMS pulled off) and solar panels will be fine after an EMP although you will have to change out a few new diodes. So you just need...

Most countries including the US are probing the grids of other countries presumably to have the ability to disrupt power when that would be expedient. Password spraying is happening to the US grid by at least three countries as we speak. My first though was if there is a forced power grid...

I found the same thing as Doug, some settings only “take” with the inverter switched off. I found once the charging or and other desired setting changes start you can switch the inverter back on and the settings hold. If using the software and you click something and they ask for the...

San Tan Solar also has similar pricing even with shipping added and a great reputation. e.g. very likely to make anything right if it there is shipping damage or a bad panel.

Thanks will edit to say many not all are one direction.

This explains it, it gets connected along the negative battery cable to monitor the battery condition and output with the addition of two small wires to the pos. and negative of your battery to power it. When connected you have a low cost meter to monitor your battery voltage, load in amps and...

True but he had to keep trying to redirect the answers back to the simple question. I learn a ton from these conversations but have to admit they sometimes never quite directly answer the question or if they do you need to pull one nugget from nine replies. What if the first reply said, yes you...

I’ve seen this type of thread many times and maybe was a contributor to this problem. Good information sent but no one actually simply directly answering the original question. They are emergency use battery’s, No attempt to max cycles is being made. He needs to do the math and spend as little...

One other tip: I have used my dc power supply to add voltage to a cell when I had 5 cells bottom balanced pretty well and one cell with lower voltage than the rest. It was quicker to raise the low cell voltage a bit than lowering the other five to meet the low voltage cell. I am no expert but I...

We used to scoff at "Made in Japan" equating it with cheap stuff until it became a symbol of quality. You need to know a manufacturers reputation prior to buying if that's possible but the facts are the highest quality parts, batteries, electronic components and solar panels are mostly made in...

Like many here I want to keep it simple, get some lengthy cycles out of my batteries but also not let them occupy my full attention with every use. I have a MPP Solar (PIP) with a relatively steady load daily using Renology gel 200amp batteries. Life would be so simple if I could just follow the...

Mini splits can run on 800 watts and cool one small fully enclosed room, so the math is not too hard. My nonprofessional but personal calculations suggest you triple the solar panel wattage to run the AC during the day (2.4k). Double the battery capacity for the number of night watt hours you...

OK NM Will started with a nice concise setting list that unfortunately would not be great for Gel battery life. Can anyone condense the collected wisdom of all the responses by redoing his original table with more acceptable values? Thanks!

There is always more to the story. They were providing little power before my transfer switch in my MPP would low voltage cut off and move to utility power. I had the cut off at 12v under a light 150 watt load which was about 12.4v with the load off. I was concerned I got a bad battery and...

Yes, the depth of discharge vs number of cycles is a downward curve and you want to stay to the left side. But it’s not a steep slope past 50% and a single test of a battery to 70% DOD likely did not kill my battery. What’s interesting is how you decided the depth I reached. I went with voltage...

I have four 250 watt used San Tan Solar panels mounted on a side yard wall ($50 each). I get 100-400 watts of solar power depending on the season and time of day. I use a 24v MPP Solar all in one. It’s set up as an off grid power supply to one room in our home that draws 125 watts or so to run...

#29 20-24v as it’s a 24v PIP. We can agree lead acid battery life cycle is a curve so if you go only to say 30% DOD yes your battery lasts much longer. You will need more of them for fixed amount of energy usage as your drawing less energy per cycle so you’ll spend more on batteries to get...

I tested my second 200amp Renology Gel as I have the shunt now and wanted to insure they were both performing as expected. I got 2000 Wh taking it down to about 50%. With both batteries I have 4kWh of energy storage for $700. While they won’t last as long as LiFePO4s and they are massive your...

Denwa a 12v depth of discharge for a glass matt battery (AGM) is 50% a very safe discharge that is in the green part of the table for AGM (attached). A 12v load shut off will not kill your AGM. Its a safe depth of discharge that will maximize battery cycles. When under a load and you set the...

Your post provided a good tip on how to properly set a bolt into aluminum terminals. It was very clear and a good suggestion. Completely separately from that tip about bolt length and washers needed to get it perfect was the same point Will brought up to be paranoid when tightening that bolt as...

I’ll add tighten them very gingery just a tiny bit past hand tight, I have similar cells and striped two. I had to rethread with larger bolts but since I have been very careful with steel bolts on aluminum threads!

If by lithium you mean 18650 power walls, they have their own issues, micro shorts, balance issues and fire hazard being just some. If you mean LifePO4 those are great but still way more than $350 for a 200 amp 12v battery, more like $800. If you draw from the battery daily the LifePO4 are the...

I'm not at all sure I agree with Denwa on this thousands use the MPP off grid. Just because there is a lot of on grid possible settings does not mean the MPP can't work perfectly with Battery/Solar only quite well. On "User" defined battery setting you can set the battery cut-off to any voltage...

I have found that my MPP overcharges my Gel batteries on the default MPP "Gel" charge/float setting so I use the user defined MPP charge settings to keep them charged in line with what the manufacturer suggests (12.8V for gel) to maximize battery longevity. You do have to arbitrarily decide on a...