Add Heating Pads to EG4 or Switching to Trophy Batteries?

[629658]

Search results for query: Eg4

diysolarforum.com

 

[SkyMo]

I bought 4 Trophy Batteries about a year ago and they did fine this winter. I have a temperature gauge out there and at times the shed was in the 20's all day. They do not balance between all four and discharge/charge unevenly despite everything I have tried, but that doesn't seem to effect anything and I am overall pleased with them.

For those of you who wonder, they are all connected with 00 gauge cables to a common thick copper busbar. And the battery doing all the "work" changes from time to time..

 

[Old_Skewler]

I have a temperature gauge out there and at times the shed was in the 20's all day.

Do you happen to know whether the built in heating pads were ever engaged?

They do not balance between all four and discharge/charge unevenly despite everything I have tried, but that doesn't seem to effect anything and I am overall pleased with them.

Thanks for the feedback. Could I ask how you determined this planning of balancing? Just by reading SOC on each display?

For those of you who wonder, they are all connected with 00 gauge cables to a common thick copper busbar. And the battery doing all the "work" changes from time to time..

??????

 

[629658]

Whew... I read it but don't even need to say anything... I came here to ask for HELP and I am not interested in pseudo-help tactics to engage with angry people disguised as helpful beings.

Help is an action for others, not for one self. It is clear to me from his "thirst to be proven wrong" he is more interested in internet action than actually providing any help.

No you came here to pick a fight. You posted a question that lead me to believe you were trying to choose between EG4 and Trophy. I gave you my reasoning and my opinion. That wasn’t enough for you I guess so then you started in with the personal attacks.

In return I expanded upon my opinion as you requested and asked you to do the same….nothing more except more attacks and attitude.

So please state a case why the EG4 is a better battery buy??

 

[Zapper77]

Could you expand on what you mean here? Do/did you have EG4s and struggled with them? Is that it?

I had two batteries that would hit cell OV when the pack would hit 55v

 

[Old_Skewler]

No you came here to pick a fight. You posted a question that lead me to believe you were trying to choose between EG4 and Trophy....

So please state a case why the EG4 is a better battery buy??

Dude... You are crazy and I think you need to be reported.

 

[Old_Skewler]

I had two batteries that would hit cell OV when the pack would hit 55v

And how did you solve this?

 

[629658]

Dude... You are crazy and I think you need to be reported.

Be my guest

 

[Rednecktek]

I know I'm going to regret this, but...

So please state a case why the EG4 is a better battery buy??

A small home providing for a small critical loads panel or utility shed where the batteries are always nice and warm and it's communicating with an EG4 inverter. Everything lives in a utility closet and the grid just goes Grid -> EG4 -> Critical Loads so it becomes an overglorified UPS. The EG4's are the cheapest option and buying it as a package and connecting it to your WiFi lets SS troubleshoot any issues it might have remotely.

Something like that would be about the only use case, where the environmental concerns of temperature and weather protection are moot.

 

[629658]

I know I'm going to regret this, but...



A small home providing for a small critical loads panel or utility shed where the batteries are always nice and warm and it's communicating with an EG4 inverter. Everything lives in a utility closet and the grid just goes Grid -> EG4 -> Critical Loads so it becomes an overglorified UPS. The EG4's are the cheapest option and buying it as a package and connecting it to your WiFi lets SS troubleshoot any issues it might have remotely.

Something like that would be about the only use case, where the environmental concerns of temperature and weather protection are moot.

Thank you Sir. Point taken and I wouldn’t disagree.

 

[Zapper77]

And how did you solve this?

Manual top balancing using USE battery type and slowly increasing voltage. Where I went wrong was I Attempted to get away with just using solar as the top balancing power source when I really should have just used grid.

 

[dcg9381]

Try 40 cycles or 2 months. But now that I understand the battery BMS, it could be done over a few days.

Wanna share tips/tricks?

 

[timselectric]

Electronics are the happiest in the same environment as we humans.
So, my entire system has its own room in my house.
Except for the panels, of course.
I don't even charge it rent. But it contributes its part anyway. I'm very happy with my new roommate.

 

[Rednecktek]

Electronics are the happiest in the same environment as we humans.
So, my entire system has its own room in my house.
Except for the panels, of course.
I don't even charge it rent. But it contributes its part anyway. I'm very happy with my new roommate.

If you went with Victron equipment it would do the dishes, walk the dog, and manage your investment portfolio, right?

 

[timselectric]

If you went with Victron equipment it would do the dishes, walk the dog, and manage your investment portfolio, right?

It is my investment portfolio. lol

 

[sparrs]

I am currently running my off-grid cabin with (1) EG4 48V battery. This year I need to add at least 1 or 2 battery racks to my system. The only issue I had last winter was the cold weather limitation in which I had to wait until mid-day to charge my EG4.

I was recommended Trophy rack batteries instead of EG4 for my cold climate cabin. I basically would like to hear from more experienced users which way would be better: stick with EG4s and add heaters to batteries OR dump EG4 and move to Trophy batteries, which already have heaters built-in.

TIA!

Seems a 100 watt heat lamp in the shed/room on a temp switch set to cut on below 50, for example might be simpler?

 

[timselectric]

Seems a 100 watt heat lamp in the shed/room on a temp switch set to cut on below 50, for example might be simpler?

We used to use a light bulb for our chickens.
If insulated, it doesn't take much to stay above freezing.

 

[Tomthumb62]

As far as power draw, each mat is 20W, and i also have the Inkbird controller on a timer

A v8 moment, that's really smart!

I might do something like this sometime but I doubt I'd ever need to use it, but it's cheap enough it might be nice for the insurance aspect of it.

 

[Old_Skewler]

Seems a 100 watt heat lamp in the shed/room on a temp switch set to cut on below 50, for example might be simpler?

Our energy shed is NOT insulated... this solution seems simpler to implement but not sure how well would perform...

Good idea though...

 

[Crowz]

I had posted this in another thread showing what I use to keep my weize batteries warm :

I used these :


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075WVPP5Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1



I simply taped one pad on each of the 4 sides of each battery.

I then used these :


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011VGAPOC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1






to control the heating pads.

I placed the sensor for each control unit on top of each battery it controlled the pads for.

I believe I have them wired 2 in series on each of the 4 pads but I may have all 4 in series I cant remember which worked out the best.

I set the controllers to 37F turn on 40F turn off. I havent noticed much in the way of shortened battery life with this setup on my lifepo4 batteries.

So far using a infrared thermometer the batteries have stayed above 34F at all times. My batteries will function to 0C and they have a 32F limit on charging with the bms they have. So I have it setup to keep it over 34F to ensure they will charge each morning no matter how cold it gets.

That said it doesnt get that cold here in Alabama with 20F being the normal lows most of the time in the winter.

 

[Tomthumb62]

I set the controllers to 37F turn on 40F turn off. I havent noticed much in the way of shortened battery life with this setup on my lifepo4 batteries.

This i think is a huge advantage to wiring your own external heating. Most if not all the factory internal heaters are something like turn on at 32F and off at 45F. IMO, that’s too cold to turn on and too warm to turn off. The way you set it would be my choice. Maybe a little different like on at 35F and off at 40F.

But as Will Prowse points out, most of us don’t need heated batteries because the cabin temp usually doesn’t get that cold. Maybe a remote mountain off grid cabin in Michigan or Maine that is unoccupied in winter, but not in southern Oregon or in a home that you live in.

 

[mvonw]

I have had 6 Trophies for a year and a half and through 1 pretty cold winter (-20F a few times) in an unheated shed. I did make a small closet for the batteries out of several layers of insulation foam. I used a 200watt heater connected to an wireless inkbird and a small 48volt DC fan. I set the temperature to 70F and because I have a lot of solar panels, I never even noticed drain on battery. Because it's so well insulated, the heater was only running about 2 hours a day or less on the coldest days. I look at the internal heaters as insurance. I had a smaller 100 and 50 watt heaters I experimented with, but 200 watts was the goldilocks since for my battery cabinet.

 

[cubish]

I am currently running my off-grid cabin with (1) EG4 48V battery. This year I need to add at least 1 or 2 battery racks to my system. The only issue I had last winter was the cold weather limitation in which I had to wait until mid-day to charge my EG4.

I was recommended Trophy rack batteries instead of EG4 for my cold climate cabin. I basically would like to hear from more experienced users which way would be better: stick with EG4s and add heaters to batteries OR dump EG4 and move to Trophy batteries, which already have heaters built-in.

TIA!

I know this is an old post. But we love at 7400 feet in a permanent home completely non grid tied. It gets cold here. -4 this winter. Our Trophy batteries worked flawlessly