diy solar

diy solar

Cheap VS Expensive

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1888
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 1888

Guest
This will be a bit of a long story so get yourself a drink first.

As many of you know I have a DIY system that is working every well for me. Its a Aims 24v 6000w inverter with 2 EPever 100a mppt controllers. I have all of it maxed out around 5000w worth of solar. This is powering my entire life from my well to my RV and I have had no problems. The only thing I run into is needing way more batteries than I can afford right now. So I crape together what I can to get more little by little, I'm even building my own now thanks to will. My new neighbor saw what I was doing and wanted to try it too. He got with me and we worked out what he would need to get started, then he ignored many things I told him. In the end he when with AltE store prebuilt 48v system and big battery. His system is a 48v 8000w outback inverter with 2 80a outback controllers. He has 7.9 kw of panels with only 20kw of battery. The problem is his system has not been running right, he is always having to call AltE for help. first problem(that has not been fixed) was that they system was telling his is batteries are low. Yet the batteries have there own shunts on them and they say they are almost full at 57v. AltE keeps telling him to reset everything then the system will learn the batteries, so far that has not worked. Even now they system will throw event codes that the batteries are dangerously low when you look at them and they are over 60%. Next problem is the mppt never pull in the full amount of the panels even with clear skies at peak solar time with batteries at 50%. AltE tells him they won't pull full unless there is a load on them so turn things on and they will ramp up. My system will pull full all the time until the batteries voltage gets to high, even with a load his still don't pull full.
This got me thinking why is it that he paid way more for his system yet it is not working flawlessly like my Diy? I'm wondering in an attempt to stay relevant did the bigger names in solar over engineer there stuff? For outback to make this stuff all work together you need a $425 MATE3s controller box and a $1225 GSLC box with bus bars and circuit breakers in it. All I had to do was connect them all to some 250a bus bars off amazon and boom they all work. I don't even know how to connect my 2 controller together but they are still working with no problems. He has been getting discouraged about all this he spent over20k and still has to run a generator just to live right now. The only time I need my generator is when we get more than 3days of rain, other than that I am full solar.

What do you all think of this?
 
Look at it this way: if you don't intricately know your system, and have to rely on phone calls where important details might be left off or misunderstood - how will this ever run perfectly? I know my system in and out, I know what I can and can not get away with and where I can push things if I need to. Every setting in the system is one I've put in myself, and every component is one I chose myself after doing research.

Compare that to something off the shelf with little prior knowledge, not understanding certain terms, etc.: are the components really configured properly? Are they really matched to the set-up? Often, yes - that's what you pay for, but mistakes happen and it can be difficult to find where the issue really is over the phone...
 
Well now AltE wants him to connect the system to the internets so they can control it for him. I just don't see how a plug and play system need so much help running normally.
 
Even for 'plug-and-pray' systems, it's still early days really, especially for applications with batteries. Grid tie systems are a lot more mature.
 
Well now AltE wants him to connect the system to the internets so they can control it for him. I just don't see how a plug and play system need so much help running normally.
If your neighbor put this kit into service himself/herself, its very possible it was setup wrong. I would gladly give Alt-E the opportunity to look it over... thats a great option to have.

My friend just took possession of a new Winnebago that was equipped with an expensive LiFePO4 and solar system. It wasn't charging over 13.2v... turns out the SCC was set to lead acid batteries. It only takes one little setting to make a system "underperform".
Making things foolproof is nearly impossible given the level of "talent" out there.
 
Outback charge controllers do not support lithium natively. You can run them with lithium setups, but it depends on the bus voltage level to determine what part of the charge cycle it should be in, and given the flatness of lithium chemistry this is not the ideal way to charge them.

In fact, nowhere in their manual does it mention lithium:

Further, if the controller doesn't know the actual status of the battery pack - including whether individual cells are over/undercharged - then it can't act responsibly, which could lead to damage or worse. A battery protection system with full balancing capabilities can help with that a little, but the BEST it can do is bleed off a little current when a cell is going too high, or disconnect the power altogether, often requiring a manual reset.

That signals to most people that something is broken, so typically a company will choose very conservative settings for charging.

If the load isn't high enough to pull the bus voltage down, the charge controller will only output enough power to bring it back up, and only to the level that corresponds to the part of the charge cycle that it's in.

This means that you'll get more power if the controller is in bulk charge mode than when it's in the absorption or float modes.

The inverter and controllers are both outback, so they should be able to talk to each other and at a minimum coordinate so all the loads are powered via solar first, and battery second.

But since the batteries can't talk to either of them, the overall system design is limited, and it's nearly all controlled by the bus voltage.

His system is running as designed. The batteries will never get a full 100% charge because the company supporting the system doesn't want to replace them when they go bad, and didn't design the system to support full battery charging.

The fact that he's using a bigbattery indicates he wanted to cheap out on the batteries - fine, but that's going to cost him in the long run.
 
I use a out back flex power one system .
36/48volt inverter .
Fm80 cc with mate and battery Monitor
The out back is fully adjustable but you need to know what the settings are supposed to be set at .
First thing to check is if he is running the updated firm wear my mate cc freaked out
When the firm was out of date.
Then what I would do is just set up charging for one mate , you can program it on the charge controler .
The add the second controler .
After I set up my system I sat on the phone with a out back tech guy for about a hour and ran thru all the settings one at a time un till every thing was set rite .
I would of had zero chance of doing this all on my own .
If you don’t have the latest firm wear the unit will not give you full charge .
I’m not hooked to the internet and I don’t know the mate decides it’s time for the update of if there is one to tru
 
Outback charge controllers do not support lithium natively. You can run them with lithium setups, but it depends on the bus voltage level to determine what part of the charge cycle it should be in, and given the flatness of lithium chemistry this is not the ideal way to charge them.

In fact, nowhere in their manual does it mention lithium:

Further, if the controller doesn't know the actual status of the battery pack - including whether individual cells are over/undercharged - then it can't act responsibly, which could lead to damage or worse. A battery protection system with full balancing capabilities can help with that a little, but the BEST it can do is bleed off a little current when a cell is going too high, or disconnect the power altogether, often requiring a manual reset.

That signals to most people that something is broken, so typically a company will choose very conservative settings for charging.

If the load isn't high enough to pull the bus voltage down, the charge controller will only output enough power to bring it back up, and only to the level that corresponds to the part of the charge cycle that it's in.

This means that you'll get more power if the controller is in bulk charge mode than when it's in the absorption or float modes.

The inverter and controllers are both outback, so they should be able to talk to each other and at a minimum coordinate so all the loads are powered via solar first, and battery second.

But since the batteries can't talk to either of them, the overall system design is limited, and it's nearly all controlled by the bus voltage.

His system is running as designed. The batteries will never get a full 100% charge because the company supporting the system doesn't want to replace them when they go bad, and didn't design the system to support full battery charging.

The fact that he's using a bigbattery indicates he wanted to cheap out on the batteries - fine, but that's going to cost him in the long run.
If that is the case why would AltE store recommend that system when he told them he will go lithium? Also how is Big battery cheaping out? there are way cheaper chinese made batteries out there. Big battery will back up there stuff. Epever you can set the parameters to what ever you want so they can work for lithium, so how can outback not do this? Am I right is my statement that outback has over engineered to the point that they are not as good as cheaper stuff?
 
Any idea that an FM60/80/100 is not capable of handling LFP (or Li-ion) properly is misplaced. It is completely adjustable.

LFP has an excellent way of telling when it's full: 3.65V/cell with a tail current of 0.05C in most cases. The FM SCC can be programmed to this exactly.

Well now AltE wants him to connect the system to the internets so they can control it for him. I just don't see how a plug and play system need so much help running normally.

This is not a plug and play system. Multiple components from different sources.
 
DIY does not always mean zero-knowledge. He ignored your advice. Did he get any advice from Alt-E prior to purchase, or did he just whip out the wallet and expect a lego-land experience?

If Alt-E is trying to help him after the fact, then that speaks well of them trying to satisfy a customer who may have purchased blindly without knowing what they were getting into.
 
DIY does not always mean zero-knowledge. He ignored your advice. Did he get any advice from Alt-E prior to purchase, or did he just whip out the wallet and expect a lego-land experience?

If Alt-E is trying to help him after the fact, then that speaks well of them trying to satisfy a customer who may have purchased blindly without knowing what they were getting into.
That I do not know, I only know what he has told me and what I have seen the system do. The advice I gave him was what parts to buy and I would put them together. He went with AltE, then I told him to get the batteries from Signature solar(as they had the best price) and he picked big battery(way m ore expensive). AltE almost talked him into getting there WAY overprices 7.5kw battery, but big battery was able to beat them out with 20kw for just a bit more.
 
Gosh, hate to say it, but looks like you are going to be the installer now. :)

Maybe you can glean some info from him, or help make sure he's setup properly...
 
I think if he could bring the system on line the guys from altE will sort it out .
The fm 80 is totally adjustable so you can set it for what ever you want
It Dosent have a lithium setting .
 
The very first step for me would be to clean and check ALL connections.

It really could be that simple of a solution but it will take some careful, time consuming, work on his part to be sure.
 
If he Dosent know how to set up the system it will not work .
My out back manual is 3” thick
It took me days to read thru it , and then I only under stood a small part .
 
Well as for me ill stick with EPever now and forever, and my Aims inverter.
 
Back
Top