tobascodagama
New Member
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2020
- Messages
- 7
Hi, all! First post here, figured I would describe the system I've been planning for a couple of months and see if anybody had opinions or ideas about it.
As an intro, I live in a somewhat rural part of Maine. The town I'm in has its own backup generator, but I want to have a plan in place in case a snow storm knocks out our power (and, thus, heat) for more than a couple of hours. Eventually, though, I want to build up a full hybrid roof-based solar setup where hopefully most of our power comes from the sun and we just use the grid for heavy-duty appliances, so I'm picking out components with an eye to stuff I can reuse for a whole-house setup. For now, I'm just planning to use a portable ground rack for the solar that I only hook up as needed.
Components I've got right now:
- 2x 200W Renogy panels (should have done 320W, since it seems 60-cell is a more standard size for roofs, but live and learn)
- Renogy Rover Li 40A charge controller
- 2x 100Ah Battleborn batteries
- brackets and connectors
Load I want to run:
- 121W (continuous) propane heater; manual says it requires a 10A outlet
- internet router (~76VA)
- low-wattage string light?
Obviously, the inverter is the most important part I'm still missing. The load sizing is pretty clear, ~363W for the heater after the sizing factor plus the other loads, round up to say 600W. BUT, sizing factor recommendations aside, I'm strongly inclined to take the 10A requirement in the appliance manual at face value. So now I'm looking at 1500W and up.
I was originally looking at a 12V system, but Will's video on 12V vs. 24V sold me on the latter. Unfortunately, most of the action in 24V seems to be more in the 3kW and higher range as inverter-chargers. I was originally planning to go for a sub-$1k standalone inverter rather than an inverter charger, but since the idea is to be flexible and grow this is really starting to seem like the right approach?
Currently, I'm considering a Victron MultiPlus 24/2000. I like how much documentation Victron puts out, and I like that their equipment is heavily programmable. But most of all, I like that their equipment is designed with interoperability in mind. Like, eventually I want to also power a well pump that uses 240V, and when I get there I could add a second MultiPlus to the system to get that. So that seems like a smart way to grow the system as I add more panels and batteries.
My only concern with Victron is that parallel/split-phase operations require identical models, so the logical thing to do would be to get the MultiPlus-II series so I can be certain of get a matching model when I add more inverter-chargers to my system in the future... But I can't seem to find them on sale anywhere? AltE only seems to have the older MultiPlus in stock; they do have the Quattro as an alternative, but they start with the 24/5000 model which is extreme overkill for what my starting point is. (And I certainly couldn't run it safely off my current battery bank.) So I guess, after all that rambling, my question is: What's up with the MultiPlus-II? Is there a good place to get them?
EDIT: Did some more reading around the forum, and apparently I had missed that the MultiPlus-II series is only for 48V. So I'm guessing that means the other MultiPlus models are going to be around for a good long time?
As an intro, I live in a somewhat rural part of Maine. The town I'm in has its own backup generator, but I want to have a plan in place in case a snow storm knocks out our power (and, thus, heat) for more than a couple of hours. Eventually, though, I want to build up a full hybrid roof-based solar setup where hopefully most of our power comes from the sun and we just use the grid for heavy-duty appliances, so I'm picking out components with an eye to stuff I can reuse for a whole-house setup. For now, I'm just planning to use a portable ground rack for the solar that I only hook up as needed.
Components I've got right now:
- 2x 200W Renogy panels (should have done 320W, since it seems 60-cell is a more standard size for roofs, but live and learn)
- Renogy Rover Li 40A charge controller
- 2x 100Ah Battleborn batteries
- brackets and connectors
Load I want to run:
- 121W (continuous) propane heater; manual says it requires a 10A outlet
- internet router (~76VA)
- low-wattage string light?
Obviously, the inverter is the most important part I'm still missing. The load sizing is pretty clear, ~363W for the heater after the sizing factor plus the other loads, round up to say 600W. BUT, sizing factor recommendations aside, I'm strongly inclined to take the 10A requirement in the appliance manual at face value. So now I'm looking at 1500W and up.
I was originally looking at a 12V system, but Will's video on 12V vs. 24V sold me on the latter. Unfortunately, most of the action in 24V seems to be more in the 3kW and higher range as inverter-chargers. I was originally planning to go for a sub-$1k standalone inverter rather than an inverter charger, but since the idea is to be flexible and grow this is really starting to seem like the right approach?
Currently, I'm considering a Victron MultiPlus 24/2000. I like how much documentation Victron puts out, and I like that their equipment is heavily programmable. But most of all, I like that their equipment is designed with interoperability in mind. Like, eventually I want to also power a well pump that uses 240V, and when I get there I could add a second MultiPlus to the system to get that. So that seems like a smart way to grow the system as I add more panels and batteries.
My only concern with Victron is that parallel/split-phase operations require identical models, so the logical thing to do would be to get the MultiPlus-II series so I can be certain of get a matching model when I add more inverter-chargers to my system in the future... But I can't seem to find them on sale anywhere? AltE only seems to have the older MultiPlus in stock; they do have the Quattro as an alternative, but they start with the 24/5000 model which is extreme overkill for what my starting point is. (And I certainly couldn't run it safely off my current battery bank.) So I guess, after all that rambling, my question is: What's up with the MultiPlus-II? Is there a good place to get them?
EDIT: Did some more reading around the forum, and apparently I had missed that the MultiPlus-II series is only for 48V. So I'm guessing that means the other MultiPlus models are going to be around for a good long time?
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