diy solar

diy solar

Figure out what you need before you buy damn it.

RFTM- I never do it, throw it in the trash when I open the box

Seriously, my work is technical in nature and I have to spend hours learning new systems. I have to research just about everything anymore before I can really work on it.
 
[RANT MODE ON]

I can understand when people don't understand the terminology. I can understand when people don't understand the technology. I can understand when people ask questions that show they are clueless about solar & batteries. I would even say I enjoy helping these people learn. We were all ignorant about solar and batteries at one point in time and we owe it to others that we have learned and now understand some of it.

What I am getting tired of are posts that say something like "I bought all this stuff.... how does it go together"? This is just plain crazy behavior. You don't have to understand anything about solar or batteries to know this is a bad idea.... yet we see posts like this almost every day. It is like buying a whole bunch of lumber and then asking how to build a house out of it before you know how big the house needs to be or even if it will be built out of wood.

If you don't have a full breakdown of the energy needs and a complete design that meets those needs.... don't start buying stuff!!!

The moment you start buying stuff you are limiting your options. Furthermore, without a full design, you aren't even sure the components will work together let alone do what you need!!! Then you make a post wanting to know how to make it all work.

Every time I see this I want to respond with "You are a blithering idiot.... you are too dumb to be working with electricity"... but I hold my tung and often help them out anyway.

This post is my way of blowing off steam without attacking an individual.

OK.... I feel better now.

[RANT MODE OFF]
Too many watch the Poz videos or any number of Youtube videos out there (some better than others) and just start buying whatever was showcased this week on the video.

To top it off, products are supplied by vendors who tell lies about what a product can do. Once the install is started, the problems appear. If the install does get finished, the problems then show up.

I researched BMS's for 2 to 3 weeks, maybe a month before deciding on a Batrium for my large battery bank. Most people don't want to put forth the effort to research anything.
 
Long winded story, but I want to provide a story that will shed some light on this forum.

I appreciate this forum because I was new to solar and was dedicated to finding an economic solution for our off-grid cabin.
The nearest utility lines are a half mile in either direction. They want $15k (not including what it would cost to add service plus an electrician and panel etc...) to run service from the County highway to our cabin.

That cabin was built in 1957. Forever, everything was run with propane. Lights, heat, stove etc... Then, about 8-10 years ago when everyone had a cell phone, we had the desire to be able to keep them charged, so we bought a marine battery and an inverter. We'd charge the battery at home and bring it with us each time. Growth continued when we decided we could buy a DC small television, hook it up to antenna and "Boom!" (to honor John Madden!) we were able to catch the Badgers/Packers football games on weekends. Growth (And now greed!) continued, and I decided to wire up a porch light and a few select lights in areas. Problem is, we'd get a few hours when running all of that stuff until the battery died. SO...we bought another battery! Great! Now we have DOUBLE the time to be able to charge our phones, have lights and watch TV on hunting weekends. Well...that now means we have to lug TWO batteries home every weekend to charge. That was the point at which I decided to educate myself on Solar. It HAD to be easier to install a system that could regenerate instead of lugging those batteries home and back every hunting weekend. The guys were very skeptic.

Then the big change happened. We decided to build a new cabin. Instead of the old 16'x18' cabin (Pretty much a unibomber cabin) we decided to build a 24x32 cabin. The decision had to be made as to how we were going to run the electricity for this new cabin. No way we were going to run batteries back and forth, especially considering we'd need 4-6 batteries to run everything we wanted. The ownership "trio" is myself and my 2 brothers-in-law. One of them said "screw it...let's bite the bullet and get electricity run". I said "let me explore solar a little further to see if I can make this work". Luckily the other bro-in-law sided with me. I offered to pay for a minimal system to see how it goes out of pocket.

I came here and started reading and asking a lot of stupid questions. I'm not an electrician, but through learning from my brother and others, I know enough to do a lot of my own electrical work. I've wired 3-way and 4-way switches. Run circuits and connected them to the panel etc... However, it took me a while to really wrap my head around exactly how solar works. There's no way it happens without the help from many of you. I'm STILL learning.

When I found Will's videos (about 2 years ago) I decided to pull the trigger on 1 Renogy 100w panel and the Wanderer plus cables. I just used the same Fleet Farm marine batteries so I could figure out how this works before I go spending money on stuff I didn't understand. So everything arrive and I set up a test site at my house. Hooked the panel up to the Wanderer and battery and son-of-a...it worked. After do more sizing research and bouncing more dumb questions off of many of you, I ended up with 3 Renogy panels, a Rover Elite 40a and a mix of AGM batteries totaling 190ah. Our entire cabin is wired with this system (See About My System) and has performed great for the most part. The guys and kids from our families that use the cabin still don't understand what energy conservation means, so I feel like the old crusty man walking behind people and turning lights off when they walk out of the room, but the concept has worked. This system ended up costing about $1000 out of pocket, but the guys are now sold that we don't need the utility. Granted, this system is undersized, but now that they have the understanding, they buy in to the fact that we can triple the size of the system for about $2000-$3000 more and have more than enough energy. Plus, we don't work over $15k to the utility, plus we'll never have a utility bill. We'll have to replace the batteries every 5 years, but still cheaper than a utility bill.

As a result, we'll be expanding the system within a year.

To add to that, now that you've all educated me enough to be dangerous...
I plan on installing a 5.4kw system at my house as a back-up system.
I'm going to wire 2 separate circuits that will run off of solar.
It won't just be used as back-up. We're going to run many of our essentials on this system on a daily basis.
If/when the power goes out, we'll have about 1.5 days of power to those essentials.

None of the above is possible without this forum or Will's videos.

If there is one caveat to the forum, is that there is so much information, so many different brands, manufacturers and opinions on said products.
It can be overwhelming to try and find the opinion you trust. Plus the technology is constantly changing and improving.
Despite the enormous amount of knowledge I've gained from being here, I still feel a little lost sometimes.

In building this 5.4kw system, I'm torn.
I have a $3000 budget. I know that half of that budget will be used on storage.
In doing my research, I'm confident I can accomplish this system within my budget.
However, making the decision between 12/24/48 has been a challenge based upon the components available.
48v seems by far to be the best direction, however it pushed storage above my budget.
The differing opinions on being able to use CHINS 12v/100ah in series to make a 48v bank is one example of the differing opinions.
I find myself doing the exact opposite of the reason this "RANT" thread was created. I have probably second guessed and over analyzed this system, but that's the way my mind works.

I only bring this up because I understand the many positives and challenges people mention.
No advice expected on this thread. I don't want to derail it.

Ultimately, I want to give a big THANKS to those of you that help people here.
It's very rare for someone to belittle someone else that has little to no knowledge.

Once I finally settle on my home back-up system, I will start the design to upgrade the cabin.

RANT OVER...lol
 
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[RANT MODE ON]

I can understand when people don't understand the terminology. I can understand when people don't understand the technology. I can understand when people ask questions that show they are clueless about solar & batteries. I would even say I enjoy helping these people learn. We were all ignorant about solar and batteries at one point in time and we owe it to others that we have learned and now understand some of it.

What I am getting tired of are posts that say something like "I bought all this stuff.... how does it go together"? This is just plain crazy behavior. You don't have to understand anything about solar or batteries to know this is a bad idea.... yet we see posts like this almost every day. It is like buying a whole bunch of lumber and then asking how to build a house out of it before you know how big the house needs to be or even if it will be built out of wood.

If you don't have a full breakdown of the energy needs and a complete design that meets those needs.... don't start buying stuff!!!

The moment you start buying stuff you are limiting your options. Furthermore, without a full design, you aren't even sure the components will work together let alone do what you need!!! Then you make a post wanting to know how to make it all work.

Every time I see this I want to respond with "You are a blithering idiot.... you are too dumb to be working with electricity"... but I hold my tung and often help them out anyway.

This post is my way of blowing off steam without attacking an individual.

OK.... I feel better now.

[RANT MODE OFF]
Well said.
 
That would be 'tongue'...not 'tung'. ?

A lot of people buy stuff if they think it's a good deal. My son's ex-wife was a shop-a-holic - if it was on sale or a good deal she bought it whether she needed it or not. At one point you couldn't walk through the garage, then they got warehouse shelving to try to sort some of it. I cleared a path at one point so you could get through, and there were shopping bags of stuff sitting with the receipt in them that had never even been opened or brought in. I was sorting some bathroom stuff and set it inside the door, later asked where she wanted the items - "I wanted them in the garage where they were!"

Oh dear. ?

I guess there's a reason or two why she's an ex. LOL
That my friend is indicative of so many people.
Instant gratification and the dopamine hit is crazy.
Buying stuff just because it’s on sale but have absolutely no use for it.
More than one reason why there is so much personal debt.
It’s like a whole generation was never taught how to budget money.
 
[RANT MODE ON]

I can understand when people don't understand the terminology. I can understand when people don't understand the technology. I can understand when people ask questions that show they are clueless about solar & batteries. I would even say I enjoy helping these people learn. We were all ignorant about solar and batteries at one point in time and we owe it to others that we have learned and now understand some of it.

What I am getting tired of are posts that say something like "I bought all this stuff.... how does it go together"? This is just plain crazy behavior. You don't have to understand anything about solar or batteries to know this is a bad idea.... yet we see posts like this almost every day. It is like buying a whole bunch of lumber and then asking how to build a house out of it before you know how big the house needs to be or even if it will be built out of wood.

If you don't have a full breakdown of the energy needs and a complete design that meets those needs.... don't start buying stuff!!!

The moment you start buying stuff you are limiting your options. Furthermore, without a full design, you aren't even sure the components will work together let alone do what you need!!! Then you make a post wanting to know how to make it all work.

Every time I see this I want to respond with "You are a blithering idiot.... you are too dumb to be working with electricity"... but I hold my tung and often help them out anyway.

This post is my way of blowing off steam without attacking an individual.

OK.... I feel better now.

[RANT MODE OFF]

"Figure out what you need before you buy damn it."​

Can't say I agree. It's not a perfect world. You're looking at utopia.

Usually my DIY projects are a work in progress. They virtually never end up with my original concept or components.

Give the guys some slack.

 

"Figure out what you need before you buy damn it."​

Can't say I agree. It's not a perfect world. You're looking at utopia.

Usually my DIY projects are a work in progress. They virtually never end up with my original concept or components.

Give the guys some slack.

Let’s put it this way.

You wouldn’t buy anything without knowing what you intended to use it for.

It’s the same way with this.

The problem is people see YouTube video and say wow that’s cool and buy it.
Then get it home and when they finally get around to putting it all together there are interoperability issues as well as not meeting the desired requirements.

Always better to do an energy audit( the longer the better) to establish what you need then go from there.

It’s almost impossible to design a system without knowing what your goal is.

People try all the time and end up with the wrong equipment and trying to make it do something it’s not designed to do.

I had this old guy down the road from me who decided he was gonna go solar.

Went and bought a 3KW inverter from Amazon then asked me how to hook it up.

I had to explain to him it wouldn’t even run his barn much less his house and that he needed all kinds of other things to make it work.
Luckily he sent it back and got his money back.

It happens all the time.
People see something without knowing all the things involved. Buy it then come here asking how to make a 3KW inverter run a 3000sq ft house.
 
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I do hope you meant 3kW and not 3MW. :) Of course one's too small for 3000ft² and one's ridiculously too large.
You’re correct of course. My bad. Typing too fast. I’ll correct it. Thanks!!
 
Long winded story, but I want to provide a story that will shed some light on this forum.

I appreciate this forum because I was new to solar and was dedicated to finding an economic solution for our off-grid cabin.
The nearest utility lines are a half mile in either direction. They want $15k (not including what it would cost to add service plus an electrician and panel etc...) to run service from the County highway to our cabin.

That cabin was built in 1957. Forever, everything was run with propane. Lights, heat, stove etc... Then, about 8-10 years ago when everyone had a cell phone, we had the desire to be able to keep them charged, so we bought a marine battery and an inverter. We'd charge the battery at home and bring it with us each time. Growth continued when we decided we could buy a DC small television, hook it up to antenna and "Boom!" (to honor John Madden!) we were able to catch the Badgers/Packers football games on weekends. Growth (And now greed!) continued, and I decided to wire up a porch light and a few select lights in areas. Problem is, we'd get a few hours when running all of that stuff until the battery died. SO...we bought another battery! Great! Now we have DOUBLE the time to be able to charge our phones, have lights and watch TV on hunting weekends. Well...that now means we have to lug TWO batteries home every weekend to charge. That was the point at which I decided to educate myself on Solar. It HAD to be easier to install a system that could regenerate instead of lugging those batteries home and back every hunting weekend. The guys were very skeptic.

Then the big change happened. We decided to build a new cabin. Instead of the old 16'x18' cabin (Pretty much a unibomber cabin) we decided to build a 24x32 cabin. The decision had to be made as to how we were going to run the electricity for this new cabin. No way we were going to run batteries back and forth, especially considering we'd need 4-6 batteries to run everything we wanted. The ownership "trio" is myself and my 2 brothers-in-law. One of them said "screw it...let's bite the bullet and get electricity run". I said "let me explore solar a little further to see if I can make this work". Luckily the other bro-in-law sided with me. I offered to pay for a minimal system to see how it goes out of pocket.

I came here and started reading and asking a lot of stupid questions. I'm not an electrician, but through learning from my brother and others, I know enough to do a lot of my own electrical work. I've wired 3-way and 4-way switches. Run circuits and connected them to the panel etc... However, it took me a while to really wrap my head around exactly how solar works. There's no way it happens without the help from many of you. I'm STILL learning.

When I found Will's videos (about 2 years ago) I decided to pull the trigger on 1 Renogy 100w panel and the Wanderer plus cables. I just used the same Fleet Farm marine batteries so I could figure out how this works before I go spending money on stuff I didn't understand. So everything arrive and I set up a test site at my house. Hooked the panel up to the Wanderer and battery and son-of-a...it worked. After do more sizing research and bouncing more dumb questions off of many of you, I ended up with 3 Renogy panels, a Rover Elite 40a and a mix of AGM batteries totaling 190ah. Our entire cabin is wired with this system (See About My System) and has performed great for the most part. The guys and kids from our families that use the cabin still don't understand what energy conservation means, so I feel like the old crusty man walking behind people and turning lights off when they walk out of the room, but the concept has worked. This system ended up costing about $1000 out of pocket, but the guys are now sold that we don't need the utility. Granted, this system is undersized, but now that they have the understanding, they buy in to the fact that we can triple the size of the system for about $2000-$3000 more and have more than enough energy. Plus, we don't work over $15k to the utility, plus we'll never have a utility bill. We'll have to replace the batteries every 5 years, but still cheaper than a utility bill.

As a result, we'll be expanding the system within a year.

To add to that, now that you've all educated me enough to be dangerous...
I plan on installing a 5.4kw system at my house as a back-up system.
I'm going to wire 2 separate circuits that will run off of solar.
It won't just be used as back-up. We're going to run many of our essentials on this system on a daily basis.
If/when the power goes out, we'll have about 1.5 days of power to those essentials.

None of the above is possible without this forum or Will's videos.

If there is one caveat to the forum, is that there is so much information, so many different brands, manufacturers and opinions on said products.
It can be overwhelming to try and find the opinion you trust. Plus the technology is constantly changing and improving.
Despite the enormous amount of knowledge I've gained from being here, I still feel a little lost sometimes.

In building this 5.4kw system, I'm torn.
I have a $3000 budget. I know that half of that budget will be used on storage.
In doing my research, I'm confident I can accomplish this system within my budget.
However, making the decision between 12/24/48 has been a challenge based upon the components available.
48v seems by far to be the best direction, however it pushed storage above my budget.
The differing opinions on being able to use CHINS 12v/100ah in series to make a 48v bank is one example of the differing opinions.
I find myself doing the exact opposite of the reason this "RANT" thread was created. I have probably second guessed and over analyzed this system, but that's the way my mind works.

I only bring this up because I understand the many positives and challenges people mention.
No advice expected on this thread. I don't want to derail it.

Ultimately, I want to give a big THANKS to those of you that help people here.
It's very rare for someone to belittle someone else that has little to no knowledge.

Once I finally settle on my home back-up system, I will start the design to upgrade the cabin.

RANT OVER...lol
Man that is a lot of words
 

"Figure out what you need before you buy damn it."​

Can't say I agree. It's not a perfect world. You're looking at utopia.

Usually my DIY projects are a work in progress. They virtually never end up with my original concept or components.

Give the guys some slack.

It's a blunt way to say, "do a little planning first." A simple evaluation of what you NEED to accomplish can avoid a lot of waste.

Simply spending an hour making approximations and filling out the energy audit sheet in resources can get you extremely close to where you need to be and avoid wasteful spending.
 
Kill-a-Watt meter was the best advice and best investment for planning out a system. The 150w DC battery discharge/capacity meter with the purple fan was the best investment for testing cells and batteries to make sure you got what you paid for.
 
I’ve been on the electronic informational forums since the early 1980s.

Every information exchange for the last 40 years follows the same Pattern.

Helpful contributors get tired of answering the same questions over and over, migrate through hautily demanding guests use the search function, and then either quit replying to basic questions, or do so in a bitter fashion.

It doesn’t matter if it’s bird dogs, guns, chocolate chip cookies, or solar panels.

As a long time consumer of electronic forum information, I recognized the pattern decades ago, and just learned to live with it.

People on either side of the exchange have never changed.
And I don’t expect them to. Nor will I demand it.

In things like electricity, where there is an element of danger, a person should probably err in their responses toward encouraging and supporting safety, and less so on the joy of beating up on people that bought the wrong parts, or at least a set of parts different than what the responder would have purchased.

I mean it does make a person feel superior and all, but that isn’t necessarily what the end goal should be.

I don’t think there’s anybody here who doesn’t want everyone to have the solar system that they desire, working as hoped for, performing the targeted function.

In my case, I have no intention of electrifying a palatial offgrid mansion. I just want to be able to make a cup of coffee without worrying about running out of battery.

I don’t think there is any crime in that.
 
Real World - Real Time Experience EVEN WITH PLANNING

Most here know that I have a familiarity with this tech... Even with that and all planning done from the start and through the "Evolution" over the years, Things Changed ! Each change has been costly but in the end worthwhile.
-- Changed from "Value" 24v/3000W Inverter/Charger(700 USD) to Tier-1 Samlex EVO 4024 Inverter/Charger. ($2000 CAD) $$$
-- Upgraded all wires & interconnects from 2/0 to 4/0. ($300 or so $$) + fuses & breakers where appropriate.
-- Upgraded from 24V/Lead (8x Rolls Surette S-550s) with 428AH Gross to 24V/1190AH LFP. (The Lead was $3300 when bought originally) The LFP was bought over 24 Months due to budget restraints

That transition to LFP has also been quite the venture... Having used Chargery BMS8T-300's with DCC-300's & a QNBBM-8S Active Balancer on each they are ALL now being replaced by JKBMS with 2A Active Balancers built in... There is $2500+ REPLANNING again ! This is not just production packs but also my utility packs...

As for all the testing of Relays & Contactors plus helping with the design & development of the DCC-300's and more also cost a pile of dough that came out of my pocket, as it did for the few others like Craig who were also doing the same stuff and sharing all of this with everyone here.

THE LESSON:
Plan to the best of your abilities. Looking at what you have TODAY and will need to support with your Power Configuration but Tomorrow is another day and it brings new "challenges" and that is hard to project. The Main Lesson is to build the "Foundation" that you can expand upon, 95% of folks do end up Upgrading within 24 Months ! Everyone undershoots their estimates thinking they are more frugal than they actually are.

I built 24V in th. day because 48V gear was Much More $ then and Lithium anything was LUDICROUS. The 15K on Solar was FAR BETTER than the 55K Big Power wanted so still a no brainer. IF I was to build TODAY in 2022, 48V System with 240VAC Split-Phase (North America) and rather than going with the Expensive Components (1K for a Midnite SCC, 2K for Samlex Inverter {$CAD} ) a Good Growatt AIO would do it while eliminating a pile of In Between BOS Parts (E-Panels, Breakers & related gear which is another pile of dough).

ALWAYS APPLY KISS ! Keep It Sweet & Simple !

BUDGET & PLANNING is Essential !
I pulled this off as well as Building my home with only a very small Monthly Disability Pension that most of you could NOT survive on... Will Prowse makes more in One Day off YT than I do in an entire Month ! So Deal Hunting, Frugalness, PATIENCE and Caution has gotten me there. It also means NO IMPULSE BUYING ANYTHING EVER ! Not planned, don't do it.

For anyone who may be Curious. I will be listing a large pile of gear, JBD, JKBMS, Chargery BMS', Deltec Shunts, TE/Kilovac Relays and a few other types including 500A Unidirectional SSR's and more once the final config is completed (doing structural changes to Powerhouse atm). It is safe to say, that all of it will be No Dicker Fire Sale priced so I can clear this stuff out. Most likely timeframe Mid February. NOT BEFORE. Please do NOT disturb this thread asking about the parts, PM me if you must.
 
Always abide by the six P's rule and things will work out for anything you do.

Six P's "Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance"
You're kind of putting the cart in front of the horse. In order to plan you require knowledge. I've been doing DIY projects all my life. You can read all you want on some topic, but nothing beats hands on experience. There's nothing wrong with purchasing something and then finding out later the initial plan didn't work out so well. No reason for a rant. There's lots to be said by gaining knowledge from a Piss Poor Performance. You always learn more from doing. I commend people for getting out and getting something done (or trying to) and not being a couch potato.
 
Kill-a-Watt meter was the best advice and best investment for planning out a system. The 150w DC battery discharge/capacity meter with the purple fan was the best investment for testing cells and batteries to make sure you got what you paid for.
100%
I have 2 of them. Keep one at the cabin and 1 at home.
Menards sells them for $27 - Easy Plug-N-Play.
It's a MUST.

Hopefully it's OK to post this link here:

That's how I figured out all of my loads.
Unplugged everything and used the Watt meter to see what running and peak were.

Nothing is more valuable than knowing your load down to the single watt.
 
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