Sorry, I said that I plugged my RV power cord into the inverter. Thats not true. The RV power cord pugs into an outlet that gets fed by whatever power source-inverter or grid-the auto generator switch has selected based upon whether or not it senses power from the inverter.
First lithium iron battery
- Thread starter Hdonly
- Start date
Looks like ive posted my long winded post twice. Im not too good at these forums ?
Ill see if i can post a link to the generator switch if youre interested. I think it cost like $25 or so? Anyway, let me see if i can figure out how to do that.
Heres a link to one of those automatic generator switches. The one Ive linked to is 63amps bit they come with higher amp ratings as well. This one is $35. $10 more than i bought mine for a couple of yrs ago.
https://a.co/d/9YLcnCt
https://a.co/d/9YLcnCt
Hdonly
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My transfer switch is inside the house right next to my TV so it is no problem to switch over. I also have a switch inside the house to turn the inverter itself off and on. My home made transfer switch completely isolates inverter supplied power from commercial power. It switches hot/neutral/ground all at once.
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Oh come on!! You sound entirely too active. I mean, who wants to get up out of their chair to do something when they can tell Alexa to do it???
Youve got a very neat and organized set up there. I had to throw mine together fairly quickly because of time constraints at the time. Im currently just getting around to cleaning it all up and making it look more "pro". Thats one of the readons I started up with this forum just a couple of days ago.
My auto generator switch also completely isolates inverter power from the grid. Actually, thats its primary function in my set up. I wouldnt want power from my inverter backfeeding if someone was working on the local grid line.
Hdonly
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Ha ha!!
Just a quick question. You wrote that the OP has "Lots of solar" for a "smaller barrery capacity". He's running 760watts of solar for 500ah batteries. While setting up my system, I read from several sources that a general rule of thumb is twice the wattage of solar to ah storage. Is that not true? If not, then Ive got "lots of solar" too lol! Which is actually fine by me since my system is still growing.
MisterSandals
Participation Medalist
500Ah at what voltage?
12V: 12.8V x 500Ah = 6400Wh
6400Wh / 760W solar = 8.4h to charge from empty
48V: 51.2V x 500Ah = 25600Wh
25600Wh / 760W solar = 33.7h to charge from empty
Rule of thumb is to have enough solar to recharge your battery(s) in the timeframe YOU want.
I read he was buying 'A 100Ah battery' in place of AGM batteries.
A lot of people seem to think absorbed glass mat batteries are some kind of panacea. In reality most of the hoopla is just that, a lot of marketing jargon. Their best application is a race car or boat, or where off-gassing is a severe disadvantage, where there is a lot of vibration, or where it is necessary or convenient to mount other than vertical, and the fact that they don't need watering. Otherwise they perform similarly to any lead-acid battery. They do hold a charge a little better, but the chemistry isn't that much different, and their capabilities are not that much greater, other than the 'mount-in-any-position' advantage. I surely wouldn't spec them for a powerwall type of application. And they're WAY more expensive than FLA's. They can't hold a candle to LifePo4.
What mistersandals said.
Pretty sure the OP is doing 12v to 12v.
MisterSandals
Participation Medalist
12V AGM to 12V LiFePO4 ??
Not getting the point, sorry.
No. I dont think any of this is translating out very well.
I realize there have been a good number of posts in this thread but the OP does explain his intentions along the way if you can sift through the posts. He has an entirely 12v system right now using 500ah of AGM's. He bought a 100ah Lithium to experiment with and is considering using it in a separate 12v set up. He doesnt want to convert his panels to 24v because he has a 12v PWM controller and doesnt want to have to buy a new one right now.
Of course. if he does use his newly purchased Lithium in a second system, He'll have to get another controller anyway but apparently, he's still considering what he wants to do next.
Like I said in my reply to MisterSandals. the OP indicates in his posts that he isnt replacing the AGM's with his new 100ah Lithium. He's thinking about setting up a 2nd system to use the lithium battery in. I should probably let him respond to you guys about this stuff. I did read and digest his posts pretty thoroughly though, so hopefully Im doing him justice.
And thanks for the math. I do appreciate the information but I guess I was referring to the OP's set up and to how I use to have my set up using 12v arrays to charge a 12v battery bank. While researching how to set that type of a system up, I found quite a few resources which said that it was a "general rule of thumb" to have twice the wattage in panels as you have ah of battery storage. While I understand that you should have enough solar to recharge in a timeframe that I want, I think the intention of the advice is to help make sure a solar noob doesnt under panel his battery bank.
Im definitely no expert in any of this stuff. When it comes to AGM's verses "regular" FLA deep cycle batteries, all I can do is describe my own experience with each. I began my "journey" into solar with one 200watt Kosta solar panel and a couple of used 55ah AGM's that had come out of my elderly mothers hoover round chair(NO! I did not remove them without putting in new ones immediately afterward!). This is all for a motorhome set up by the way. Anyway, I quickly decided that I wanted more storage but my budget in those days was not compatible wth the higher cost of AGMs compared to "regular" deep cycle LA's. So I bought a couple of "regular" vented, FLA deep cycle batteries which were supposed to have been rated for 105ah each and another Kosta 200watt solar panel. That set up held me over for awhile but then I read that AGM's might serve me better than the "regular" non AGMS that I was using so I replaced my regular, FLA batteries with a 200ah Renogy AGM. Well, I have to say that the difference was pretty noticeable. At least it was to me. I was impressed enough that I bought a bunch more panels, a couple more controllers, and expanded my battery bank to 900ah's all AGM. Then, a year after going AGM, I switched to lithium leaving me with 900ah of practically new, and very carefully used AGM's and nothing to do with them. Anyway, at least in my case(or in my subjective experience?), AGM's did provide a significant upgrade to "regular" FLA batteries. To me, they definitely seemed to provide significantly more power reserve than the non-AGM FLA batteries I had been using prior. If I had to go back to any type of LA battery, it would definitely be the AGMs.
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