diy solar

diy solar

Future battery upgrades/replacements

Any update on the new units you got? How are they working? Did you ever put in the extra batteries to fill up the empty spots that just has the foam?
 
The last two out of 5 I ordered are in great shape, working fine.
The first 3 are duds, no solar charging or inverter function, but the cells are fine.
 
so, out of the 8 I bought, I fixed 3, one died a day after putting it to use,
A new version!

The latest one I opened up has a different failure, and a different control board...

This one has 3 red/black pairs of wires, one of which is soldered to the BMS...

And the cells are depleted to 5ish V... but the BMS has not failed I don’t think... I get readings on the P- terminal...

Nope, this one has a bad BMS also, but the fets are on the positive side instead of the negative side.
I have pulled out the battery bank, and this one has cells arranged in a weird order also...
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For reference, the regular ones are in a neat 10Cell arrangement...
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Here is the Two XT-60's I put on the casing. Yes there is the "cutout" for an XT-60 connector in the middle there but looking inside the case, the mainboard rests on the clip at that location and so I mounted them where I did. On my other unit I did the same thing but to the right of the original charging jack but that was a bad idea due to all the wires going up to the mainboard at that location.
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Reason why I put two is because since I have multiple units, I can stack one on top of another and daisy chain each unit off of one line going to the solar panels.

View attachment 15464

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Inside view. The wires coming from the input jack will need to be at a right angle. This is due to clearance. If I put them straight then it will be pressing against the battery/BMS. (Another lesson learned from my first iteration.)

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Other end of the wires are soldered to the other end of the original solar input. I figure if it blows anything due to too high a current, it will probably blow a trace on the board instead of sending all the current to the mainboard/battery.
Ok, I am having trouble finding mounting screws that fit these...
What size are they? Fastenall only had down to m3 or #4SAE...
Neither fit.
 
I didn't use regular XT-60 connectors.
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Go to Amazon and type in "XT60 mountable". They come with the nut and bolt. All I did was drill a hold roughly the size of the connector. Then take a file and get it the perfect size for the connector to fit. Then drill two smaller holes for the bolt to go through.
 
Ok, update time.
Of the 4 working units i have, one of them the USB will no longer stay on.
USB is working if you hold the button in...
Ac, and dc ports all still work, so I just stuck a cigarette charger in and am going strong still.
I want to install a battery boost cord in.
Tie it directly to the battery... not sure how wise that is.
Probably better to tie to the inverter connection.
Thoughts?
I'm considering getting a few more... not so sure. I'd like a bigger bank/inverter...
 
On mine there are a few issues. Things I have noticed is the AC inverter the voltage will start sagging. They come with a 115 volt. I have two that are now showing 113 volt constantly. One has even went out. Just beeps when I try to turn on the AC inverter. Battery voltage testing good.
 
I have taken a few apart. The one that I feel has good upgradability is the Rockpals 300watt. The layout is pretty straightforward. Battery inside is pretty easy to change out/take apart. Battery is connected using a XT-60 inside. 3S10P. I have done some modding on mine where I made a XT-60 input connector on the housing.... Added another to where I am able to daisy change multiple units to charge. Connector to add external battery. All in all a great unit. I have mine running with AC inverter on 24 hours a day for the past year without it skipping a beat. The weak point on the unit is the BMS. The BMS that is soldered to the batteries seem to frequently go bad. I picked up six "for parts" unit on eBay and each one has the same BMS issue. BMS is cheap off eBay. I pick one up for $7 on ebay and everything works great again for each one. Battery's are all good on each one.
this is mostly a question new here..i have 5 with one that the bms is bad but the boards on ebay dont have the xtra 5 wire plug that goes to front panel..do all the functions still work..3s10p 26ah?? or is the old board still partially connected i dont have a schematic
 
this is mostly a question new here..i have 5 with one that the bms is bad but the boards on ebay dont have the xtra 5 wire plug that goes to front panel..do all the functions still work..3s10p 26ah?? or is the old board still partially connected i dont have a schematic
The original board is entirely removed.
As long as the correct leads on the other cable are connected to pack voltage, the system works.
 
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