Help me decide: Bluetti vs DIY?

[OffRoadRN]

I am interested in building a solar generator into a Pelican 1620 case I got used. It's about 21"x16"x12.5. I want a portable system that I can share between boondocking with my travel trailer, and overlanding in my land cruiser. I plan to have 400w of panels mounted to my trailer, and either one larger panel or a set of portable panels to carry in the cruiser. I want to be able to just plug my 30 amp trailer cord into the unit when I'm camping to get AC power, and then also be able to run a 12v refrigerator, lights, etc. when I'm using the land cruiser.

I am wondering if I can actually design a DIY generator that is a better value than the Bluetti AC200 max, which is about $1800 it looks like.

My DIY list so far:
- SOK 206AH 12v - $1029
- Renogy 2000w Inverter -$320
- Renogy 40a Charge Controller with BT - $190
- Victron Battery Charger - $174
- Wire and Connectors - $100?

So this would cost about $1800, so for less than $100 more I could get a the Bluetti. The advantages of the bluetti as I see it is that is is definitely sleek, looks better, packs easier, and is slightly smaller/less bulky.

Is the DIY system better in any ways? Are those components better than what is packed into the bluetti?Any suggestions for alternative equipment for the DIY system to improve it?

 

[Substrate]

Either solution is meaningless unless you know your actual power consumption needs.

This is called doing a "power budget". In addition to knowing your power consumption, from a solar standpoint, you have to figure out if at your location you have enough solar-insolation to replenish it. These are not sunrise-to-sunset hours, but charts which typically throw away the weakest hours of production in the early morning and late afternoon. Wise planners use the charts for the winter-months.

The only possible additional value of the diy method, is that if you get your needs wrong, it is much easier to piece-meal upgrades of components.

Both the diy and Bluetti are expensive if you get this wrong. The Bluetti being useless all at once, whereas the diy gets constant upgrades - albeit easier to do of course.

This is the classic mistake of not knowing your actual needs, and just throwing stuff into your shopping cart to see if it works. If you are lucky (no actual power budget), you have over-purchased and it all works. Then again, since you over-purchased according to need, then you went way beyond the value from a cost standpoint.

Ie, not doing your actual power budget by taking the time to measure, (and purchase things like metering to do so) is going to cost you if you wing it.

 

[pollenface]

Go DIY, learn and enjoy ?

 

[JAS]

The only advantage I see to the Bluetti (or any off-the-shelf "solar generator") is the portability. However, I don't trust them to last past their warranty. If any one component goes bad past the warranty, you're probably SOL. At least with the DIY model, I trust the components to last much longer and if/when a component does go bad, you can easily replace (or even upgrade) that component...

 

[Substrate]

With a quality manufacturer, generally you can trust them to live within warranty.

Most often, the warranty failures are caused by consumers pushing them past their rated specifications (most because they simply don't know how to stay within), and unforeseen end-user kludges.

Search for the multitudes of ranting videos like:

"Here, watch - I'm at the logmill, and this stupid Zapper 150 blew smoke when I powered up the bandsaw and now it's dead! For more exclusive reveals like this, like and subscribe!"

 

[JAS]

With a quality manufacturer, generally you can trust them to live within warranty.

Yep, but how long is the Bluetti Warranty? 2 yrs? I would expect much longer out of DIY components

 

[A.Justice]

The real cost savings from DIY comes when you build your own battery pack from "raw" cells. For about $600 usd I got over 4kw.

I would also skip the Renogy stuff, there's better stuff available at a similar price point.

 

[OffRoadRN]

Either solution is meaningless unless you know your actual power consumption needs.

This is called doing a "power budget". In addition to knowing your power consumption, from a solar standpoint, you have to figure out if at your location you have enough solar-insolation to replenish it. These are not sunrise-to-sunset hours, but charts which typically throw away the weakest hours of production in the early morning and late afternoon. Wise planners use the charts for the winter-months.

The only possible additional value of the diy method, is that if you get your needs wrong, it is much easier to piece-meal upgrades of components.

Both the diy and Bluetti are expensive if you get this wrong. The Bluetti being useless all at once, whereas the diy gets constant upgrades - albeit easier to do of course.

This is the classic mistake of not knowing your actual needs, and just throwing stuff into your shopping cart to see if it works. If you are lucky (no actual power budget), you have over-purchased and it all works. Then again, since you over-purchased according to need, then you went way beyond the value from a cost standpoint.

Ie, not doing your actual power budget by taking the time to measure, (and purchase things like metering to do so) is going to cost you if you wing it.

I have done a power budget in the past. I can’t find it but 200ah is more than enough for my needs. Overkill, even, if I run my trailer refrigerator off of propane. I want this for intermittent ac power consumption. Like if I want to run a coffee pot instead of pour over, or if I want to run my air conditioner for an hour.

 

[OffRoadRN]

The real cost savings from DIY comes when you build your own battery pack from "raw" cells. For about $600 usd I got over 4kw.

I would also skip the Renogy stuff, there's better stuff available at a similar price point.

Any helpful links for picking cells? It seems like the favorites change from time to time and it’s been over a year since I looked into doing a diy battery.

 

[chrisski]

I don’t consider a 206 ah 12 volt battery all that portable. My DIY generator battery is half that weight and I will lift only for short distances, like 12 feet. Longer than that and onto a dolly.

You’re past the point where I decide if one or the other gets the power and just build the system into one As a fixed system. It’s a little more than it being too heavy, it’s also afraid that it’s get stolen if left outside, get dropped, left in the rain, etc. If you’re really going to get a portable, spend some time thinking about how that would be built and what the extra cost would be. I’m finding things like follies and wheels are a bit more pricey than I thought.

 

[OffRoadRN]

I don’t consider a 206 ah 12 volt battery all that portable. My DIY generator battery is half that weight and I will lift only for short distances, like 12 feet. Longer than that and onto a dolly.

You’re past the point where I decide if one or the other gets the power and just build the system into one As a fixed system. It’s a little more than it being too heavy, it’s also afraid that it’s get stolen if left outside, get dropped, left in the rain, etc. If you’re really going to get a portable, spend some time thinking about how that would be built and what the extra cost would be. I’m finding things like follies and wheels are a bit more pricey than I thought.

To each their own, but I disagree with that. The SOK battery is only 50 pounds and the pelican case I’m planning on using has wheels and a retractable handle. I lug my 3400w propane generator around and it’s no trouble for me.

 

[A.Justice]

Any helpful links for picking cells? It seems like the favorites change from time to time and it’s been over a year since I looked into doing a diy battery.

It's been a while since I've ordered any new cells, so I can't recommend any vendors off the top of my head right now.

 

[OffRoadRN]

It's been a while since I've ordered any new cells, so I can't recommend any vendors off the top of my head right now.

Oh ok. What would you recommend over the renogy products I was considering?

 

[A.Justice]

Oh ok. What would you recommend over the renogy products I was considering?

Victron SCC, the charge controller is the heart of your system, a good one with monitoring and stats is well worth it. There's other good brands, but I like Victron.

I have a Giandel inverter that's been very good to me, and costs about the same as the Renogy. My issue with Renogy is the lack of tech support, and they sent a product manual with incorrect information that ended costing me an entire days worth of setup time.

 

[Nickatnyt]

I went Bluetti AC200P plus the B200 piggyback unit. I paid them to engineer the product so I could focus on other things like renovate my house.

 

[A.Justice]

Hi there. I'm an employee in Renogy. We would like to try our best to remedy this. Could you please tell us the details of the product with incorrect manual? And then I will give feedback to relevant team. Any further question, you can also submit a case for tech support here: https://renogy.force.com/helpcenter/s/contactsupport. Have a great day!

It's been corrected now, but it was with the dip switch setup on the 40 amp DC/DC charger. The manual that came in the box had different pin position than the manual available online. I tried calling tech support but ended up on hold for over an hour, until I googled the issue and saw this thread.

DC to DC charger dip switch setting | The Forum has been moved to support.renogy.com

I just installed a 40A DC to DC charger - my dip switch are as folows: Up Down Down Down Up which I would expect to put out a constant 14.4 Volts. However, I am measuring a 13.56 at the outp

renogy.boards.net

It's like post 3 or 4. Like I said, you guys fixed it now, but the damage was done.
I spent probably 5 hours laying on a garage floor messing with those effing switches.

My other Renogy product is a 500a shunt. It "works" but won't read small current draws well (under 100ma, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but the state of charge gets all messed up because it doesn't read parasitic draw over time on my standby system), and you can get pretty much the exact same one (white label brand), with the same "meh" performance, for less coin. I left my pack sitting for 9 months, the shunt showed 100% full, voltage at 12.0. The SCC, sensors, and BMS pulled a small enough current that they slipped by the shunt unnoticed, as soon as I pulled a load, the shunt showed pretty much empty. Not a HUGE deal, but definitely irritating.

 

[Bluedog225]

Hi there. I'm an employee in Renogy. We would like to try our best to remedy this. Could you please tell us the details of the product with incorrect manual? And then I will give feedback to relevant team. Any further question, you can also submit a case for tech support here: https://renogy.force.com/helpcenter/s/contactsupport. Have a great day!

Good morning,

Renogy has a great opportunity to participate in this forum and rehabilitate the Renogy reputation.

Your company is often mentioned in a poor light.

Welcome. Please stick around.

It would be a good idea for you to create a username with Renogy in the title.

 

[littleharbor2]

Hi there. I'm an employee in Renogy. We would like to try our best to remedy this. Could you please tell us the details of the product with incorrect manual? And then I will give feedback to relevant team. Any further question, you can also submit a case for tech support here: https://renogy.force.com/helpcenter/s/contactsupport. Have a great day!

This may be a minor gripe but I recently helped a friend set up a off grid system that included a Renogy 100 amp MPPT controller. The manual was very basic and when I went to set charging set points the first thing the controller does is ask for the password. What?? I didn't input a password. I open the manual and go through it, cover to cover, twice, no mention of a password. Such a basic, and now required step to get into the menus and not a damn word about this in the manual. Considering what she paid for this controller I was surprised considering I recommended she get a Midnite Classic 150 and she said it was out of her budget. She threw good money after bad as far as I'm concerned.

 

[brum]

I will go for the Bluetti if this is what I needed. If you decide to build it by yourself you won't be able to match the price tag unless you go with bare components (cells and BMS instead of a battery, inverter module instead off the shelf inverter). And you won't even get closer to the experience you would with the Bluetti version - everything is integrated pretty closely in their product.

In my case, I needed something similar, but without the invertor side. So I build one. It was a lot cheaper, it is smaller and it is precisely what I needed. 100Ah, integrated SCC, 12V power outputs, and PV input. And it was less than $400.

 

[littleharbor2]

Good morning, could you please provide a photo of the interface that needs password input? Then we can know more details and ask relevant team for help. Many thanks.

I don't have access to this charge controller any more. I believe my description gives you what you need to know. The problem isn't in the controller so much as the available info in the Renogy manual. There's no mention of a password. Apparently default passwords are like 11111 or 00000. I didn't know this and the only way I found out is on a public forum.