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Looks to be a build needing some organization

Supervstech

Supervstech

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@Frugal Devonian
View attachment 255611

Ok, wow.
A lot to unpack here.
Please expand on this.
I see little in the pic to show polarity, differentiation between ac and dc, and so many circuits haphazardly dangling i am worried for the area.
Forgetting the batteries exposed without cover, or the oddities... i see what appears to be SLA batteries, with a daly bms on top.
Lets see if the OP can chime in and expound on all this.
 
Last edited:
Supervstech said:
View attachment 255611

Ok, wow.
A lot to unpack here.
Please expand on this.
I see little in the pic to show polarity, differentiation between ac and dc, and so many circuits haphazardly dangling i am worried for the area.
Forgetting the batteries exposed without cover, or the oddities... i see what appears to be SLA batteries, with a daly bms on top.
Lets see if the OP can chime in and expound on all this.
Click to expand...


We all start here be stupid.
Till we fine some good info .
Or do the hard way by burning thinks




Love this man
 
Hello
I'll certainly try to explain it but it's been operational for a long while and I might struggle to remember
It's a 12v off-grid system originally lead acid but I got sick of replacing them and changed to lifepo4 with Bluetooth about 4 years back.
I've got 3 strings of panels, 3 controllers, 3 inverters one victron 500w that is permanently on running a freezer/lighting /TV a 600w sterling that I use for ebike charging a 3000w low frequency for washing machine etc.
The daly bms in the photo is dead, the sterling 120ah batteries I bought came with them but 2 of them failed so I replaced them with jk's.
There is a circuit for a dc immersion heater with a voltage sensing relay to cut power.
I took the hard top off the batteries for the photo, dangling wires should be attended to for sure.
I'd say the system evolved through necessity rather than me design it but it is time served and functional.
 
This battery wiring appears to possibly be having loads and charging from different "ends" of the battery bank?
Are the positive terminals symmetrical?
Do the batteries get out of balance?
Screen Shot 2024-11-13 at 12.03.34 PM.png
 
The battery lead on the far right goes to another battery I made from eve 280ah cells, its jk bms is sitting on top in the cardboard box, there are four batteries in parallel three 120ah and one 280ah the poss and neg come off from opposite corners and go to the lynx distributor, the batteries seem to play nicely together no real problems with balancing.
 
Off on the far left - is that one cord plugged into the back of another cord making the exposed prongs live?

1731530221848.png
 
Gotcha, it looks like it goes to the power strip with two things plugged into it....

Might be helpful to just move all the dead or unused equipment out of the way and take another picture. Or just use paint and draw an X over the stuff not used.
 
Frugal Devonian said:
The battery lead on the far right goes to another battery I made from eve 280ah cells,
Click to expand...
Does that mean the lead on the near right also goes to the 280Ah LiFePO4 battery (battery 1)?
And the bank leads are all off of battery 4?
(Number order to match linked post #2 below):

So it matches this (post #2)
S

Post in thread 'Calculation of parallel string battery currents'

Readers should understand that the results I'm going to post are theoretical values obtained with mathematical circuit analysis. In the real world
things will be different since battery IR is quite variable due to temperature, age, SOC, etc., whereas in the mathematical analysis the parameters are exact and don't vary. But the mathematical results are a useful starting point.

Now I want to calculate results for a number of variations of the 4 battery parallel string. All the calculations assume the 4 batteries are identical
with identical IR. This is an important point.

Edit: I want...
  • Like

My thoughts for current flowing in the path of least resistance are that battery 1 lithium may be lowest even though battery 4 is shortest. Batteries 2 and 3 maybe a little under utilised?

Maybe it’s setup nicely as is the more I consider it. Anybody?
 
Frugal Devonian said:
I am a little offended I'd actually tidied it up a bit for the photo😂I wasn't expecting the scrutiny.
Click to expand...

We are all here to help you out -- or at least sling advice your way -- what you do with it is up to you -- we aren't judging, just gotta get a good view of what you got to see how to offer advice and make it better.

It looks like it was a well thought out system that has had various bits and pieces grafted on over the years until it would make frankenstein shudder and a moonshine faint dead.

:)
 
Frugal Devonian said:
I am a little offended I'd actually tidied it up a bit for the photo😂I wasn't expecting the scrutiny.
Click to expand...
It’s the usual result of expanding and reconfiguring a system, aka Growth By Accretion. Nothing wrong with it exactly, but you do have some technical debt built up there, and at some point you’re going to want to tear it all out and start over.
 
It's definitely not going to be my forever system, I think my oldest panel is 18 years old,available technology and prices have changed dramatically in that time, I'm quite glad I didn't spend too much a few years back.
 
Frugal Devonian said:
I am a little offended I'd actually tidied it up a bit for the photo😂I wasn't expecting the scrutiny.
Click to expand...
Oh, we ALL understand how this setup gets this way!

And dont think of it as scrutiny, think of it as helpful advice to head off future issues.

We REALLY mean well.
 
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BigGun said:
Then when I clean and put everything up, I can't find half my stuff. Organized chaos is what I call my shop
Click to expand...
My usual method for finding "that thing" is to give up, decide it's at the other house, buy another one, and when I go to put the new one away, that's where I'll find the old/lost one.

Fortunately I've always been able to find my wife, this could get dicey 😇
 
I think the key to cleaning up any setup, is to tackle one issue at a time.

I tend to work a bit messy at times to, but when something works fine, I start to cleanup.

I am constantly refactoring my setup, as mentioned, one step at a time. Those of you who are familiar with software development might understand this: Agile instead of waterfall. I mean planning is important, but sometimes you need to meet reality, so you hookup things, see how it works and figure it out.

For the OP of the system in discussion, I have some suggestions:

1. First, get rid of old stuff not relevant or not in use.

2. Tidy up cabling, including proper conduit/insulation (especially exposed terminals), separation of AC vs DC lines and proper marking.

3. Sometimes it's easier to just take everything apart and start over. Yes, it's alot of work, but could actually be less than trying to make sense or tidy up an existing system.


Good luck.
 
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MisterSandals said:
So it matches this (post #2)
Click to expand...
I've only just read this, no my setup matches post 3,interesting thread though providing the wire is chunky I always thought the bms's fought it out amongst themselves proportionally, I will be going for each battery connected to busbars next I just haven't decided on copper bar or victron class t power in.
 
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