Silentpower
Over Rated
Never heard that before!
NI-FE 1000ah 12V with 5kw of panels running 4kw Reverse Cycle AC for heating house
- Thread starter jimbo78
- Start date
hcolon
New Member
Just wanted to let you know that your post save me some money and push me to register to this site as I was about to toss out my adapter thinking that it was a crap. The only question left for this setup which I am about to perform during the weekend is how did you setup your controllers in regard the battery capacity (ah). If I am going to use both to charge a single 24v 405ah bank; should I set both to 400ah? Please provide info. Thanks a lot for your post.
Last edited:
jimbo78
New Member
Charge Controller update #2
I guess now is as good of a time as any in order to update y'all on my 2 Epever charge controllers running in parallel.
Although I managed to get my controllers acting in parallel, they never really worked great. They would be all over the place, and changing settings would have unexpected consequences including a runaway situation where the voltage would climb as high as 16.8V despite the charge limit being set to 16.4V. Luckily for me NIFE can handle this, and it’s no big deal, however how can this situation happen? Your guess is as good as mine but I believe it had something to do with Voltage drop being in the range of 0.5V. For some unknown reason I think it needed to reach 16.4 + 0.5V (at the battery) but because of the charge controllers limit of 17V (at the cc) it never was never really able to reach the voltage it was looking for and just ran away.
But again, I'm only guessing here I would never have expected the Voltage to be able to go above the charge limit yet it did. Some decent documentation would be great the amount of time I have waisted trying to figure this all out has been ridiculous. If I was to start over, I would never have gone Epever and purchased Victron charge controllers from the get go.
The other thing I did was plug in the Voltage sense wire to each controller (not just the PT-ADP-PORT). This may also have contributed to the Voltage run away situation, but this had more of a positive effect than a negative one over all. And it makes sense the CC needs that voltage data in real time not delayed over a communications line. Be careful plugging in the voltage sense wire, if you interpret their inverted image wrong, you will short your battery across their closed generator relay port!! Great design guys, I have blown 3 fuses so far!! And I’m sure that won’t be the last!
In my attempts to fix the issues I was seeing I decided to focus in on Voltage drop and was able to get this from 0.5v down to around 0.2v which is far more acceptable. I did this by bringing the positive pole and negative pole side by side, moving the batteries a little closer to the controllers and inverter and swapping the position of the controllers with the inverter. Sine the controllers are capable of up to 200A and the inverter only deals with less than 100A, getting the controllers closer is desirable.
New configuration (note PT-ADP-PORT data cable unplugged and dangling, voltage sense wires added, layout changed as described)
In doing all of this however I forgot to plug in my PT-ADP-PORT data cables, and noticed everything was working just fine!! I then plugged in my PT-ADP-PORT and it all went to its usual SH&*! It turns out these controllers parallel together just fine without the PT-ADP-PORT!!! So, what is the PT-ADP-PORT for???? Well again the 1 page of engrish that it didn’t come with (and I had to get the seller to send it to me as it was not available on their website) doesn’t exactly say!
But all in all, all the problems I have been having for such a long time have now gone away, and the 2 controllers are working together very nicely! The current output mostly stays in sync between the 2 devices. I haven’t needed to power cycle the controllers daily like I used to have to do. Panel shading doesn’t seem to affect them like it used to. They’re not running away on the voltage, and their maintaining float voltage as expected. My load has next to no effect on their behavior other than requiring more current. None of that was happening when I had the PT-ADP-PORT plugged in!!! And everything I changed to try and rectify all of that had limited effect and seemed to have sometimes drastic effect in areas I didn’t expect.
As for the battery capacity (ah) setting, what that does who knows!!! I’d like to see some detailed documentation on what all the setting means and what effect they will have on the charging profile. I set mine to 1000ah on both controllers, is that correct? Who knows, I certainly don’t!! Its not one of the settings I have played with to see if it does have any effect, the point I’m trying to make is I shouldn’t need to be reverse engineering all of this myself!!!
As you have probably gathered by now, I’m fairly fed up with this lack of documentation and lack of support. If your considering a complex setup like the one I have, spend the extra money, don’t waste your time on Epever.
I guess now is as good of a time as any in order to update y'all on my 2 Epever charge controllers running in parallel.
Although I managed to get my controllers acting in parallel, they never really worked great. They would be all over the place, and changing settings would have unexpected consequences including a runaway situation where the voltage would climb as high as 16.8V despite the charge limit being set to 16.4V. Luckily for me NIFE can handle this, and it’s no big deal, however how can this situation happen? Your guess is as good as mine but I believe it had something to do with Voltage drop being in the range of 0.5V. For some unknown reason I think it needed to reach 16.4 + 0.5V (at the battery) but because of the charge controllers limit of 17V (at the cc) it never was never really able to reach the voltage it was looking for and just ran away.
But again, I'm only guessing here I would never have expected the Voltage to be able to go above the charge limit yet it did. Some decent documentation would be great the amount of time I have waisted trying to figure this all out has been ridiculous. If I was to start over, I would never have gone Epever and purchased Victron charge controllers from the get go.
The other thing I did was plug in the Voltage sense wire to each controller (not just the PT-ADP-PORT). This may also have contributed to the Voltage run away situation, but this had more of a positive effect than a negative one over all. And it makes sense the CC needs that voltage data in real time not delayed over a communications line. Be careful plugging in the voltage sense wire, if you interpret their inverted image wrong, you will short your battery across their closed generator relay port!! Great design guys, I have blown 3 fuses so far!! And I’m sure that won’t be the last!
In my attempts to fix the issues I was seeing I decided to focus in on Voltage drop and was able to get this from 0.5v down to around 0.2v which is far more acceptable. I did this by bringing the positive pole and negative pole side by side, moving the batteries a little closer to the controllers and inverter and swapping the position of the controllers with the inverter. Sine the controllers are capable of up to 200A and the inverter only deals with less than 100A, getting the controllers closer is desirable.
New configuration (note PT-ADP-PORT data cable unplugged and dangling, voltage sense wires added, layout changed as described)
In doing all of this however I forgot to plug in my PT-ADP-PORT data cables, and noticed everything was working just fine!! I then plugged in my PT-ADP-PORT and it all went to its usual SH&*! It turns out these controllers parallel together just fine without the PT-ADP-PORT!!! So, what is the PT-ADP-PORT for???? Well again the 1 page of engrish that it didn’t come with (and I had to get the seller to send it to me as it was not available on their website) doesn’t exactly say!
But all in all, all the problems I have been having for such a long time have now gone away, and the 2 controllers are working together very nicely! The current output mostly stays in sync between the 2 devices. I haven’t needed to power cycle the controllers daily like I used to have to do. Panel shading doesn’t seem to affect them like it used to. They’re not running away on the voltage, and their maintaining float voltage as expected. My load has next to no effect on their behavior other than requiring more current. None of that was happening when I had the PT-ADP-PORT plugged in!!! And everything I changed to try and rectify all of that had limited effect and seemed to have sometimes drastic effect in areas I didn’t expect.
As for the battery capacity (ah) setting, what that does who knows!!! I’d like to see some detailed documentation on what all the setting means and what effect they will have on the charging profile. I set mine to 1000ah on both controllers, is that correct? Who knows, I certainly don’t!! Its not one of the settings I have played with to see if it does have any effect, the point I’m trying to make is I shouldn’t need to be reverse engineering all of this myself!!!
As you have probably gathered by now, I’m fairly fed up with this lack of documentation and lack of support. If your considering a complex setup like the one I have, spend the extra money, don’t waste your time on Epever.
jimbo78
New Member
Winter Solstice
Well we are well into winter now, just passing the winter solstice so I though now would be a good time to update Y’all. Although the coldest month is now upon us, we just got through the 2nd coldest month and everything is now working just great! In June we had just 3 days of <5kwh which were days where a cold front passed with thick cloud during the day. These days required the fire to be running the whole day. Next, we had 9 days with 5-10kwh of available solar, and this is just enough power to run the heat whilst the sun is shining. As the sun goes down the fire is then lit and is only required to keep the house at temp into the evening. The remainder of the month was +10kwh and this is generally enough to bank some power as well as run the heat throughout the day not requiring any wood at all. So far I have burnt though less than 1/3 of my wood pile which is 1/3 the size of that I used the year before. So, I believe I’m well on track to get through the winter without requiring any more wood.
I currently have my float Voltage set to 16.2V which is still on the high side. At this time around winter Solstice we are seeing around 6h of sunlight. In that time, I’m able to get up to around 8-9kwh into the battery, however what I get out of the battery is around 5-6kwh. 6kwh is just around ½ of my total capacity of 12kwh. So, I’m able to bank ½ the batteries capacity in the middle of winter which is actually not bad, I’m quite happy with that it can take up to 15h for these batteries to get a full charge. So to get half capacity in 6 hours is quite usable however I do need to up my storage to allow me to bank charge over multiple days to allow me to use that charge on those days where I’m seeing <5kwh. With another 10 cells going up to 24v, I’ll be able to bank 12kwh in the depths of winter and if I use say 8kwh over night then after a few days of that I should almost have enough stored to get through a <5kwh day. Although I still may not be able to run my system 24/7 in the depths of winter, I don’t think I’ll be far off that goal.
With my float Voltage being 16.2V and the discrepancy being 2-3kwh of what is being put into the batter vs what’s coming out, that excess power is going into hydrogen production. This is how you tell if your float voltage is too high. In the coming days I will reduce my float to 16V and ensure I’m still getting my 6kwh’ish out. If so, I can reduce further to 15.8V, with somewhere around 15.5V being the target. The goal being to reduce hydrogen production as much as possible without reducing the capacity. Being the middle of winter, I have been erring on the side of “bank as much as possible!!” and I haven’t needed to top up the water much at all. But I can see that my float is high.
My charge controllers are finally running correctly, removing the PT-ADP-PORT from the system did the trick and I haven’t needed to do anything further to them. Every time I check in on them, they are running as I would expect, which was almost never the case before. So now I can focus on things such as my float voltage and not have to worry about the performance of my charge controllers. With the Gina bat cold raging all around us, its been reassuring to know that I’m not going to freeze in the middle of winter!
Well we are well into winter now, just passing the winter solstice so I though now would be a good time to update Y’all. Although the coldest month is now upon us, we just got through the 2nd coldest month and everything is now working just great! In June we had just 3 days of <5kwh which were days where a cold front passed with thick cloud during the day. These days required the fire to be running the whole day. Next, we had 9 days with 5-10kwh of available solar, and this is just enough power to run the heat whilst the sun is shining. As the sun goes down the fire is then lit and is only required to keep the house at temp into the evening. The remainder of the month was +10kwh and this is generally enough to bank some power as well as run the heat throughout the day not requiring any wood at all. So far I have burnt though less than 1/3 of my wood pile which is 1/3 the size of that I used the year before. So, I believe I’m well on track to get through the winter without requiring any more wood.
I currently have my float Voltage set to 16.2V which is still on the high side. At this time around winter Solstice we are seeing around 6h of sunlight. In that time, I’m able to get up to around 8-9kwh into the battery, however what I get out of the battery is around 5-6kwh. 6kwh is just around ½ of my total capacity of 12kwh. So, I’m able to bank ½ the batteries capacity in the middle of winter which is actually not bad, I’m quite happy with that it can take up to 15h for these batteries to get a full charge. So to get half capacity in 6 hours is quite usable however I do need to up my storage to allow me to bank charge over multiple days to allow me to use that charge on those days where I’m seeing <5kwh. With another 10 cells going up to 24v, I’ll be able to bank 12kwh in the depths of winter and if I use say 8kwh over night then after a few days of that I should almost have enough stored to get through a <5kwh day. Although I still may not be able to run my system 24/7 in the depths of winter, I don’t think I’ll be far off that goal.
With my float Voltage being 16.2V and the discrepancy being 2-3kwh of what is being put into the batter vs what’s coming out, that excess power is going into hydrogen production. This is how you tell if your float voltage is too high. In the coming days I will reduce my float to 16V and ensure I’m still getting my 6kwh’ish out. If so, I can reduce further to 15.8V, with somewhere around 15.5V being the target. The goal being to reduce hydrogen production as much as possible without reducing the capacity. Being the middle of winter, I have been erring on the side of “bank as much as possible!!” and I haven’t needed to top up the water much at all. But I can see that my float is high.
My charge controllers are finally running correctly, removing the PT-ADP-PORT from the system did the trick and I haven’t needed to do anything further to them. Every time I check in on them, they are running as I would expect, which was almost never the case before. So now I can focus on things such as my float voltage and not have to worry about the performance of my charge controllers. With the Gina bat cold raging all around us, its been reassuring to know that I’m not going to freeze in the middle of winter!
jimbo78
New Member
June 2020
Totals
Source 305.36kWh, Load 264.98kWh
Battery Voltage Range
Min 9.76V, Max 16.43V
Battery Cycles
17.04
Return On Investment
$91.46
| Day | Source (kWh) | Load (kWh) | Batt Out (kWh) | Voltage | Dod | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2.36 | 1.23 | 0.59 | 15.55 - 13.35 | 29% | $0.38 |
| 2 | 5.48 | 6.86 | 2.70 | 16.14 - 11.29 | 65% | $2.46 |
| 3 | 8.79 | 7.39 | 2.89 | 16.23 - 12.80 | 46% | $2.59 |
| 4 | 10.57 | 8.40 | 4.16 | 16.27 - 12.81 | 46% | $2.89 |
| 5 | 13.23 | 7.50 | 1.07 | 16.43 - 12.53 | 52% | $2.63 |
| 6 | 2.07 | 5.62 | 3.57 | 14.97 - 12.71 | 30% | $2.01 |
| 7 | 8.05 | 8.90 | 5.26 | 16.28 - 10.60 | 76% | $2.79 |
| 8 | 11.79 | 9.31 | 3.44 | 16.24 - 11.25 | 67% | $3.24 |
| 9 | 13.90 | 11.50 | 5.62 | 16.30 - 10.31 | 80% | $3.82 |
| 10 | 14.66 | 11.31 | 5.62 | 16.31 - 10.33 | 80% | $3.76 |
| 11 | 14.18 | 10.75 | 5.19 | 16.25 - 10.56 | 76% | $3.74 |
| 12 | 14.57 | 12.33 | 6.06 | 16.27 - 10.54 | 76% | $4.05 |
| 13 | 4.75 | 4.42 | 1.26 | 15.57 - 12.98 | 35% | $1.52 |
| 14 | 11.74 | 10.37 | 6.08 | 16.29 - 10.96 | 71% | $3.40 |
| 15 | 7.99 | 7.53 | 2.50 | 15.84 - 12.18 | 49% | $2.65 |
| 16 | 8.99 | 7.76 | 2.99 | 16.22 - 11.88 | 58% | $2.73 |
| 17 | 14.70 | 11.16 | 4.33 | 16.26 - 12.40 | 51% | $3.55 |
| 18 | 15.19 | 9.54 | 2.79 | 16.26 - 9.76 | 87% | $3.37 |
| 19 | 10.26 | 9.31 | 3.48 | 16.27 - 13.02 | 43% | $3.27 |
| 20 | 11.25 | 7.14 | 0.90 | 16.30 - 13.37 | 39% | $2.51 |
| 21 | 6.80 | 10.70 | 5.01 | 15.00 - 12.33 | 36% | $3.79 |
| 22 | 7.76 | 6.18 | 1.70 | 15.80 - 11.29 | 60% | $2.21 |
| 23 | 10.58 | 7.14 | 1.59 | 16.21 - 10.79 | 72% | $2.51 |
| 24 | 11.84 | 8.13 | 3.15 | 16.25 - 12.55 | 49% | $2.87 |
| 25 | 7.65 | 9.67 | 5.57 | 16.21 - 12.45 | 50% | $3.42 |
| 26 | 7.40 | 7.64 | 2.16 | 15.77 - 12.88 | 39% | $2.69 |
| 27 | 11.12 | 10.69 | 4.48 | 16.21 - 12.43 | 50% | $3.78 |
| 28 | 12.97 | 12.63 | 5.80 | 16.22 - 12.36 | 52% | $4.37 |
| 29 | 14.67 | 14.15 | 6.76 | 16.19 - 11.09 | 68% | $4.97 |
| 30 | 10.07 | 9.71 | 3.88 | 16.05 - 10.55 | 73% | $3.48 |
Totals
Source 305.36kWh, Load 264.98kWh
Battery Voltage Range
Min 9.76V, Max 16.43V
Battery Cycles
17.04
Return On Investment
$91.46
jimbo78
New Member
Winter Breakout
Well over the past few days we have had the first signs of spring show itself and the worst winter month is now behind us. So far, I have used around a half of the wood I stored for winter use and I’m ahead of where I thought I would have been at this time. I’m now right on 12 months in and I have data from last year to guide my usage from now on. So, I don’t expect to be using much wood here on out as things begin to warm up a little and we have more sunny days.
What’s interesting is we only have around 3 days per month of less than 5kwh of electricity which is the equivalent of less than 1h of full sun over an entire day as I have a 5kw solar array. These are the days I need to burn wood although sometimes I can delay lighting the fire saving some wood. In July we also had 13 days of between 5-10kwh which are days where I may need to light the fire in the evening for a couple hours, or heat less of the house. But the remainder of the time of 15 days I was able to use 10kwh+ which allowed the house to be heated throughout the day as well as storing more then enough energy to heat into the evening.
My system is still undersized however, I still need a bigger inverter but if I set my main AC to Medium fan speed and Max temp, then it will sit at an energy usage of between 680-850w with around 730w being where it sits mostly. My 1000w inverter is quite happy to run like that all day long no issue. My AC unit is capable of more but that will overload my inverter so forcing it to medium fan speed keeps it from overloading my inverter. Also, I still need more storage, going to 24V will allow me to store 10-12kwh daily in the middle of winter with my 6h sun window I have. Although I can store more in the summer, my energy usage is way less in the summer as cooling is not always needed here.
My charge controllers are working in a far more predictable manor now which I’m quite happy about. Also, I haven’t needed to top up the water level on my cells all throughout winter even though I have been driving them quite hard! So that tells me my float voltage was way too high during summer, and this summer I will bring it down to 15.5V and maybe have my absorption around 15.6 or 15.7. During summer I have all this sun and my usage goes down over all, so all that extra energy goes into hydrogen requiring me to top up the cells more than I really should be. But so far all my goals have been meet, I have been heating my house in the middle of winter and my usage of wood is below where I thought it would need to be.
Below you can see my data for July…
Well over the past few days we have had the first signs of spring show itself and the worst winter month is now behind us. So far, I have used around a half of the wood I stored for winter use and I’m ahead of where I thought I would have been at this time. I’m now right on 12 months in and I have data from last year to guide my usage from now on. So, I don’t expect to be using much wood here on out as things begin to warm up a little and we have more sunny days.
What’s interesting is we only have around 3 days per month of less than 5kwh of electricity which is the equivalent of less than 1h of full sun over an entire day as I have a 5kw solar array. These are the days I need to burn wood although sometimes I can delay lighting the fire saving some wood. In July we also had 13 days of between 5-10kwh which are days where I may need to light the fire in the evening for a couple hours, or heat less of the house. But the remainder of the time of 15 days I was able to use 10kwh+ which allowed the house to be heated throughout the day as well as storing more then enough energy to heat into the evening.
My system is still undersized however, I still need a bigger inverter but if I set my main AC to Medium fan speed and Max temp, then it will sit at an energy usage of between 680-850w with around 730w being where it sits mostly. My 1000w inverter is quite happy to run like that all day long no issue. My AC unit is capable of more but that will overload my inverter so forcing it to medium fan speed keeps it from overloading my inverter. Also, I still need more storage, going to 24V will allow me to store 10-12kwh daily in the middle of winter with my 6h sun window I have. Although I can store more in the summer, my energy usage is way less in the summer as cooling is not always needed here.
My charge controllers are working in a far more predictable manor now which I’m quite happy about. Also, I haven’t needed to top up the water level on my cells all throughout winter even though I have been driving them quite hard! So that tells me my float voltage was way too high during summer, and this summer I will bring it down to 15.5V and maybe have my absorption around 15.6 or 15.7. During summer I have all this sun and my usage goes down over all, so all that extra energy goes into hydrogen requiring me to top up the cells more than I really should be. But so far all my goals have been meet, I have been heating my house in the middle of winter and my usage of wood is below where I thought it would need to be.
Below you can see my data for July…
jimbo78
New Member
| Day | Source (kWh) | Load (kWh) | Batt Out (kWh) | Voltage | Dod | ROI | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13.72 | 10.57 | 3.62 | 16.18 - 12.85 | 44% | $3.74 | |||||
| 2 | 12.07 | 11.20 | 4.63 | 16.15 - 12.81 | 45% | $3.94 | |||||
| 3 | 2.88 | 5.50 | 3.32 | 14.64 - 12.33 | 31% | $1.91 | |||||
| 4 | 4.46 | 2.44 | 1.36 | 15.98 - 10.78 | 69% | $0.76 | |||||
| 5 | 9.78 | 10.84 | 3.77 | 16.13 - 12.75 | 45% | $3.83 | |||||
| 6 | 5.43 | 6.03 | 2.40 | 15.98 - 12.73 | 43% | $2.09 | |||||
| 7 | 9.23 | 10.41 | 4.81 | 16.12 - 12.22 | 52% | $3.65 | |||||
| 8 | 9.66 | 10.15 | 3.07 | 15.90 - 11.85 | 54% | $3.48 | |||||
| 9 | 12.29 | 11.37 | 4.81 | 16.18 - 12.23 | 53% | $3.98 | |||||
| 10 | 11.36 | 10.29 | 4.01 | 16.15 - 12.65 | 47% | $3.64 | |||||
| 11 | 4.72 | 2.70 | 1.17 | 16.08 - 13.23 | 38% | $0.91 | |||||
| 12 | 9.61 | 10.46 | 4.73 | 16.15 - 12.68 | 46% | $3.61 | |||||
| 13 | 11.80 | 10.87 | 4.60 | 16.15 - 12.59 | 48% | $3.81 | |||||
| 14 | 10.72 | 12.17 | 5.98 | 16.18 - 10.98 | 69% | $4.14 | |||||
| 15 | 11.67 | 11.30 | 4.45 | 16.20 - 11.08 | 68% | $3.98 | |||||
| 16 | 10.91 | 10.85 | 5.43 | 16.27 - 12.30 | 53% | $3.65 | |||||
| 17 | 12.76 | 12.49 | 5.48 | 16.34 - 12.64 | 49% | $4.28 | |||||
| 18 | 11.15 | 10.89 | 3.95 | 16.30 - 12.93 | 45% | $3.69 | |||||
| 19 | 11.23 | 11.82 | 4.99 | 16.30 - 12.72 | 48% | $3.98 | |||||
| 20 | 9.66 | 11.03 | 4.59 | 16.12 - 10.68 | 73% | $3.86 | |||||
| 21 | 6.77 | 6.39 | 2.77 | 16.24 - 11.63 | 61% | $2.29 | |||||
| 22 | 7.74 | 7.05 | 2.82 | 16.20 - 12.92 | 44% | $2.33 | |||||
| 23 | 6.94 | 7.58 | 3.78 | 16.31 - 11.14 | 69% | $2.72 | |||||
| 24 | 15.23 | 13.97 | 5.51 | 16.34 - 10.85 | 73% | $4.88 | |||||
| 25 | 8.78 | 7.58 | 3.09 | 16.37 - 12.99 | 45% | $2.50 | |||||
| 26 | 9.07 | 10.12 | 4.70 | 16.38 - 12.75 | 48% | $3.52 | |||||
| 27 | 7.22 | 6.13 | 3.58 | 16.24 - 12.94 | 44% | $1.96 | |||||
| 28 | 9.60 | 7.55 | 3.75 | 16.37 - 13.14 | 43% | $2.53 | |||||
| 29 | 11.58 | 9.56 | 3.28 | 16.39 - 13.31 | 41% | $3.28 | |||||
| 30 | 12.81 | 10.01 | 2.39 | 16.41 - 13.26 | 42% | $3.37 | |||||
| 31 | 14.89 | 15.20 | 4.87 | 16.49 - 13.11 | 45% | $5.28 |
Totals
Source 305.76kWh, Load 294.50kWh
Daily
Source Avg 9.86kWh, +10kw 15 days, 5-10kw 13 days, <5kw 3 days
Battery Voltage Range
Min 10.68V, Max 16.49V
Battery Cycles
15.76
Return On Investment
$101.56
Hi,
I bought 40 x 200Ah NiFe cells, as a 48V bank, in 2016. These replaced a bank of 4 x 12V AGMs. It took about 6 months before they were working, I.E. Enough charge/discharge cycles. I only had 3Kw of solar, and was running the house loads. After the first 12 months, I installed an extra 4Kw, and that made a big difference. For the next, almost 2 years, all was fine, then I noticed a bank of 10 cells was at a lower voltage than the other 3. Checked the cell voltages, and one or two were very low. This was early one April morning 2019. I checked all the cells with a torch, and found quite a few had a build up in the bottom of case. Since then, I've had 7 go off. Also, most cells now have a buildup.
I didn't realise earlier, but when I was topping up the cells, I would get a cloud of black form in the electrolyte. That stopped after a while.
Faulty cells would be OK until dropping to about 1.2V, then they would drop rapidly to 0.6V, then some would go even lower. Like -0.02V. Those would start to bubble as if they were being charged. As it was usually still dark, that wasn't happening.
I contacted the seller, and eventually he sent me some KOH flakes, which after lots of flushing, I used to replace the electrolyte in the faulty cells. Some cells recovered, some didn't.
I did a lot of testing, recorded the results, and the seller said he'd send me 6 replacements. That was in January 2020. I'm still waiting. Been Bushfires, Floods, Illness, batch of more fa itulty cells since.
I was getting 80% efficiency. Measured by Ah in/ Ah out each day for a long time. Down to 50% now. Actually, that was up to end of May. Have shutdown the system while we travel interstate. At least to those that will have us. We live in Victoria, not far, but far enough, from Melbourne.
I'm buying Lifepo4. Soon.
dRdoS7
I bought 40 x 200Ah NiFe cells, as a 48V bank, in 2016. These replaced a bank of 4 x 12V AGMs. It took about 6 months before they were working, I.E. Enough charge/discharge cycles. I only had 3Kw of solar, and was running the house loads. After the first 12 months, I installed an extra 4Kw, and that made a big difference. For the next, almost 2 years, all was fine, then I noticed a bank of 10 cells was at a lower voltage than the other 3. Checked the cell voltages, and one or two were very low. This was early one April morning 2019. I checked all the cells with a torch, and found quite a few had a build up in the bottom of case. Since then, I've had 7 go off. Also, most cells now have a buildup.
I didn't realise earlier, but when I was topping up the cells, I would get a cloud of black form in the electrolyte. That stopped after a while.
Faulty cells would be OK until dropping to about 1.2V, then they would drop rapidly to 0.6V, then some would go even lower. Like -0.02V. Those would start to bubble as if they were being charged. As it was usually still dark, that wasn't happening.
I contacted the seller, and eventually he sent me some KOH flakes, which after lots of flushing, I used to replace the electrolyte in the faulty cells. Some cells recovered, some didn't.
I did a lot of testing, recorded the results, and the seller said he'd send me 6 replacements. That was in January 2020. I'm still waiting. Been Bushfires, Floods, Illness, batch of more fa itulty cells since.
I was getting 80% efficiency. Measured by Ah in/ Ah out each day for a long time. Down to 50% now. Actually, that was up to end of May. Have shutdown the system while we travel interstate. At least to those that will have us. We live in Victoria, not far, but far enough, from Melbourne.
I'm buying Lifepo4. Soon.
dRdoS7
jimbo78
New Member
Sounds like you may have got a bad batch of cells, they are made in china, or the electrolyte wasn't mixed correctly in that bank. Allowing the voltage to go below .95v will destroy them as they will delaminate.
Well I'm on the inside, but its the most livable leper colony in the world!!
Well I'd be interested in taking them off your hands if your not asking too much for them
Well I'm on the inside, but its the most livable leper colony in the world!!
Well I'd be interested in taking them off your hands if your not asking too much for them
Hi,
They were not taken low, at least not on purpose. Inverter low cutout sees to that.
I'm contacting NSW Fair Trading on Monday. I gave the seller a week to get back to me. I had a conversation with NSWFT previously, and they said to get back to them if the seller wasn't being helpful.
I'll keep your offer in mind! If I can't get any help. I was going to use them as a backup, just Float them until needed. There's only 39 now anyway.
Shame, as I loved them for the 2 years, except for the distilling, and filling. But it was about every 1 1/2 months, as I was using low(ish) Absorb & Float settings.
We're up on the NSW coast near Kempsey ATM, in our caravan, and not going home for at least another month. Suffer!
Thanks,
dRdoS7
Sounds like you may have got a bad batch of cells, they are made in china, or the electrolyte wasn't mixed correctly in that bank. Allowing the voltage to go below .95v will destroy them as they will delaminate.
Well I'm on the inside, but its the most livable leper colony in the world!!
Well I'd be interested in taking them off your hands if your not asking too much for them
They were not taken low, at least not on purpose. Inverter low cutout sees to that.
I'm contacting NSW Fair Trading on Monday. I gave the seller a week to get back to me. I had a conversation with NSWFT previously, and they said to get back to them if the seller wasn't being helpful.
I'll keep your offer in mind! If I can't get any help. I was going to use them as a backup, just Float them until needed. There's only 39 now anyway.
Shame, as I loved them for the 2 years, except for the distilling, and filling. But it was about every 1 1/2 months, as I was using low(ish) Absorb & Float settings.
We're up on the NSW coast near Kempsey ATM, in our caravan, and not going home for at least another month. Suffer!
Thanks,
dRdoS7
jimbo78
New Member
Yeah no worries, well good luck!!
Hi,
I spoke to the seller yesterday, and he's agreed to a full refund. He wasn't keen on involving NSW FairTrading. The cells will be going back to him when we return home. I had kept the crates, I've been using them as a table for nearly 4 years.
If you're after a 48V inverter, or two, I might have a couple for sale. Both MPP Solar, 3000W & 5000W. I'm thinking of upgrading to a 7200W MPP Solar unit when I get my money back, and have my LFP bank up and running. Also a Midnite Classic 200, probably.
dRdoS7
I spoke to the seller yesterday, and he's agreed to a full refund. He wasn't keen on involving NSW FairTrading. The cells will be going back to him when we return home. I had kept the crates, I've been using them as a table for nearly 4 years.
If you're after a 48V inverter, or two, I might have a couple for sale. Both MPP Solar, 3000W & 5000W. I'm thinking of upgrading to a 7200W MPP Solar unit when I get my money back, and have my LFP bank up and running. Also a Midnite Classic 200, probably.
dRdoS7
jimbo78
New Member
Hi,
Not as glad as me!
I decided early to use 48V. I had an APC UPS for a few years, which used 48V.
When I went a step further, i.e. solar/batteries/inverter, and saw the cable sizes required, I thought it best not to go 12V.
dRdoS7
Not as glad as me!
I decided early to use 48V. I had an APC UPS for a few years, which used 48V.
When I went a step further, i.e. solar/batteries/inverter, and saw the cable sizes required, I thought it best not to go 12V.
dRdoS7
jimbo78
New Member
Yes 12V has been a little challenging, I'm running 70mm2 between the batteries and the fuses and 35mm2 between both Charge Controllers and Inverter (all separately) to the fuses. But as I go up in voltage I will keep my wire sizes which will also help with Voltage drop.
Doing it this way however allows me to go from 10 cells to 20 cells and eventually to 40 cells (possibly even 80, 2x40 parallel). And since each cell is basically $1k it allows me to do it bit by bit and not have to outlay the full amount day one. It does mean that I have to buy new inverters each time I change voltage, but my charge controllers are good to go on all those voltages. Going 1000AH keeps the numbers of cells down requiring less time and effort for maintenance.
Hi,
I suppose it's no different for me, as I wanted more of the house off-grid, I had to buy a larger inverter.
dRdoS7
I suppose it's no different for me, as I wanted more of the house off-grid, I had to buy a larger inverter.
dRdoS7
jimbo78
New Member
Yeah I wish Inverters were as flexible as charge controllers are, but the cost of doing that is most likely quite prohibitive and its a limitation of the FET's used.
jimbo78
New Member
Spring Update
Well its spring time here now, and things are warming up, it’s amazing the difference between now and the depths of winter as to the amount of usable sun I'm receiving. Right now, I'm getting good sun from 8:30am through to 5:30pm or 9 hours where as I was getting around 6 in the middle of winter. I haven’t needed to light the fire for quite some time now and I don’t expect to have to from now on although it’s still possible to get multiple cloudy days. I used 2/3 of the wood I got for the winter which was 1/4 of what I purchased the winter before and 1/5 the wood for the year before that. I did have my system running towards the end of last winter, and although my batteries were still quite weak, they did reduce the amount of wood needed on the tail end quite significantly. I haven't really changed in any way how I heat the house other than they method used. And now that I'm on solar I can actually heat more of the house.
Wood...
2020 660kg, 440kg ish used
2019 2720kg
2018 3720kg
The charge controllers are doing well, nothing much has changed there, I was able to pull 7.12kWh out of my batteries the other day at a rate of 1000w for most of that time and 500w for the remainder which got the voltage down to 12.79V. So, there was still capacity there, but probably not 5kw. Pulling at a near 1C rate (1200w) does reduce capacity, pulling at 0.5C rate would easily gain me the full capacity is what I find. So, doubling the voltage to 24V will half the C rate at my current usage and will help capacity which is my next step.
I also found the following document...
https://web.archive.org/web/2012070...ual of Storage Battery Practice (c) 1914_.pdf
Which is an original Edison manual from 1914. There are a few things of note in this manual. Firstly, Edison added Lithium to their batteries. This helps with capacity, but because Lithium is toxic disposal of the electrolyte as well as recycling the plates becomes much more difficult and costly. This is why I don’t have lithium in mine and I’m totally fine with the reduced capacity. But although I was surprised to see that, I guess I really shouldn’t be. Edison was competing with Lead Acid and Lithium would help get him closer in energy density terms to Lead Acid.
The other interesting part was the section on charging. Edison defines a charged cell as being at 1.85V per cell for 30min (or 18.5V for a 12V system). Edison also talks about gasses (hydrogen) being released more significantly after that point. 18.5V is very high and my charge controllers only go to 17V and realistically 16.5V. So, I wonder if 16.5V for 60min or 90min will do the same thing. I have ordered a “MQ2 Smoke Gas LPG Butane Hydrogen Gas Sensor Detector Module For Arduino” from eBay, so I hope to find out.
I’m not sure if that module will work with Hydrogen, but I guess I’ll find out. Devices specifically for Hydrogen are very expensive I have found. But I’ll have a play with this cheap Arduino sensor. I’m hoping that whatever I see is a linear progression as the battery’s charge then at some point it goes somewhat logarithmic. And if that happens after X amount of time at 16.5V then I will know exactly where to set my Absorption timer on my charge controllers. Well that’s the hope, things never pan out like that I find. But I think its worth investigating, so stay tuned for that.
Another thing that document points out is you can gain 30% over capacity by overcharging the cells. This is at the cost of efficiency and high temperatures on the cells. It would also cause a lot of off gassing (more frequent watering) which they don’t mention. But this is something you could do infrequently when needed and could be very handy on a sunny winter’s day right before the next storm arrives.
Well its spring time here now, and things are warming up, it’s amazing the difference between now and the depths of winter as to the amount of usable sun I'm receiving. Right now, I'm getting good sun from 8:30am through to 5:30pm or 9 hours where as I was getting around 6 in the middle of winter. I haven’t needed to light the fire for quite some time now and I don’t expect to have to from now on although it’s still possible to get multiple cloudy days. I used 2/3 of the wood I got for the winter which was 1/4 of what I purchased the winter before and 1/5 the wood for the year before that. I did have my system running towards the end of last winter, and although my batteries were still quite weak, they did reduce the amount of wood needed on the tail end quite significantly. I haven't really changed in any way how I heat the house other than they method used. And now that I'm on solar I can actually heat more of the house.
Wood...
2020 660kg, 440kg ish used
2019 2720kg
2018 3720kg
The charge controllers are doing well, nothing much has changed there, I was able to pull 7.12kWh out of my batteries the other day at a rate of 1000w for most of that time and 500w for the remainder which got the voltage down to 12.79V. So, there was still capacity there, but probably not 5kw. Pulling at a near 1C rate (1200w) does reduce capacity, pulling at 0.5C rate would easily gain me the full capacity is what I find. So, doubling the voltage to 24V will half the C rate at my current usage and will help capacity which is my next step.
I also found the following document...
https://web.archive.org/web/2012070...ual of Storage Battery Practice (c) 1914_.pdf
Which is an original Edison manual from 1914. There are a few things of note in this manual. Firstly, Edison added Lithium to their batteries. This helps with capacity, but because Lithium is toxic disposal of the electrolyte as well as recycling the plates becomes much more difficult and costly. This is why I don’t have lithium in mine and I’m totally fine with the reduced capacity. But although I was surprised to see that, I guess I really shouldn’t be. Edison was competing with Lead Acid and Lithium would help get him closer in energy density terms to Lead Acid.
The other interesting part was the section on charging. Edison defines a charged cell as being at 1.85V per cell for 30min (or 18.5V for a 12V system). Edison also talks about gasses (hydrogen) being released more significantly after that point. 18.5V is very high and my charge controllers only go to 17V and realistically 16.5V. So, I wonder if 16.5V for 60min or 90min will do the same thing. I have ordered a “MQ2 Smoke Gas LPG Butane Hydrogen Gas Sensor Detector Module For Arduino” from eBay, so I hope to find out.
I’m not sure if that module will work with Hydrogen, but I guess I’ll find out. Devices specifically for Hydrogen are very expensive I have found. But I’ll have a play with this cheap Arduino sensor. I’m hoping that whatever I see is a linear progression as the battery’s charge then at some point it goes somewhat logarithmic. And if that happens after X amount of time at 16.5V then I will know exactly where to set my Absorption timer on my charge controllers. Well that’s the hope, things never pan out like that I find. But I think its worth investigating, so stay tuned for that.
Another thing that document points out is you can gain 30% over capacity by overcharging the cells. This is at the cost of efficiency and high temperatures on the cells. It would also cause a lot of off gassing (more frequent watering) which they don’t mention. But this is something you could do infrequently when needed and could be very handy on a sunny winter’s day right before the next storm arrives.
Last edited:
jimbo78
New Member
2020 (to date)
Totals
Source 2265.84kWh, Load 2084.09kWh
Battery Voltage Range
Min 9.64V, Max 16.79V
Battery Cycles
132.44
Return On Investment
$700.65
| Month | Source (kWh) | Load (kWh) | Batt Out (kWh) | Voltage | Cycles | ROI | Avg Load (kWh) | Avg Source (kWh) |
| January | 160.11 | 146.95 | 67.16 | 16.28 - 12.44 | 11 | $50.06 | 4.74 | 5.16 |
| February | 163.08 | 153.85 | 88.72 | 16.52 - 10.12 | 11.23 | $48.93 | 5.31 | 5.62 |
| March | 121.42 | 110.57 | 61.92 | 16.37 - 12.44 | 11.12 | $36.97 | 3.57 | 3.92 |
| April | 193.88 | 184.73 | 108.96 | 16.58 - 9.75 | 13.83 | $58.51 | 6.16 | 6.46 |
| May | 300.24 | 266.04 | 126.48 | 16.79 - 9.64 | 21.62 | $86.71 | 8.58 | 9.69 |
| June | 305.36 | 264.98 | 110.6 | 16.43 - 9.76 | 17.04 | $91.46 | 8.83 | 10.18 |
| July | 305.76 | 294.5 | 121.71 | 16.49 - 10.68 | 15.76 | $101.56 | 9.5 | 9.86 |
| August | 355.59 | 314.42 | 112.12 | 16.46 - 11.38 | 14.15 | $107.63 | 10.14 | 11.47 |
| September | 269.83 | 262.61 | 94.74 | 16.32 - 11.80 | 12.62 | $89.63 | 8.75 | 8.99 |
| October | 90.57 | 85.46 | 29.9 | 16.35 - 11.08 | 4.07 | $29.19 | 8.55 | 9.06 |
Totals
Source 2265.84kWh, Load 2084.09kWh
Battery Voltage Range
Min 9.64V, Max 16.79V
Battery Cycles
132.44
Return On Investment
$700.65
Feralsmith
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2021
- Messages
- 6
Thanks for a comprehensive tutorial on this type of batteries. I enjoyed reading every post. Can you give us an update? Thanks again.
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