Question about living on solar power

[Rednecktek]

If it was something I was trying out as a first timer and might break it? Absolutely!

However, for $200 what size inverter are you getting? If it doesn't fit your needs then it's a waste.

 

[Mattb4]

Wouldnt it make more sense to buy a chinese clone of a blue,etti or ecoflo ? They have the charge controller,inverter built into it..and they are like 200$cad for 1000 wh

1000wh is a deceiving metric. (1kWh about 15 cents from the grid in the US) Take for instance a 12vDC 100ah battery (pretty common). It is 1200wh. Your choice just understand what it is you are getting yourself into. Learn and use: Watts = Volts X Amps

While you are learning do some study of batteries: https://batteryuniversity.com/
Excellent resource and it is free.

 

[corporal_Canada]

Found something called "gel" battery that has 55ah... not very expensive, pls tell me if its any good

 

[corporal_Canada]

If it was something I was trying out as a first timer and might break it? Absolutely!

However, for $200 what size inverter are you getting? If it doesn't fit your needs then it's a waste.

Sadly the Philippine market is dependant on China so it will be a Chinese dc to ac inverter, they all boast 5000watts but this is China here we are talking about...

 

[Tomthumb62]

Found something called "gel" battery that has 55ah... not very expensive, pls tell me if its any good

Who knows. Gamble only the money you can afford to lose.

 

[Tomthumb62]

Sadly the Philippine market is dependant on China so it will be a Chinese dc to ac inverter, they all boast 5000watts but this is China here we are talking about...

If you’re talking about 12v here, you should RUN from any inverter claiming 5000W continuous output. 2500W about the practical limit for 12v. 5000W is 48v territory.

 

[Rednecktek]

Found something called "gel" battery that has 55ah... not very expensive, pls tell me if its any good

Gel is a flavor of lead acid and good for 50% capacity, or about 330wh of power.

 

[corporal_Canada]

If you’re talking about 12v here, you should RUN from any inverter claiming 5000W continuous output. 2500W about the practical limit for 12v. 5000W is 48v territory.

So connect 4 batteries in series ?

 

[corporal_Canada]

Gel is a flavor of lead acid and good for 50% capacity, or about 330wh of power.

Is gel battery better or worse than a standard car battery ?

 

[Hedges]

Gel and AGM are better for deep cycle than standard automotive starting battery.
Each wants its own profile.

How many cycles do you want to get before replacing the battery?
Some sealed lead-acid are good for about 350, so 700 deep cycles. One or 2 years nightly.
Deep-cycle FLA can do better, but is more maintenance.

Lead acid is good for dumb, simple, robust systems. Especially backup, occasional use when grid fails.

Lithium can give 5x to 10x the life, and price is getting to be about the same.
But it does have it's own characteristics you have to design around.
Many people are quite happy with them.

 

[Tomthumb62]

So connect 4 batteries in series ?

No, way too many problems, mainly due to the efforts and costs needed to keep those four batteries balanced with each other. Otherwise you’ll have headaches.

Instead, buy a 48v battery. Like the EG4 series or CHINS has a budget one now for like $1200. 100Ah 48v has the exact same amount of energy as 400Ah 12v (100Ah x 4).

 

[corporal_Canada]

Gel and AGM are better for deep cycle than standard automotive starting battery.
Each wants its own profile.

How many cycles do you want to get before replacing the battery?
Some sealed lead-acid are good for about 350, so 700 deep cycles. One or 2 years nightly.
Deep-cycle FLA can do better, but is more maintenance.

Lead acid is good for dumb, simple, robust systems. Especially backup, occasional use when grid fails.

Lithium can give 5x to 10x the life, and price is getting to be about the same.
But it does have it's own characteristics you have to design around.
Many people are quite happy with them.

I just want to run a 580watt aircon 24/7 and not worry about it being damaged when the batreries run out of power, ive seen that happen twice already to 2 fans, im sorry i dont know what agm means

 

[Tomthumb62]

I just want to run a 580watt aircon 24/7 and not worry about it being damaged when the batreries run out of power, ive seen that happen twice already to 2 fans, im sorry i dont know what agm means

You’re going to need a LOT of batteries.

580W/48v=12Ax24h=288Ah

Now if you have lots of panels to power that through daylight hours, you’ll need maybe 1/3 of that to get through the night and have enough charge to get up to where the batteries can be getting charged (roughly 9-10AM). If you plan to do this with lead acid, you’ll need to size your bank at least 200%, so 288Ah x 2= 576Ah

That’s 576Ah at 48v, or about 24 12v 100Ah lead acid batteries. Now it might not take that much power to run your air conditioning that much, you need to use a killawatt meter on your air unit for 1-7 days and get the average daily consumption in watt hours. Then convert the watt hours to amp hours to see where you actually stand in terms of need.

AGM is a type of lead acid battery.

 

[corporal_Canada]

No, way too many problems, mainly due to the efforts and costs needed to keep those four batteries balanced with each other. Otherwise you’ll have headaches.

Instead, buy a 48v battery. Like the EG4 series or CHINS has a budget one now for like $1200. 100Ah 48v has the exact same amount of energy as 400Ah 12v (100Ah x 4).

Tbh ill just buy a chinese clone of blu-etti or jackery with the battery,charge controller and inverter built into it, i was just curious if the AC would be damaged if the battery ran to its last electron

 

[Tomthumb62]

i was just curious if the AC would be damaged if the battery ran to its last electron

Not damaging to the air conditioning unit but draining the battery to 0% on a regular basis will severely shorten the lifespan of your battery. I would stop at 10% personally.

 

[corporal_Canada]

i looked into life-po4 batteries from the philippine version of amazon and of course it comes from china..... and i did have the misfortune of using a solar powered power bank as a modem ups in case of power outage... it was okay for... 5-6 months but now it will barely stay at 100%.. if i even so much as plug my smartphone into the usb input.. it immidiately drops to 16 and then to 0and starts beeping angrily....

popped it open and there is a collection of lithium.. D cell batteries ??? i think they are called... there is a 12AH marked somewhere but no idea on the voltage though..... im guessing this is the lithium they are pulling from Congo africa.....i am not impressed....