Renogy tiny home kit discussion

[slacman69]

1200W/2500W/4800W Tiny House Home Cabin Kit

Renogy provides solar panels, charge controllers, inverters, lithium batteries, portable solar generators and other equipments for off grid solar power systems

www.renogy.com

Bought the 1200w kit for my home. Its not offgrid and i dont plan to go off grid. Just looking to diy a backup system for hurricanes and such here in florida. Kit came with 4 panels and an inverter/controller combo. I plan to expand it over time to 15 or 16 panels. Need to math out how many panels the inverter can handle. Looking for suggestions on wiring this up. I havent unpacked it all yet as im still building the carport i plan to mount it to. Also looking for cheap battery options. Its a 48v system.

attached are pics of the carport with one panel just strapped to it atm. I will eventually put the cheap corrugated metal roofing on then mount the panels above that. Also shown are pics of the inverter box and the metal combiner, i guess, boxes that came with it.

If i will need to pick up wire or some other items to get this running id like to know so i can price it out. I assume this kit came with all i need except i didnt get batteries.

 

[MisterSandals]

You should have started this discussion before buying a $2500 Renogy kit.

 

[Tomthumb62]

Not familiar with that exact kit, but having owned some Renogy products, I’ll say I wouldn’t trust what they sent you in terms of wiring.

Example: I had purchased their 2000W inverter. Was supposed to come with battery cables. Called about this and they sent some. Woefully too thin to use, called again and they sent another slightly thicker pair. Again too thin. Frustrated, I put them aside and never used them and bought quality cables elsewhere. The unused Renogy cables were stored in a clean and dry place. Three years later I pulled them out and inspected them. Green corrosion at the terminal ends, not a good sign. I cut off the corroded end to get to clean wire. Corroded there, too. I kept cutting, more corrosion. I cut it through all six feet (3’ each black and red) and both cables were corroded all the way through!! WTF?! Had I actually used these cables, it could have resulted in a fire.

This was about the time I learned just how poor Renogy quality is in general. Their inverter and solar charge controller also both gave me headaches. I sold them and bought better quality and now the headaches are gone because everything works like it should.

Renogy never worked properly. Part of it was user error, but the poor designs made user error almost a guarantee.

I hope you can return it and buy better quality.

 

[slacman69]

Not familiar with that exact kit, but having owned some Renogy products, I’ll say I wouldn’t trust what they sent you in terms of wiring.

Example: I had purchased their 2000W inverter. Was supposed to come with battery cables. Called about this and they sent some. Woefully too thin to use, called again and they sent another slightly thicker pair. Again too thin. Frustrated, I put them aside and never used them and bought quality cables elsewhere. The unused Renogy cables were stored in a clean and dry place. Three years later I pulled them out and inspected them. Green corrosion at the terminal ends, not a good sign. I cut off the corroded end to get to clean wire. Corroded there, too. I kept cutting, more corrosion. I cut it through all six feet (3’ each black and red) and both cables were corroded all the way through!! WTF?! Had I actually used these cables, it could have resulted in a fire.

This was about the time I learned just how poor Renogy quality is in general. Their inverter and solar charge controller also both gave me headaches. I sold them and bought better quality and now the headaches are gone because everything works like it should.

Renogy never worked properly. Part of it was user error, but the poor designs made user error almost a guarantee.

I hope you can return it and buy better quality.

Too late to return so will likely just wire it up when im ready and hope for the best. Ive seen good and bad reviews for renogy but i didnt find this forum til a few days ago. Aside from renogy bashing i hope to get useful info when needed.

 

[Tomthumb62]

Too late to return so will likely just wire it up when im ready and hope for the best. Ive seen good and bad reviews for renogy but i didnt find this forum til a few days ago. Aside from renogy bashing i hope to get useful info when needed.

Sorry for the rant - I know that's not what you came here for. I hope it works out for you.