Hi there.
I have 4 12V batteries coming the 206ah SOK marine types for an offgrid setting in the mountains of BC, Canada.
The system will be using Schneider MPPT and Schneider 3.5KW Inverter.
The system will be a 24V system; thus, I will be wiring 2 batteries in series and then the 2 such packs in parallel.
After watching many videos, Wills' as well, I will be using bus bars.
I am thinking 1 short tin plated bus bar between the pos and neg in the series, and then 2 long busbars to hook up these two packs via short thick cables.
The MPPT and Inverter will be connected to these long busbars as well.
I have some questions:
- How thick should the small busbars for the series be?
- How thick should be the long busbars for the parallel connections, MPPT, inverter be?
- I will likely be drilling and tapping the bus bars myself. When you do that, the exposed hole will not have the tin on it. As such, do you need specific kind of bolts? Brass? Steel? Or do you just use some paste to prevent the oxidation?
- Is there even serious threat of oxidation? I always thought that happened with copper because of the chemical fumes from the LA batteries reacting to copper? So this should not be an issue with LiFePo4? Yet I see everyone using plated busbars?
- Does anyone have a site where to buy such busbars (and terminals)? I am in Canada so a site that is either Canadian or delivers to Canada would be awesome. On amazon I am having a bit of trouble finding busbars.
One separate question: In the past, on LA batteries, I would use the voltage as a sort of an indicator as to how much power is left in the batteries. But I am unsure if this works the same way with LiFePo4? Will the voltage drops as it gets low? How would one program a 'traditional' non LiFePo4 invertor to know to cut off power at let's say 10%? And speaking of this, what is the cut off one should even use for SOK LifePo4? I keep seeing various numbers
Thanks so much!
I have 4 12V batteries coming the 206ah SOK marine types for an offgrid setting in the mountains of BC, Canada.
The system will be using Schneider MPPT and Schneider 3.5KW Inverter.
The system will be a 24V system; thus, I will be wiring 2 batteries in series and then the 2 such packs in parallel.
After watching many videos, Wills' as well, I will be using bus bars.
I am thinking 1 short tin plated bus bar between the pos and neg in the series, and then 2 long busbars to hook up these two packs via short thick cables.
The MPPT and Inverter will be connected to these long busbars as well.
I have some questions:
- How thick should the small busbars for the series be?
- How thick should be the long busbars for the parallel connections, MPPT, inverter be?
- I will likely be drilling and tapping the bus bars myself. When you do that, the exposed hole will not have the tin on it. As such, do you need specific kind of bolts? Brass? Steel? Or do you just use some paste to prevent the oxidation?
- Is there even serious threat of oxidation? I always thought that happened with copper because of the chemical fumes from the LA batteries reacting to copper? So this should not be an issue with LiFePo4? Yet I see everyone using plated busbars?
- Does anyone have a site where to buy such busbars (and terminals)? I am in Canada so a site that is either Canadian or delivers to Canada would be awesome. On amazon I am having a bit of trouble finding busbars.
One separate question: In the past, on LA batteries, I would use the voltage as a sort of an indicator as to how much power is left in the batteries. But I am unsure if this works the same way with LiFePo4? Will the voltage drops as it gets low? How would one program a 'traditional' non LiFePo4 invertor to know to cut off power at let's say 10%? And speaking of this, what is the cut off one should even use for SOK LifePo4? I keep seeing various numbers
Thanks so much!
