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diy solar

Starting my portable Growatt solar generator build.

Larry619

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Joined
Mar 24, 2020
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I finally purchased a bulk of the major components I need to (finally) get started with this project.

I don’t have this all planned out yet but I will soon. For now here are the major parts:

8 used CALB LiFePO4 cells from eBay.
- I inspected these since they didn’t come with full documentation but these look like the 72ah cells commonly found online. The arrived in groups of 4 matched. 1 set came around 3.084V and the other at 3.130v.

Overkill 8S 100A 24V BMS from Overkill Solar. Upgraded to 8ga with 5/16” lugs because I’m lazy to do it myself. It will arrive on Friday!

Growatt 3000w 24v from Ian at Watts247 during Cyber Monday sale. Ordered Sunday and arrived Wednesday from Florida to California - WOW! Thanks to @Will Prowse for the links in his site!

I purchased a cheap bench power supply from Amazon during Cyber Monday for $55 dollars - 30V 10A with 4 digit readout.

1st step - group all 8 cells in parallel. Currently now sitting as a pack at 3.111v. I’ll give it another day before I start step charging it up to 3.6V then I will assemble it as an 8S bank when the BMS arrives.

I did not have enough bus bars from the eBay seller to parallel connect all the cells, he only gave enough to create an 8S pack. I used a roll of copper hanging tape which comes in 10ft for less than $4 a roll. I lucked out that it came with the appropriate hole size for the M8 bolt! I’m that lazy and didn’t want to crush and drill copper pipe just for the initial balance.

I will start opening up the packages to figure out what kind of wiring and what housing I will use to contain it all. I plan on buying custom 2 or 4ga wiring with the appropriate connectors on eBay. It may cost more but I don’t plan on building another custom pack in the future and I don’t want to buy all these tools I might not use. Maybe I’ll buy the appropriate large crimpers later as needed.

What excites me is the potential low cost of this project. The Growatt, even though it costs $713, it really simplifies the layout and overall costs of separate comparable components. This is a 3kw inverter, 80a mppt solar charger, and 60A AC charger all in one. The batteries were miraculously $360 shipped for all 8! if I can keep the additional tools and parts cost down, this might be a $1500 portable solar inverter - half the cost of a Titan Solar Generator.

Stay tuned to this thread as I progress on this project. Wish this newbie lots of luck.
 

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How are you making this portable? Are you installing it on a dolly or creating a portable case for it?
 
Your going to want to mount the growatt vertically for air flow. Or at least have provisions to hang it vertical when in use.
 
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