Update and more questions on the design:
View attachment 119137
View attachment 119138
The Sinclair ground mount kit shows up tomorrow. Planning on the surface ballast method as there are a lot of rocks in the soil here and I don’t want to attempt to drive the posts.
Installed a tornado shelter and set up the EG4 batteries in the cabinet. Has been staying 20 degrees or more cooler than ambient (around 85F). Batteries not terminated yet. All show the same state of charge which I think is good. I was not sure if I had to top balance the batteries before connecting to the Sol Ark but I am guessing it is a non-issue since state of charge is the same on all 6 batteries.
I am thinking of attaching the Sol Ark to the side of the battery cabinet. Would seem to be easier than mounting to the concrete wall. Curious if anyone else has done something similar. I have seen on the EG4 commercials where they mount the inverter inside the cabinet with the batteries.
I am liking the Victron Lynx for the extra fuse protection and to split the positive and negative into two leads for each. The Sol Ark 15k requires two sets of leads if the load exceeds 160A. It looks to me like if all 6 batteries are charging that the load could hit closer to 200A. I think I would also mount it to the EG4 Battery cabinet unless I am missing something there.
I did my best to show the equipment in a diagram. Starting with the 30 solar panels I think I am OK getting those mounted and connected. I will have to get some 10 AWG wires and connectors to get them wired over to a combiner box. I am a little unsure on what type of box to use. The Sol Ark has 3 MPPTs so I need to end up with 3 sets of pos/neg 10 AWG leads. It is supposed to limit Amps to 26 so even though the panels can theoretically produce 28 Amps (likely very rarely) max the lines would likely never exceed 26 Amps. The run is about 100 feet from the ground array to the Sol Ark 15k. My questions are around fusing and grounding.
Is it better to go with branch connectors and in line fuses or would it be better to put the fuses in the combiner box. I don’t see any pre-fabricated boxes for 3 sets in/out or 6 sets in / 3 out if I didn’t use branch connectors. The other part that confuses me is the grounding. Looking at NEC code it looks like they recommend an earth ground near the ground mount tying the panel frames to ground (as opposed to running it all the way to the same grounding point as the AC side). That part makes sense to me. I assume I would connect the ground in the combiner box to the same earth ground connection near the panels. Just a little confused about whether the combiner box provides some sort of ground fault detection that trips the breakers? Sol Ark also does not recommend connecting the solar panel array ground to the Sol Ark as a lightning strike might fry the Sol Ark.
From the combiner box the 3 pos / 3 neg 10 AWG wires would run to the Sol Ark.
From the Sol Ark the battery wires have to be split into two positive and two negative leads that get combined to go to the batteries. Someone recommended the Victron Lynx for that purpose and that makes a lot of sense to me.
I am curious anyone’s experience connecting the positive and negative leads to the battery pack (6). I have seen on some videos that the batteries will charge / discharge more uniformly if one side (pos) connects at the top of the bus and the other side (neg) connects at the bottom of the bus. I have read that EG4 says it does not make a difference.
Finally I need to size the AC power line / ground from the Sol Ark to the panel box. Just have not gotten that far yet. I am guessing it is about a 12 foot run from the inverter to the panel box. I am guessing I ground the panel box and then I can start installing breakers and wiring the cabin.
Comments and feedback would be welcome. I am enjoying this process, but I know there is a lot that I don’t know.