This could be interesting

[upnorthandpersonal]

Don't forget to add shipping (Edit: just checked, not bad at all - cheaper than mine indeed)
I could have found panels that were cheaper (or at least at the same price point) through GWL back then. However, not the big 500W ones which I wanted for aesthetics. But yes, prices here up north have definitely gone down.

 

[GBClemson]

Just scanned over this entire thread. Excellent content! Thanks for keeping us up to date throughout the process. This is very much appreciated information. I do have a question about the batteries...

32x 280Ah LiFePO4

Shenzen Haomi Electronic (Alibaba)

I cannot seem to find that seller on alibaba. Could you provide either an updated link or your updated thoughts on where you recomend getting the same or similar batteries that you found last year? How are the prices today vs when you purchased? I would be getting shipping to the US. Thanks again and happy new year!

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

No, that seller is gone. Today I would go with one of the other suppliers that people have good experiences with here on the forum: Luyuan, Docan, and some others. Prices have gone up a little, but so has cell quality from these vendors. I won't provide direct links - search the forum so you have some context and see what others are saying. However I can tell you that Docan has a US warehouse, which can make shipping for you a lot easier and faster.

 

[houseofancients]

My braided bus bars:

View attachment 17056

you wouldnt happen to sell me a few now would you ?

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

you wouldnt happen to sell me a few now would you ?

I've tried sending some to a forum member in the past and they got lost in transit. I'm a bit hesitant of putting in the work and then not see them arrive. Maybe with my next battery build I'll consider selling some if you or anyone would want them.

By the way, you can ask these guys if they can make them for you as well:

Copper Braid Products – Supply of products made from copper braid

www.copperbraid.co.uk

It's where I get the braid, and they do make custom orders. Might not be all that expensive...

 

[shavermcspud]

I chose Canadian SilFab panels for my install. I intentionally went with products made by North America companies. Sure, I paid more than I had to. That's okay by me to help make sure my neighbor has a job.

I know I have resurrected an old post here, but Silfab Canada components are predominantly made by DSM, a Dutch company who manufacturer all their back sheets,frames and wafers in China and ship to Canada for assembly, you've gone the long route to buying Chinese fabricated parts assembled in Canada at an additional cost. You can read their very well hidden facts here on their PDF data sheets. https://silfabsolar.com/resources-downloads/ I see this time and again on here and other forums, Designed and Built in the "insert your country here", when you delve deeper the actual components that make up the products are not made anywhere near the country of "design and construction" you are paying extra for it to be assembled in your home Country, Sure you might get better after support and service but you're not buying a home grown, designed and produced product, No Silicon from Canada, no frames from Canada or backsheet. I'm not a Chinese fan boy by the way but until these companies ( and this is global) start being a little more transparent with their products and origin of materials its just wordy bollocks to mask the true origins of kit.

 

[curiouscarbon]

I know I have resurrected an old post here, but Silfab Canada components are predominantly made by DSM, a Dutch company who manufacturer all their back sheets,frames and wafers in China and ship to Canada for assembly, you've gone the long route to buying Chinese fabricated parts assembled in Canada at an additional cost. You can read their very well hidden facts here on their PDF data sheets. https://silfabsolar.com/resources-downloads/ I see this time and again on here and other forums, Designed and Built in the "insert your country here", when you delve deeper the actual components that make up the products are not made anywhere near the country of "design and construction" you are paying extra for it to be assembled in your home Country, Sure you might get better after support and service but you're not buying a home grown, designed and produced product, No Silicon from Canada, no frames from Canada or backsheet. I'm not a Chinese fan boy by the way but until these companies ( and this is global) start being a little more transparent with their products and origin of materials its just wordy bollocks to mask the true origins of kit.

well said, its often a bit of a challenge to find the true origin of each component.

for example, simpliphi harps a lot about american made, but i emailed them and the material for the battery is not from USA and they simply responded with an ambiguous "various international sources" type statement ?

"Assembled in USA" maybe?

when possible and stuff, i like "buy local" to encourage a more stable ecosystem near me, but the labeling and marketing materials do not always make it easy to know what is what.

thanks all!

 

[houseofancients]

well said, its often a bit of a challenge to find the true origin of each component.

for example, simpliphi harps a lot about american made, but i emailed them and the material for the battery is not from USA and they simply responded with an ambiguous "various international sources" type statement ?

"Assembled in USA" maybe?

when possible and stuff, i like "buy local" to encourage a more stable ecosystem near me, but the labeling and marketing materials do not always make it easy to know what is what.

thanks all!

sounds like sol-ark
although they plain lied about it, and changed to " designed in usa", which is another lie ..

sjeez, talk about playing into nationalistic/patriotic sentiment

 

[Acho_303]

After all the help you've given me, I'm hear for moral support!!!

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

In case anyone is interested, I wrote down the goals and results in a longer form on my blog. The first part details the requirements, power audit, goals and some history. The second part deals with the actual components, costs, reasons.

#4 Let’s Make Electricity — Part 1: Sizing the System

When someone mentions off-grid, one of the first things that come to mind is not being connected to the electricity grid so it deserves…

medium.com

#5 Let’s Make Electricity — Part 2: Components and Costs

In part one I analyzed the electricity requirements, so now let’s start putting this in terms of components, and what it all costs. The…

medium.com

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

So... I've just bought a pallet of 36 x 410W Astronergy panels. At 0.275 Euro/Watt delivered it was too good not to. My plan is to split the batch with family, and expand my system in anticipation of an EV. Can't wait

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

So, time for an update again!

- Solar panels and charge controllers

No problems what so ever. I bought some other panels in the mean time (36 x 410W Astronergy panels as mentioned in the post above, of which I kept 16 myself). This brings the total to 16.5kWp installed. Those additional panels are on same type of charge controller I bought at the beginning of this project (MUST PC18-10015F 100A). They're a bit hard to get right now for some reason (especially the 100A version) and they're also listed on mppsolar.net with their brand on it, so who knows what's going on in the background. In any case, no complaints about these either.

- The 6kW low frequency inverter, also from MUST

This thing is awesome. It powers my wood splitter, electric chain saw, and everything else I throw at it all late spring/summer/early autumn long. No issues what so ever. The self-consumption is a bit high for the other seasons (75W I believe) so I did get a Multiplus-II for those seasons (and winter). I had a Reliable Electric 5kW high frequency inverter as well, but that one is currently collecting dust. It's the only thing I bought back then that I'm not satisfied with at all. Voltage drifts all over on the output, and struggles with too many loads.

- Batteries

The original cells are still going strong. I've doubled capacity in the mean time, and will add at least 30kWh next year. Still all running with the JK BMS. No issues at all with this BMS either - it's probably one of the nicest, easiest to use/configure BMS I've come across. I'm using four of the 100A versions with 0.6A balancing current. There are a few reasons: first is that they are the cheapest, but also because a single battery will never see more than 100A anyway, why bother with anything bigger. In addition, after seeing the MOSFETs on both this 100A version and the 200A version, the margins on the 100A version is slightly better. Not a big deal, but still nice to know. Finally, 0.6A balancing current is good enough to bring an unbalanced pack (i.e., a freshly assembled pack with new cells) in balance within a few days to a week over summer. That's fine by me.

So yeah, the system is happily running my house. I don't really need more solar or batteries, but it's so much fun and I'm sure I find good use for the extra power (EV in the near future for one...).

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

Oh, I forgot. I wanted to give a shout-out to this YT channel. They found my list of components and review a few years ago and built their own system with the same components. They have a couple of videos on their power system in their list.

https://www.youtube.com/@RedandAprilOff-Grid

 

[999cgm]

Hi @upnorthandpersonal . You mentionated using Grafana for tracking.. I would like to know if the modbus protocol is known for the solar charger MUST PC18-10015F , I tried searching online without success.

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

I have it on my GitHub in Python code:

https://github.com/PurpleAlien/must-power_grafana (the scc one)

The protocol description is also here:

MUST PC1800F Modbus protocol

MUST PC1800F Modbus protocol

diysolarforum.com

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

This is probably the last day of having a chance to get my batteries to 100% before winter, so I took it to 3.5V per cell. Biggest deviation was around 30mV which (with a 0.6A balancer) was resolved within a few minutes. No runners, no issues - these are the original 280Ah cells, manufactured in 2018, now in their 5th year of constant use.

 

[AntronX]

Have you done capacity test after 5 years?

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

Have you done capacity test after 5 years?

No, no time. I might be able to do that next Spring... But there doesn't seem to be any (meaningful) degradation based on day to day use.

 

[AntronX]

Ok great. I'm curious what average annual temperature these cells are kept at? Do you have temp data logging? How many equivalent cycles or kWh went through your batts?

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

At times, they went down to -20C on the cold side, but they never went over 30C (except maybe once). I have logs, but they're not 100% intact and have some gaps. I have no idea how many equivalent cycles: more in winter, less in summer. Closer to empty in winter, closer to full in summer. Very hard to estimate.

 

[AntronX]

Thanks. I suspect you have barely any capacity fade due to low temperatures up north.

 

[HighDesertDrifter]

Keep us informed I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. You may have one or two items that need to be replaced but I bet you could find something of comparable price if something in your original list is not as advertised.


I really think we pay about 3x as much for solar as needed.

Dealers in our area would charge 4 - 5 x's what I paid for my components if they designed and installed it. I can't afford to help buy some one else a new truck. Glad for diy!

 

[RovaRam]

So, instead of just doing the usual and buying some Victron and Batrium equipment and calling it a day, I went shopping on Alibaba and Aliexpress to see if I could build my entire 32x280Ah and 10kW solar panels system for under 10K Euro, keeping in mind the power and charge requirements - so not under sizing. This is what I'm getting, all including shipping and tax:

What	Where	Cost
20x 500W mono panels	Yangtze Solar Power (Alibaba)	€3733.56
32x 280Ah LiFePO4	Shenzen Haomi Electronic (Alibaba)	€3215.5
5kW pure sine inverter	Reliable Electric Power Store (Aliexpress)	€517.91
BMS 16S 100A (x2)	thanksforyou Store (aliexpress)	€175
MUST PC18-10015F 100A MPPT SCC (x2)	MUST Energy (Alibaba)	€529.46

Total: €8171.43

Is this all going to work perfectly? Doubt it, but we'll see. If that BMS is any good I'll upgrade it to the 200A version which is 2.5 times as expensive, so that would become €368 for both together. It seems to be the upgraded version of the one Will finally found that had low temp cut-off. This is well under my target of €10K, and I'm especially looking forward to how that charge controller is going to be doing and what that inverter can actually handle. I'll test it all in-depth and I'll post an update once I know more.

Hello , searching for MUST ENERGY on alibaba and there are 3 suppliers with this name. Could you send link to the one you mentionned please ?

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

This one:

Company Overview - Must Energy (guangdong) Tech Co., Ltd.

Must Energy (guangdong) Tech Co., Ltd. Products:Inverter, Solar Charge Controller, LiFePO4 Battery, Energy Storage System, UPS

mustpowerups.en.alibaba.com

They also have an official store on Aliexpress:

MUST Energy Official Store - Amazing products with exclusive discounts on AliExpress

Discover the wide range of from AliExpress Top Seller MUST Energy Official Store.Enjoy ✓Free Shipping Worldwide! ✓Limited Time Sale ✓Easy Return.

mustenergy.aliexpress.com

Keep in mind that they are harder to deal with these days, and tend not to ship to individuals from their Alibaba store, hence the Aliexpress one which does. Sadly, they don't have the low frequency inverters there, but they do have the charge controllers.

 

[Hungfish]

Copper Braid Products – Supply of products made from copper braid

www.copperbraid.co.uk

@upnorthandpersonal
what size copper braid did you use ?
i found some on amazon with this spec Width: 5/8"(15.8 mm); Thickness:0.055"(1.4 mm); Square:10mm²;
probable not a good idea to buy from amazon but i need some referrence of size to look.

and what size copper tubbing please ?

thankyou