diy solar

diy solar

This could be interesting

I’ve been struggling with putting a bunch of semi-diy on top of my cabin and dealing with the fire risk.

I don't put anything in or on my cabin related to power; even if this would be non-diy. Ground mounts give you much more flexibility to get the positioning right, and maintenance/cleaning if needed - never mind the weight while already calculated for heavy snow load. Having noisy inverters and charge controllers in the cabin is also a big no - these can all go in their own insulated building where I don't have to see or hear them unless I want to.
 
I didn’t know they were noisy. Good info. I’ve got a little (medium) theft issue.
 
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:

WhatWhereCost
20x 500W mono panelsYangtze Solar Power (Alibaba)€3733.56
32x 280Ah LiFePO4Shenzen Haomi Electronic (Alibaba)€3215.5
5kW pure sine inverterReliable 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.
Love this.. goes right along with my name lol.. I actually use a very similiar setup for the occasional grid outage or for when SHTF. Although I’m doing it a bit cheaper (go figure) with lipo instead of Lifepo4. And a bit smaller with only 5.6kw of panels.. my inverter is the better Reliable version. The inverter cost me $759 for a 4kw a few years ago. Using one chargery 100amp bms. Did splurge a bit on an outback fm80 cc.. It all cost me right at $4k total

From day to day I’m using cheapo grid tie inverters which are not included in that $4k
 
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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:

WhatWhereCost
20x 500W mono panelsYangtze Solar Power (Alibaba)€3733.56
Looks like panel prices have fallen even here in Up North considerably in the last 1.5 years
This works out to be actually cheaper than your package from Alibaba:
 
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.
 
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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 LiFePO4Shenzen 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!
 
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.
 
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:


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


 
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...).
 
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.
 
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