Author Topic: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System  (Read 14210 times)

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Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #30 on: June 08, 2020, 02:43:00 am »


MORE PICS:

It’s 4am, so one pic show big black box on floor. That’s a 24v 200ah lifepo4 battery pack. I bought 4 and stack the 160lb beasties inside a server cabinet with the PJ inverter on a slider with extra cables.

Last pic, our house after the volcano blocked out the free stuff.

Best Regards!
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #31 on: June 08, 2020, 10:22:09 pm »
Yet even more to add folks!

Finally got the touchscreen wrangled out. The lcd driver always was a problem getting to the factory menu. LVDS set to a 1, that’s all?? But hold down menu press power then hold down volume then don’t blink. Well then play around with Raspbian and get the darn thing to fill the whole 15.6 screen. Midnite solar has a new free application you log into and real nice so now I can quit that cloud service and have my rpi4 call me direct. I still need to figure out how to run an alignment on the digitizer screen if that’s possible on a raspberry pi.
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #32 on: June 22, 2020, 11:04:08 pm »
Pic
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline Pete

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #33 on: June 24, 2020, 07:38:46 pm »
Hi Solar that is a seriously high tech system you have. Makes my battery monitor look very low tech.
I just a Victron Bluetooth monitor that collects my information. I check it during the day to see how the batteries are going and that is it.
I do my best to keep the batteries above 80% charge. That is about it.
Then I don't run any high loads, a toaster and a few tools are the biggest things.
I guess you are monitoring your system from halfway around the world so it is a different story.
Hope it all gets sorted soon
Pete

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #34 on: June 25, 2020, 11:17:16 pm »
Hey Pete!

This beast is still stateside. We’re hoping to make the permanent move in the next 12 months so I’ll have to take it apart and crate everything.

I’m debating whether to lift that coil up on rubber blocks like doc has done. Fortunately the inverter is on a slider to make it easier. At least now the air gets in the center. Now it need to glue the temp sensor to the coil with thermal epoxy.

Garden haul
Adios!
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #35 on: November 12, 2020, 09:24:38 am »

So it seems that no matter how well you crate these batteries and how much you explain they are one of the safest on the market all they hear is that word lithium and respond with now way in hell are they going in our shipping container.

I sold them recently on eBay for what I paid for them. I can only imagine how that Acura hatchback drove with 648lbs in the rear. I’ll just put the money on some new lfp’s from the factory. They are under $95 now for 200ah. Server cabinet will go and everything will go inside it when I build a suitable workshop downstairs. For now everything is on The  wall and floor of the guest bedroom. That went over well with the boss 🤔.
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline Pete

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #36 on: November 16, 2020, 03:53:55 pm »
Seems odd doesn't it. As most things appear to be made in China these days. One wonders how the batteries get transported around the world in the first place. All the phones and computers with lithium batteries must be delivered by remote controlled submarines I guess.
Sounds like you are still having fun figuring out how to power the Phillipines on renewable energy.
Good luck
Pete

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #37 on: November 17, 2020, 09:34:52 am »
Hey Pete,

There is a trend now of American manufacturers making 12v lfp’s quote “Made in the USA” but everything inside is Chinese. A 200ah 12v averages $850when a pallet full of lfp’s brings the price down to around $75 each plus box plus bms. Again American greed pushing people to seek out Chinese sellers. 1 200ah lfp on ebay $225 and up. If you ship by sea a pallet cost $350 for 1 battery or 100 batteries.

I really want to expand my storage so we can have HVAC for all bedrooms at night. I have more roof to expand pv coverage in hopes of getting something on cloudy days. Still need that windmill too. Constant 10 knots and better during typhoon season especially this season. I really want to see how that delta resister setup you drew out and I built performs. The only time there isn’t much wind is the 5 months of summer of course that’s prime solar time.

In my ignorance I had not set my charge controllers to 58v but to 57v. I had the daughter change it and suddenly they went from charging at 30-32a  to 45a+. Hoping to see my shipment show up soon so we can get to 48v inverter and midnite controllers installed. Just upgrading to 48v should make a big difference. The Midnite controllers can be monitored on the web at the new cloud service and changes made as well.

Our new goal is make a permanent move early next year so fingers crossed.

Best Regards.
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #38 on: December 28, 2020, 10:48:06 am »
Finally upgraded to 48V and midnite controllers. This is just a screenshot of a rainy day which is a lot better than the 24V system. Disregard SOC, a reset needs to happen.

Bahay 1 is Front side roof panels and Bahay 2 is back side roof panels. Sun tracks front facing east. Sun comes in east, north east.
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline Pete

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #39 on: December 28, 2020, 03:30:08 pm »
Looks like you have it all sorted out. I guess it is coming into winter in the Northern Hemisphere but there seem to be a dearth of people posting on the site. Maybe the election has everyone spooked.
The battery prices are pretty different, as you say they probably buy the internals from China then just put them in a case in the US. And jack the price up by 10 or more times.
Here in Oz things are changing a fair bit. Our Prime Minister managed to get the Chinese upset by saying things they did not like. They have put embargoes on our exports to China. Well most things they don't really need, they have not embargoed iron ore as they need that.
And buying things from China has become a very very slow business with Covid19 and slow postage, plus I suspect the government there have mandated a go slow on sending things to Australia.
So maybe Covid has been good, we may end up making our own things again and not being so reliant on imports.
Wish you well with the move.
Me well I prefer cold climates so Tasmania suits me well. Above 19 degrees C and I think it is too hot. No air con, just heating sometimes needed here.
Cheers
Pete

Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #40 on: September 21, 2021, 03:31:58 am »
Hey All,

I may have just figured out why there is much out there about ATS switches using SSR relays. Everything went smoothly at first but then there was a sudden drop in fan speed(the one cooling me) the grid is a lower voltage than the inverter. Then fireworks! 2 clips of mosfets are sploded. The inverter now does a flashy thing but it still initializes showing course no output. LEDs on the board are flashing and backlight on lcd screen pulses.

Question is, considering I wired my circuit just like my mechanical ATS with the home wiring wired to both outputs, are the SSRs allowing back flow or cross cut and caused the non gti inverter push back against the grid?

The other thing is, those who have had mosfets go boom, what was the other thing that went wrong as well. Some folks replaced the fets only to have the magic smoke 💨 let go again.

BTW this is a 48v 15kW Powerjack.

It also tripped a 125a battery breaker.

Thanks
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline dochubert

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #41 on: September 21, 2021, 11:37:19 am »
Hi SN.  Good to hear from you!  Been awhile

Quote
The other thing is, those who have had mosfets go boom, what was the other thing that went wrong as well.

Don't forget to replace the lf driver board along with the fets or they might blow again.
Also, did your ATS setup run ok for awhile or did it blow the first time you tried it?
Can't admit to knowledge of whether the ssr's bleed through.  Lighthunter or one of the other guys can probably shed light there.
We're all going to DIE!  (eventually)

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Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #42 on: September 21, 2021, 11:41:57 am »
Doc it ran good for about 20 minutes. I will have to repair the lf board. They won’t ship parts here.
SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps

Offline dochubert

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #43 on: September 21, 2021, 03:05:31 pm »

Been trying to think how to test for the 'bleed thru' of the ssr's. (Without blowing up your inverter again!)  With grid powering your house, how about unhook your inverter from the inverter ssr's and instead connect some load.  Maybe a heater.  Then use a clampon ammeter to see if there is current flow to it?

The other thought that I had was are the ssr's reliable enough to not be dropping out and re-connecting, or possibly the ats controller is doing some (very!) rapid switching back and forth.  Automatic transfer switches generally have some reliable "locking in" ability in each position to prevent erronious switching.

My limited experience with ssr's is with cheap chinese models.  I've learned to always fan cool them as they tend to fail and literally melt from overheating.  This while well within their rated loads.  More expensive models probably do better.  Don't know what you have.
Again I'm far from an expert, just throwing out some thoughts.
We're all going to DIE!  (eventually)

USA = Communist former republic
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Offline solarnewbee

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Re: y Philippines Retirement Solar Off Grid System
« Reply #44 on: September 21, 2021, 10:18:03 pm »
Those are some good thoughts. Will give it a try. The controller is an Arduino 2560 in a din rail. The code is pretty simple using if and else statements.

Looking at a triac I wouldn’t think it would allow any voltage across without an input at the gate. I was looking at a chart for SSRs and features included and crosscut was something that caught my eye. I do have the Chinese versions at $6 each. I’m sure all extra features have been left out. How I miss digi-key.com.
(Just thought of this)
The leds on power board and the cooling fans were still working with the battery breakers turned off. I could turn off the pv breakers and see if the batteries charge. Of course it’s not supposed to be a charging inverter. Worth a try I guess.

SN

Any day above ground is a day for potential mishaps