chris81964:
Folks at 53, I consider myself an old man.

1. We can make points without getting others involved.
2. We don't need to drop names to validate our points or ourselves. Who you know does not really sway most people. What you have done matters more.
3. Anger they say does not cook good food. If you are that angry, wait an hour before you respond. If you still feel that upset then post your comment.
4. Once we have said what we want to say we can't take them back. We can modify what people see later but we can't remove the hurt or damage our words cause.
5. Maybe, we should create a rule of engagement to guide our interactions within the forum.

I hope we can continue to benefit from one another and the knowledge we are able to share with one another

Braaad:
This is the type of high power mosfet used (HY4008), you can check up the datasheet.

israelpalatoe:


Hi. Please at what battery voltage is your 10kva inverter? This MOSFET mentioned is 80v VDS max.
I'm also into construction of digital pure sine wave inverters. The inverter board beside your blue casing looks familiar. I think it is based on ECG ?

Braaad:


The battery voltage is 48v.
Of course it's pure sine wave.

The board you saw is based on egs002.
I got it to see if I can learn a thing or two from it to add to my design.... So far so good.

nisol:


You can visit fieldlines(dot)com and thebackshed(dot)com they have done several modifications to the egs board
for me I still code the ATMEGA series MCU

pitodenz:
Hi guys I need advice on choice of battery to buy
AGM am considering Quanta 200Ax2
Flooded am considering XC2 US battery 220A 6vx4
My current inverter cannot charge flooded batteries but I have about 1500w Solar panels and mppt controller
Pls help me make a choice between this 2 batteries
Note that I will be doubling the battery b4 3months time

makavele:


Best advice: Wait for that 3 months and buy all four batteries at one go

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Makavele is right. The corect and easy way is to wait and buy all four batteries at a go.

It will be very easy to charge them fully and commission them for service that way.

If you buy 2 now and 2 later, IT SHOULD STILL WORK especially within 3 months BUT you may be faced with challenges balancing the old and new batteries and may face all sorts of horrors bringing them together to act like one well-matched giant battery as they ought.

Depending on how aggressively you have discharged the old batteries and so many other factors, adding the new set may become a breeze or the wrongest decision ever.

If you must buy and commission the batteries piecemeal then Flooded may be your best choice because you can perform a full charge and equalize cycle on the Flooded and hopefully be good. On the other hand are you ready for the regular checks and watering, corrosion management and other duties that maintaining a Flooded battery bank requires? I recently dumped my US Battery Flooded bank when they began to require as much attention as my Madam after their first year in service even though they were still performing well.

Quanta is a solid AGM battery - literally plug and play - but it cannot tolerate over charge or equalization at high voltages. For your scenario it will make for a simple and compact installation (12v vs 6v) and nearly zero maintenance or management - but you should definitely buy all four batteries you need at once if you want to go with Quanta - except you are willing to gamble with your investment.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Makavele is right. The corect and easy way is to wait and buy all four batteries at a go.

It will be very easy to charge them fully and commission them for service that way.

If you buy 2 now and 2 later, IT SHOULD STILL WORK especially within 3 months BUT you may be faced with challenges balancing the old and new batteries and may face all sorts of horrors bringing them together to act like one well-matched giant battery as they ought.

Depending on how aggressively you have discharged the old batteries and so many other factors, adding the new set may become a breeze or the wrongest decision ever.

If you must buy and commission the batteries piecemeal then Flooded may be your best choice because you can perform a full charge and equalize cycle on the Flooded and hopefully be good. On the other hand are you ready for the regular checks and watering, corrosion management and other duties that maintaining a Flooded battery bank requires? I recently dumped my US Battery Flooded bank when they began to require as much attention as my Madam after their first year in service even though they were still performing well.

Quanta is a solid AGM battery - literally plug and play - but it cannot tolerate over charge or equalization at high voltages. For your scenario it will make for a simple and compact installation (12v vs 6v) and nearly zero maintenance or management - but you should definitely buy all four batteries you need at once if you want to go with Quanta - except you are willing to gamble with your investment.

Chuckdee:


@ Bolded...... I would really like to hear more about your experience with maintaining those flooded batteries and how difficult it really was for you to ultimately decide to abandon them totally and opt for maintenance-free batteries??

NiyiOmoIyunade:
My Oga,

I had 8 pieces 6v 360ah US Battery L16E XC2 to make up a 48v battery bank which I recharged 99% exclusively from a 6.3kw PV array split 4.5kw to a MorningStar 60a MPPT and 1.8kw to an EP Solar 60a MPPT.

The first year with the batteries was pretty peachy - somewhere in their 6th month in production was when I added the extra 1.8kw array since I wanted to run larger loads e.g 1hp AC for some hours per day.

When I say peachy, I mean the the batteries were closely voltage matched under charge and discharge, seldom required watering (3 to 4 months intervals) and of course I had a PowerPulse desulfator plugged on from day one.

One day around the 1 year 1 month mark, I did a random fluid levels check and realised the fluid level on the battery on the negative inverter/solar cable had suddenly gone very low - this was like a wednesday and I had checked the weekend before and all batteries were good and well topped. I topped up and thought nothing more of it but alas this was to be the beginning of woes with this battery bank.

I typically come home late evening and I would notice the batteries were unusually warm with the electrolyte spilling out - this began the era of constant babysitting as I would literally watch weekends and see the electrolyte boiling at absorb voltage - after much troubleshooting and finnagling, I learned the hard way that my 360ah battery bank was choking on the 70amps net charge my Charge Controllers were trying to force feed them so I throttled down the charge amps on the MorningStar (only CC I know where one can limit the charging amps with just a software settings change).

Interestingly I had always known that flooded batteries did not like too fast a charge but this personal experience brought the lesson home clearly - all the clients where I have deployed a similar battery setup generate only a 40 to 45amps net charge into their batteries because they had smaller PV arrays so no issues arose.

Alas in my case, the damage was already done as I now moved from watering batteries every 4 months to now regularly watering and wiping off boiled out electrolyte and watching over the monthly equalization like a hawk and all this despite temperature compensation installed and working on my two controllers. At times I would just have to switch off the solar input MCB as the batteries would boil so much that I couldn't bear it.

The last straw was when a battery in the bank would suddenly cave/drop voltage under load, I would isolate the battery and charge fully and it would be fine only to have yet another battery do exactly the same thing. This issue ping ponged its way through 3 out of 8 batteries and I decided I had had enough as battery management was now becoming a full time job so I dumped the entire bank and ported to 800ah of maintenance free GEL batteries.

So far this new bank is swallowing 70amps net charge without a hiccup and max discharge is about 30% of capacity with voltage under load being a worst case 50v in the morning. I dumped my powerpulse desulfator and plan to buy battery balancers to keep the entire bank closely voltage matched.

So for my flooded bank absorb voltage was 14.8volts temperature compensated, equalize voltage was 15.1volts temperature compensated done every 30 days,charging amps was originally 70amps eventually throttled to 40amps yet the batteries would still boil over and run above 40°C, my average discharge was 50% DoD occassionally 65%. I reduced absorb voltage as low as 14.1 volts yet the boiling still continued - I did not realise the long term benefits and ruggedness I expected from Flooded batteries and though our stories may be different I have heard Saipro, Abunafiu, Oga Chris all recount various tales of woe and degrees of trouble with their Trojan flooded batteries.

Trojan and US Battery are two good names in the Flooded battery world but they have so far not impressed me with their on the field performance hence my transition back to maintenance free batteries.

babniyen:
I have a 290 w canadian solar panel for sale. It is less than a month old. Reason for sale: I need to replace it with 2 150W panels. Price 50K. Will deliver to Mainland Lagos.

Oshomo12:


This is a serious something! 360AH @48 V bank, you shouldn't have boiled them with 70A (u re wicked o). You should charge it with a max of 45A(i stand to be corrected).

Ijeoma660:

-
I have a panel about that capacity and would love to exchange with a higher of 300+ can we do a trade off

viperVIP:
JUO has still not yet solve the battery issue and I'm getting very disturbed by the client's call.
If he refuses to get this done this week, I will go diabolical and make sure I ruin him and his business.
He will live in regret and losses for countless years, I can do that very easily... I'm only trying to be good with him so far.
I give him only 7 days ultimatum. I won't make a single post concerning him on here again I promise.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
My Oga,

I had 8 pieces 6v 360ah US Battery L16E XC2 to make up a 48v battery bank which I recharged 99% exclusively from a 6.3kw PV array split 4.5kw to a MorningStar 60a MPPT and 1.8kw to an EP Solar 60a MPPT.

The first year with the batteries was pretty peachy - somewhere in their 6th month in production was when I added the extra 1.8kw array since I wanted to run larger loads e.g 1hp AC for some hours per day.

When I say peachy, I mean the the batteries were closely voltage matched under charge and discharge, seldom required watering (3 to 4 months intervals) and of course I had a PowerPulse desulfator plugged on from day one.

One day around the 1 year 1 month mark, I did a random fluid levels check and realised the fluid level on the battery on the negative inverter/solar cable had suddenly gone very low - this was like a wednesday and I had checked the weekend before and all batteries were good and well topped. I topped up and thought nothing more of it but alas this was to be the beginning of woes with this battery bank.

I typically come home late evening and I would notice the batteries were unusually warm with the electrolyte spilling out - this began the era of constant babysitting as I would literally watch weekends and see the electrolyte boiling at absorb voltage - after much troubleshooting and finnagling, I learned the hard way that my 360ah battery bank was choking on the 70amps net charge my Charge Controllers were trying to force feed them so I throttled down the charge amps on the MorningStar (only CC I know where one can limit the charging amps with just a software settings change).

Interestingly I had always known that flooded batteries did not like too fast a charge but this personal experience brought the lesson home clearly - all the clients where I have deployed a similar battery setup generate only a 40 to 45amps net charge into their batteries because they had smaller PV arrays so no issues arose.

Alas in my case, the damage was already done as I now moved from watering batteries every 4 months to now regularly watering and wiping off boiled out electrolyte and watching over the monthly equalization like a hawk and all this despite temperature compensation installed and working on my two controllers. At times I would just have to switch off the solar input MCB as the batteries would boil so much that I couldn't bear it.

The last straw was when a battery in the bank would suddenly cave/drop voltage under load, I would isolate the battery and charge fully and it would be fine only to have yet another battery do exactly the same thing. This issue ping ponged its way through 3 out of 8 batteries and I decided I had had enough as battery management was now becoming a full time job so I dumped the entire bank and ported to 800ah of maintenance free GEL batteries.

So far this new bank is swallowing 70amps net charge without a hiccup and max discharge is about 30% of capacity with voltage under load being a worst case 50v in the morning. I dumped my powerpulse desulfator and plan to buy battery balancers to keep the entire bank closely voltage matched.

So for my flooded bank absorb voltage was 14.8volts temperature compensated, equalize voltage was 15.1volts temperature compensated done every 30 days,charging amps was originally 70amps eventually throttled to 40amps yet the batteries would still boil over and run above 40°C, my average discharge was 50% DoD occassionally 65%. I reduced absorb voltage as low as 14.1 volts yet the boiling still continued - I did not realise the long term benefits and ruggedness I expected from Flooded batteries and though our stories may be different I have heard Saipro, Abunafiu, Oga Chris all recount various tales of woe and degrees of trouble with their Trojan flooded batteries.

Trojan and US Battery are two good names in the Flooded battery world but they have so far not impressed me with their on the field performance hence my transition back to maintenance free batteries.

Chuckdee:


Hi Niyi, much thanks for the lengthy explanation because I hv learned some personal lessons from it. I hv exact setup in batteries, that is 8 X 360ah US Battery L16E XC2 and a total of 4.5KW in panels. Surely the culprit is the 70amps being pumped into those batteries.. I hv had my setup since march, completely Off-grid and generate an average of 55Amps and since fridge and deep freezer are always on with other little electronics, 6-11Amps are always going towards them, batteries get around 40-45 amps and they have been running w/out issues so far. Hv topped up distilled water twice though around August and last in December, they are serving just like the day they were commissioned.

Note to self: Pls stop thinking about adding more panels

Obimind1:

Will adding more panels position his set up at risk?

Obimind1:

Of recent I've been contemplating on adding more panels to my already existing 1.2kw array. Now my question goes thus: what's the maximum amount of panels that can be used on a 24v set up with 2 pieces of 200ah batteries? My inverter capacity is a 1.4 kva.

earthrealm:


the trick is not going far aboce c/10 in ur case..ur harvest shudnt exceed 35amps. at 1.2kw and just 2 x 200ah batts. you are maxed out already, unless ur setup isnt optimal

sinistrian:
Can AGM Batteries be mounted on their side? Trying to save space in an already narrow corridor

Trueigbo:
good afternoon .....a friend want to sell solar panels to me. he got the panels from a friend.

how do i confirm if the panels are good