George_D: all,

as promised, here are pictures of my most recent upgrade works.

i sincerely apologize for the delay in posting. i have been up to my

ears in work for over a week now.

Bro, phcn will soon sue you to court o .

Bro, phcn will soon sue you to court o

lol. una wan make me go thief o

JUO: lol. una wan make me go thief o

my brother no need 2 steal. Since na area both of una dey, simply tap either wired or wirelessly afterall na free baba God give us. Anyhow you want it, u have my logistic and technical support.

@ abunafiu that my bros no wan carry me along o

gurus is there no way you can do this connection without the battery assisting the panels? feasy1 is using 10X100w=3000w this can carry any normal house load without any battery assistance. can't it be done in a way that the battery can only work when the sun is down/set or cloudy? am asking this because i want to learn

TotalGreen: congrats again
very pure harvest

have u considered "Morningstar HUB-1 MeterHub"

totalgreen,

thanks for the kind words. yes, the meter hub has crossed my mind severally and it will form
part of my next upgrade. i didn't really need it before now since i was back to a single tristar
but now that i'm forced to go back to two charge controllers, it has become a must have.

abunafiu:
hmmm, oga george.....oga george.....oga george..... How many times i call you!. New members need not to buy panels nor controllers....they'll simply tap from you online as u seem to generate more more and more than enough..
Wow....you're simply doing it and hitting the 1MVA in a grand style. Keep it up. More power 2 ur elbows.

abunafiu,

my brother, this your 1mva target no be small thing to achieve ooooo! anyhow i think my main motive for the recent upgrade
is to stay ahead of the cloudy weather. thanks for all the kind words.

p.s: i hope you never show your madam this one again?

idsolar: Oga George congrats. kai my head don skata for north. iam impressed. this one na real IPP. guys my house don bcome chargn point o

idsolar,

if i were in the north, by now phcn would be history for me.

Akanniade:
Bro, phcn will soon sue you to court o .

akanniade,

brother,

wetin man go do? when phcn refuse to do what they are paid to do then smart peeps have to look for
better ways of helping themselves and thereby rendering them irrelevant.

p.s: how is the weather treating your set up? are you still able to stay above board without plugging in
(for critical loads) ?

JUO: gurus is there no way you can do this connection without the battery assisting the panels? feasy1 is using 10X100w=3000w this can carry any normal house load without any battery assistance. can't it be done in a way that the battery can only work when the sun is down/set or cloudy? am asking this because i want to learn

juo,

i sent you a mail but up till now no reply from your end.

anyways, as per your question, there is no way you can do without batteries in a hybrid set up such as this.

the batteries are always necessary to act as a buffer between the panels and inverter.

however, if you have a grid tie system then batteries are not needed but that is a different topic altogether.

i sent you a mail but up till now no reply from your end.

bros i don reply ur mail o. na you no gree answer me. anyways i will send it again

juo,

seen it now. and have replied.

cheers!

Have been doing hybrid since. Whenever nepa is available I use it. Weather has been cloudy recently. I thought of increasing my array size, but I may move home soon.
My other installation is doing well though. It's not possible for me to monitor in details, cos I don't live there. I just took a shot of peak power.

Akanniade:
Dude ur installation is beautiful.

Akanniade: Have been doing hybrid since. Whenever nepa is available I use it. Weather has been cloudy recently. I thought of increasing my array size, but I may move home soon.
My other installation is doing well though. It's not possible for me to monitor in details, cos I don't live there. I just took a shot of peak power.

Many thanks bro, only following your footstep. I taught you were completely off grid, but reading your post now guess I can take it slowly and use the grid whenever it is available. I'd probably use less than 50kWh per month which should qualify for the lifeline R1 residential at NGN4 /kWh and zero fixed charge right? anyone in this category for PHCN billing??. Not sure if that work with the prepaid meter billing though.

Got the Prag Stabilizer now, so good to go for Grid input.

BTW, Can see Max Batt Voltage at 68.7V is this for a 48V system?

anyone using saturn batteries? They any good.? want to buy some for 47,000 each

Uncle George, i see you cut -outs are the type used for AC installations. I remeber a post somewhere that states there may be arching if you use AC type cutouts/fuses. Is it true?

Thanks

fikfik: anyone using saturn batteries? They any good.? want to buy some for 47,000 each



Thanks

Saturn batteries are as good as Zenith batteries. You can go ahead and buy them. However, Gel batteries are better and are more expensive.

George_D,

I can see that you are lighting up the house. Good work. Keep it up

feasy1:




Many thanks bro, only following your footstep. I taught you were completely off grid, but reading your post now guess I can take it slowly and use the grid whenever it is available. I'd probably use less than 50kWh per month which should qualify for the lifeline R1 residential at NGN4 /kWh and zero fixed charge right? anyone in this category for PHCN billing??. Not sure if that work with the prepaid meter billing though.

Got the Prag Stabilizer now, so good to go for Grid input.

BTW, Can see Max Batt Voltage at 68.7V is this for a 48V system?

this controller can handle 5 x 12volts battery, in the past when we needed to charge a 120volt battery for inverter like sukam and others, using 24volts charge controller was a lot, we needed to use like 5 x 24volts controller to do that, then the 24 volts controllers are like 30amps each, if we needed 60amps we needed to do like 10 x 24volt charge controller.

the outback 60 volt controller was a life saver with a high Amp charger. so for 120volt system, 2 x 60volt outback was the solution.

feasy1:




Many thanks bro, only following your footstep. I taught you were completely off grid, but reading your post now guess I can take it slowly and use the grid whenever it is available. I'd probably use less than 50kWh per month which should qualify for the lifeline R1 residential at NGN4 /kWh and zero fixed charge right? anyone in this category for PHCN billing??. Not sure if that work with the prepaid meter billing though.

Got the Prag Stabilizer now, so good to go for Grid input.

BTW, Can see Max Batt Voltage at 68.7V is this for a 48V system?

Yes it's 48v. The second installation actually out-performs the first. The main reason is the almost perfect alignment of the arrays in the east- west axis, tilt towards south. That alignment was not possible in the first installation due to aesthetics reasons.

@All
Timer switch helps manage your power. Recently my wife insisted on adding a freezer to her kitchen collection. With a timer switch on existing fridge, and another on the freezer, I was able to accommodate the new load.

TotalGreen:

this controller can handle 5 x 12volts battery, in the past when we needed to charge a 120volt battery for inverter like sukam and others, using 24volts charge controller was a lot, we needed to use like 5 x 24volts controller to do that, then the 24 volts controllers are like 30amps each, if we needed 60amps we needed to do like 10 x 24volt charge controller.

the outback 60 volt controller was a life saver with a high Amp charger. so for 120volt system, 2 x 60volt outback was the solution.

Akanniade:
Yes it's 48v. The second installation actually out-performs the first. The main reason is the almost perfect alignment of the arrays in the east- west axis, tilt towards south. That alignment was not possible in the first installation due to aesthetics reasons.

@All
Timer switch helps manage your power. Recently my wife insisted on adding a freezer to her kitchen collection. With a timer switch on existing fridge, and another on the freezer, I was able to accommodate the new load.

Many thanks for the responses,I'm aware Outback FM80 can handle 60V was just wondering since a 48V (4 battery system) would have a 57.6 Max battery, anyway,that depends on the battery manufacturer specification. The Sec Gel battery I use has max charging voltage of 14.4 meaning 57.6 for the 4 battery string.

@ Akanniade, Since the Max Battery reach 68.7V on a 4battery 12V string (48V system) . Can you advice what setting you have on the charge controller. Many thanks

@feasy1
The 68.7 is max battery reading during one of the charging modes(may just be a brief spike).
I didn't adjust much on the flexmax 80. Adjusting may not necessarily give better harvest. I just used default setting for 48v.

NB: check the stat or log on your fm80

TotalGreen:

this controller can handle 5 x 12volts battery, in the past when we needed to charge a 120volt battery for inverter like sukam and others, using 24volts charge controller was a lot, we needed to use like 5 x 24volts controller to do that, then the 24 volts controllers are like 30amps each, if we needed 60amps we needed to do like 10 x 24volt charge controller.

the outback 60 volt controller was a life saver with a high Amp charger. so for 120volt system, 2 x 60volt outback was the solution.

But that is like connecting 2 fm60 in series? Their tech support didn't like the idea when I asked them 3yrs ago.

hi,
i don't use the "in series" setup, i just run each to 5 x 12volts battery.

Akanniade:
But that is like connecting 2 fm60 in series? Their tech support didn't like the idea when I asked them 3yrs ago.

Akanniade: @feasy1
The 68.7 is max battery reading during one of the charging modes(may just be a brief spike).
I didn't adjust much on the flexmax 80. Adjusting may not necessarily give better harvest. I just used default setting for 48v.

NB: check the stat or log on your fm80

Many thanks, that clarifies it. I used the FM80 setting as is too

George_D: abunafiu,

i must say that your experience with the prag is rather strange. if anything, the usage of the stabiliser
should enhance your battery charging not slow it down. as long as you're getting the right amount of
input voltage into the inverter, there should be no increase in charging times for your battery bank.

try and check your connections and if possible remove the stabiliser from 'delay' mode when connecting to
phcn.

Supported. I experienced performance boost after installing PRAG and not otherwise. I just started noticing though that my 3.5kva Sukam inverter will trip off and on when I power it on. Sometimes it trips off 2 or 3 times before it stabilizes. Anyone has that experience yet?

Hope I don't have to disconnect and carry it again for repairs. Maybe its time for replacement?

Meanwhile, I'm searching the posts where connecting 2 solar array controllers to a battery bank was discussed. Please help me with the page number if you recollect -

pdozie,

check your battery input toggle switch at the back of the inverter. I've been experiencing such too but only when i power down completely by switching off the battery input at the back. when you lift it up to power the inverter it will fail a couple of times before becoming stable. i suspect sukam didn't use a rugged switch for their 3.5kva series. what i may do eventually is to look for a replacement toggle switch which i think may not be too difficult to find.

BUTONEDAY: George_D,

I can see that you are lighting up the house. Good work. Keep it up

butoneday,

bros, no be small thing ooooo!

i'm sure you'll be thinking seriously about upgrading by now too.

the endlessly cloudy weather in wafi seems to suggest this may
be a step in the right direction.

totalgreen,

you got mail. kindly reply asap.
thanks!

Hi,
Just connect it as u would connect one bank.
Make sure that the total peek current is not higher than 1/5 th of the battery capacity. It is advice not to charge a battery faster than 5hrs

Stand to be corrected on this one o, my brothers

pdozie:

Supported. I experienced performance boost after installing PRAG and not otherwise. I just started noticing though that my 3.5kva Sukam inverter will trip off and on when I power it on. Sometimes it trips off 2 or 3 times before it stabilizes. Anyone has that experience yet?

Hope I don't have to disconnect and carry it again for repairs. Maybe its time for replacement?

Meanwhile, I'm searching the posts where connecting 2 solar array controllers to a battery bank was discussed. Please help me with the page number if you recollect -

George_D: totalgreen,

you got mail. kindly reply asap.
thanks!

Replied

George_D,

I am crawling slowly to where we want to be. My GEL battery bank is now @ 530 amps/ 96 volts, while my alternate AGM bank is 400amps/48 volts. I am looking forward to increasing the number of panels very soon.

TotalGreen: Hi,
Just connect it as u would connect one bank.
Make sure that the total peek current is not higher than 1/5 th of the battery capacity. It is advice not to charge a battery faster than 5hrs

Stand to be corrected on this one o, my brothers

@TotalGreen. Thanks. But I really don't get the connection yet. The battery bank has a +ve & a -ve terminal. Should I run one cable each from +ve terminal of the two controllers to the battery bank +ve and do same for the -ve terminal of the bank?

@George, many thanks for the insight on the battery input toggle switch