Ngbam!!!

dragnet:

send four Quanta batteries, then we close the case

dragnet:
send four Quanta batteries, then we close the case

It seems Quanta batteries are the best on the market, right?

ceaser:


Only a programmable SCC can give you the luxury to programme the output charge voltage and current to the battery pack. The 4s config gives (4.2v x 4 or 16.8v). Your regular 5000 naira 12v/24v PWM SCC can only do fixed 15.5 volt output at the battery terminals. That is suboptimal for your Li-on pack. 15.5v charge will bring each cell to 3.8v which although is not entirely bad for the cell as the low discharge cut off is 2.7v per cell, but you won't be able to use the full capacity range between 2.7v to 4.2v of your battery.

So effectively at the end of the day, you will be cheating yourself.

Hey guys please I'd like to know how I can know the difference between a good lifepo4 battery and a bad one.

since most of them in the market right now second-hand how can I tell which is durable and will last longer which one is has been used for a long time.

pls how many pv volts should 580w give me?

Hurry!

Durable

eleojo23:

It seems Quanta batteries are the best on the market, right?

According to popular opinion.

ceaser:


@ bolded. I guess your Zinox Powerbank has some form of voltmeter added to it which was not originally manufactured in it. That voltmeter is connected to the terminals that receive the direct volt input on the CC-CV board and that is the reason for the absurdly high voltage. Meanwhile, the BMS does its good job of maintaining the cells voltage within acceptable limits.

Or so I suppose.

yep, I thought so too, not until the charger input socket melted and the wires became hot. when I opened it up, the charging board was burnt. one diode there was roasted. Lol

when I saw the kind on soldering done inside,I just held my piece. we are in Nigeria! a friend who had the same zinox bank, used his for 3yrs before the backup times reduced. different strokes for different folks I guess

eleojo23:


It seems Quanta batteries are the best on the market, right?

Nah. they are reliable though.

zeestone99:
Nah. they are reliable though.

So, which is the best?

eleojo23:


So, which is the best?

Can't say there is any best, but there are durable brands out there, it all depends on how we use the batteries. Some are susceptible to abuse than the other. That doesn't say we should expect anything good from cheapo chinko batteries lol

Use of Mc4 connectors. We should endeavor to use Mc4's so we don't have reduced output overtime. The pix below tells what happens to your cables overtime.

Order your Mc4 now o. Don't say i didn't tell you. Just 800 per pair pere.

sintolord:
Good day Oga George, kindly share the pictorial diagram of your battery connection. I am amazed you don't use battery balancer.

here's a rough depiction of what i have on ground. please never mind the hand drawing.
replicate that in 3 places to represent each of the three strings and connect each string
to a single bus bar. so i have 3 positive cables and three negative cables connected to
my inverter through the bus bar. and very importantly, each cable having equal length
regardless of distance from battery bank. so essentially, it's three independent banks
operating as one. same charge current, same discharge current from each string.
hope this helps?

Wow!!! You were lucky this didn't result in an explosion/ fire incident. I'm not sure your wife would have been composed enough to handle it.

It's best we take seriously the issue of safety as advised by the boss himself @Niyiomoiyunade not just for us by for our family members who are just excited about having continuous power and don't understand the working of a renewable energy system.

My first lesson in Electrical Engineering in my undergraduate days was this, "Electricity is a good servant but bad Master". This was accompanied with gory stories of people who lost hands, limbs and even life because they didn't consider safety first in their dealing with electricity.

So like Boss Niyi said, safety 1, safety 2nd and safety 3rd...

olaolu11:
I took this battery from a ups and connected it to my panel to watch a program. The following morning i left it to charge while my wife watch tv. Unfortunately she went out and by the time she came back, all she was hearing was a shrill noise. Rather than disconnect, remove this battery and return to the original battery, she put on the tv and the noise stopped. Case settled as far as she is concerned. By the time I came home in the evening and she told me all, the battery is bloated ti this level( picture attached).
1. Can i still 'manage' use the battery?
2. What is the implication eg fire hazzard, explosion etc?
2. Why fidnt the cc trip off and stop the vharge agter the battery became full, or is it not suppose to do so. It is a 12/24v pwm
4. Would incorporating a fuse after the cc prevent such occurence in the future for even if i am using a bihger battery (100ah for example) and it gets full while i am not home, suvh can still happen.
5. I am saving up for a mppt cc (that fake/original that was a csuse of argument on this loop recently, bluegate or do: will confirm the name)
Thsnks all

NiyiOmoIyunade:
A brand new battery reading 11.7v is a bad sign. It probably means it has been left without charge for at least a year - in this scenario, sulfation would have built up on the plates and very likely capacity would have degraded - a proper recharge should restore some capacity but you should not expect 100% - if you must buy this battery, discount the price appropriately.

You cannot measure how much power is stored in a battery by using a multimeter and measuring across the battery terminals - you will need to apply a constant load to a fully charged battery and measure how many hours it takes to discharge the battery and infer the Ah capacity as a function of Load × Backup Time (in Hours).

It is dangerous to attempt amps measurement across battery terminals with the test leads of a multimeter. Even high end multimeters are capped around 20A if you are doing in-line measurements - placing the test leads directly across the battery terminals is effectively dumping the entire battery into the multimeter - you may succeed in this enterprise if you connect the test probes only momentarily as the test probe cables will run hot very quickly - with cheap meters you will very likely blow a fuse as trying to measure amps across the +ve and -ve battery terminals is essentially shorting the battery and dumping the entire energy stored through the multimeter.

Thanks. How do i now check the quality of a battery before buying it.

olaolu11:
I took this battery from a ups and connected it to my panel to watch a program. The following morning i left it to charge while my wife watch tv. Unfortunately she went out and by the time she came back, all she was hearing was a shrill noise. Rather than disconnect, remove this battery and return to the original battery, she put on the tv and the noise stopped. Case settled as far as she is concerned. By the time I came home in the evening and she told me all, the battery is bloated ti this level( picture attached).
1. Can i still 'manage' use the battery?
2. What is the implication eg fire hazzard, explosion etc?
2. Why fidnt the cc trip off and stop the vharge agter the battery became full, or is it not suppose to do so. It is a 12/24v pwm
4. Would incorporating a fuse after the cc prevent such occurence in the future for even if i am using a bihger battery (100ah for example) and it gets full while i am not home, suvh can still happen.
5. I am saving up for a mppt cc (that fake/original that was a csuse of argument on this loop recently, bluegate or do: will confirm the name)
Thsnks all

zeestone99:


Thank God it wasn't lithium. Your house would be on fire now. See why I like my lead acid. If you over do, the little nigga will just swell up. Not like egbon lithium that will just vex and catch fire.

Please we should be careful with our DIY. certain level of hazards is inevitable but of course without experimenting we won't learn new things.

Now I'm seriously having second thoughts about DIYing those lithium I have stored up. First I didn't even store them in the main house but in a shed outside. Second, they are all neatly arranged inside a nylon wrap (in fours), no metal shrapnel or screws are located anywhere near it. Haba! Na wa for Lithium o.

If I will go ahead with the diy pack, I must first get a welder to make a metal container and na for inside that I go put am. I cannor come and be having heart attack.

Trippledots:


Lol... Well, you are right.

But, a smart way is to Just turn it on while listening to an fm radio next to the engine area. The unmistakable statics should be there.

Also i think if they do use a brushless DC (bdc) motor, it will vebe written somewhere on the body.

@ bolded. Great observation.

ceaser:


Now I'm seriously having second thoughts about DIYing those lithium I have stored up. First I didn't even store them in the main house but in a shed outside. Second, they are all neatly arranged inside a nylon wrap (in fours), no metal shrapnel or screws are located anywhere near it. Haba! Na wa for Lithium o.

If I will go ahead with the diy pack, I must first get a welder to make a metal container and na for inside that I go put am. I cannor come and be having heart attack.

the thing with lithium is you must get it right. No hanky Panky. That's why it's safer to purchase those with bms. The companies have done their research.

As for bolded. I feel your style lol.

ceaser:


Now I'm seriously having second thoughts about DIYing those lithium I have stored up. First I didn't even store them in the main house but in a shed outside. Second, they are all neatly arranged inside a nylon wrap (in fours), no metal shrapnel or screws are located anywhere near it. Haba! Na wa for Lithium o.

If I will go ahead with the diy pack, I must first get a welder to make a metal container and na for inside that I go put am. I cannor come and be having heart attack.

I think that ur battery has BMS in it. Just don't charge above 14.6volt are good to go.

olaolu11:





Thanks. How do i now check the quality of a battery before buying it.

2 methods exist: use a battery analyser or a battery tester which applies a heavy load across battery terminals for like 10secs. some will advise the high current draw be maintained a little longer than 10secs. I doubt however that your battery supplier will want that, as most never charge their batteries in storage before they are sold.
some companies will stamp a manufacture date into the battery case itself, you should look for that, then ask for a load test be done. that should be better. You could decide also to search for the main dealer of a battery, who has a return policy and a warranty longer than 24hrs.

I have two questions
1. Can 400ah battery power a 1.5hp inverter ac for a period of like 4hrs?
2. Can one combine 2 batteries of different brands with the same voltage to get more amperage?

idris4r83:
I have two questions
1. Can 400ah battery power a 1.5hp inverter ac for a period of like 4hrs?
2. Can one combine 2 batteries of different brands with the same voltage to get more amperage?

1. 400ah @ 2V NO
400ah @ 48V YES

2. NO

Dam5reey:


1. 400ah @ 2V NO
400ah @ 48V YES

2. NO

u mean 400ah @ 12v?

idris4r83:
I have two questions
1. Can 400ah battery power a 1.5hp inverter ac for a period of like 4hrs?
2. Can one combine 2 batteries of different brands with the same voltage to get more amperage?

1. It is possible, but I won't bet on it. The higher the discharge rate of a battery the less the AH that can be taken out of it. In addition, depending on the cut-out voltage of your inverter, the inverter may cut off before the battery even get to 50%.

2. Yes, it is possible, but not recommended since each battery may have different charging characteristics and internal resistance. In reality, many people are constrained to do this for logistics and cost reasons. Using a balancer may help alleviate some of the side effects of combining dissimilar batteries.

Lifepo4 batteries are now in stock. Tested and confirmed 40ah with charger

Penuelseun:
Lifepo4 batteries are now in stock. Tested and confirmed 40ah with charger

How much?

@chris @niyiomolyunade and other DIYers

Can an mppt controller be fed with a regulated DC supply? I have read conflicting ideas on how it will perform. Some say the algorithms that mppt devices operate with may cause it to self-destruct or destroy the power supply. Others say it should work as long as the the power supply has some current limiting feature in it's design.

There isn't any practical video or article about it i could lay my hands on.

So what dyu guys think?

And anyone who has an mppt controller that they don't mind sacrificing for science I'll like to see a practical demonstration of such connection. I dnt mind collecting and carrying out the experiment myself if the donor prefers it that way.

adrusa:


How much?

28k

Trippledots:
@chris @niyiomolyunade and other DIYers

Can an mppt controller be fed with a regulated DC supply? I have read conflicting ideas on how it will perform. Some say the algorithms that mppt devices operate with may cause it to self-destruct or destroy the power supply. Others say it should work as long as the the power supply has some current limiting feature in it's design.

There isn't any practical video or article about it i could lay my hands on.

So what dyu guys think?

And anyone who has an mppt controller that they don't mind sacrificing for science I'll like to see a practical demonstration of such connection. I dnt mind collecting and carrying out the experiment myself if the donor prefers it that way.

There are cheap mppt controllers on aliexpress. You can get one and try, if no one is willing to donate.