₦airaland Forum

odimbannamdi:
Thanks for the response, sir. Regarding the emboldened, setup is 2 units of 200ah batteries, and intended load in wattage is 300w max. Let me know if you need any other info for better advise.

Also, do you imply that i will need thicker wires and possibly breakers for a 12v system, as opposed to a 24v system?

Finally, could you please help me put things in perspective by possibly giving an estimate on how long a 300w load on 400ah bank will last on a 12v and 24v system.

Thanks

With 300W maximum, you really won't see much difference. For 300W system, 12V is just fine, very little or no advantage in going 24v except you are thinking of future expansion. And yes, you will need thicker wire and higher rated breakers for 12v compared to 24v as current passing through your wire and breaker will be twice of what it is in 24v for12v. For your 300W, max current will be 25A for 12v, 12.5A for 24v and 6.25 for 48v.

odimbannamdi:
Guys, does using a 24v inverter confer some sort of efficiency advantage as regards runtime, compare to a 12v inverter system?

Based on that, what is the projected run time for a 400ah (200 × 2) bank using a 12v and a 24v inverter system?

Yes. Higher voltage means greater efficiency. If your setup is small, the advantage in terms of runtime may be minimal, but advantages in terms of wire costs, breaker costs etc. may be worth considering.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Same way as we exhaustively examined how to properly charge and discharge lead acid batteries, I am hoping we kickstart a discussion around different Lithium ion chemistries and best practices on how to handle them for extended life.

Stuff like ambient temperature effects, charge voltage limit, depth of discharge estimation and cutoff especially under PSOC conditions e.t.c

What kickstarted these thoughts was the wiring and charge recommendations for the Felicity Lithium battery. I felt they were odd given what we know today about batteries. Wiring was off and charge voltage too high for 16 cells at 3.2v nominal.

I don't understand the part about wiring being off. Kindly explain.

On the charging, the nominal voltages of LFP cell are 3.2v, 12.8v, 25.6v or 51.2v. The maximum recommended charging voltages are 3.65v, 14.6v, 29.2v and 58.4v. So, Felicity charge voltage looks okay to me.

ojtech8291:
The Inverter may not determine the size of your panel if you have an external charge controller. However, for 1.5KVA the highest size of an array should be 1KW. Gurus can come in here.

The array size is strictly determined by your use case scenario/your pocket, not by the size of your inverter. The idea of solar is to be able to replenish your battery to 100% by the end of the day. So, you need to work out your power usage and calculate how much energy you need to put back into your battery to make it happy and then calculate the amount of solar panel that will give you that. Then oversize your array a little to cater for bad solar days.

Trippledots:
i have monitored charging behaviour of smartphones, including premium brands, once the battery gets into the higher 70s and 80s, charging current drops considerably. and at 100% some current is still seen to be sent to the phone. Maybe to keep the phone alive or to sort of float the battery.

but there is definitely some current derating as soon as the lithium cell nears full charge.

You are right, there is a reduction in the current the battery is taking as it gets charged and it's internal resistance increases. But, that is not the same as float. That is still bulk/absorption.

If your phone is on, it uses some power and that will be supplied from your charger rather than the internal battery, so your charger may really never read zero. But, if the phone is off, you may see zero reading.

When lithium battery is full, the current read zero. At least that is what mine does.

odimbannamdi:
lol...Boss, you will not get the information you need from that bros. he is a mere middleman with little to no knowledge of the stuffs he markets here

True but he can do a nameplate picture. Why don't we get "REVIEWERS" in Nigeria who can really test out these things and give out their correct ratings?

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Smart solar charging is a 'demand pull' application. Given optimal conditions, a 300w solar panel may be able to produce 230w but only produce say 30w while the battery is float charging and no loads on. Turn on a 200w load as additional demand and the CC will soon ask the panel to release 200w extra if it is available.

If there is sufficiently large load and/or battery charging demand, the panel will produce its maximum capacity for that given ambient, tilt and solar irradiation condition. Reduce the loads and/or battery charging demand and you will see the solar production drop too.

Simply, solar energy cannot just be created in a vacuum, there must be a load (house equipment or battery) requesting and consuming that energy.

Exactly.

Electricity 101. What any electricity source gives out is dependent on demand. And that is why our appliances don't get burnt by the power we supply to them. Irrespective of how much current your source is capable of supplying, your appliance will just take how much it requires to function. That is why you can use a charger rated at 100A to charge an appliance rated at 10A. Only the voltage must be within acceptable range.

Dam5reey:
The Green white Green Plus Red is emotional
Abeg paint to another color, Blue or Black Is better

It can also look a little more presentable. It seems like little attention was paid to how it looks.

GeorgeD1:
bro, i wouldn't jump to such conclusions yet if i were you.

stand alone charge controllers are still way ahead of their hybrid siblings in terms of performance and features and
those that value battery longevity will choose them over hybrids any day and anytime.

personally, i don't think i would be singing such high praises of my recently sold off zenith batteries if my cc had
been a hybrid.

The bolded may not be entirely true. After buying my Felicity charge controller to replace the Fangpusun that stopped working, I explore the cyberspace to see if I can get software for it. Since the Felicity guys in China told me that they don't have software for it, I started looking out for similar CC presuming that it must be a clone of another brand just like their hybrid inverter is a clone of MPP Solar PIP-4048.

I finally hit gold when I discovered that MPP Solar sells a CC that looks and works like Felicity CC. Indeed, the user manual of the two CCs are identical. Further investigation showed that the CC in the MPP hybrid inverter is basically the same as the standalone CC. The only difference is that the standalone CC has its own software and hardware sensors managing it, while the CC in the hybrid inverter shared software and hardware sensors with the inverter.

So, the CC in the hybrid inverter is probably not worse than the standalone CC at the hardware level.

That said, I also personally prefer standalone inverters and CCs to the hybrids, but that may be because that is what I'm used to. Felicity is my first hybrid and I'm not even using its built-in CC, just the inverter and occasionally, using it to charge my batteries with NEPA.

[quote author=Christgalaxy post=95913197][/quote]I have the display. Make me an offer.

Justin288:
Doing very well, the whole house is on the bank.
Sorry for late response, i will add another row by weekend.

Now this is a lithium battery I will be scared of. Let me ask people who use these "power walls" what happen if a few of these numerous batteries go bad?

dapsyra:
I pushed my 5.5KVA Hybrid Inverter to the limit to test it's ability to handle load. I ran three 1HP Aircon, two 1200w water heater, one big deep freezer and a 4-door refrigerator on it simultaneously. It handled like breeze. These hybrid inverters have really come of age.

I stopped at 5211VA, not because the inverter cannot handle more but I simply ran out of loads.

See the peak data on the attached image.

Be careful in the future. Wify once destroyed an inverter by running it overcapacity. Instead of the thing shutting down, it kept working, the wires started getting hot and suddenly there were smokes everywhere. Thank God only the inverter got incinerated.

Got a 120A Felicity Charge Controller from @justcallmenuel last weekend for a good price. I was a bit crossed with him because he didn't keep up with his promised delivery timelines. He promised he can dispatch same day, but I didn't get the controller until 3-days later and I needed it urgently because one of my CCs just crapped on me without warning.

But, I'm ultimately happy with the purchase. Thank you @justcallmenuel.

ojeysky:
I think that's a typo, as you right indicated later, please do not equalise an LFP, a lot could go wrong doing that unless you want to do it for just a few minutes because equalisation will try to maintain the voltage point even when the battery does not needs it. I have a feeling it was the mistake I made with my MPP board that I lost initially.

It is a double protection. Set equalization voltage to float voltage and then disable equalization. Setting equalization voltage to float protects your battery if equalization is mistakenly enabled either by unsteady finger or any such other mistakes.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Felicity Lithium users. Help needed please!!!

1) How does one implement a reliable low voltage disconnect at 49.5v? The site I just inherited, the felicity inverter has a maximum permissible low voltage cutoff at 48v - I need to raise the cutoff voltage to 49.5v approximating 80% DoD.

I am looking for suggestions for a reliable low voltage disconnect mechanism please - I guess this will be an external/add-on device.

2) What is an ideal float voltage setting for the Felicity Lithium? The manual is silent and only specifies 57.6v as the charge voltage.

3) Internally how many cells are in series? I suspect 16 cells? If there are 16 cells then perhaps 57.6v for the pack or 3.6v per cell is very very highly charged and not ideal for the long term?

Lithium are not supposed to float. It is bulk and then stop. The idea of a float charge is to account for lead acid self discharge which is minimal for Lithium. The recommendation is to set your bulk, absorption, float and equalization voltages at the same value which depends on how you want to drive your battery. I set everything to 55V for my system 16s batteries. You set equalization voltage at float as double security since equalization will rapidly destroy lithium. You must disable equalization on your charger also.

Felicity has 16 cells.

I use node red and a contactor to cut off my inverter on lithium at 50V. I have not really looked into hardware LVD. Others may advise.

ICraft:
Have you found this yet? I have it, with Mate 3 and the 10 port Hub.

No, not yet. What is the price? How can I contact you?

zeestone99:
It is slow poison sir. I knew you must have updated it, that's why it died. Sorry bros.

Victron is wicked sa. Why don't they prevent the update rather than killing the Charge Controller later? That is vandalism

zeestone99:
I'm guessing you updated it. Did you update in any way?

I updated it when I bought it, but it worked for months after. I thought it should die immediately if the update is the problem or is it slow poison?

Malevonent:
Was banned for the post below, dont know why, pls someone who knows should help.
Juo na you be king of fangpusun here.

My Fangpusun Victron Clones just died, the second one. The first one died about two months ago. I'm done with Fangpusun Victron clones.

litaninja:
Okay.
- can you share the link for the particular code or script
or app you want to setup?
- what have you been able to do so far on your setup?
- hardware connection? You mentioned a serial port? How are you interfacing with the server? Are you using an adapter/converter? Does it require drivers?
- any errors or logs?

So we know where to start from.

Thank you, bros, I eventually got it working on a pi. I was initially trying to run it on my ubuntu server. I will try to retrace my steps, I don't want to have another pi running all the time.

duwdu:
The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B is an incredible, nifty machine and is truly affordable. These will have to partially explain why many arrays of developers favour it so much as a platform of choice for apps and IoT stuff, majorly of the open-source types.

In this case, attached are four screen shots of the SolarSnoop/PCM60X Monitor app on the Pi, by a developer and in use with my charge controller. It's freely available on GitHub. It uses a browser interface and is thus available to be interacted with within the range of a WiFi network, or from anywhere on the Internet, on a browser.

I set up this my own particular install of the PCM60X Monitor to auto-refresh every minute, which interval is good enough for me.

Hope some of us who are not already using equivalent or better solutions to monitor/visualize their RE set ups, will be encouraged to find similar ones for own use.

........
P34c3
.....
...

Hello bros, I'm trying to get this to work with no success. Can you please help me? Thanks.

ojeysky:
Does the server have a GUI? You may use solpiplog if it does.

Yes, I installed GUI to be able to run the solpiplog in GUI, but the PCM60X is a different thing, isn't it?

I need help, this time from tech guru. I have a clone of MPPSolar MPPT charge controller, PCM60x and I need to get the reading out using my Linux server.
The CC has a serial port. There is a python code that is supposed to work, but I'm not up to the task. Any help is appreciated.

I'm looking to buy this. Anyone who has can quote me. Thanks

kiekie1:
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I have used my borehole water for my Trojan batteries in the last 6 years. It has served me well. A colleague was paying for distilled water for another type of Trojan, the whole set up last about a year and a half. Luck, I guess. This is not a technical advise on flooded batteries. Follow the instructions of your manufacturer unless you hope to accept personal responsibility for any untowards outcome.

ojeysky:
That will be @essegis the chairman with BYD, Nissan Leaf and cylindrical Lifepo4 cells

I hope the gentleman can give us an update on his Nissan Leaf adventure.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Meanwhile, working with our partners, we have managed to crash PylonTech prices vs even before the Naira devaluation. Please reach out today and let us work out a nice deal for you.

Without any malice meant, the fact that you are reselling PylonTech makes all your defense of the system basically a sales pitch. This is the conflict of interest you should have declared ab initio.

JUO:
there is nothing there to be scared of. I played with the first set I got last year

Thanks for sharing. Irrespective of whatever they are called, most lithium batteries have a basic configuration; prismatic batteries, usually connected in series, with a BMS. The major differentiator is the quality of the battery. It is presumed that First Tier producers like Battleborn, Victron, Outback and Pylontech will use high quality grade A batteries. That is their main advantage.

ceaser:
Please if you buy the Pylontech, don't change the BMS, biko . The complexity of that circuitry is too much to just rip it out like that. Messing with the Felicity is easier on the conscience because they have decided to disrespect themselves and by extension mortgaged the respect for their product with false specs. I can decide to do experiment with a battery like that.

However with something like Pylontech, I will still wanna max out the warranty or ROI before deciding to conduct experiments on it just so to satisfy my curiosity.

Of course, if I have the bucks flowing like Otedola's (who I doubt is a DIY guy) or if you guys can happily contribute money for me to buy a pylontech; as a DIY enthusiast I will have no qualms with ripping apart that assembly on the first day of acquisition and even putting the video on you tube for you guys to see.

Remember that time that the legendary Fela turned a Benz 230 "regular" to a pick up truck just so to satiate his curiousity.

I understand your point. Actually, I'm a itchy finger when it comes to tearing down my equipments, so, if I get a Pylontech I will most probably void the warranty within one month. That is often enough time to know whether the product has a factory error which is usually the basis of warranty coverage.

I used to be concerned about voiding warranties, but for things I buy from abroad for which obtaining warranty claims are usually serious hassles I really don't bother. Lithium batteries are even easier. Once it is clear that the batteries used are fine, I'm okay. For Felicity, I think the batteries are okay and I'm very unlikely to need the warranty.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Despite all these features, we see issues and limitations in the field that we have to work to overcome, then someone now believes some DIY grade BMS will outdo the industrial grade BMS (texas instruments chip) inside the Pylon and some LifeP04 cells of average grade assembled by hand and/or DIYed will outdo the grade A, tightly QCed cells in PylonTech.

Not likely if you ask me but time will tell.

Very funny. I think you have similar complex with @GeorgeD1. You think because you paid top dollar for some proprietary system, it must be better than the cheaper more open source option! You are very wrong.

Let me tell you what you may be aware of. I have a few network routers in my house; Linksys, TP-Link, Netgear, D-Link and Mikrotik. Aside the Mikrotik, the first thing I did to the other ones was to get rid of the factory firmwares that came with them and flash open source firmwares; DD-WRT, Gargoyle or OpenWRT. Yes, I got rid of the firmware developed with R& financial muscle of big network vendors like Linksys (Cisco and Belkin at various times) and put open source firmware developed by a bunch of small but very talented people working mostly for free.

Same with my expensive Samsung phones. I use open source modification I got from XDA from the likes of Dr.Ketan, an Indian ENT Surgeon. Yes, I abandoned Samsung's R& software for something developed by an hobbyist working at home in his spare time. My major grouse with iPad and iPhones is their ultra-proprietary nature. Some think that they are better, but certainly not in my book. That is why I'm a fan of android phones.

@GeoargeD1 believed that his heavy investment in LeadAcid Batteries makes them better than Lithium, while you think that your investment in PylonTech makes your battery better than ours. That may be true, but it has absolutely nothing to do with all you said above.

My personal experience is that non-proprietary systems tend to be more robust, less restrictive and better maintained than proprietary commercial systems. They also get better support from DIY community. It is the same reason why Linux is a more robust and stable production software than Windows. Of course, one of the first thing I did with my Felicity Lithium was to replace its BMS with ANT BMS. The Felicity BMS looks better and bigger, but I have absolutely no control over it. If I buy PylonTech, I will certainly change its BMS to this "DIY BMS" you disrespect so much because it didn't cost a arm and a leg. Things are not necessarily bad because they are DIY, or cheap, indeed, many times they are better, because they are more open and less restrictive.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
@Adrusa - please did you buy off Felicity direct or open market?

I bought from an authorised felicity dealer.