₦airaland Forum

NiyiOmoIyunade:
It is true that a piece of AC equipment may consume higher or lower watts per time depending on how much work is being done per time.

However, the reason is not the battery voltage at the DC side - if power draw in watts is constant, you will see higher DC amps as the battery voltage drops and vice versa.

It is best to have a good clamp meter handy to help demonstrate these concepts - the variations in wattage you see on the inverter display are due to a mix of variable power draw by downstream equipment at different levels of work done and the internal calibration accuracy of the inverter's measurement cicuitry (the inverter internal circuitry is DC powered and accuracy may be thrown off over time and also as supply voltage rises and falls).

Interestingly, all measurement instruments (inverter circuits, AC/DC clamps, in line/shunt based watt meters e.t.c) all have varying levels of accuracy and precision built into them and these factory design levels also drift over time - with all these volatile data inputs what one needs is a fairly reliable indicative number suitable for one's specific application e.g the level of accuracy and/or precision required by a home user or industrial support engineer would vary widely from that needed by an equipment calibration lab working to achieve a NIST certification.

Fluke Corporation have a couple of excellent articles on measurement accuracy vs. precision and equipment calibration.

Thanks for the incisive input.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
I have been pitched this battery by Felicity reps - it is indeed rated 200Ah - however a key red flag is the pack weight for 24v 200Ah coming in about 10kg short (if you check Lithium data sheets, on average a 12v 100Ah pack weighs 25kg at least).

I doubt if the Chinese manufacturer has stumbled on an advancement in tech allowing them achieve same performance from a lesser BOM - it is best to derate appropriately and look at it as a 24v 160Ah battery.

All in all a decent offering at the price - if you derate advertised capacity and cycle life by 20% (see it as a 24v 160Ah battery with a little over 2,000 cycles) , you still have a better deal than your average lead acid battery for thesame naira spent plus the advantage of the battery is already physically here - no wait time, no importation risk and no customs hassles.

Baba Niyi don already get the scope. The weight is a give away with lithium. Even the small price may even affect the life cycle. What if it's just 400 effective life cycles when better lithium dey do 5000 cycles plus (that's like 12 years plus of effective use before you even reach the 20 percent degradation level)

Last year I bought a used 40ah LFP that the manufacture date printed on it is 2012. Boy does it still ride like a stallion.

simydan:
Actually, if your inverter has a display that shows your load wattage, you should be able to see the load consumption as you add individual load.

To get the idle consumption, unplug all the load and see if there's still any reading on the display. If you get a reading then, that's you inverter idle consumption. If the reading is zero then, it means your inverter is 100% efficient.
What it means is that, it doesn't drain your battery when there's no load on it.

This pics shows mine with a load and without load.

@ bolded. I am not sure it's that simple.

I have a MSW inverter that has a display that does exactly that and I don't consider it 100% efficient. I think the best way to determine that is if you use a clamp meter on the wires from the battery or at worst an in-line shunt meter between battery and inverter.

By the way, I don't think there is any 100% efficient machine. The heat that comes from the working inverter has the effect of reducing the efficiency of the device and that heat which is of course unusable to power your devices has gone to waste.

justcallmenuel:
218litres Bona deep freezer available, #160 000. Contact us on 08168986461

Share the technical specs of the freezer nau. Àbí is it not because of energy efficiency that you market the freezer?

Wattage consumption and operating DC voltages will do for a start.

eleojo23:
I have been eyeing this lithium thing for a while now and with these recent reviews, my mind is 80% made up to go for it. I just have to do a little more research to get all the answers I need. I might start with a small pack though, say 60ah.

I noticed there is lithium -ion and lifePo4 and some other lithium batteries. I read lithium-ion is the one with the tendency to catch fire, so going for LifePo4 is a safer option. Correct me if I am wrong @Caesar, simydan and other gurus here.
In practice, how far can you really discharge this type of battery? 50%?, 80%?

Lithium of all types give impressive performance cycle-wise, charge-wise and DoD-wise.

Even though what you put in as charge is what you should expect to get as discharge, you don't need to be afraid if you are unable to charge it to full every blessed day cos it has no sulphation problems.

DoD, well, for the 3 years I've been a user of lithium iron on various small levels, 100% DoD has not really been harmful to the battery in the way it will affect lead acid. Of course the recharge cycles of Lithium is not unaffected by the DoD, but it is not something that steals your sleep like lead acid does.

It tolerates high recharge current and not beset by the recharge current limit problems of lead acid chemistry.

However as you have 10,000 cycle lithium, so also do you have 5,000 and even 300 cycles lithium. It's part of quality determinants and a seller may claim 300 cycle as 5,000 and sell it to you as such.

In terms of safety profile, charge density, DoD, and of course cost: - Lithium titanate > LFP > Lithium Iron.

ojeysky:
No offense intend but I have my doubt that this is truly 200AH lifpo4. Have you done a stress test to actually confirm if you can hervest close to 200AH from it when it's fully charged?

Thank you for bringing that to attention. I know that price is the range of 24v 100ah.

But hey who knows, life might just be getting good and lithium might just be getting seriously affordable with that sweet price, if its indeed 200ah.

On further thought, the individual that placed that advert calls for some doubts in the quoted capacity especially if the capacity label isn't slapped on the battery.

kiekie1:
LITHIUM BATTERY!

Felicity 24v 200ah lithium batteries. 3000 cycle life and can also be paralled !

Price : N300,000


Contact,
Smartcell global services
081-350-31951
WHATSAPP::: https:///2348170385620

Nonsense Felicity. They've begun cutting off vital components in product to increase profit. Other battery manufacturers use digital voltmeters to ensure close monitoring of the battery but here they are, they used only battery level meter. This means you can't even tell at a glimpse what your lithium battery nominal voltage is (12.5v or 13.2v or 14.5v) or how the utilisation is going.

Nonsense.

But kudos to them sha for joining the LFP race to increase availability and affordability.of Lithium.

officialfestus:
can this charger charge it? If no,can you please show me the one that can charge it

This is a 3-stage algorithm charger that is suitable for Lead Acid chemistry batteries and may not be good with Lithium.

Lithium requires CC-CV (Constant Current-Constant Voltage) algorithm than chargers specifically designed for such can provide.

Lithium chargers are inexpensive chargers and I'm sure you can get 'em online for good prices depending on the amperage.

spartacus11:
Was the shipping cost with UPS up to 10k?

Cost shipping included was the 43k5. It's just the custom 3k5 thingy that increased the price.

And on a second thought, I feel the UPS guy may have lied about there being customs charges because he didn't issue me any receipt in respect of that. In fact he collected cash. Shit! I just realized this now.

mctfopt:
Oh, thought you imported it. What is the make of the MPPT SCC that you using for the lithium batteries?

How's the user experience? Is it living up to the hype of lithium batteries? A colleague imported this type of batteries some years back. It turned out the place he got it from used low quality lithium batteries, the experience wasn't so good.

Bro, the UX has been fantastic so far. I have working AGM batteries that I have decommissioned lying redundant, although they'll come in handy in my experiments.

Lithium ti take over

The Nigerian supplier of the battery is so cocksure of the quality of the product he sells. After the purchase of LFP from the supplier, I thought of the possibility of getting it for less if I eliminated the middleman syndrome and decided to research the manufacturer myself.

I went on Alibaba, searched for Gold Bohai battery manufacturers and got a hit. They actually have very good track records and ratings on the website. I communicated with them and realized that direct purchase will only pay if I was importing large numbers of the consignment. Importation for personal use as is in my own case will amount to about that same cost I purchased from that 9ja supplier, so I suspended the idea for now.

The MPPT controller is 60amp PowMr, got for 23k off of AliExpress. Got here in 5 weeks, should have been 3 weeks but the seller re-sent it after an initial rejection and return from the China inspection team (according to him).

The only downside to this SCC is that while it has an editable LVD it lacks an option for HVR (High Voltage Reconnect). The PWM SCC that I used hitherto has user editable LVD and HVR and I was able to use this to seamlessly control the inverter to switch on and off according to battery SoC.

Using it with lithium, I had initially disregarded the suggestion to select the "Lithium/other battery settings" for certain reason - I see scenarios where I may need to tinker, which may involve swapping back an AGM for the LFP into the set up and then forget to revert SCC charging settings back to AGM mode. So since the 14.6v sweet spot for the LFP charging falls around the charging range of the default SCC Lead battery charging which is 13.6v (float) to 14.5v (boost), I decided to use the default; after all one of the 60amps LFP has done well on a PWM SCC with default 14.5v AGM charging setting.

That stubbornness woulda cost me the LFP if the BMS did not have a high voltage protect function. The 900 watts solar panel got enough power down such that after the charging reached 14.5v, there was apparently some transient moments of overshoots and the LFP displays 15.0v/15.5v which immediately sends the battery alarm beeping and shuts down the BMS. Thank God I was home to notice this. Note that I did not have this issue with PWM SCC which expectedly are controllers with poor efficiency.

So I had to immediately change charging setting on the MPPT SCC from the default AGM charging setting to the Lithium charging settings, and also edited the maximum charging voltage from 14.5v to 13.9v.

Pls whoever is on Lithium should take note of the bolded. Due to the efficiency of MPPT solar controllers, it's advisable you select lithium settings and edit it to the manufacturers recommended charging voltage for your battery.

simydan:
@ceaser

You're indeed wise!

Lifepo4 it's really the bomb and worth investing on... I chose the this battery for my small setup which did cost more than if I had used lead acid battery.

I bought mine directly from the factory and it cost me 140k for 12v 100ah though, not yet connected to solar yet but I charge with a Lifepo4 grid charger of 14.6v 20a supplied along with the battery which charges full in five hours if completely drained.

I have a 600w stand alone inverter which display function is really great. My battery charges to 14.4v but holds load of 78w at 13.1v and can go like that from 9am till 7pm and still have 12.9v or 12.8v.

This load include: 32" TV=67w, GOTV decoder=18w and ceiling fan=20w

For some reasons I can't explain my inverter power's this load all at once at lower power than the real power of this load put together which is suppose to be 67+20+18=98w
So instead of having a power consumption of 98w from the display I get 78w. Please I'll appreciate if anybody can explain this...

Now one thing worth mentioning is, the inverter is 100% power efficient. It reads 0w at idle state.

Seriously Lifepo4 is the real deal, just can't wait to go off grid. Already have a smart MPPT SCC secured ahead...

Keep enjoying the sweetness of LFP bro. It seems your own supplier has been tested and trusted and you have shown that a direct purchase is a possibility. I might need to explore your own channel of acquisition for direct purchase soon cos I don't think I can be patient to wait till June when the supplier consignment will get to Nigeria (if he places order March, it'll take like 3 months for arrival, according to him)

@ the bolded. I have explained it here before that I noticed that phenomenon.

Usually your load of 97 watts is at 12v nominal battery supply to the inverter. But as the battery voltage rises, the calculated wattage consumption commensurately reduces and vice versa. Hence you have around 78 watts consumption at around 12.8v/13.0v Inverter battery power.

If you can lay your hands on a lead acid battery that will supply you around 12.2v/12.3v to the inverter, connect it and check the wattage output on the inverter. You'd realize that it will have risen to close to your expected 97 watts consumption.

By the way, a new set up I'm planning is for an inverter AC. It's gonna be a 24v system and the power inverter has been secured. The AC and the MPPT controller are also on the way. The battery of choice is 2pcs of 24v 120ah LFP which cost 235k each.

Abeg give me all the info about that your inverter. Name, specs, source and how to get it.

mctfopt:
That's awesome. Where did you buy it, and if not asking for so much, how much did you buy it?

Edited: I see you've already answered the question on cost, now if it ain't much of a problem I'll like to ask if you can share the store you bought it from and the equipment you use to charge the said batteries.

Bought from a dealer in Nigeria. He did run outta stocks and is importing new supplies by March.

I charged the 120ah with PWM SCC until last week when it was changed to a newly acquired MPPT. The performance ever since the SCC change has been breathtaking.

I charge one 60ah with a hybrid PWM inverter on 150watts (x2 in parallel)

The other 60ah is charged via MPPT also on 2 pcs 150watts panel but in 2s1p config.

dejidotun2000:
Can you please share pictures.

The 120ah is outside. Can get clearer pictures in the morning.

Dam5reey:
Thanks, that's 1A at 12V mine is 1A at 24V

Okay. That view appeals to reasoning.

Valto:
pls whats the name and how much

Actually got it off of AliExpress. So it's none of the brand names common around here.

Cost was 43k5. 9ja Customs charged another 3,335 on the item. UPS delivery.

tonididdy:
Am so so happy to read this. It's everything explained in one quote. Thanks very much.

Please can I ask you; seems you have used this exact CC before, please when exactly is full charge?... @what voltage? I do know 11.0v is low batt3.

As for the upgrade to a more powerful SC, sure coming later this year. I would be making a trip soon and I will love to quote peeps like you with options of the MPPT SC I found and advice on which to get.

Thanks again. Very helpful.

I didn't use this exact product but I've had my fair experience of PWM SCC use.

Full charge depends on the type of battery you have. But usually lead chemistry goes thru three-stage charging process each stage with different voltage setpoints, so also each battery differs on the various stage setpoints.

Lithium batteries do not require the strict three stage charging.

In most SCCs and inverters, the LVD hovers around 10v (around 90% DoD) but it is not advisable to discharge your battery to that point.

I try to get SCCs that have LVD user adjustable parameters so that I can change the 10.5v default to around 12.2v, then employ the output as a form of feedback to automatically switch off the inverter when it gets to the set-point.

I have not come across power inverters with adjustable LVD setpoint.

mctfopt:
Interesting, what type of lithium battery setup are you using?

12v 120ah LiFePO⁴ (1 unit)

12v 60ah (x2 units)

ojeysky:
Yes to mppt, the lithium thing I have not experienced, so how many amps of lithium are you using and how much did it cost you?

12v 120ah LiFePO⁴ for a 114 watts deep freezer. Cost 155k.

12v 60ah (x2 units) for each of the TVs. 80k each.

It's fully charged at 13.3v and according to manufacturer specs can discharge to as low as 11.5v before the BMS LV protection kicks in. Although I have never gone below 12.4v for the freezer and 12.9v for the TVs, that's the voltage it remains at after about 5hrs on a 45 watts LED TV.

Dam5reey:
For me it's fair enough , what type of inverter at same rating can give lower than that?

2000 watts (4000w surge) 12v PSW with an idle of 15 watts.

That's one of the inverters I have installed.

Dam5reey:
I got this deal.

Idle current is just 26Watts, Effeciency at 60% load is 90+%

Hmmm. That idle consumption though.

That's the consumption of an energy rating 32 inches TV.

I guess it's high cos it also has an in-built charger.

truthbetold22:
Young man, stop acting like a sisy. Someone here cheated you or attempted to cheat you. Then choose to stop picking your calls. Instead of naming and shaming him, you are here doing someone reputable here.

Kiekie, your time will come when we ll run you outta Nairaland. I have had personal dealings with you too and you are arrogant, proud, dubious, non-chalant and rude. You are only interested in the next sale and the profit. After that, you dont give a damn. There are now too many sellers on nairaland to even consider Kiekie AKA Mrsdaniel.

Nairalanders, avoid kiekie for your peace of mind. There is juo, zeestone, niyi, solardepot and quite a lot more reputable and civilized sellers on here.

A word is enough for the wise.

You left out the new entrant "justcallmenuel" that is doling out some very serious competition.

Buyers have been giving good reviews and ratings of his customer approach sha. We await their reviews quality-wise.

earthrealm:
edit: i saw the Voc as being 50v, na there wahala dey, i guess ur 150w 12v panel has Voc of 18v, thus you cant put then in series, as it would be 54v Voc, ur only option is to run them in parallel @ 18v, and that defeats the mppt fxn of the cc, and would require thicker cables as well, what best suits ur scenario is 2 x 230w 24v panels in parallel

His SCC is PWM o, not MPPT

tonididdy:
I enjoy to read from you bro and would love to read from everyone else too.

Yes you are right, going by what I read on page 1 that a 100w panel is actually producing way less than 100w considering quality factors.

In that note I calculated my panels of 150w will "maybe" Actually be producing 112w this means I have 112+112w and my calculations later on says I need 350w ( I reduced the sun hours to 6hrs against 7hrs earlier used and used an efficiency of 0.75 (75%).

This means my setup still needs an extra 126+wattage... Using 6hrs of sunlight.

Correct me if I am wrong but this boils down to my question. Using my provided details of my CC, can she carry 3panels with a sum of 450w according to company labels? Even tho calculation says they are 112w each (making a total of 336w).

Your 30amps PWM SCC will survive 3 pieces 150 watts panel parallel connection.

Try to use good guage wires too (not less than 6mm), since you'll be subsisting on 12v solar panel input.

solasola:
like I posted earlier, the more you look, the less you see. I will prefer to buy direct from company if possible. Alaba guys have all stickers you can imagine. from bottom to top. thinking of making my own panels by my self soon.

Does flames have their accredited company here in Nigeria?

tonididdy:
Hello sir. Good evening. Thanks for taking time to reply me, I do understand replies are based on time factor.

My setup is just one 220AH battery, 12v system... The installer said it's a setup for mostly night usage and I have to compliment it with NEPA and Gen. I believe a full charge on the CC will be 50v (forgive my ignorance).

At night we use between 13.1v to 12.2v at night by dawn according to the CC readings.

Am not an electrical guy, it's hard for me to understand these terms and usage.

I will take your advice and add a 150w panel. I hope it doesn't blow up my battery.

If 13.1v to 12.2v range of use satisfies your usage as you posited, then that isn't bad performance. 12.2v is around 50% DoD which falls within the recommended use.

What you just need to find out is if your solar panel input is adequate to boost charge and and float the battery every blessed day. You especially require scheduled equilibration for that tubular battery type and I am not sure that PWM SCC has such setting in its programming.

Another thing you need to worry about is if in case you have adequate performance from your panels this dry season, will the rainy season promise such adequate performance? This may call for an oversizing of your panels and of course with commensurate upgrade of your SCC to higher (around 60 amps) or change to an MPPT SCC altogether.

And as per your PWM SCC or battery blowing up from an extra 150 watts, from my own experience and usage, I have once had 4 x 150 watts 1s4p config (600w total) on a 30amp PWM SCC with 100amp AGM battery for months and yáwá no gas. It just that the efficiency wasn't optimal.

earthrealm:
can you help me with the ecopy manual of this cc?
or anybody dat has it

If you are on AliExpress, search for any seller that has the product and ask them to send the manual to your email. Give the impression that you are interested in the product and may purchase it from his store but that you need the manual ahead to be sure it meets your desired specs.

You may need to try more than one merchant because even though they all mostly answer queries, they do so at different speeds, probably cos of the language barrier thingy. So trying more than one merchant will guarantee that you'll at least find one that will reply you within the hour.

ojeysky:
The issue has been determined and partly resolved. Anyone with suggestions on how best to clean solar panel surface, especially ones above human reach by default?

I read some literature about antidust coating, anyone with experience on it?

Had some 4pcs 150 watts flames panels in parallel on a 30amp PWM SCC on a 12v system. Max yield on most days had been between 180-200 watts.

Last week I noticed serious drop in SoC of the battery such that the LVD that used to clock in at 8:30pm suddenly changed to 5:30pm. WTF!

I proceeded to clean panels (roof mounted) using the usual home mopping stick with extended handle, soaked with water. I climbed a ladder

That didn't solve the problem, but I later found the culprit to be a poor connection at the solar input terminals on the SCC which unfortunately had possibly produced some sparks which melted terminal and distorted the terminal screws placement. Unable to unscrew the spoiled terminal and not having a replacement 30amp SCC, I resorted to a crude manual connection at the terminals, a rather poor solution.

Thankfully, a 60amp MPPT I ordered weeks ago got delivered in the nick of time. I changed panel config to 2s and added two more 150 watts panel (everything now 2s3p). I have been getting 43amp nominal input and around 650 watts on the SCC.

As I type, battery has refused to leave 12.9v and it is still headed to a 12.4v LVD.

MPPT is sweet!
Lithium is sweet!

tonididdy:
Good morning sir.
I wish I can study more about your last sentence. Tye installer installed the change over switch in this setup. He said it's for emergencies or if I wanted to run (on NEPA or gen) heavy devices like the pump machine, iron, microwave.

I'm really very amaturic in all of this. The panel setup I looked is negative- to negative notted together and positives + notted together. I believe if I get new panels I just have to do same (or am I wrong?)

Whoa! Why does your installer need to cut off the easy MC4 plug and play accessories that came with the panels and then joined wires the more difficult way? Or are there downsides to using MC4 that I probably am not aware of?

This is disheartening.

justcallmenuel:
250amphs, 12volts GREEN POWER BATTERY available, #85 000 with 1yr warranty. Contact us on 08168986461

Na wa o.

These batteries heh, can you guarantee impressive performance from 'em?

Xpac123kid:
Good evening house, I want to ask a question. Is it possible to connect 3 12volts 200ah battery to a 24volts inverter. The batteries will also be charged by a 24volts charge controller

No sir. It's not allowed.

In simple terms:

24v inverter requires 24volts input.

Your batteries (3 in number) can either give you 12v in parallel or 36v in series, both of which are off the 24v target.

To achieve a target for your 24v inverter, you either get to use only two out of your three 12v batteries connected in series to get 24v total OR you get a fourth battery to configure a 2s2p bank (still 24v nominal but with higher capacity)

Please in using your batteries, do not mix old batteries with new ones.

Here