₦airaland Forum

Konnektions146:
If you need to conduct a load test, 10seconds will not give you what you really seek to know

If I may ask, how much load did you subject the batteries to and how?

i have once done a 5mins load test and all passed but client complained more and did more longer test an saw the culprit, replaced just that battery and all was fine

if you noticed, the variation pre and post aint much

they may be just healthy but 10 seconds wont do it for me.

My humble opinion

the instrument used is the standard battery capacity tester.
it won't allow you go beyond 10s to prevent battery cell
damage.

efuro:
after years of use and babysitting batteries

the load test is very IMPRESSIVE !

A teacher must not fail exam!

Nice one Oga George D1

well, when i decided to jettison the more traditional method of
series-parallel battery connection, i knew i was making a huge
gamble but apparently my innovation has seemingly paid off over
time seeing as there are no wild variation in voltages between
strings and between individual batteries as the test results show
after almost 5yrs of use.

p.s: the zenith batteries are agm batteries not flooded. they don't
need babysitting.

DMerciful:
Super impressive! I need to research more and probably revise my stand on series parallel configuration. Are the batteries in series parallel? Or you have a battery bank switch?

dmerciful,
the batteries are in series parallel but with a little variation. it is
not your traditional series-parallel battery bank connection.

four batteries in series to make up 48v nominal system voltage and
three strings connected with roughly equal length of positive and
negative cables to the inverter. by so doing, each string receives
about the same amount of charging current either from the inverter
or from the cc.
in effect, it is three independent battery banks working together as
one.

all,
i recently had the need to relocate my battery bank and do a fresh installation of the inverter.
in the process i thought it was a good opportunity to carry out a load test on the batteries.
batteries were left to settle for about three days undisturbed (without load and without charge).
the first set of readings show the individual battery voltages straight from rest while the second
set of readings were taken after a ten second capacity load test using a standard battery capacity
tester.

for a battery bank which was first installed in September 2012 and used continuously 24hrs a
day, i think the results are quite impressive. zenith has really blown my mind!

pictures coming soon.

also see attachment for those who want to download a copy of the results.

before load test[i]

string 1
S1 – 1 = 12.79
S1 – 2 = 12.80
S1 – 3 = 12.80
S1 – 4 = 12.80
---------------------------
string 2
S2 – 1 = 12.81
S2 – 2 = 12.81
S2 – 3 = 12.79
S2 – 4 = 12.78
----------------------------
string 3
S3 – 1 = 12.77
S3 – 2 = 12.82
S3 – 3 = 12.81
S3 – 4 = 12.79

after 10s load test[i]

string 1
S1 – 1 = 12.78
S1 – 2 = 12.79
S1 – 3 = 12.79
S1 – 4 = 12.78
-------------------------
string 2
S2 – 1 = 12.81
S2 – 2 = 12.81
S2 – 3 = 12.79
S2 – 4 = 12.78
-------------------------
string 3
S3 – 1 = 12.77
S3 – 2 = 12.82
S3 – 3 = 12.81
S3 – 4 = 12.79

cumulative for each string = 51.3v

solowizzy:
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-Electronic Motor Protection (EMP) protects the motor against overload and ensures a long lifetime
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-Unique Bosch Premium lithium-ion technology for longer lifetime and unbeatable battery runtime
-Bosch Electronic Cell Protection (ECP): protects the battery against overload, overheating and deep discharge
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is this cordless tool still available? if yes, how much?

10digit:
@George_D please I really need your help for installation of my solar power kindly email me your phone # at skysafer777@gmail.com.

You got mail!

harveyspec,
i tend to avoid mercury products generally. a couple of years ago they had this
reputation for being substandard and that really put me off.
maybe over the years they have improved in quality but i guess first impression
lasts longest.

javid4me,
the difference is so dramatic! now you can really begin to harvest the true output
of your solar panels!!
congratulations once again and well done for heading to the voice of reason
despite initially being reluctant to do so.
be assured that the money you spend today, you will recover it many times over
the lifespan of your modules.

Obimind1:
Pls how can I get lightning arrestor? I will like to protect my mppt charge controller against thunder storm. In some month time the raining season will set in. I just want to be sure of the safety of my system.

obimind1,

what you need is a midnite solar lightning arrestor (midnite solar mnspd-115 115vdc) like this.

among other buying options, you can also contact solar depot:

https://www.solardepotng.com/SDN/product-category/enclosure-electrical-safety/lightning-protection/

(note: what they have on the link is the 300v version which you need for protection of the AC side of your
system. you can also ask them for the 115v version which will better protect your charge controller and
solar panels)

mank1234:
Everybody is buying old battery.
What do they do with it? Recycle it? Renew it?

They should teach us how to do it too in this thread of DIY.

are we sure these used batteries are not the source of all this fake batteries flooding
the market nowadays?

they probably buy them off gullible peeps like us, refill them with electrolyte and
re-label them like brand new.

richmon,

welcome back from the cold.
no doubt 2017 is shaping up to be a very exciting year after all.

DMerciful:
The ariston has temperature setpoints adjustment and it can get quite hot if set high...but then sun gets really hot....as seen in solar electricity generation through heating of molten salt

efuro:
That solves it.
It is a deliberate pre set. A valid point too

Thanks

dmerciful,
efuro,

the thermostat on the ariston is at its highest. and, no it was not a deliberate pre-set.

that said, i think it will be interesting to throw an open challenge to as many here with
electric water heaters in their homes. let's have snapshots of max temperatures of your
hot water and see how it compares with that of the solar water heater.
remember to set your thermostats at max.
let's bet against the sun!

efuro,

no wahala. i will do that. but here is my other experience with electric water heater.

so, i'm a tea guy and i have an electric water heater dedicated solely for kitchen use.
i always like to take hot water out from the ariston before heating it up on the burner
to raise its temp to boiling point before making my tea. i always used to wonder why
it took so long for the water to boil knowing fully well that it was supposed to have
been pre-heated by the water heater.
this measurement helped me confirm what i had always suspected: the heater does
not heat the water hot enough.

now, the solar water heater is doing a better job without wires, without fuel, without
phcn.

all,
out of curiosity i decided to measure the max temperature of my solar water heater and do a comparison with
a fully functioning electric water heater (ariston). the result was shocking even to me.

i knew the solar water heater really gets hot on a good day but i was really not prepared for the sharp difference
in max temperatures between the two.

see below pictures:

the sun truly is the answer!

chris81964:
Thank you GeorgeD1. He has 8 Deka 220 AH batteries. They are the same batteries across the board.

chris,

well done once again.

bigrovar:
I think Oga GeorgeD1 was referring to the first picture you showed which I presumed was his initial setup before your company came in to tidy things.

bigrovar,
thanks. indeed i was referring to the before pictures. i actually thought they were pictures of the finished job.

chris81964:
We are officially a distributor and installer of Outback Power Inverters, Controller and Accessories. Inventory will be available in a few weeks.

Please enjoy the job we did last week in Port Harcourt. The customer has three phase into the house to power his Central AC systems and a single phase to power pumps, hot water heaters etc. The house has no tank, water is produced on demand by a pump. He need to have power 24/7.
He had spent two million Naira on Deka batteries and we did not think he should feed his Sukham these batteries for them to get destroyed.

So the first phase was to handle all the loads that were on a single phase using a Victron Quattro. A peak of 4000 watts. Use the gen as back up for when PHCN was absent or batteries fell below a programmed threshold.

The result is a happy customer.
Phase 2 is solar
Phase 3 is three phase

Enjoy the finished job

chris81964,
well done. i see you guys are really taking the nation by storm.

one thing though, i noticed from the picture you posted seems your client used
non-uniform brand batteries for his battery bank. how do you account for the differences
in amp-hours? and what about build quality, materials and internal battery resistance?

all,

those rooting for lithium batteries should know they have limitations too.

for instance, they don't handle overcharging very well and you'll have to
install additional voltage and charging current controls that you don't need
when it comes to traditional lead-acid.

bottom line, do your research very well before throwing your money away.
google is your friend!

abunafiu:
Time to review the performance of Trojan batteries. Installed mine in June 2014. I just retired 2 units out of 16.
I now run a 42v system. Had to tweak my cc to effectively work at this level (thanks to Saipro).
My inverter now beeps Low Battery alarm for almost 24hrs.
Considering all I have read about Trojans especially about maintenance, I feel it's too early (abi na recession cause am).
Brothers in d house, let's see how well your Trojans have served or is serving you.

prof,
those trojans are supposed to serve you well into the flip side of 15yrs if the various online
reviews are anything to go by. except maybe something is terribly wrong with the quality of
the ones they send to this part of the world.

my zenith batteries by contrast seem to have fared very well. maybe because i've really been
using them sparingly. my magnum inverter seldom allows them to go down below 48v. and so
with a constant dod of 50% i'm thinking the batteries have not really been put under much
stress this many years.

refa,

welcome on board. i'm happy you found a home here.
please tell us a little about your system. array size? battery bank size?
charge controller type? successes and challenges with going off grid? etc
after all, we're all here to learn.

earthrealm:
lets not be carried away by panel qty, but by total combined wattage.
some installers like buy and installing the 80 or 100w panels...saying its more efficient..blah blah blah, my pal has 33 panels of 100w each..totaling 3300w, my 6 panels of 250w is almost half of his installed capacity. i prefer higher wattage panels, i setttled for 250w. and not 300w cos i wanted to strike a balance btw weight and size.

@georged1 and other pros.....whats ur take on the installers talk abt 80w n 100w panels being more efficient?
if u do the maths sef...they are more expensive!

earthrealm,

generally speaking, the higher the wattage, the better for solar panels.
saipro and dmerciful are both on point. rajo4real too.
my next set of panels will definitely be higher than 200w.

Barezzi:
Thank me later
https://www.nairaland.com/georged1/posts/10
https://www.nairaland.com/georged1/posts/14
https://www.nairaland.com/georged1/posts/17

barezzi!!!
wao! those links took me back in time. i have even forgotten that my last install job was
way back 2013 and here i was talking of 2014 and 2015? how time flies!
thanks for those links and thanks again!

poundo yam rocks!

foonshur,

you can go back to year 2014 or 2015 pages on this thread if you really want to see my
roof mounted solar panels. i think that was when i did my last set of installation.
note however that 40 panels is still nothing compared to what others have on their roofs
even though they may not be members of this forum.
the object of this thread is to encourage and advise one another so i'm not really keen
on showing off anything lest it will be misconstrued as show-boating.

foonshur:
@GeorgeD1 40panels?!?! You must be providing electricity for the whole street.

foonshur,

yeah 40 panels - and still counting too! the more, the merrier!!

Saipro:
GeorgeD1 na baba. I presume GeorgeD1
- lives in a place where dust doesn't bother him that much. I'm aware everywhere in Nigeria has some issues with dust though.
- PV bank is way over what he actually needs
- rains come in spatters, even in "dry" season (perhaps he lives near river bank/beach).

I clean mine at least monthly in the dry season (fortnightly when I can spare the time) and at the beginning of the rains

saipro,
you're totally correct. i guess one big reason i was able to get away with this for so long a time is my location.
i live in a coastal area and although we have our own fare share of dust issues, i usually rely on the frequent
rains to do my panel cleaning for me. as a matter of fact, we had our first rain of the year today in some parts
of the city!
also, with a present total of 40 panels, i dare say i have an oversized array. altogether my theoretical nameplate
power should be 8000w but over the years, i've seen production diminish gradually and these days i struggle
to reach a combined total of btw 2,500 and 2,800w. so at roughly one third of its installed capacity, i guess the
negative impact of cumulative yearly dust settlement has finally hit home.

JohnKester:
GeorgeD1

Haba, six years of no cleaning! You are putting your batteries in serious jeopardy! Unless of course your PV array is so large and can compensate for the dust. Otherwise I dare say your batteries may not have been charging fully for a while now. The drop in yield would be tremendous and you will be surprised at the difference after the cleaning. The sooner you hire that scaffold and do the needful, the better and the sooner your system will come back alive again!

Cheers

johnkester,
i guess i no longer need any prodding to hire that scaffold. with my production dropping to an all time low,
its time to get up on that roof and shove that dust off the face of my panels.

DMerciful:
6 years ...I stay in a dusty environment and if I dint clean my panels once a month there with be significant drop in output.....luckily they are few and at fence level. Under 15mins I'm done

dmerciful,
when you have a large pv array like mine, the only likely place to install them is on the roof.
unless of course you have a compound as big as a football field. and when you install your panels on the roof,
it becomes so much more difficult to gain access for a quick wash - even if the house is a bungalow.

Gennextech:
its advisable that we clean/wash our panels after this dusty period , after cleaning at a site we had about 50% better efficiency

gennextech,
this is one very important aspect of solar panel maintenance that most of us have been taking for granted.
after over 6 years of installation and not cleaning my own panels even once, i must confess that i've seen
a large drop in efficiency of my system. i'm almost tempted to hire a scaffold and go up there to do a
thorough cleaning of the panels myself.

NairaBaba:
Thanks, the manuals and videos on morningstar website
Show one can create a network for example existing home network or CC-router-computer network using ethernet cable to access the CC webserver.

nairababa,
my own experience with the tristar meter connectivity has been anything but pleasant.
i think this is one area morningstar corp needs to improve in their devices. in this day and age
when the drive is towards seamless internet connectivity vis iot (internet of things), its really
disheartening to come across products where you have to jump through hoops just to connect
them to your system. indeed, its no longer enough to make charge controllers that have a
99.8% conversion efficiency, those same controllers should be able to talk to other devices by
the click of a button.

dapsyra:
Sure, there are scientific ways of calculating the current carrying capacity of cable. But when you operate in country like Nigeria where quality and standards are not enforced you've got to find other ways too.

The "so called" 50mm² you purchased might not have the current carrying capacity of a true 25mm². You simply cannot rely on the stated rating of the cable only. You use the cable sizing calculator to make purchase decision and use the touch method to confirm if the cables are okay.

The man already had the cable installed in a production environment, so I gave him a very fast and practical way of checking if the cable is undersized for the task.

dapsyra,

it's all good. i advised a similar method early in the days but as we
mature in the renewables journey, we must learn to do things the
proper way.

javid4me,
noted. what is the output from your wind turbine like on a typical day with mild wind?

i might have a good mind to include something similar in my arsenal of renewables
if the power production is reliable. several years ago i mused over acquiring one and
did a lot of read up on them. i realized that the cut-in speed of the turbines vary
greatly with different brands and if you live in a relatively windless place like mine, you
may end up being saddled with a turbine that sits idle most of the time rather than
generate much needed power.

foonshur:
Abeg bros dem, hw much be the TriStar Digital Meter-2?

its about 56k now at solar depot. used to be 50k the last time i checked.
i guess the dollar rate is affecting everything badly.

https://www.solardepotng.com/SDN/product-category/solar-charge-controllers/morningstar-solar-charge-controllers/

Javid4me:
Oga dem,
I wish to inform the house on my upgrade to Solar and hope this will spice up the yuletide.
Below is my kit after a long time of learning from u all. It is an integration of solar to an existing inverter system
18 X 255W Canadian Solar Panels
9 Solar panels facing South on Uniral Solar mounts and 9 facing North on Uniral Solar mounts and Tilt legs
1 X 600W wind Turbine
All items grounded to earth

(truncated)

Your comment, criticism, guidance and questions are welcome.
Thank you

javid4me,
this is really impressive. i'm glad you finally summoned the courage to take the plunge and
you have done it in such grand style!
i also like that you decided to throw in a wind turbine into the mix. it's an area i would like to
take a little more than passing interest in.
congratulations! a fitting way to end an eventful year, if you ask me.
i also like your fully illustrated schematic diagram. it gives me an impression of a mind with attention
to details.

two things to note however:

1. your may consider splitting your solar array into two strings and having two charge controllers.
i know chris81964 already touched on this and i saw your response but no matter how much you
try to equalize the voltages of both sets of panels, you will keep having one set of voltage being
higher than the other, tilt leg or no tilt leg. this will be more apparent in the mornings when the sun
is just beginning to rise and in the evenings when the sun is setting. the money you think you're
going to save now by avoiding the purchase of an extra cc may well be lost many times over in the
next 25 yrs when you keep losing valuable power as a result of this discrepancy of panel voltage.

2. you may also consider getting a stand alone charge controller for your wind turbine. i'm a bit
doubtful of the reliability and efficiency of the inbuilt cc of that wind turbine. depending on the model
you want to buy it may not be anything sophisticated or expensive. just a simple solid state cc like
the tristar prostar:

http://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/prostar/

for a 600w turbine, you don't need a 30a or 45a cc besides a stand alone type will be more flexible
for adjustments.

just my two cents.

dapsyra:
Touch the cable while under load. If it is warm, then you are loosing energy. If it is hot, then you are not only loosing energy, but you are also at the risk of fire.

dapsyra,
don't you think that is a rather crude way of testing cable current carrying capacity?

there is a more scientific way of achieving this using distance/wire size tools and charts
like the one in the link below:

http://myelectrical.com/tools/cable-sizing-calculator

it's a pretty simple tool to use and will give you the right cable size provided you input
the right data.
note that if the wire you're using is undersized, you will already be losing power well
before you start feeling the heat on your palms.