₦airaland Forum

ojeysky:
So those of us that shared our experiences on both battery chemistries were not giving facts abi. Isorite o

lolz! bro! edited to include you as one of our prominent, eminent lithium ambassadors!!

all,
over the past two weeks, we have had a lot of interesting argument both for and against lead acid and
lithium. and like that flier earthrealm posted a few pages back,

https://www.nairaland.com/390522/solar-energy-complement-fta/878#95271112

the aim of an argument or discussion is not victory at all cost but to bring out facts and enrich our knowledge.
we all win when we learn from each other. and on that note i like to commend all who have taken part in this discourse so far.
it may have seemed heated at a point but that cannot be avoided. it is what happens when intellectuals rub minds together.
looking back, it's amazing how a simple, innocent question from babniyen,

https://www.nairaland.com/390522/solar-energy-complement-fta/871#94990932

could have triggered a wide ranging discourse on the superiority or otherwise of one battery chemistry over the other.
have we seen the end of the battery 'wars'? not by any stretch of the imagination. today it is lead vs lithium. tomorrow
might be lithium vs some other emerging battery chemistry and the list goes on.

let's keep the conversation healthy and together we will all achieve victory over darkness.

break the myth! dispel the belief!

adrusa:
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.

bro, i don't know where you got that 'complex' thing from but i certainly don't have one.
yes i invested heavily on lead acid but that was because i was crazily impressed with what my previous bank
gave me - and that in spite of all the hues and cries going on here against lead. so my thought was, if i could get
this kind of good performance from a supposedly no-name battery brand, what if i get something more reputable
as a replacement? and with that consideration, the sonnenschein battery deal was a no-brainer to me. anybody
in my shoes would do exactly the same. it was a deal too good to resist.

would i have jumped at the offer the way i did if i had been having a hard time with my zeniths? i think not.
were they necessarily that expensive despite being a renowned brand? of course not. even though for a similar amount
i could have splashed out on a lesser sized lithium bank, my overriding argument goes beyond just price.

on a cost/ah basis, lead acid is clearly ahead until such a time when lithium becomes mainstream but on an energy
efficiency basis, vis charge and discharge cycles, lithium rules. still it doesn't make either one superior to the other.
each battery chemistry has its place.

ojeysky:
I actually think it is you who continue to make people feel lithium is some scary and deceptive thing, on reasons best known to you. If it was not better Niyi will not continue to accumulate(for business reasons or otherwise) and those who use it will not share their experiences (good or bad). It's no brainer that lithium is a superior chemistry to LA any day any time but that still doesn't mean that both chemistries won't appeal to us differently. Why you see experience sharing as being trickish is what beats my imagination, isn't that what this thread is about.

In my actual professional world it's over a decade now that operators are being adviced to deploy IPv6 but up till now IPv4 dominates, the difference however is that the number of networks running IPv6 now compared to a decade ago has increased significantly and it's only a matter of time before IPv4 will eventually be obsolete and relegated.

Ultimately the choice remains with each individual to either deploy the present technology with future relevance in mind or be caught unprepared.

brother, nobody is making anybody scared of anything. if you read my posts correctly what i was emphasizing on was the need to
bare all and let the facts be known and i'm happy that cue was taken on by no other eminent personality than niyi, saipro and yourself
the able ojeysky

truthbetold22:
@georged1,

I think your attempt to prove that lead acid trumps lithium is bais at best. Lithium technology has come a long way and beats lead acid in every department. Everyone keeps referring to your previous LA bank but that bank has a lot of untold stories. For one, I remember you had 800ah of battery capacity. You also had over 40kw of solar panels if I am not mistaking. You have also mentioned that you rarely cycle more than 30% daily. At 30% dod, most good LA batteries will easily do what the Zeniths did. It wasn't special. What you must note is that to get away with such low dod, you need to have a really large bank which you did and a large array too. For the average enthusiast, that is an impossibility as the initial outlay would be outrageous. You only got that longevity due to your use of the battery. If you look at the cycle life graphs of lead acids, you would find that there is a significant difference between discharging to 70% vs discharging to 50%. Are you now saying we should all get 800ah banks and 40kw panel capacity to be able to enjoy longevity with our batteries?

I ll summarize as follows

1- Firstly, even the second class lithium batteries advertise 3000 cycles at 80% dod with a 2 year warranty. That is something only the very best lead acid batteries can dream of. That is almost 10 years of battery usage if you do a cycle a day. Regular lead acids cap out in a couple of years at 50% DOD if you are lucky. Don't tell me, I have gone through a few banks.

2- Considering how bad our weather can be in the southern part of Nigeria coupled with struggling to get 3-4 hours of sunshine daily, it is a no brainer to use lithium which can charge at 1c should need be and get your battery to full capacity as quickly as possible especially in the raining season unlike with a lead acid battery that takes forever to charge at 0.1c and then has to do all the absorption thing. This is very important for people who rarely have grid electricity and/or have a small bank.

3- Lithium chemistry is way more efficient than lead acid and looses less energy to the storage and discharge process which means you have access to more energy per ah.

4- As a result of 4 above, you can power heavy appliances off relatively small banks. Something that would only be a dream with lead acid.

That you haven't embraced lithium doesn't make your lead acid bank better. The world is evolving and if you choose to remain with old technology, you may have your reasons. However, do not try to prove on a public forum that lithium is all hype. There are more than 15 active members on this thread who have made the switch to lithium and not 1 has anything negative to say about it 1 year down the line so what is your point exactly? People got burnt with lead acid for many years until the best brands were identified. Heck, people are still getting burnt even today so why assume lithium will burn you?

There is a reason phones and laptops use lithium and 10 years after, the batteries still work. Stick with your lead acid if you want but your arguments are obsolete.
Lead acid can never be better than lithium. Initial outlay, yes. Satisfaction over time, a BIG no. It is no longer a function of whatever works for you. Even though it works for you, you should be gracious enough to accept that there is something better out there. That I drive a Toyota Corolla and it works perfectly for me doesn't make the car better than a Lamborghini.

Thank you all.

thanks for your analysis bro. you made a lot of valid points but missed out on a few.
my zeniths didn't last that long only because i had an oversized bank and solar array. it was more
a combination of factors too numerous to enumerate here. go down memory lane and we have heard
sorry tales from peeps and even companies who installed large battery banks and had them fail
woefully within the first or second year.

my reference to people getting their fingers burnt resonates both with lead acid and lithium.
i will encourage you to read up that website that earthrealm posted a few pages back and you will
understand where i'm coming from. be it lead acid, lithium or any other battery chemistry, if you jump
into it ill-informed you will certainly pay a huge price not only in terms of loss of investment but also at
risk to your own personal safety.

i repeat that no one battery chemistry can claim to be better than the other. each has its own place.
if i'm using lead acid and it is delivering exactly the performance i expect, why change a winning team?
on the other hand, if for any reason lead fails me tomorrow, why stick with something that's not working?

the goal here is energy freedom and as long as what you're using is setting you on the path to achieving
that aim, i would say go for it. it's as simple as that.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
I can speak to the complexity of Lithium vs lead acid.

There is so much one needs to get right else a huge investment would go down the drain.

I use a popular and well reviewed battery - PylonTech. You are told you can add new batteries to the bank at will. In reality it is not so straight.

I got my first set of 8 in November 2019 and it was easy peasy until I added the 2nd set of 8 in June 2020. The bottom most battery refused to catch up with the others in charge and discharge and kept throwing over voltage and over temperature alarms. I would have lost that battery had I not gained admin access to the BMS and recalibrated values to allow the module recover and catchup with the others. The cells in that module were not perfectly matched as the others and kept drifting.

Now I added 4 new bricks this October and the BMS software version is higher than the old bricks - the result - combined BMS throttled my maximum charge current to about 300A - 15kw instead of the design 500A/26kw. I am now current limited to 15kw by the battery even though I have a 20kw PV array. I have yet to figure that one out as the BMS tells the Victron chargers what to do per time and if you insert a new value, it just gets overwritten 30 seconds or so later.

The next big myth is discharge rates - you will be told you can run at 1C with no issues - this is true but only within a SoC range e.g 20% to 100% - once you drain battery below 20%, you may find the BMS cutting large loads to protect the circuitry and cells - ditto for charge rates - try filling a 48v 1000Ah battery at 1C and you see cell temperatures jump up fast - this is not good for long term health so in my case I capped my charge current at 0.3C - getting from 20% to 100% within 3 hours on a 48v 1000Ah bank is good enough performance for me.

Really there are many things to consider and get right especially for large systems. I routinely see my BMV 500A shunt running hot when passing like 18kw of energy. I see up to 50degC on shunt and 40degC on bus bars so I am in the market now for 1000A shunt and even thicker bars than I already have. Even my 600A continuous rated Blue Sea Systems DC isolator runs hot when passing 18kw of energy. With the energy density of Lithium, a short or failure in the system could be catastrophic indeed.

On the plus side you get early warning of issues especially if the BMS talks to you. This is one strong advantage over lead acid. Because I can see every detail about every cell with the Texas instruments chip BMS bundled with the Pylons, you can take early corrective action. Again this info is not available plain text, a solid knowledge of cable pinouts, serial/RS485/CANBUS communications and many other esoteric skills are needed to interact with the BMS and adjust operating parameters if required

nice one niyi. at least we finally begin to see some down to earth details popping up far from the glossy narratives
we been hitherto fed with.
your admissions tally completely with what that rod guy was trying to explain in his website while also mentioning
your battery type - pylontech.
when we lay the facts bare for all to see, discerning peeps are able to make informed decisions without feeling
tricked into venturing into something they thought was all frills and thrills.

earthrealm:
This article is a good read, and tackles all aspects of the lifepo4 vs lead acid debate..
I must warn you, its a long read ..

Peeps averse to long reads can scroll to midway and read only the pros and cons of Lifepo4 battery bank.

https://marinehowto.com/lifepo4-batteries-on-boats/

tanx for the link bro. i've spent quite some time purring over the contents and its really interesting.
this rod guy leaves nothing to the imagination and seems to bare it all. the quote below was lifted
directly from the site and if this doesn't mean anything to anyone then nothing else will:

"WARNING / DIY BUILDS:

I do not believe LiFePO4 is ready for mass DIY prime time builds. Read with caution,
and especially focus on the things that you don’t want to hear rather than only what you want to hear.
Once you are done reading this, and it makes sense to you, then please spend another few months reading
everything you can including every single LiFePO4 white paper you can get your hands on.

While this article is meant to be very basic, and get you a basic level of understanding of LFP,
the science side of it matters too. We strongly recommend that you also read Eric Bretscher’s site for
the science side of LFP:

Nordkyn Design LiFePO4

With this article, and Eric’s information, you’ll be well on your way to understanding how to use a LiFePo4
marine system without ruining it prematurely.

Wallet Burns:
Since opening this article to the public we have now had what I consider a rather high number of LiFePO4
owners contact us who’ve ruined LiFePo4 batteries (not all marine based). In almost all of these cases of
destroyed LiFePO4 batteries the resounding tone I hear come through is;

“But Rod, People on the internet made it sound so easy?“

Hey, lets face it, everyone gets excited with their new toys, and likes to talk about them, but we urge
you to please do more research. In other-words, don’t jump to conclusions based on scant information, where
large sums of money are involved."

adrusa:
This so-called "war" was started by your attempt to run down lithium. We were only correcting your wrong assertions about it. We all started with Lead Acid and I still have a lead acid bank that I run side by side with lithium. Lithium is the better option if cash is not a problem. That is not even open for debate except for people who do not follow progress of renewable energy. Lithium is all the rage at the moment. Just check international solar fora if in doubt. Anyone who can maintain lead acid can certainly maintain lithium. All that is required is to set proper charging parameters, just like it is required for lead acid.

For newbies, we cannot overstate it, if you have the cash go lithium right from the gate. That is where many people will be in 5-10 years time. All those urging you to do lead acid, would have moved. And like they say, misers pay twice. Some of us started our solar journeys with cheapos solar panels (e.g. no name brand), charge controller (e.g. phocus pwm), inverter (eg. no name chinese inverters) before we realised the benefits of paying top money for good, tested and trusted brands like Victron, Outback etc. If you have the means, go big, go lithium, the only thing to fear about lithium is fair itself. I have tasted both words substantially. There is nothing anyone can tell me about lead acid batteries that I have not experienced. From huge trailer batteries (my very first batteries) to Trojan premium flooded batteries (my current lead acid bank).

If you don't have the means, good lead acid will still serve you, just not as good as lithium.

By the way, I was banned for my last lengthy post. I have no idea why. My first time of experiencing the dreaded Nairaland erratic banning bots. I hope I wont be banned for this.

lolz bro! i guess you may need to read my post all over again because you totally missed the point.
nobody started any war (contrary to your assertions) and if engaging in intellectual discourse is considered a "war"
(in your opinion) then i guess it's a good "war". meanwhile, i'm sure the newbies are seriously taking note and they
surely are the real beneficiaries from all the back and forth exchanges.
having said that, i repeat my stand that both lithium and lead acid have their place (in case you might not be so
inclined to go over my past submissions), so no one battery chemistry is better than the other.
what works, works and what doesn't work doesn't work. most peeps today still use lead acid because it works for
them. i mean, think about it, why change a winning team? the fact that some people dabbled into it ill-informed
and got their fingers burnt doesn't mean we should condemn lead acid and begin to play up the lithium card as
the magical solution for our storage problems. any attempt to gloss over the negatives will mean folks might likely
repeat whatever mistakes they made with lead acid that pushed them into looking for salvation in a new battery
chemistry. and the chase goes on and on with many getting disillusioned with renewables in the end.
once again, my take: let's put things in their proper perspective so that would-be enthusiasts will have a fair idea
what they are getting themselves into. i'm sure that's not too much to ask for?

funshyboi:
Yes you’re right it’s those INEC battery and possibly it lasted because I’ve been charging it with electricity and using it for just laptops until now
Trust me I’ve gone tru the manual times without number the English there is not explanatory at all.

I’ve long pressed the buttons too but maybe I will still do for a longer time Again

Please can I inbox you?

bro, you might have to consider changing out that cc if you really want to charge your battery with solar.
i'm thinking that cc may be one of those rudimentary types that don't have any user adjustable setting
and this could be bad news for your batteries.

Saipro:
As I said previously, the war isn't against lithium. Lithium proponents keep thinking old school lead dudes are having inertia or fear-of-the-unknkown/FUD issues. That's an unkind thing to say. We're all interested in the latest gizmos which work as well as the ease of life which advancements in technology bring. If it works for me, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Incidentally, some of the loudest voices for lead have either previously used lithium or secretly have smaller banks of lithium deliberately undeclared. Some don't want to be dragged into a mudfest thus opted to remain silent. I know some of them.

And that's what GeorgeD1 is saying. Get what works for you. I had the LiFePO4 some time before it became a hype yet continued using lead acid for reason of it satisfying the purposes I had in mind. Should lead acid fail me, I'll change in an instant. I have all the space I need and about 5kWp of solar panels sitting in my store. Coulombic efficiency is irrelevant to me (though that's wrong). See, that's what matters right there - application.


Until then, each to his own tents. There is no war; there hasn't been and there will not be.

well done bro. you took the words right out of my mouth. nobody is fighting anybody on here. just pure
intellectual discourse.
my concern mainly though is we should all try to put things in their proper perspective.
(and i must say you certainly have done a better job than myself in putting your own personal usage experience
to bear on the various battery chemistry types in question)
unknown to us, a lot of newbies and would-be solar enthusiasts do visit this thread and make decisions based
on what they read. it would really be unfair to them if we paint an unnecessarily glossy image of lithium only
for them to dabble into it before realizing things were not nearly as rosy as they thought.

we could go on and on with the whole lithium vs lead acid debate but then what's the point?
what works, works and what doesn't work doesn't work. it's as simple as that.
on paper my 260ah zenith batteries were not supposed to last beyond 2yrs. or 4 at most (with careful usage).
but here i was using them for over 7yrs and at a point i even became confused as to whether they were
really lead acid or some other battery chemistry sold off mistakenly to me as such.
as for deception, i think if anyone is trying to deceive anybody it certainly wouldn't be the lead acid camp but
those on lithium. why would a company that has been in business over 50yrs like exide, hoppeke, trojan, etc
risk their reputation by putting a 15yrs label on a product they know would go bust under 3 or 4 years? that
would be suicidal to say the least. lithium on the other hand still remains a grey field and largely untested until
recently. so when you hear glowing number of promised cycles, better be cautious because nobody can really
show proof that it can live up to that.
lithium becomes a hype (in my opinion) when proponents try to play up its supposedly superior qualities
while downplaying the negatives. at least in this thread, i see a pattern emerging where it would seem like if
you're still using lead acid you're regarded as not sophisticated or not moving with the times. how wrong can
that be? no wonder someone is comparing lithium and lead acid to manual vs automatic cars! lolz
truth is that each battery chemistry have their place. depending on its application, none is superior to the other.
crucially, on a price to amp/hr basis and ease of deployment vs maintenance, lead acid wins hands down. it is the
reason why you won't find telecoms base stations or banks installing lithium (yet) as their primary battery banks.
they rather go for trusted and tested technology which don't need tinkering with before it can perform.
that said, nobody is ignoring lithium. far from it. personally i'm all for new technology, never against innovation.
i look forward to a time when lithium becomes mainstream just like lead acid. from li-ion to lifepo4 and now lito.
it can only get better. but anyone thinking lead acid will go away anytime soon better brace up and get ready
to be disappointed!

funshyboi:
Good evening guys,

I’m a little bit worried about my LifePo4 battery that last 5 hours when I Do charge it with electricity. But when I use solar panel it doesn’t last up to 2hours.

Even The controller shows It that That the panel stops charging battery at 95% Instead of it to be at 100%

kiekie1 eleojo23 wilmaria14 GeorgeD1 ceaser your vast experience and suggestions are needed.

you got to check your cc settings. obviously your charge controller is not charging your batteries to full capacity hence
the sharp drop in back up hours as compared to when charged with public utility using your inverter charging
function. it could also be you may need to increase your solar array.

i really get amused when i see these postulations on paper how 50% dod of lead acid should be equal to
80% dod of lithium. even now we are seeing weirder assumptions of 30% being equal to 80% lead acid!
i guess its fine when we do these abstract projections but we all know that in the real world things do
turn out differently.
having said that, i think the main attraction for lithium remains its expected longevity due to the possible
many cycles as compared to lead acid. however, if my recent experience with my zenith batteries is anything
to go by, it means lead acid when properly managed can also give many years of use without conking out
(by the way, my guy who bought the used zeniths from me has had nothing but praise for their
outstanding performance). quite remarkable given they already served me for 7 years plus as at the time i
replaced them and sold them off.
then, enter the hoppeckes, the exides, the sonnenscheins which promise up to 15 years of quality backup
for their lead acid batteries and the attraction for lithium further takes a dive.
while the lithium jingle continues unabated, my candid advice to newbies is to be wary of bogus promises
from sellers intent on offloading their lithium wares on them. they will come up with several clever marketing
tactics all intended to make a sale.
if you're just starting off on the renewables journey, you will do well to stick with tried and tested products of
which lead acid batteries is one example. you really don't need to dabble into lithium where you have to
contend with a whole gamut of bos devices including bms, bmv, cell balancers, special chargers with lithium
profile, inverters which have to be tinkered with in order to work with lithium, etc.
the world is already complex as it is, you don't need to complicate things further just because you want to
provide reliable uninterrupted power for your household.
go with what works out of the box. a word is enough...

babniyen:
Good morning house, I am being offered considering a 100ah 24v Lithium battery as a replacement for my 24v 200ah Lead acid. I want to know if it will standup to the same service levels.. Thanks

be careful bro, 200ah 24v lead acid is far higher in capacity compared to 100ah 24v lithium.
don't get sucked in by the lithium hype.

eleojo23:
@the bold
Did you really mean C100 or you meant to type C10?

yep bro. that isn't a typo. i meant exactly c100 as against c20.
if it was a c10 being sold off as a c20 battery, of course the customer would be the one at an advantage.
curiously, same trojan has a c100 battery with glowing capacity rating and non-savvy peeps might be tempted
to rush it thinking it is a good bargain. not so at all.

earthrealm:
Care to throw more light, as i had a different opinion as well, till i saw the trojan batt writeup.

bro,
firstly, we all know that c rating (as regards battery capacity) is the safest maximum continuous discharge rate the battery
will support.
a carefully calibrated load is applied until the voltage gradually depletes to 1.75v/cell (lead acid) or 1.0v/cell (nicd/nimh)
and 3.0v/cell (for li-ion}
having said that, while i wouldn't want to pick holes in trojan's claims, i do understand that battery c ratings and capacity
are not cast in stone.
for instance take the case of two batteries with 200ah c10 and 200ah c20 respectively. the first battery with a capacity and
rating of 200ah c10 may turn out to be actually 250ah when discharged at c20 depending on battery chemistry and quality
of materials used to produce it while at c100 it could go higher to 320ah in capacity as an example.
i do see most of our sellers here bandying all sorts of batteries for sale. they put out a lot of info but leave out the most
relevant which is the c rating of the battery. i guess they are either ignorant themselves or perhaps they are feeding fat on
the ignorance of potential customers. if i buy a c100 rated 200ah battery unknowingly thinking it is c20, i'm invariably
buying a 170ah battery. no wonder many peeps here keep complaining of dead battery after just a few months of usage.

earthrealm:
The difference is marginal though, a 220ah @c20 rating is almost same as a 200ah @ c10 rating

this is not entirely correct bro...

eleojo23:
Okay, after serving for 4 years, I think it died a natural death. Except for premium brands, most of the batteries on the market don't last up to 4 years.

brother,
batteries don't die a natural death necessarily by swelling up. i think op should carefully investigate why his battery
got swollen in the first place else any other replacement will suffer the same fate.

ojeysky:
The freezer is consuming less than what my Kazeem fingered 219L was consuming. I still miss the buzzer sound feature on my turbo 219L which was not in the 379L

lolz, bro!

i hope this your frequent reference to kazeem will not anger a few ones on here who might
actually have that as their given birth name

Digitman,
You're doing well bro. Keep the flag flying. One love

adubam:
I know a lot of names here that are in the Telegram Group. Compare the rate of activities before and now you would understand what I meant.

I am not here to give any link. Seun should try and either upgrade Nairaland or sell it to investors that will make it up to modern standard.

That was on a lighter note, bro.

I seriously agree with you. Nairaland is overdue for a makeover but I think Seun is trying to be overly conservative.
Recall that in 2014 the website suffered a massive attack that brought it nearly to its knees and I guess he is just
being careful not to allow that happen again...

ojeysky:
I hear custom now charges significant amount for international orders placed on Jumia, you will see the estimated cost on checkout though

the first time i saw the hefty charges i thought something was wrong with jumia servers and had to write them a note.
up till today, no reply and it has been like that ever since. imagine buying something worth 2,640 and using over 5k
to ship it. that means if you buy a product worth like 50k, just be prepared to use over 100k to bring it to your house.
how gross!

adubam:
Most people in this group have moved to Telegram answers are rarely given here.

Bro, are you sure about that?

I'm still part of the 'most people' but have not moved

arbourboateng:
Glad to see they are monitoring the forum...fta forever

Bro, we're still all together. One love

VIVA FTA!!!

ogbeh44:
Sorry for the late reply. This is the setup I used for one of my clients for the past two years now and it is still working fine.

Bro, there will definitely be polarity conflict with this set up (like Digitman already mentioned above) except
somehow your client's choice of stations have been wonderfully so aligned that vertical and horizontal TP
channels come up simultaneously whenever both decoders happen to be powered on same time.
For this kind of set up, the usual convention is to use separate diseqc switches with dual LNBs for both
decoders. That way, you avoid all the hassles of V and H conflict.

eddyline:
thanks sir for your elaborate explanation. care to share a picture of what it looks like? sorry for the bother

You don't really need a multiswitch if you're not running a hotel or guest house. For individuals, except you're living
in a block of flats where you want each flat to have access to all channels in a particular satellite, what you really
need is a dual, quad or octa output lnb. Even for a 5 bedroom duplex an octa (8 ) output lnb would suffice.
The extra cost of changing a single lnb to a dual or quad and running extra wiring is way lesser compared to what
you would spend in purchasing a multiswitch with its attendant wiring complexities.

earthrealm:
The bolded are all hybrid inverters, what you posted is a CC, i dont know if that cc has equalization settings.
The old mustpower is no longer in the market, and i dont know if they changed their name to Must.
The sellers here would have been in a good position to clarify which device has what, but unfortunately most of them dont know/or are not interested in answering ...

i see a pattern unfolding on the thread where members are divided into two groups.
in one group are those that readily spend their time providing answers to questions
asked by solar newbies (no matter how difficult or silly). in the second group are those
who only come to the thread to offload their products. they give us a long list of what they
have in their warehouses, flood the whole place with pictures and disappear only to appear
next time and repeat same. no attempt to answer any questions, no attempt to weigh in
on any discussion. they are just so focused on selling...
my thoughts then would be that, if everyone else only come here to flood the pages of this
thread with adverts, post long list of wares and vanish into thin air, will it still be an interesting
place for folks to visit? will it still hold the kind of attraction it presently it has where people
come to seek knowledge and get enriched by sound discussion on solar issues?
if the answer to the above is no, where then would the customers come from whose
patronage these marketers desperately seek....?

spartacus11:
GeorgeD1 scatter everywhere. This was the calculation i was waiting for

With 5-6 million total Solar panels inverter and wires for a total package. Wow

Many big men dey craze for head when dey still dey wait for nepa and be burning diesel.

This is the way to go

One of their cars among their flet of cars will give them this.

bro,
you echo my sentiments exactly. and, this was part of my thought process more than 10 years
ago while preparing to take the plunge into energy freedom. i just couldn't understand why
someone who could afford to drive a car worth 1.5m or even 5m could not spend a fraction of
that amount to provide constant electricity for his household.
except for peeps who live in populated cites like lagos, port harcourt and abuja who spend up
to 2hrs or more in traffic jams, the majority of us spend less than an hour commuting to and
from work or business. so, imagine spending such a short time in an air-conditioned car only for
you step out into a dark, hot house where you will spend at least 12 to 18hrs every day.
Does that even make sense?

Saipro:
.... still bothered about how your supplier unceremoniously stopped stocking them before some of us could partake of the goodness named Zenith batteries.

So, my three and a half year old US batteries sprouted weak and dead cells within a weak of heavy usage with poor insolation. Enter panic mode. I cut down utilization to barest minimum for about a week; when that wasn't cutting it, I began daily equalization cycles after daily absorb termination. A week of daily equalizing seemed aggravate the situation with the weak cells seemingly dying too. I had begun doing the rounds of local lithium merchants when lady luck smiled upon with good fortune.

A routine check of a car in the yard before a trip revealed an item previously forgotten - an Infinitum desulphator! Every vehicle in the family has one installed and average battery lifespan has since been 3 - 4 years (even with abuse). I was bound to have a few in the store so I ransacked the darker corners and found one each of the 24V and 12V types. Immediately rearranged the batteries that night such that the sole battery without issues would be the one excluded from the desulphators (I run a primary bank of 48V nominal)

48 hours later and the weak cells began showing signs of life. Enter the dragon. Daily equalizations with end-of-week dilution of the weak and dead cells. After a week, the weak cells had sprung to life while one of the dead cells showed the barest signs of life. The other dead cells wouldn't even bubble nor change colour (healthy cells had electrolyte turned brown from vigorous boiling).

End of second week and all cells showed signs of life, however little. Middle of third week and all had resumed regular vicious boiling with equalization. Alternate day/once in three days equalization halted.

We are now entering the fourth week of desulphator use (remember I ran two weeks of conditioning without them and the cells went almost beyond salvage). From registering 47V within an hour of sundown and either dying before dawn or waking to 39V, I now have at worst 49V at bedtime (82 - 88%) and 48V at daybreak (73 - 82%). Batteries have inevitably lost some capacity over the years. My nighttime/overnight load is still 200W or less (typically about 150W nighttime, 100W overnight - inverter consumption added).

I should mention the bank had HA02 balancers installed from inception. I said it a few years ago and would like to reiterate now : snake oil or not, reliable desulphators work!

bro,
i think the zeniths were available in the market for a while before they eventually disappeared.
at that time, it was common sight to see solar installers marketing them although as you can imagine,
they were not without their usual fakes and look alikes. i was only fortunate to have gotten the originals
because i sourced it directly from the supplier in lagos.

as for battery desulphators, i still wonder why they seem to have such a bad rap with guys here.
when i hear statements like "snake oil" being used to describe them i just shake my head in disbelief.
my zeniths were on desulphators (battery life saver) from day one of installation and even when i had
issues with thunder strike which affected the bls, you can't imagine the speed with which i used to
order a replacement.

i see a hype of battery balancers in place of desulpators and i'm like, what is going on?
for the almost 8yrs i used my zeniths, i never bought or used a single balancer but my batteries were
always in top shape, so much so that my friend who bought off the zeniths from me when he learnt
they were available promptly installed them and has been using them now for over 3 months without
complaints. i'm sure if i had sold off the zeniths to him as dead batteries or scrap, claiming they were
good, my phone would have been ringing off the hook by now.

babaegun:
So if you are like me with affinity for hot water bathe, you will agree that, there is no greater joy like having it flow directly from you tap non-stop for a couple of minutes just to cool your body.

Everyday after returning home from a hard days work, I retire to my home and quickly take a hot shower just to ensure my body system returns back to its normal setting. I enjoy hot water therapy everyday as a pain reliever which makes me feel better. I sleep well and wake up energized. This is like a luxury which i couldn't enjoy as my 30 litres Ariston heater could not give it to my heart desire. Also, since I started solar, I have moved the Ariston heaters in my house to it and the effect on my solar setup is not nice at all as it could be cloudy for days. Also, I always turn off power from the Ariston heaters then too as I wouldn't want any electric shock as you may not know when things can go wrong.

So with the desire to achieve that (after saving some coins anyway ), I quickly put a call to JUO to supply me with a Solar Water heater, let me just give it a try as I have seen the wonders it did to GeorgeD1 few years back. Without delay, the package arrived all the way from Warri. I didn't hesitate to set it up despite the fact that it is still raining heavily in Abuja. And my plumber was able to re-route the pipes to conform with the new solar water heater connection. It is a non-pressurized one so I added Pressure pump to it and its been amazing. Hot water gushes out like hell fire

My brothers and sisters, that's how I have been enjoying unlimited hot water in my house. Morning, Afternoon and Night. My kids self are not left out. Enjoyment. But really, the technology is amazing. It is amazing that the hot water could stay overnight and still stays hot. I still have to use the mixer to regulate it else, the hotness is enough to scald bodi ooo.

So what I also noticed was that, when you turn it on, you will first experience cold water and it depends on the length of your pipes before the hot water starts rushing out. It is worth giving a try. Am enjoying it.

Now my batteries can float for more than 3 hours daily . If you have the space and coins, then you can give it a try. Am sure you will wonder why you didn't start all this years.


*coins - money ( )

brother,
welcome to the world of endless hot water supply without tears.
congratulations you finally did it!

Trippledots:
Boss, pls at what average C rate did you charge and discharge those zeniths with while they were in service?

charge rate hovered between c5 and c10 in some instances and discharge rate was between c12 and c50
all depending on the time of day and equipment in use.

funshyboi:
Bros is it the same lead batteries vehicles use

nope. automobile batteries are different. they are called starting batteries while these ones used for renewables
are called deep cycle batteries but they are same lead acid even though there are now other battery types
including lithium.