JohnKester's Posts
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 Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 11:33am On Sep 15, 2016 |
codemaster2much:Kiekie1 can help you with 10mm DC Solar cable. Cheers 1 Like |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 4:34pm On Aug 27, 2016 |
DUNKA:From my personal experience, the voltage displayed by the CC and Inverters are always slightly higher than that in the Trimetric 2030. This is understandable as the CC will measure whatever power is generated by the solar array as it flows through it to the batteries. The trimetric 2030 on the other hand measures what goes in and also what goes out. What is registered is what actually goes into the batteries after deducting what is used to power the loads being run simultaneously while charging. For this reason, you will notice that the amps registered by the CC as inflow is always higher than what is measured by the trimetric 2030 as inflow. In terms of accuracy, the trimetric is more accurate since it is capable of monitoring both inflow and outflow. Moreover, it is programmed for a specific type of battery and the specific capacity of your battery bank. The CC on the other hand, can only be indicative since it is designed with consideration for all types of batteries and chemistry, as well as whatever battery bank it is connected. As is well known, the flooded batteries, gel or even agm batteries neither charge no discharge at the same rate. This alone has rendered the accuracy of the displayed statistics marginally unreliable. Also from experience, any inaccuracies observed would definitely be as a result of the inaccurate data feed into the device in the process of programming. In addition, all things being equal, the shorter the distance between the trimetric and the battery bank, the more accurate the reading. For those who live completely off-grid, like I do, the trimetric 2030 is highly recommended as it would eliminate guesswork regarding the state of charge of your battery bank. It will also thus help elongate the lifespan of your battery bank. Cheers |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 4:14pm On Aug 22, 2016 |
Gennextech:Mono or Poly? Post nameplate please. How much? Cheers |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 10:08pm On Aug 18, 2016 |
mank1234:Both will give you the same 200AH. Option 2 will have better performance, efficiency and longevity as long as your charging setup is adequately sized to give the batteries sufficient charging. In other words, it would be more demanding to charge the 2V 12 batteries. But you will have a very good setup too. Of course provided the system is not overloaded. Cheers |
| Computers › Re: Inverter Users : Lets Have Your Experience by JohnKester: 11:36am On Aug 15, 2016 |
adanny01:Pardon my comment as I mean no offence here. But it is kind of misleading when you tell someone that he cannot use certain appliances on an inverter or solar system. In reality, there is no appliance that cannot be powered by inverter or solar system. It all depends on the capacity of your system or how much you are willing to invest to ensure that the capacity of the system you eventually set up is able to carry the loads you wish to put on it. All things being equal, proper sizing, good materials (solar panels, charge controller, inverter (pure sine wave) , RE batteries, cables etc), proper installation etc, there is no appliance that cannot be powered by inverter or solar system. It all depends on your needs, knowledge and money! Cheers 3 Likes |
| Business › Re: Gas Generator - Is It Safe & Does It Really Save You Money? by JohnKester: 5:54pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
gkbiz2:The enquiry is pasted below. Kindly just post the response here please. I will like to know the cost of the Kit that would work with Elemax 7600 as well as Honda EC4500 generators. How soon can you deliver if one places an order. In addition, I will also like to know if you have installers in Port Harcourt. Thank you. Cheers |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 4:53pm On Jul 30, 2016 |
Dreamflyin:From experience and from what I can see and taking into consideration all that has been said so far, those two devices called charge controllers are your biggest problem. They are not doing their work and the sooner you change them and have a 'real' professional reinstall your system, the sooner you will have a functional system and be happy. A friend of mine contracted a 'professional installer' who supplied everything needed including a charge controller that was not in the list of the options he gave. At first my friend was excited and was almost insisting that I use the same guy to do my own. I did not agree and went ahead after serious research gathered all the components I needed and got an installer I could direct to do the installation. It was only when my setup came online that my friend realised that his system was not performing optimally and already one of his batteries was going dead. I eventually convinced him to replace his charge controller with the brand I was using and when he did, the difference was as night is from day. Meanwhile he just realised that what I had always told him was true, that his charge controller had never, since the system was setup, charged his batteries full, so the batteries were gradually dying out. The moral of the story is this, you need not be a professional. But you should not be afraid to research the subject in question and arm yourself with as much information as you can such that if you were to DIY the system, you will make very few errors. Also research the pitfalls others had experienced and how they solved them. At the end of the installation, you will be better off for it. Always bear in mind that EVERY SOLAR SETUP IS AS GOOD AS THE CHARGE CONTROLLER. Spend a million bucks on an inverter, another two million on batteries and a million on panels and top grade of all other components... and install a scrap charge controller, your setup would be scrap. In other words, the charge controller is one single most important component that should be top grade even if you cannot afford top grade in the other components. Cheers. 4 Likes |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 9:19pm On Jul 28, 2016 |
AGM = Absorbed Glass Mat. Also called Absorbent Glass Mat by some. Cheers |
| Business › Re: Gas Generator - Is It Safe & Does It Really Save You Money? by JohnKester: 9:31am On Jul 25, 2016 |
gkbiz2:I have not received any response to my enquiries through your website as advised. What's up? Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 9:22am On Jul 25, 2016*. Modified: 3:20pm On Jul 26, 2016 |
CoolKizzy:I understand your worry when it comes to financing this endeavour. But be rest assured that the cost of changing those air conditioners would be far less than the cost of sizing a solar setup that can power your current air conditioners, as well as the cost of running them on a smaller generator. Consider: 3 air conditioners consuming 1300W (stick to this for simplicity sake) = 3900W 3 LG inverter air conditioners consuming 350W each = 1050W The difference between the two levels of consumption is 2850W which is a lot of shaving. For me, what I consider more effective would be to run your heavy duty equipment on generator, since they only run for short periods in a day. All others that must run throughout the day such as the lightings and air conditioners, if you can switch them to solar, you will be good to go. I firmly believe that on the long run, given the current spending of N1.3 m+ on power annually, solar would be far more economical than you can imagine right now. Do no get scared by the figures already mentioned. The way to go is now to use the new power consumption based on the LED already given and the air conditioners above to recalculate your power needs and you will find that it has dropped considerably. You can then take your time to plan and size your system in a way that would be both effective in performance and also cost effective in execution. You can achieve it. Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 3:11pm On Jul 23, 2016 |
@CoolKizzy You can actually bring down your consumption requirements if you are willing to make changes to your hardwares. For example, LG now has air conditioners that are inverter/solar compliant with an inbuilt mode that reduces the power consumption when running them on solar or inverter, without compromising the efficiency. It is especially important that you consider changing the air conditioners because they will be on constantly as long as you have clients to service. You can also give up your industrial fans and either install ceiling fans or change them to regular standing fans. I do not know how long you have had the dryers, which I consider as guzzlers but I suppose there should be more power efficient ones available in the market today. All these are capital intensive though and you have to decide if you wish to go that way. Two items there which I consider a must in terms of replacement are the light bulbs. You can change those to LED light fittings which will give you more brightness while consuming far less power. Consider: 30 bulbs @ 45W each = 1350W dead load because you would always keep them on. 15 bulbs @ 85W = 1275W. Both totalling 2625W Today, there are flood lights of 15W and above. For indoor use, however, you can replace the 45W bulbs with 12W LED and the 85W bulbs with 18W LED. Calculated below: 30 x 12 = 360 15 x 18 = 270 Total = 630W Compare to your current bulbs you will shave off 1995W from your consumption and that is not little when it comes to solar setup. All your appliances would not be running simultaneously. But your dryers which are the heavy duty loads you have would need some good management by trying not to run the heaviest ones simultaneously and if you must, then some other appliances would have to be switched off. This should not be too much of a problem though, if running them in the day time when the sun is high up there, but once the sun is down, the drain on your system would be quite high and therefore rapid. Suffice to say that you will need a large system, possibly a 96V system. However, if you apply the suggestion above and are willing to replace some of your current hardwares with more energy efficient ones, you will find that your power requirements would actually reduce significantly. But let's hear what the gurus in the house have to say. Cheers 1 Like |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 9:34am On Jul 21, 2016 |
Konnektions146:Thanks for lending a voice to the point I was trying to make him understand. I quite understand the aspect of affordability and the need to start small and then build up. But the general principle should be borne in mind when the development starts so that you can work towards achieving the target. Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 4:43pm On Jul 20, 2016 |
netotse:So I have the feeling that people undersize their battery capacity. My recommendation: when you have the feeling you have the right battery capacity, simply double it, then you will be on the right side. Cheers |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 4:30pm On Jul 20, 2016 |
netotse:Let us assume that after all calculations of your consumption and power requirements you arrive at 100 AH a day. It would not be wise to have a setup that is exactly 100AH capacity. This means that you will always over discharge the batteries, that is 100% DOD. With that, however, the lifespan of your batteries, if originally designed for 2 years, will be far less than 2 years because the deeper you discharge the batteries, the shorter their lifespan. That means that you may be replacing your batteries every 6 months to one year, and if undercharging becomes an additional issue, then the lifespan becomes even shorter. With every replacement you spend money...! The question now is: would you rather replace your batteries every three to six months or you can expand your system capacity to 200AH, so that the maximum DOD would be in the neighbourhood of 50% which will extend the lifespan of your batteries. The choice is yours, there are no hard and fast rules about all these. Each individual is always free to set his system according to his means and needs. You can only be advised on how to get optimal performance from your system. The final decision is always yours. Cheers |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 3:22pm On Jul 20, 2016 |
netotse:Double your battery capacity so it gives you 2 times the AH you actually need. That will ensure you do not discharge your batteries beyond 50%. This will extend the lifespan of your batteries. He gave the best advice otherwise, the frequency of batteries replacement would be high, and that means more money. So bite the bullet and do it once so that some peace of mind can be enjoyed for some years. Cheers. |
| Business › Re: Gas Generator - Is It Safe & Does It Really Save You Money? by JohnKester: 1:44pm On Jul 18, 2016*. Modified: 1:11pm On Jul 19, 2016 |
I will like to know the cost of the Kit that would work with Elemax 7600 as well as Honda EC4500 generators. How soon can you deliver if one places an order. In addition, I will also like to know if you have installers in Port Harcourt. Thank you. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 3:05pm On Jul 14, 2016 |
BasedOnB:If it is flooded battery, sealed or non-sealed, you can try equalising it and that may revive it even if not completely, at least its performance would improve. That is, assuming your inverter has equalising function and if it does, then you can set it to equalise and use generator to do the equalisation. Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 11:21am On Jul 14, 2016 |
bigrovar:Many thanks for the response. Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 8:53pm On Jul 13, 2016 |
bigrovar:What is the name of the tool? And capacity? Can the capacity handle 48V 740AH setup? I am currently using a trimetric 2030 and is pretty good. I need to make comparison to determine which I would prefer. Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 7:21am On Jun 14, 2016 |
dejavus:Look at it this way: Your solar setup is only as good and as efficient as your charge controller. That is one piece of equipment you should not cut corners on because once it is not functioning properly, the first consequence would be your batteries and with that your setup would pack up even if all other equipment are in top shape. Secondly, strength and dependency or reliability lies in simplicity. Once an equipment becomes multifunctional, from my personal experience, the reliability can no longer be as good as a single purpose equipment. In the design and built, compromises must be made either, in this case, in terms of size, weight, aesthetics, quality of materials, quality of fabrication and above all cost, which definitely must affect the overall efficiency and general performance and eventual durability and reliability. Again, rate of failure should be considered. From my experience rate of failure with multifunctional equipment can be higher and so I would rather not have an integrated equipment fail on me and that means two equipment at once. I would rather one packs up at a time and I can deal with it. Cheers 4 Likes |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 9:25am On May 26, 2016 |
earthrealm:I am curious. Why is it not good to run air conditioners on solar, if you are off-grid and has the power, and an inverter that can handle the air conditioners? Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 7:27pm On May 21, 2016 |
JUO:Juo, I suspect you have something to say about this. Kindly say it for the sake of the questioner and so that all of us can benefit from it as well. Cheers. 1 Like |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 1:44pm On May 19, 2016 |
sensisosu:You need to ascertain first of all that your solar panels are wired in the series that they will give optimal performance. And that all the conditions that bigrovar gave are met regarding the positioning and direction of the solar panels before you proceed to troubleshooting the charge controller. Installation generally is very important since if you have all the right equipment and get an incompetent installer to install the system, the system will perform as installed - poorly. So ensure first of all that the installation was properly done. Contact Kiekie1, he can source the Trimetric for you. Cheers. 1 Like |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 10:15am On May 19, 2016 |
sensisosu:For smaller systems like yours (not in term of voltage, but in terms of the panel array as well as the battery bank), a PWM controller would actually be more effective. However, having an MPPT charge controller now is good as you will not need to change it when eventually you expand your system to handle more panels. You only derive all the advantages of MPPT Charge controllers with larger systems even at the same 48V system as yours. Regarding the discrepancies in the voltage displayed by your charge controller and the percentage of power left in the batteries, you need to check the manual that came with the charge controller to ascertain whether what is displayed in percentage is POWER CONSUMED or POWER IN BATTERY BANK. On the other hand, it is an established fact that charge controllers and inverters are never accurate with their displayed parameters of state of charge because they are not designed to be accurate and also because they are designed to handle different types and chemistry of batteries, which do not charge and discharge at the same level. As a matter of fact, 49V state of charge in a 48V system is not low at all. Like you said, the system you have should actually keep you going for longer than the seven hours as your load is not very heavy. You can also maximise the performance by ensuring that you run such loads as water pump and electric iron etc only in the afternoon when the sun is up. If you want to get an accurate display of your exact state of charge, you will need to install another meter called Trimetric 2030C made by Bogart Engineering. Pending when you install the Trimetric, if your tubular batteries are open flooded lead acid batteries, then you can actually use a hydrometer to measure specific gravity of the cells of the batteries as an alternative very accurate means of determining the actual state of charge of the batteries. It would also enable you to determine if you have a bad or failing battery in your bank as the specific gravity of the cells of the failing battery would be significantly lower than the other cells. On the charge rate, the wiring can be a very significant factor. For my MS TS-MPPT-60A, the optimal connection of panels is 3 in series and then parallel them depending on the number of panels you have, which in your case, would be 2 parallels (if you have six 250W panels). This I know out of experience, apart from the fact that I used a simulation tool in the Morningstar website to determine the optimal connection. However, what you are able to harvest will always depend on the number and capacity of panels you have, the actual sunlight and the duration of the sunny period in a day. Cheers. 1 Like |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 12:51am On Apr 26, 2016 |
kogistar:The batteries are great. They are also especially optimized for Renewable Energy usage, which means they will withstand the hassles of partial state of charge and associated effects that is characteristic of purely off grid systems. Just ensure that the system is properly sized and properly installed, and that it is a functional system, with capability to fully recharge the batteries. They will also require maintenance by topping the batteries with distilled water when the cells get short. You also cannot install them indoors because of the emissions, being unsealed flooded lead acid batteries. Cheers. 2 Likes |
| Computers › Re: Inverter Users : Lets Have Your Experience by JohnKester: 4:11pm On Apr 11, 2016 |
Simple answer: No, It can't. If you noticed it is rated 2.8kva max, and that will be for a few minutes only. From experience, these pasted ratings are higher than the actual capacity of the generator. Guys want to sell their market..! Consider a 5kva. Cheers. 2 Likes |
| Properties › Re: Cost Of Building A 4/5 Bedroom Duplex From Fuondation Level by JohnKester: 4:55pm On Dec 04, 2015 |
Sylvan:This response may be very late and possibly overtaken by events but for those who still care to know, I had to acquire the hydraform block making machine so that I can produce the blocks for myself in the course of building the house. The house is now completed and I am about moving in. The machine, however, is now available for commercial activities for those who may wish to break away from the conventional building materials we are used to. Peace. 3 Likes |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 12:18pm On Nov 04, 2015 |
williams85:It all depends on the load and how long the inverter has to carry these load when there is no light. If you have supply from the public utility to fully charge the battery every day, then it should serve you. For a room, it should serve. Give it a try and from the experience, you will learn how to manage your loads on the inverter in order to get longer service in between charges. Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 12:03pm On Nov 04, 2015 |
williams85:No, you cannot, you need another 12V 200Ah battery to make up the 24V. Cheers. |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 9:50am On Sep 29, 2015 |
weijing3333:  1 Like |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 4:37pm On Sep 28, 2015 |
kiekie1:Welcome back to Lagos! Be unassuming, as your assumptions would always, more often than not, be wrong. I hope I can expect to receive your quotation or request for more details, now that you are back to Lagos. So we can kick off the discussions towards the transaction. Cheers. 1 Like |
| Satellite TV Technology › Re: Solar Energy, A Complement To FTA by JohnKester: 10:19pm On Sep 27, 2015 |
chris81964:Thanks for your estimate but must state that a single figure does not suffice. Let's have the breakdown so we can study the individual components. Cheers. 1 Like |
