₦airaland Forum

I'm selling our used Prag 2.5kva inverter.

N70,000 (25% discount from retail price).

Specs:
24V
3 stage charger, NON-ADJUSTABLE:

absorb: 14.6v per battery; 29.2V
float: 13.8v


Let me know if interested.

earthrealm:
CC: nomoretrolling

ok, tot as much, cos even ipower has similar infrastructure, have seen all the manuals, but none for gennex, theyare all same then.
i am trying to troubleshoot a setup of 8 batts and 1800w panels, that barely lasts 1hr on 450w load .. terrible
thinking of recommending 8 x 6v 400ah agm batts to owner for replacement, ie after finding the root cause of the catastrophic failure... instead of 8 x 12v 200ah quanta batts,
wetin una think?

8 quanta batteries would be about N1,000,000

You can get two battleborns for that that will outlive and outperform those batteries.

At that price, why would you buy Lead Acid, when you can buy LifePO4 (specifically, not other lithium chemistries)?

mctfopt:
Impressive �

Yes, they have been so far, will definitely recommend

earthrealm:
who has the emanual of gennex inverter 48v 80amps 5kva, i nee am to check something

Seems this "Gennex" inverter is a rebranded inverter.

Found a similar generic type, check this link to see if they are indeed similar.


http://www.solarwholesale.co.za/Axpert%20MKS-MKS%20PLUS%201-5KVA%20Manual%20on%2020140306.pdf

Very impressive from the battery thus far and the voltage was still very steady even after using 75ah of the available 100ah.

I didn't want to push the discharge all the way down to 100ah, I got scared

Capacity testing the BattleBorn 100amphour pack

Testing at C/5 rate, though the batteries claim to handle 1C discharge rate, but we don't have the cables now to accommodate a 100amp draw.

Next is changing out the DC wiring from 6AWG to 4/0AWG wiring for higher amp draw from these batteries.

Installation almost complete, testing now!

Voltage drops, voltage drops everywhere.

Well all I can do is thank God. I checked the bmv and saw a max voltage of 60v to the battery. I was wondering how that could be possible when the inverter and charge controller were set for 14.2 volts. There is a huge difference in voltage reading between the charge controller and actual battery posts. For example, battery posts voltage could be 55.4v while controller voltage is 53V. So when the charge controller was set at 14.2, which is 56.8 absorb for a 48v system, the battery voltage would have been around 60v in accordance with the bmv. SO SCARY!!

The batteries do have internal protection circuits though, so it would have shut down the battery if that situation had gone on longer. I'm happy I caught it in time and I have made compensations to the controller setpoints. The batteries now charge at around 13.8V with solar and 14.4 with the inverter. Funny enough, the installer never caught this and according to him, it would have been job done and one year later, the batteries would have been severely overcharged. Two heads are better than one though, cause there are somethings he knew that I didn't know.

We are using 6 AWG cable between the charge controller and the battery, running a max so far of about 20amps. Anyway I guess the morale of the story is to check monitor actual battery voltage THROUGH OUT a charge cycle with the inverter and controller to make sure the peaks are within battery specs during initial installation. You don't want to trust those displays, get out your multimeter.

I have seen pics of some guys systems here were they leave an el cheapo digital voltmeter permanently attached to each battery. I truly believe that is the way to go for every one with a solar battery.

GeorgeD1:
lolz. this is serious work oh. especially on this occasion when I'm at the countryside catching
nature's cool breeze

anyway, I'll attempt to answer some if not all your inquiries. apologies if I'm not detailed
enough.

1. number of batteries: 12 nos, 12v, 260ah, totaling 780ah
2. total nos of panels: 48 nos (24units 315w solarworld, 24units 330w canadian solar)
3. total load: this is a bit tricky but I'll try. btw 2500w to 3500w
4. inverter make and capacity: magnum ms4348pe, 4,300w capacity @48v

Wow, soooooooo much solar power, my goodness!!!

I wonder if you still have MAINS electricity connected to your house, or are running solar/gen 24/7.

Saipro:
My current FLA USB L16 batteries are discharged from 6pm at 3.3A - 4.7A (C/40) and naturally show no performance degradation even though I push to C/10 at times during the day, no noticeable degradation yet (they're about clocking 10 months). They've only once been discharged below 80% (met it at 79% on a morning and yes, I check daily). Most days, I wake to 82% - 88%. Why do I bother, I've discovered I'm spending way more on RE than I ever did on diesel and petrol. True, there are numerous other benefits but it's about time I add economy to those benefits.

The leftovers from my Trojans T105-RE are still doing fine (say 90% of installed capacity) despite routine 50% discharge now.
My dad's USB L16 are still alive after 3.5 years of thorough abuse (60 - 80% discharge on at least 4 days of any given week).
FLA are a great pain but do well on cycle life above the current AGM, particularly some brands being touted as great.

If we could get GeorgeD1's Zenith types, even I would crossover to AGM in an instant.

I think it really depends on the brand of battery as you guys have stated.

Trojans would obviously be better than our previous GACIA, EPSOLAR and Mercury batteries. Though I really had high hopes for the Mercury, but maybe it was fake, who knows.

I guess were they are bought from is also a factor.

ojeysky:
Are all those cartons Battle Born batteries? If yes then you indeed must have entered this project with family money o. Looking forward to your experience, I think my GK MPPsolar series has capability to charge these batteries

Any PROGRAMMABLE Charger should be able to charge these with the proper setpoints

GeorgeD1:
hello viazi,
sorry I'm just seeing your post. I've been unavoidably busy.
my zenith agm batteries are 6yrs already and still counting and from their
current stellar performance they would easily cross the magical 7yr mark come
september. like I said in an earlier post, solar power isn't rocket science:
know the basics and apply the principles and you'll keep smiling while others continue battling with self-inflicted issues born out of ignorance.
that said, I'll be happy to meet with your friend one on one and discuss.
send me a pm through nl and i'll avail you my contact details.

Wow, 6 years on an AGM battery? That is uber impressive!!

Honestly, with batteries in Naija, solar can sometimes feel like Rocket Science, lol.

The last batteries we got (from JiJi) were babied and put through a C0.1 discharge, but still couldn't get past about a 100 cycles before they began massive degradation. All this while not going past the so called 50% limit on lead acids and fully going through a complete three stage charging regimen every time they were recharged.

So what is your secret with your AGMs? Is your discharge lower than C0.1? Did you oversize your bank? Are you sure that you still have the same capacity you did as day one? or have they degraded, but still possess enough capacity for your needs?

btw, how is your solar system doing? Last time I read your posts, you were generating upwards of 25kwh per day which just blows my f**king mind.

Super excited to begin this installation.

For anyone that is going to go this route, please ensure that if you connect smart batteries to inverters larger than 4kw, that you have a current limiter in series with the battery, to protect the internal BMS, from the large current spike that comes from the large capacitance of a large inverter.

More information to follow this weekend.

duwdu:
I've been eyeing the Battle Borns vs building my own LiFePO4 banks, but I shiver when I think about the added costs and hassle of safe-shipping the BB's to Nigeria and their clearance/delivery. Could you please throw more light on the hows/costs of these twin issues of shipping and clearance/delivery in your own case?

Thanks.

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

The freight forwarder handles clearing and all that hassle

They had to be shipped by sea, as they were declared "Hazardous Goods".

Not sure about the shipping cost, my sis in the U.S handled that. I asked her for the info, but she is having a hard time retrieving it. If I can get the exact figure, I'll let you know.

starpower:
how much. Make I close ear

lol, bro no be just me buy am oo, na our family.

anyway sha, it's about $999 for one, but they claim 3,000-5000 cycles, after which the batteries should still retain about 80% of their initial capacity.

I think it works out, cause I've never been able to get more than 200 "TRUE" cycles from our lead acid batteries so far. After about a 100 cycles, our typical 200ah lead acids become say about 70ah and they just keep degrading. Well at least the ones that I've used so far. I can't speak for the expensive lead acids made by Trojan and other top companies.

So if we can do some math here:

Say I buy a cheap naija 12v 100Ah battery for 50k. I get a useable capacity of about 50ah and a cycle life of 100

so over the life of the battery, we would have 50ah x 100 = 5000ah.


For the lithium, we get a useable capacity of about 80ah, or 100ah in my case and a cycle life of 3000 at minimum.

so over the life of the battery, we would have 100ah x 3000 = 300000ah.



Price of lithium Battery: N360,000
Price of Cheap AGM: N50,000

Amphour life of Lithium Battery: 300,000AH
Amphour life of Cheap AGM: 5,000AH

Hence, it would take (300,000/5,000) cheap agm batteries, that is, 60 cheap AGM batteries to make up for the one Lithium battery.

60 X N50,000 (cost of cheap AGM) = N3,000,000
Cost of Single Lithium battery = N360,000

Saipro:
Properly manufactured FLA "build" capacity over the initial few cycles (up to 100 cycles) before they begin their true life.

I keep hearing about all these "properly" built lead acid batteries, but it seems the ones available in Nigeria do not fall into that category.

Check out this capacity test below. Two lead acids were drawn down and could not provide the same capacity on the next cycle as it did on it's initial cycle.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM0Ot9HCCzc

Dam5reey:
Nice, abeg provide Link and purchase process.

This one can deliver 100A for 1 hour gud stuff for short term heavy loads

I will post the testing when the installation is complete. Although I do not intend to put them through such rigors like a 100amp draw.

Testing will mainly be on the capacity after a few charge cycles.

With lead acid, you notice a capacity drop, sometimes as soon as after only two charge cycles, although minimal.

Our Battleborn LifePo4 batteries have finally landed. Hopefully this will be a game changer

Will post pics this week, but installation can't be done yet.

Barezzi:
I day wait...

They have finally arrived

Available

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available

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available

There are usually two sides to this type of situation. One could be wrongly-fully being accused by law enforcement, the second is resisting arrest or lack of compliance if the suspect was actually in the wrong.

Hopefully, Nigeria will get better!