₦airaland Forum

babaegun:
@Pranil

Thanks for your response. Still doing the research sha. The Outback/Fangpusun guys just want you to drop money for almost everything before you can view your device locally not to talk of online. Imagine getting a mate 3 for $400+ just to connect or WattPlot. Haba. No qualms sha. I am working on what a guy did online and am almost through. Am at the stage of integrating it with Grafana + Postgres or MySQL which uses a time series database to make lovely graphs. Don't know if somebody have achieved this on this forum before. Well, we will get there.

Barezzi:
Thanks Pranil, very detailed response.

battleaxe:
@pranil, thanks for modifying an earlier note you wrote. Was easier to grasp afterwards.

Will the below work?

babaegun:
@Pranil

Love your Raspberry Pi setup and beautiful dashboard. Could you guide or point me to a place I can setup something similar for Fangpusun/Outback. Thanks as I await your feedback.

dejidotun2000:
Have you tried watchpower software. I have never been able to get it to work on both my 1kva and 3kva ipoweplus inverters.

Barezzi:
I love your setup Pranil. If i can lay my hands on a monitoring software like that of Justin Case, I'd be sold...
I just love his dashboard.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAwG9VtvSGE

Barezzi:

bigrovar:
You mean MPP solar and Voltronic are one and the same? I thought there were different companies

bigrovar:
Thanks a lot for the detailed response. Indeed that Axpert series of inverters are hugely popular in most OECD countries like Australia and South Africa. I would be considering them now so that I can join the club of cool kids with their cool wall mounted Inverters. I just wished the pure inverter units without the charge controller bits are also sold in Nigeria

battleaxe:
Hi Pranil,
Curious as to how you sized your fuses between your batteries and inverter.

I thought with 8 nos. of 200Ah, 12V batteries, making a 48V, 400Ah battery bank, that you would need a bigger fuse?

Also, there are several schools of thought on having a fuse on the negative. I notice you have a fuse though halved. May I ask why?

@Barezzi
Max PV Array Open Circuit Voltage for the 5kVA is I think 145V DC.

Barezzi:
Pranil,
1. What's the maximum PV input DC voltage - 150 V DC ( ( 37 Voc and 3 in series and 2 in series I have used both combinations without problem- 2 panels in series has a marginal better efficiency )
2. Number of mppt inputs - Nigeria models 1 input upto 3 KW ( 60 Amps) - you can get modesl with 3 seprtate inputs MC4 direct also to avoid junction box
3. The monitoring software you use? Plenty Most liked ICC from South Africa ( paid 70 USD), Lucibus Italy , Solamon , germany , Watchpower ( origanal from company) - and also Emoncms.org and PVOUT.org

Thanks Battleaxe...

Barezzi:
Egbon, there seem to be a dearth of information concerning the ipowerplus.
I have searched everywhere, nothing tangible. Even users are afraid to share their experiences... Lol
Abeg if anyone has any info, please share.

bigrovar:
Has anyone here who uses any of the Axpert series of Inverters be it ipowerplus or Gennex been able to ascertain the idle consumption of these units?

mank1234:
Nice. Do you have link for a modular 18mm DIN programmable timer too?

mank1234:
https://m.aliexpress.com/amp/item/32810512997.html
If your question is choosing btw PHCN and inverter output with phcn priority. Use above link.

If however you want to be on solar(or inverter) at specific time, say day time and switch to PHCN after sunset consider attached image for setup.

The link for timer and contactor that can do this is as follows:
https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32762997458.html

https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32613347337.html

bodeface:
@Dmerciful,

Thanks so much for your time and explanation, may be what I will do is that I will combine the two circuit and use only one inverter, the two banks are just redundant, they do same job. Just wanted to ensure there is always power available.

How much is your surge protectors? Please, you missed the second part of my question:
"for the combiner box must it be OEM type or can one get one locally or fabricate or is there a make shift type that could be used as I do not see so much specialty in combiner box as it looks like a small DB could be used for combining"

efuro:
At least, so says the watt meter & CC readings.
Always 0.5v difference.

The ba3 are wired @ 24v series x 3 parallels. No special loop to equalise the three 12v nodes.

bigrovar:
The sukam falcon plus 1.6 kva 24v uses 25w against the 30w advertised in the manual. Its one of the reason I love that inverter.



I use a battery monitor with watt/Amp counter. Previously used a watt meter that comes with a shunt. The device is not bidirectional hence it can only read one way. I set it up between inverter and battery to read watts inverter takes takes from the battery. To know the idle load of the inverter. All I need do is

A: Turn off the load output of the inverter and check the watt meter readings.. Since the inverter becomes the only load on the battery the watt meter gives me its idle load.

B: Put an AC killawatt meter on the inverter out and read how much load in watt is on the inverter. Compare it to how much load the inverter takes from the battery. The difference gives me the inverter self consumption load.

Now I use the victron energy watt meter which is much more sophisticated than the previous device. This one is multi directional as it shows what goes into and out of the battery. The device easily shows me the inverter without stress. The former option is much cheaper though.

efuro:
In addition to ur earlier post. I know some enthusiast will take me on it but it may fall true dat some of these ba3 are over-rated for Nigerian market. 200AH ba3 may actually be 180AH or less even with SON seal or LOGO.
So to enjoy 5 days of off-grid, consider over sizing ur bank.
On d condition dat u have powerful mppt firing @ 98% conversion efficiency to maintain ur ba3 in good shape.
Like big wigs here have said few months ago. In crease the abosption time of ur FLA 2-3hrs. U may soon find out that ur ba3 will fall in line in no time at all

emmaniche:
Good evening house, I’m new into green energy. But I’ve been mandated to make a quotation for the installation of solar energy at a particular location.
My main concern is the client in concern is really interested in monitoring the solar setup over cctv and if possible controlling the setup. i.e the charging and discharge rate, watts stored, battery level, switch time from NEPA to solar.
House is this really possible as I’ve been mandated to research into this and give back a quotation for the projected to be kick started.
Thanks very much awaiting feedback from u guys. God Bless.

2baga:
Wow just reading this makes me think are we in the same naija... surely you have a sweet setup

idsolar:
i wl prefer quanta

bigrovar:
This set a gold standard for setting up a smart and energy sustainable home. Massive congratulations and thanks for sharing.

I never knew Amazon echo would work in Nigeria (does it have to be always internet connected ) also how did you setup your 10terabyte hard drive array? Are you use a turnkey device or built one? I hope to setup a media server with 10 tera but my aim is to use disk arrays setup to raid 5 for redundancy...That's will eat lots of 2 terabyte disks and would require a server with 10 disk drive bay. Kindly share.
FYI currently use kodi (formerly xbmc ) as media center. It is the project which Plex is based. Running for over 5 years now.

Barezzi:
Lovely! We're getting there...

Take a look at the link below,it's a very comprehensive analysis of renewable energy in Nigeria.
Very interesting read...
https://www.giz.de/en/downloads/giz2015-en-nigerian-energy-sector.pdf

samnaija:
guys i need your advice. i want to attach an external smart charger to my bank 48v 200ah. what my supplier brought was a rectifier. he claims telcoms use it for their batteries. (48v50amps). is this a smart charger . i dont want something to damage my bank for nothing.

abunafiu:
interested in home automation too. any practical experience to learn from here?.

Its been a while since I discussed my personal home set up.
I recently hit 3kw pv strength. my 2 yrs old trojans still firing like new. I have switched charge controllers from morning star to FM80 and now midnite classic.
I now live off grid and hardly drain my bank below 49.5v(with load) by 6.30am when I wake up. I now switch off my 4kw mustpower(1.5 years old) inverter off when leaving home for work. once I return home ,I go tru d logged data. my batts reaches absorption usually by 1pm.

Barezzi:
Lovely setup Pranil.
Been tinkering with my proposed setup, and finally came up with the attached.
I have no plans to sell to the grid or go fully off grid.

Supply to the 2nd essential load panel will be controlled by my battery SOC.
Have a look and lemme know your thoughts.