sunset1

Hi all I’m looking for a 48V battery – preferably alive and in decent health, but I’ll consider one that’s seen better days. Doesn’t need to be perfect, as I plan to upgrade later. Just need something reliable enough to keep the PCs and a few essentials running during outages. We’re currently upgrading from a 12V to a 48V system and shifting focus to solar to escape the Eskom trap and move toward full independence. This is stage one of the journey – budget is tight, enthusiasm is high! If you’ve got something lying around, even a bit worn out, Happy to chat Thanks! Andy (Knysna-based)

May i ask where you got this dashboard from? Ive looked Andy's off grid solar videos but didnt have any luck. Tx

12hr to 24hrs is quite a change wow..well done for spotting that and setting up the graphs. Makes me wonder how many people have under performing batteries. Did you retro fit the jk bms to a seplos or similar?

Interesting thanks for the explanation and good to know. I sort of took it for granted that top tier inverters or most with communication to batteries would take care of this sort of thing.. Are there any inverter battery combos that take care of this automatically? May I ask what batteries or bms you use?

May I ask what the issue was you had with the batteries and what it shows you now that avoids future problems?

Very cool and nice graphics. I must get a dashboard like that one day ;) Im using my partner's discarded laptop with broken screen as my home assistant server Been working a treat frigate and some sonoff devices. Have solat assistant connected to my axpert inverter How are you pulling data from your jk bms and inverter into HS?

That home assistant? Very nice dashboard

I've been in contact with the supplier quite a few people have used on this forum. They are Donguang Belifine https://x.alibaba.com/B04Trx?ck=minisite Apparently they ship quite often to warehouse in Jhb in about 5 weeks. Ive attached some of their prices below for 48v system. 16x 320 ah Sunwoda for about R17000 with BMS shipping and customs included. im in the garden route area so perhaps if there is someone else interested we could save a few thousand rand on shipping.

@Pho3niX90 Gosh this is a very good price for that amount. Am looking to buy from them too. Did you order anything else from besides the BMS? Bus bars etc? Roughly how much was your shipping from China?

@WannabeSolarSparky I'm in Knysna near George in Western Cape and down in CPT every few weeks for work. Ive seen the DIY boxes. I think if i had a bit more free time I would attempt it. And my wife would probably want me doing something else 😝 Just thought perhaps there might be some eager DIY who would enjoy building this and get some money for it. I'm not too much in rush, as we are currently ok on our small system, but do want to expand. Eventually, on our budget, we will get a luxpower SNA 6kw, 10 panels or so, and the battery backup. The large battery backup (15kw- 280 cells seems standard now) is perhaps overkill since we have gas geyser etx, but gather it will put us in good stead. In winter we use 250kw a month.

A little bit of a strange one buy am looking into getting some cells from Alibaba, will be 16x 3.2v 280A from a well known supplier. Plus Daly bms. The price is significantly lower than the standard Hubble Svolt Dyness etc. I've built my own 12v system 5 years back and its still goigg strong despite a couple sparks. In saying that this feels a little out of my depth and don't want to mess things up. Would someone with diy knowledge be interested in building it of course for a fee? Shipping, sundries etc would be on me of course. Whatever is needed to build it correctly and is safe.

Interesting. Thanks for the wealth of info. Seems a shame these power tool batteries dont come with a balancer. Im a noob with this stuff so be grateful for recommendations. Only 2 cells are around 2.4v. others sre 3.6v. what would you do in this situation? @stefan44 do you have pics of your packs with the balancer? I don't suppose you would be open to take on repairs ?

Tx saw these. They are higher capacity which i heard one should stick to similar if i remember correctly because of discharge rates

Two of my smaller ingco battery packs have come to end. Im looking to change out the cells, there are 5 of them i see. They are low quality so want to put better quality of ones in. I could just by a new one but for a bit less i am stuck with same low quality battery. Does anyone know of a good battery supplier for these or similar; Samsung 25R 18650 2500mAh 20A Battery

The Hubble AM 2 is about 16k at voltex. Coild be wrong but OP batteries should go for about 7k-10k depending which one and considering usage, risk etc Market will decide either way.

I have been contemplating this method. My first will be insulating the pipes well. Then seeing what the new temp is. Tell me what does your geyser element draw for preheat? I know they are 3kw. I ask this is we have a smaller system. Be great if it just did 1kw.lets say

I stand to be corrected but commercial and some residential machines these day spin just a bit faster as it dramatically decreases drying time. The savings were something like 40% just with a faster spin. There are spinners on Takealot that so just this for a few hundred ront

Can get a brand new dyness for R15k from Solarware house.

So i thought by chance id try the TV guy in town before i buried her. Turns out he can fix it and she is currently purring away at home now. He took a few days rather than weeks with the other guy. Long live my 1kw

Eyyy takes quite some time it seems. Hopefully you get a few up and running. I picked up the unit today, apparently there was quite a lot of rust inside. We live in Knysna which can get quire humid. He says its quite common in Knysna with the humidity where the fans pull in moisture. Need to carefully now where to place a new one when i get money for one again.

It's a sad day. Into the shed she goes.

Wish I knew. Had a local repairs guy take a look at it, he changed a few components not exactly sire what but it failed again qithin a few weeks. Originally there was a short in the outside lights and i think caused the problem. Its a 1000w inverter which we never really ran more than 600w continuously but after that short it would often reset. It then began tripping at lower loads until completely dying. Maybe best to bury it and say a prayer Am in Knysna western cape

That works. Will send a dm

We don't have baths here only showers. Thats not a bad idea for our tub in the forest though:)

I just figured this out as well that a storage tank is need with a wholebunch of fittings and valves. I may look into something more passive that does not get too hot.