GustavoMalaga

Good looking setup!
 
Just one question, you are showing HS in the display meaning the inverter is set up as the master to work in parallel but you seem to only have one inverter connected now? Are you planning on expanding soon?
 
 
 
 
 

On page 24 of the manual, under operating Mode description:
 
3rd Fault mode: Utility can power the loads when the unit starts up without battery. (Only available in the 4K/5K model with single operation).
 
I tried it one day and it bypasses so I have been using it since then, otherwise the house would not have AC while equalizing.
 
 
 
 
 

On page 24 of the manual, under operating Mode description:
 
3rd Fault mode: Utility can power the loads when the unit starts up without battery. (Only available in the 4K/5K model with single operation).
 
I tried it one day and it bypasses so I have been using it since then, otherwise the house would not have AC while equalizing.
 
 
 
 
 

It can? I thought it always needed a battery connected.

Question for Coulomb
 
Given your experience with the firmware - is there a chance you can change the firmware to increase the upper limit of Menu item 26 (Bulk/CV) so we can Equalise our batteries at a higher voltage (currently 58.4).
 
I was thinking of 62V (or more) as Trojans for example need it to be 61.92 from my calculations and the data sheet.
 
Will the charging circuit allow this...  It would make a huge difference to alot of us.
 
Thanks
Mark

Thanks Gustavo
 
Appreciated the feedback - I will try the settings on 12 & 13.  On 26 & 27 - I have Sonic Gel batteries and if I look at their manual and it seems like these are the values for their cycle and and float values - any reason why you are suggesting different values here?

Dear leaves,
 
It is one of my unfinished projects but what I have done so far is to built 1.2m x 2.4m woden boxes, just the size of a whole sheet of plywood and run a flexible aluminium tubing (150mm if memory serve me right) and closing it all up with glass or other tranparent material. I have built two such boxes so far.
 
Now the finishing part, I have to find a fan to push air from the room air to this solar box, and out on the other side comes hot air... hopefully the fan can be solar powered directly so when the sun is out it is working autonomously. 
 
Something along this lines(is where I got the idea from):
 
https://sites.google.com/site/glenssolarheater/
 
or
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DownSpout/DownSpout.htm
 
And I think you should review all this great website called Built it solar (I considered it the bible of solar DIY), starting from here:
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm
 
 
Warm regards from Sunny southern Spain!
 
Gustavo
 
 
 
 

Dear leaves,
 
It is one of my unfinished projects but what I have done so far is to built 1.2m x 2.4m woden boxes, just the size of a whole sheet of plywood and run a flexible aluminium tubing (150mm if memory serve me right) and closing it all up with glass or other tranparent material. I have built two such boxes so far.
 
Now the finishing part, I have to find a fan to push air from the room air to this solar box, and out on the other side comes hot air... hopefully the fan can be solar powered directly so when the sun is out it is working autonomously. 
 
Something along this lines(is where I got the idea from):
 
https://sites.google.com/site/glenssolarheater/
 
or
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DownSpout/DownSpout.htm
 
And I think you should review all this great website called Built it solar (I considered it the bible of solar DIY), starting from here:
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm
 
 
Warm regards from Sunny southern Spain!
 
Gustavo
 
 
 
 

Dear leaves,
 
It is one of my unfinished projects but what I have done so far is to built 1.2m x 2.4m woden boxes, just the size of a whole sheet of plywood and run a flexible aluminium tubing (150mm if memory serve me right) and closing it all up with glass or other tranparent material. I have built two such boxes so far.
 
Now the finishing part, I have to find a fan to push air from the room air to this solar box, and out on the other side comes hot air... hopefully the fan can be solar powered directly so when the sun is out it is working autonomously. 
 
Something along this lines(is where I got the idea from):
 
https://sites.google.com/site/glenssolarheater/
 
or
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DownSpout/DownSpout.htm
 
And I think you should review all this great website called Built it solar (I considered it the bible of solar DIY), starting from here:
 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm
 
 
Warm regards from Sunny southern Spain!
 
Gustavo
 
 
 
 

Ok, so the guys in Europe are way ahead with this one.
 
The old type of thinking is to use wall heaters, more like radiators. Problem is these units take room space, wall space and heats the room unevenly.
Advantage is it can be installed after a house was already constructed.
 
Underfloor heating is more expensive than wall heaters, but the room heating is even throughout.
Also, water temp for underfloor heating is a bit lower than radiators.
 
Now, how to physically do it?
If you look at overseas homes, you will normally find a utility room in the house. All alternative energy services are housed here.
The "geyser" is normally a huge upright unit and around 500L and more, depending the home size.
 
Heating is done via many different sources like gas, solar and wood stove.
The wood stove is great. It generates heat inside the house and heat water at the same time!
 
The advantage of having an upright heater tank is a phenomenon known as stratification.
Basically it means water will settle in the tank in different layers. Hottest water at the top and colder water at the bottom.
Hot water for washing and shower is taken from the top of the tank.
40 Degree water for heating is taken from around the middle of the tank.
Heat exchangers are also used to make sure the water going out is at a constant set temperature.
By taking lower temp water for heating, you still left with hotter at the top for washing.
 
EV tubes are great for heating water. I would suggest using a decent pumped system to make sure you get the most out of your system.
Normal thermoshypen will circulate the water so fast, you going to end up with water all at the same temp in the tank.
This also applies to circulating pumps running directly from solar panels.
A decent controller will monitor your EV temp and only start the pump once the EV temp is say 8 degrees higher than the water in your storage tank.

Hi Guys
Whag is the best way to use solar for space heating?
It seams like heating water with flat panels and using a heat exchanger to circulate the warm air into your living space?
Thanks
L

Hi Thys,
 
I have program 12 set to 46V as jdp indicates, that is what I find a safe SOC for the batteries, we all know that voltages do no indicate SOC but at least it is a rough indicator more or less like an analog fuel gage on old cars. 
 
I have Program 13 set to 56V, I feel that if this voltage is any lower the batteries have not charged enough since going back to the grid. And in case it went back to the grid because there was a very high demand and the voltages sagged under 46V, if the sun comes back and the battery are in a high state of charge (ie. over 90% in my case) they will shoot up from 46V to 56V in about 15 minutes. If the value is any lower it can get into a catch 22 of going into battery mode and then going into grid mode. 
 
I have program 29 set to 42V, there is a catch to this setting, if you set it any higher it will cut back to grid when the grid is available at this voltage + 4V, I have not found this in any of the manuals but I read in other forums that this is the case. Also when I started playing with the system I set this much higher ie. 44V and the system would go back to the grid at 48V (way to high SOC in my opinion). So in case the grid is not available, it would discharge the batteries to a lower SOC than 50%.
 
Just to add to the software or no software controversy, I have been using Mpp patrol for the last 3 months in a earlly 2000s laptop running windows XP and it has never crashed, since we are in the winter here my panels do not make enough energy to spend the whole night in battery mode so I set the timer there to go back to the grid at 12:30am and then back to batteries at 8:30am. 
 
I am working on installing the second inverter and 3kw of panels soon, but for now everything is just sitting in the garage.
 
That is why I have not installed jdp software yet, I want my system to be complete before I can use it and fully enjoy its awsomenes!!!
 
Lastly, using those values above I have never seen the system going to the grid in normal sunny days, so they are there just a a back up for cloudy days. Also I would not be afraid to use this values as the  Trojan 105RE can be discharge to much lower values without any worrying. I have a pretty similar bank but with tubular plates know as PsZ200.
 
Regards,
 
Gustavo
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Guys,
Hope all well. In our Server room we installed a Daikin Inverter Unit. Here is a fair BTU requirement calculator based on room volume: http://www.daikinairconditioninglondon.com/calculator.php
Sure you guys aware that the inverter units are able to slow and speed up the compressor apposed to the conventional off and on one speed compressors. This saving power and surge power.
One does get direct DC aircons- more used for Telecom shelters. Such as : https://www.dantherm.com/(They LOUD! ) :>
 
This is all to the best of my knowlege. Offsetting Aircon with Solar has always been a great interest to me.
I have had good results with a Grid Tie Solar in the Day- (Thus offsetting the 800W or so that the Daikin uses from 10am till 3pm)
 
And then shutting off the aircon at night and making use of a roof chimney to get the natural convention. I was shocked how well that works. 
Computer water cooling and so forth has always been a great interest to me, So excited to read what your guys expirences are with aircons on solar and cooling.
Sincerely
Jason

It depends for me. On a sunny day, by the time it's reached the switch-off point there isn't enough sun left to get it high enough again. My bank is large enough (apparently). But on a semi-cloudy day, with the sun going in and out... then I definitely get a bit of yoyo-ing. Nothing too bad.
 
Re size. From what I've seen, proper sizing sets the batteries to about twice as much as you can generate on a day. So I SHOULD have 10kwh of storage in place. I have only about 4. So I do the same thing you do. Go down to about 80% SoC... just so that tomorrow the self-consumption and battery use just more or less works out to a full day's generation. Of course you don't want to get this right too precisely... you want to be a little inefficient and charge those batteries properly :-)

Hi Selim,
 
I have traction batteries, (tubular plate) and yes they do need higher absorb voltage to work properly just like the fork  lift batteries.
 
I have an Axpert 4048 (PIP MS4048) and I have the same issue, so I have a second charge controller (midnight KID) to equalize the pack once a week at 63.2V(the advice from the battery supplier was to charge to 61V daily, but sincse the max is 58.4, he advices that I charge to the maximum and then once a week charge up to 64V) . When I do that I have to take the inverter off-line (I do it manually, turn all breakers off and then only turn on AC line input and inverter and the the AC output brakers ).
 
You should never feed the inverter more than 60V(it will go offline by itself at around 59.8V to 60.4V), I have heard the components are not made to survive much more than 64V, so they will blow. I am sorry I don't have better news but that is how this great piece of machinery works... you will need an external controller. I highly recommend a Midnight KID or one of the Classics with the WhizBang Jr. so you know your exact state of charge and can charge the batteries fully.
 
Regards from Spain
 
 
 
 
 

My battery bank has 375 A , 48 Volt (2Volt x 24pcs.=48V) traction battery. this battery need  65V  to fill the full battery . I can not  do this. because Axper inverter work max. 58.5 volt  . also when  inverter voltage is 58.5 volts my battery voltage of 54 volts stays.  and than invertor stop charge.  I tryed  to make calibration to battery voltage and for fixing the inverter voltage. but I can not do this .I need  possible 65 volt to get full ,if not  58.5 volt battery voltage. if inverter ,does not bring  battery voltage of 65 volts or 58.5 the battery will deteriorate in a short time.
The total value of battery is EUR 4000
 
please help me...
 
HOW CAN BE BATTERY VOLTAGE 65 OR 58.5 Volt use this inverters.

Interesting. This morning on ours, while running on PV/Batteries, our load went >4KW, and immediately the inverter switched to bypass mode.
As an aside, even after removing the load it stays on bypass mode now instead of reverting to PV/Batteries, but I assume this is because I told it in one of the settings not to switch back to batteries until they are full again. It's just interesting because i did not switch to bypass because of a low battery, but because of a high load. I suppose, technically, these could be seen as the same thing.

Hi Wetkit
 
The software is not in itself problematic. It works (sort of) however it does not give any real data. Jaco's nearly completed rendition looks like the real McCoy.
 
The newer 4048s do not have a heatsink on top. The heat sink seems to be an overkill (my one never gets above about 30oC) but this does not seem to be the only change as there have been two failures of this new model in Romania under a 500W load or less. The installer has installed dozens of Axperts and was asking whether anyone else had had failures.  MPPSolar seems to be producing them faster than they can test the new variants.
 
Whether they can balance load to PV input would be a logical implementation but software wise the Axpert is weak so they may not have implemented it. Jaco and others could answer that.