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Posted

I have just bought a MLT/BI-6000 Power Star 6Kw (48v) inverter to replace my Mecer 1200va inverter which has a single Probe 100ah deep cycle battery.  I am currently using my Mecer to power my home-office and security cameras during loadshedding, but am finding that 1200va is just not enough for all the devices in my office.  My goal, ultimately is to get my house less dependent on the grid and less affected by loadshedding - in the first phase I just want to focus on backup, so am looking for recommendations for at least 100ah 48v batteries that are reliable and take up as little space as possible. My budget for the batteries are around R20 000 to R25 000. The problem is that this MLT inverter does not have built-in battery management, so if I go for lithium-ion batteries they would need to come with built-in BMS.  Otherwise, if I can't find compatible lithium-ion batteries in my price range, then the alternative would be 4 x 12v gel batteries. I would appreciate any recommendations, links to batteries to buy and general advice.  

The next phase would be to look at solar panels and a separate MPPT solar charge controller, as this is not built-in to the MLT inverter. But at this stage I would just like recommendation for batteries that would be compatible with this inverter and that would fall within my budget.

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Posted (edited)

That is one beefy low frequency inverter. And you got it at a dam good price :)
The transformers inside them are insane.

Most all of the Lithium branded batteries these days have builtin BMS's, so you should be good on that front.

R20k may be the sticking point as almost all the legit suppliers/sellers these days have them over R20k
You could maybe look at the smaller pylons and then add more as you have funds available.
They would also be good longer term in case you upgrade to a newer high frequency smart inverter in future.

You can have a look at https://www.diygeek.co.za/product-category/energy-solutions/solar-batteries-online-south-africa/

Tell Stratos at DIY Geek that Morne referred you, maybe he will give you some discount :)

I buy all my solar goodies and gadgets from him.

Edited by WannabeSolarSparky
Posted
49 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

That is one beefy low frequency inverter. And you got it at a dam good price :)

So you found the expired gumtree listing? :) Yeah, I did get it at a really good price - that was the main selling point - left me more money in the budget to spend on batteries.

Thanks for the suggestions, Morne, would something like this work with the MLT inverter?

https://www.diygeek.co.za/product/pylon-us2000-2-4kwh-li-ion-solar-pylontech-battery/

Thanks also for the link. I will try get in contact with Stratos from DIY Geek.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Bruce Hill said:

So you found the expired gumtree listing? :) Yeah, I did get it at a really good price - that was the main selling point - left me more money in the budget to spend on batteries.

Thanks for the suggestions, Morne, would something like this work with the MLT inverter?

https://www.diygeek.co.za/product/pylon-us2000-2-4kwh-li-ion-solar-pylontech-battery/

Thanks also for the link. I will try get in contact with Stratos from DIY Geek.

Hahaha, yeah, sorry I am browsing all things related to solar almost 24/7 and remembered those photos 🤣

As for the batteries, as long as your inverter is 48volt capable and has the correct charging profile you should be ok.
Did you get a manual with the inverter? Else try get from from the suppliers or distributors.
That should safely guide you on the above.

 

Posted

Thanks, @hoohloc for the links. I am particularly interested in the Hubble batteries, but am concerned about compatibility of the MLT inverter with lithium ion. The person that I bought it from used it with 4 Gel batteries and he was not sure about lithium ion - he suggested that if the battery has a BMS built-in that it should be fine, but I am very new to all of this and want to make sure of the compatibility before I buy a battery. Price-wise your suggestions are very good, so thanks.

@WannabeSolarSparky haha No problem about recognising the photos - I thought that someone might do a Google image search or recognise the photos - but I was too lazy to take new photos :D 

I don't have the manual, but I found this manual online:

https://manualzz.com/doc/7186358/user-manual---mlt-inverters

What concerns me is that the manual only mentions deep cycle, lead acid and gel batteries, so I am not sure that it has the correct charging profile for lithium ion batteries. I do see that it has the option to turn off equalization, which I read is necessary, but I am not sure if this change alone is sufficient to correctly charge a lithium ion battery. I have sent an email to MLT inverters to ask for the manual for the model that I have and to ask about compatibility with lithium ion - I mentioned some of the links posted by @hoohloc in my email.

Posted

@Bruce Hillgot your msg from 4x4forum side. Will send msg when i get time. I guess you Cape town side. You can come check my setup I'm running 2 of this inverters. H8.0 and H10.0. Bargin that you scored there. I was eyeing it. The replacement value on that inverter is R65k. 

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Posted

@Gerlach Thanks for the reply.  Whoa! That is an amazing setup that you have there!   Yes, I am in Cape Town (I live in Plumstead) and would love to come around to see your solar setup. 

Yeah, The MLT inverter I bought was a bargain. I had been eyeing it for a while too, but was hesitant at first because I had been reading a lot about Sunsynk and was seriously considering the Sunsynk 5kw hybrid inverter - but eventually decided that the price of MLT was too good to pass up.  I do realise, though, that the setup will be a bit more challenging as there is not as much information online about MLT inverters.  That being said, I did phone MLT Inverters today and spoke to someone from their support team - they were very helpful. They assured me that the inverter that I have bought can charge lithium batteries, but needs to be setup correctly. So that is good to know. 

I will send you a private message and arrange to come see the setup that you have at your home.

 

 

Posted

@Bruce Hill I'm going to post on your post to shine some light and give more info for future users.

The one you got is a 2011 model. We did a check on it via the serial number at MLT. MLT factory is in Cape Town so if you get any problem, they can repair it. They call this range inverter the 2 Gen powerstar. You can get all the info on there website with manuals and tests. https://www.mltinverters.com/resources.html . This inverters was still on the City of cape town NSR097 list till 2017. You must run it as a standby sseg now or off grid.

This is real hybrid inverter, it can import and export power, it mix grid with solar and battery and generator. You can adjust it all in it's  settings. You can even run a gridtie solar inverter on the output part of the inverter so it will supply power to that inverter to keep it running. 

 

They super rebust inverters and can take a punch. This inverter is 6kVa rated but is actually 8kw. It can 8kw for 30min anr 12kw for 30sec. It can pull 150amp DC easy. On the battery and coms part.

Lets start with the coms part. You will see on the side of the inverter is plugs and rs232 connectors. The inverter got smart controls that can ryn via contactors so you can run the geyser and Aircone and what you want to control. It's got a control that you can use to control lithium batteries when it's full to stop charge but stress on that part. There is rs232 output. You can buy a Bridge from MLT that plugs into rs232, this sends info to MLT portal where you can see all your details of your inverter. It's basically a raspberry Pi with a rs232 converter. Some of the later models came out with pi build into the inverter. You vam find scuda software on there site and you can use a computer to log onto the inverter.

FreedomWon and Bluenova design a small device that connects to the inverter and that will inform the inverter what to do. 

The inverter got it's own build in shunt so it can see when you charge and discharge so it can worked out and build it's own algorithm to show how much power is left in the batteries. You can put in the AH size in the inverter. 

 

There is more info arround all this stuff.

Arround batteries and size. Stay clear of Pylontech. They 15s configuration and can only charge max at 53v and the C rating is to low. You will need a bunch of pylons to keep iy happy. This inverters is design to work with 2v lead acid sells 500ah and up. This inverters is power hungry and wants allot of amps. It can pull 150amp plus and you must run 50mm2 dc cable plus. 

This inverters can charge up to 62v plus so check if you can get lifepo4/lithium battery that 16series configuration inside. There is some brands that you can check for. I'm running a 35kwh DIY setup, one unit is 280ah with it's own bms, and 2 units that is 200ah a unit with each there own bms. They not communicating with each other but there is ways you can do it with some python scripts and pi and more. You will see in my photo that I'm running some Victron stuff to. I'm running smart shunt with a Cerbo and victron smart mppts. We will get to that part now. 

You don't need coms between the battery and inverters. It's got a 4 stage charging and that you vam adjust in the invertet settings. You basically switch of the equilize. It was design to equilize acid base batteries in pre set time that you can pick. It runs a sd card in the bard and super cap to keep settings and data and time and date and got some interesting things on the board.

You basically adjust the inverter to the specs what the manufacture is giving and stay in that specs. When the inverter pics up that the battery is getting fuller, then it will start pulling back in bulk charge and go into stage 2 and 3 and then 4 that is float. The inverter can adjust 0.00v increments. Don't adjust the cell count in the inverter because it was design to run 2v cells. So when you work out charge and pre volts settings then you will do it 0.00v × 24cells. "2v × 24cells = 48v". 

Im running mine 54.6v bulk charge and 54v float. Close to 4 years and still going.

I started out with my first setup with Micrcare mppts and micrcare battery monitor setup with the shunts just to check the solar production. This you run on the back side of the inverter via the mppy input. It's got a 100ah shunt so it can see the solar going in an going to the battery. This way it can see if it needs to add grid power to assist with supplying the ac output and charging. On this setup i ran 3kw array with 14.4kwh storage. That kept us going for summer daya and winter i sometime had to drop in the grid for hybrid mode to assist with supply.

 

The inverter runs 2 contactors inside it, so basically isolate it self from the grid when the grid drops our if it the volts of thr grid go to high or low the Hz flex is to big. It will reconnect back to grid after 45sec following to NSR and sans rules. This can be adjust if you got the password. 

With my setup now I'm running 10kw array with 250/100 and 150/100 victron mppt with smart shunt between the 35kwh lifepo4 storage and inverter and Cerbo GX and Et122 per inverter so that i can see the inverters AC output on the VRM portal. I'm running my setup standby sseg with a 3 way change over. Setup was commissioned begin of the year and registed and not ones we used grid power so far. Stove is gas. 

 

Posted
49 minutes ago, Bruce Hill said:

@Gerlach Thanks for the reply.  Whoa! That is an amazing setup that you have there!   Yes, I am in Cape Town (I live in Plumstead) and would love to come around to see your solar setup. 

Yeah, The MLT inverter I bought was a bargain. I had been eyeing it for a while too, but was hesitant at first because I had been reading a lot about Sunsynk and was seriously considering the Sunsynk 5kw hybrid inverter - but eventually decided that the price of MLT was too good to pass up.  I do realise, though, that the setup will be a bit more challenging as there is not as much information online about MLT inverters.  That being said, I did phone MLT Inverters today and spoke to someone from their support team - they were very helpful. They assured me that the inverter that I have bought can charge lithium batteries, but needs to be setup correctly. So that is good to know. 

I will send you a private message and arrange to come see the setup that you have at your home.

 

 

Aaaa Plumstead. MLT is just down the road. There office/factory is in Kenilworth. There is info floating arround, just need to check at the rite spots. 

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