19 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

those are what I started with about 6 years ago when they just came out, now they only good for mining ravencoin and use way too much power.

think I'm going to mine some monero with them when my solar is installed nextweek tuesday. I'll prep a box in the meanwhile while I wait.

 

 

Guys and girls
Do NOT Underestimate the power of proper testing of your system.

The last 2 weeks doing all these off-grid tests has been super valuable with regards to my setup and all the settings.
My system is now so nicely dialed and tuned in that I did not even notice that we went onto real loadshedding today

2 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Guys and girls
Do NOT Underestimate the power of proper testing of your system.

The last 2 weeks doing all these off-grid tests has been super valuable with regards to my setup and all the settings.
My system is now so nicely dialed and tuned in that I did not even notice that we went onto real loadshedding today

How far down do you let your battery's discharge? also how long does it take to recharge them back to 100% on a sunny day?

44 minutes ago, TiaanSmit said:

How far down do you let your battery's discharge? also how long does it take to recharge them back to 100% on a sunny day?

I aim for 30% - 40% very rarely goes below 20%

On a good sunny day fully charged and saturated by midday.

 

@WannabeSolarSparky - Nice job of showing the pros and cons and of course your experiences. We have a Backup Server setup that needs 700W continuous, and that has been my biggest challenge for complete offline - My house is also tiny, so no more space to setup panels - he he. But like you, we have reduced our Municipal demand to 6-10kW/day. Have just replaced my LeadCrystalGel batteries with a LiFePo of 1/2 the Ah size, but it works about the same. I am in a Catch 22 - I can't expand my solar array until there are some bigger improvements in Tech due to space, and expanding the battery bank would mean they could almost never get to 100% SOC in a day.
 

My wife is a professional baker, so an electric stove is critical, but she managed to find a specialised baking convection oven (standalone) that halved the power consumption of a normal stove, and has 1.5 times the capacity (space). That alone reduced nearly 10kW/day of power. We also now use induction plates when we can't or are not willing to damage pots on gas (we use a cheap 2 plate store bought gas stove). Since we camp a lot, we just throw the same gas stove and bottle in the car for our trips - he he. Our solar geyser is off-grid almost all year, think we have used electrical power to heat about 3 times this year due to additional guests. Since we do camping, our kettle is already gas (although we do have an electrical one as well in the kitchen for when wife is impatient). Just wish we could find something better for the vacuum and iron. We have also setup a 12VDC bus bar that runs the length of the house, that we keep on a separate basic 12VDC solar charger connected to a bog standard car battery (90Ah), charged by 2 x 100W panels that go with us when camping (if going for a while then have 2 separate 100W panels and 12VDC charger that can take on the road that we use to keep car batteries alive while we use those for power). Anyway, that 12VDC bus bar charges and runs almost anything I find in the house that can or is running on 12VDC - DSTV Decoder, OpenView Decoder, Alarm System (did have to tell security company to ignore power failure signals), Gate Motor, 12VDC lights in almost every room in the house - Unless reading never have to turn a light on in my house (3-6W LED's in almost every room, just enough to walk around).

My fault but I destroyed my batteries this year during the July Floods - We were without Solar and Electricity for days and I pushed them way to hard. Lost 3 out of 8 200Ah permanently and the others were heated badly due to load. I will keep the best for use with our camping setup, but this is the second time in my solar years that Lead/Acid (gel or standard) have let me down even with decent balancers and controllers in place. The first time nearly set fire to my house and completely melted down, this time some of them got so heated and swelled that when I finally got them removed, the label printing from some of them was etched in reverse on another - Eish.

Good luck with your progress and I will continue to follow and witness the challenges you overcome

Regards KLEVA

PS: And thank you for the link to Off-Grid Garage (Andy) - I will watch tonight +++

1 hour ago, KLEVA said:

Anyway, that 12VDC bus bar charges and runs almost anything I find in the house that can or is running on 12VDC - DSTV Decoder, OpenView Decoder, Alarm System (did have to tell security company to ignore power failure signals), Gate Motor, 12VDC lights in almost every room in the house

@KLEVA That is maybe a good idea for my next "experiment" there is so much energy lost converting to ac and like you say, most of our day to day devices will all work perfectly fine on 12 volts. Only challenge will be the wiring as low voltageDC can become a bit expensive to protect from the higher amps drawn.
I have seen some youtubes where guys run everything during the day directly from their solar panels into their DC loads with some fancy constant voltage converters. And at night everything directly from their battery banks that were charged up during the day from solar. No inverters or ac involved at all.
I think everything would run 24/7 from the batteries instead of how they did it. And using the correct solar charger would eliminate a lot of the losses.

Edited August 5, 20223 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

Agreed, The only reason we use AC is the easier delivery to our homes from a distance. It makes practical sense and less current means smaller wires. The losses during conversion to DC are not insignificant, switching to the DC bus bar saved nearly 300W/hr. Gate and Alarm converters are some of the worst... Take 220VAC, down to 16VAC then a diode bridge to make it near 12VDC, just to charge a battery that will power kit...

Before I installed my solar system I installed 12V DC LED lights throughout the house with a 16 channel remote, so any light could be switched on or off remotely. With DC, fusing every circuit, and feed from batteries to controller is absolutely essential, as fires can start so easily. Also don't over size the fuse too much. Satisfy yourself too by, shorting the wires, and make sure the fuse blows before the wires melt.😲 Don't forget on DC there is no protection like "Earth Leakage", you are at the mercy of fuses only.

On 2022/08/05 at 7:41 PM, WannabeSolarSparky said:

@KLEVA That is maybe a good idea for my next "experiment" there is so much energy lost converting to ac and like you say, most of our day to day devices will all work perfectly fine on 12 volts. Only challenge will be the wiring as low voltageDC can become a bit expensive to protect from the higher amps drawn.
I have seen some youtubes where guys run everything during the day directly from their solar panels into their DC loads with some fancy constant voltage converters. And at night everything directly from their battery banks that were charged up during the day from solar. No inverters or ac involved at all.
I think everything would run 24/7 from the batteries instead of how they did it. And using the correct solar charger would eliminate a lot of the losses.

This low voltage DC to 220v AC conversion loss is one of the main reasons I was sold on a high voltage DC battery system. Much lower losses going from 240v DC to 220v AC

I use the already 12DC powered Infrared Detectors and mounted small led's on top of those pointed up at white ceiling - So the Alarm System actually powers all of those - Have a fuse on the output side of the 30A Controller rated at 15A, and a 75A on the battery side.

So far so good, almost hitting my target below 5 units per day. Just need to get more disciplined and braai more 🤩

Pse. update us on your experience over the following 5 days. Lots of rainy days forecast for the western cape region. Looking froward to see how my system behaves aswell.

34 minutes ago, TiaanSmit said:

Pse. update us on your experience over the following 5 days. Lots of rainy days forecast for the western cape region. Looking froward to see how my system behaves aswell.

Already blown past my sub 5 unit target today.
Overall efficiency also down

Really need to get those extra panels and batteries 😁

1 hour ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Already blown past my sub 5 unit target today.
Overall efficiency also down

Really need to get those extra panels and batteries 😁

With PV of only 2.34milliWh in 7months you need a lot of panels. 😀😀😀

18 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

With PV of only 2.34milliWh in 7months you need a lot of panels

that's 12 months

Well spotted with the unit error - fixed it.

Edited August 10, 20223 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

On 2022/08/05 at 6:38 PM, KLEVA said:

We have also setup a 12VDC bus bar that runs the length of the house

What does this look like? Do you. have some photos? How do you hide the wires away?

@KLEVALike your 12v setup. Using a lot of 12v powersupplies for different applications. Some supply power to relays for power management and remote control. A oldschool Solar installation 2015.If I do it again it will be done with only one 12v supply.

It's in the ceiling and I don't often get up there much anymore at my age. They are just long strips of the copper connections you find in an electrical box, but with the holes spaced further apart and very slightly bigger. House is small so have 4 x 6m lengths, 2 for each +ve/-ve, connected to another 2 with a short 5mm thick copper wire in-between. Only need the 12m. They are run about 20cm apart and strapped near the top of the roofing beams.

Wires from ceiling to devices are almost always twinflex and use that 10x10 white plastic square stuff (forgot what it is called) or bigger if needed to cover other things like in Lounge where speaker wires, aerial cables +++ go through.

On 2022/08/10 at 7:57 AM, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Already blown past my sub 5 unit target today.
Overall efficiency also down

Really need to get those extra panels and batteries 😁

Did you manage to get more panels, and how is the daily average going?👍

10 hours ago, TimCam said:

Did you manage to get more panels, and how is the daily average going?👍

Hahahahah - geez I wish I had more time then they would have been up already.

I have finished making the frame for the extra panels, hopefully I get some time this weekend to put them up 😁

how many panels are you adding ekstra? did you get a 3rd battery?

21 hours ago, TiaanSmit said:

how many panels are you adding ekstra? did you get a 3rd battery?

2 extra panels to add, will be doing them this afternoon

Still mining crypto for those extra batteries.
Half way to the next battery already, so hopefully by December

4 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

2 extra panels to add, will be doing them this afternoon

Still mining crypto for those extra batteries.
Half way to the next battery already, so hopefully by December

Goodluck hope you managed to fit those panels today.

 

Think I accidentally over specced our system. We've only managed to use 3kwh of eskom power this week even with all the rainy /cloudy days in-between. Most of the eskom power drawn was just the trickle feed to the inverter....

 

We aren't even adjusting our schedules and just continue our lives as we lived pre solar with the exception of the solar geyser now using excess solar between 1-3pm in the afternoon to heat itself to 55degrees celcuis.

 

All I need now is a EV... Heres hoping BYD will bring some affordable electric vehicles to SA in the near future

 

 

On 2022/07/25 at 12:02 PM, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Gotta have some cuppajoe's too

That’s a very neat dashboard. Is it available to use? How to get it? I have a Victron / Freedom Won system. 
 

2 hours ago, TiaanSmit said:

We've only managed to use 3kwh of eskom power this week even with all the rainy /cloudy days in-between.

Thats a win in my books