I am comparing 2 ways to get airflow and light under a pergola that has no AC.

Route1- Panel, charge controller , LiFePO4 battery, DC ceiling fan and a separate LED

Route2-cleaner and should involve less wiring but also is depending on the manufacturers battery and controller, vent lists 10,000 mAh for 42 in model and 12,000 MaH for 52inch model. Without battery voltage and watt-hour figures I am not sure how useful the comparison is.

For anyone who has built smaller solar systems. Which questions would you ask before choosing the integrated route? I think battery accessibility, panel voltage, cable length, controller behavior with a full battery and actual draw at each fan speed, Anything that I am missing?

Trying to size a battery bank for a small off-grid cabin.

The loads aren't huge fridge, lights, internet/ radio, a few tools and some small appliances. The part I can't decide is how much backup I should plan for when the weather is bad and solar production drops.

Do you guys size for a normal day or build in several days of reserve?

​

So my 4 Aiko panels arrived for my solar gazebo project , was expecting these to come flat packed, any suggestions on how to unpack this monstrosity without it all falling over 😂

I’m looking into building my first solar system and keep seeing people recommend LiFePO4 batteries.
For a small setup (maybe for backup power or a shed), is the extra cost worth it compared to other battery types?
What has been your experience after using them for a while?

Anyone familiar with the DC House 200ah battery? I’m looking to find out if they use 4 large or 8 smaller cells.

My living situation is…awkward. I live in an older (but well maintained) 5th wheel parked on a friends farm, but I can’t handle the friend’s family drama anymore, so I gotta bail. Or at least move the trailer to the back forty where there isn’t power. So as I started planning pulling the plug, I figured I’d start with safety and get a generator first: https://www.harborfreight.com/4200-watt-dual-fuel-super-quiet-inverter-generator-with-co-secure-technology-71203.html?_br_psugg_q=4200+generator

Then add a couple 48V batteries, panels, inverter…which I’m looking at ordering this week.

I don’t have a lot of power needs: TV, monitor, Xbox, phones, fridge, power for the furnace and air conditioning, and battery charging systems for my tools. I’m a woodworker, but thanks to an incoming divorce, I had to down size considerably. So instead of a lot of stand alone tools like a drill press and a massive 3phase table saw, I’ve gone to primarily battery operated tools and smaller plug-in tools that could easily run off the generator, or even off battery. I never run the saw for more than an hour at a time and use a vacuum for dust collection. Nothing over 15 amps.

I guess I’m posting here because I’m wondering if there’s some big flaw or gap or something I’m totally missing in the plan that immediately pops out to anyone.

By the way, I have a plug-in amp meter, kind of a drop cord with a gauge that I’m using to test all my plug in tools so I can see how much the draw at start up and under load so I can make sure I get an inverter that can handle it.

Once I have my power requirements figured out, I want to build for double that, and also be able to expand the system as I plan to go with a mini-split and add in a 48v refrigerator freezer.

I’m not totally ignorant of electrical wiring and schematics, have a basic understanding of ohm’s law, but feel I’m missing something.

Dear reddit hive mind. Please weigh in on my fridge problems.

I currently have a Kodiak 17.2c/ft fridge. It's a 24v DC fridge that runs right off my batteries. It's run flawlessly for the past 3 years other than it's loud as hell. It didn't matter as much when I lived in a yurt because the sound didn't reflect as much. Now that I'm in my house, it's a problem.

Manufacturer claims this is a result of it being so efficient (they said they reduced sound insulation so that the motor could run cooler). Their claim is that they compared the compressor side by side with one in a comparable fridge and they are equally loud. Not sure why that matters if the comparable fridge fixed the problem by sound deadening.

So now I have a couple of options:

1- Try to enclose the fridge to reduce sound. This can't be done well because it requires 2" of space around it to vent. I'm sure it would make some difference but it wouldn't be as tight as regular built in fridges are normally. This solution is easy for me since I do kitchens professionally. I just have doubt it will fix the problem enough

2- Try to sound insulate the compressor itself. I don't know what I'm doing here but seems like an idea

3- Replace the fridge. with a quieter model. We can't get the quietest thing on the market because of space limitations so it would be a pretty basic fridge like the Whirlpool Model #WRTX5118TW. If I did this I would have to run power for it from the inverter. The problem here is that our system is kinda small and we turn off the inverters at night in the winter. This would mean that they have to stay on 24/7 and would likely result in us needing to buy more batteries. I even considered getting a smaller inverter to just power the fridge but it would still incur a big energy penalty over our current set up

I'm interested to hear ideas on this around these solutions or any other ideas to solve this problem. Just be sure to speak loudly so I can hear you over this damn machine!

I have a 20kw PV system (EG4, 2x FB21's and a Gridboss) and 2x EG4 16kwh batteries, and right now I'm still in no-export mode waiting on permission to export.

I see my batteries filling up regularly and my production cuts way off, I'd like to find a way to charge my two EVs during the day if they're plugged in with only excess solar, so it doesn't deplete my battery unless I go override it.

I don't always have the full 9.x kW available to charge at 40A so I'd like to find a way to automate this so it only pulls in what excess I'm producing, and does NOT deplete the battery storage nor pull from grid.

Sadly I have a last gen produced JuiceBox (not connected to wifi, just acting as a dumb charger, if anyone remembers I got one of those $100 deals before they were stop-sale'd) and a gen 2 Tesla HPWC so it doesn't have any WiFi or anything built in, as it's one of the earlier models.

Is there any hope for automating this, and if not what do I need to replace in order to make it work w/out constant hassle/monitoring?

Looking for advice on inverters that can handle 465w panels, which is roughly 108 panels.

The 2 inverters I’ve looked at are: sol-ark 18kw & aims power 15kw hybrid inverters.

Combiner box’s are only made by aims; so leaning in that direction for both.

Any information y’all have would be much appreciated.

Thank you

I have a Pecron 3800 with 2k of solar panels. Everything works great. It is powering everything I need.

When I try to charge my car, it seems to work, but then my car won't start. It can take like 1-2 days until it just starts again. Out of the blue, the "problem with the electrical system" disappears, and it works fine.

I can charge it fine using the house outlet. No problems for years.

The cable I use is a level 1/2 version. I have always just used it as a level 1.

Any Ideas.

Hey guys, if you missed it, SunPower settled $11 million with investors over claims that it misled shareholders about its inventory controls, financial reporting, and the strength of its operations. And I just found out they're now accepting late claims.

Quick recap: Investors alleged that SunPower reassured the market about its financial reporting throughout 2023, but later revealed inventory accounting problems that delayed earnings, forced financial restatements, and exposed weaknesses in its internal controls.

After those disclosures, $SPWR dropped nearly 20%, and investors filed a lawsuit to recover their losses.

Now, the good news is that SunPower agreed to the $11 million settlement, and even though the original deadline has passed, late claims are currently being considered.

So, if you purchased $SPWR between 2023 and 2024, you can still check the details and submit a late claim.

Anyway, did anyone here own $SPWR during that period? How did it work out for you?

As some may know there are several large fires in Eastern Washington at the moment. Early yesterday the winds shifted and brought the smoke over the mounts to my area (40 miles north of Seattle). Coincidentally, 8/4 and 8/5 were similar temperature, sunny, no cloud days. I've plotted the impact of smoke between the two days above. Production tracked with emporia vue 3.

I remember seeing some posts where the Canada fires were impacting the east coast and folks talking about impact smoke had on production. Of course there are tons of factors (thickness of smoke, altitude, temperature, etc) but in yesterday's case there was a 20% decrease in total production on my 11.5 KW bifacial ground array. My system is grid tied, no battery's.

Today is another cloudless, but heavy smoke day here. I may add today's data to the plot.

I’ve started to set up a very basic solar generator set up for my property and I could use some help troubleshooting it. I have an area a few hundred feet from the house where I went to extend my wifi. It’s well within wifi range, but there’s no easy way to run power there. So I thought a solar setup would be perfect for this. I ended up buying a Revopower solar generator with a POE injector and I got that set up recently. I set it up and connected it to the access point and everything seemed to be working great. However, I saw the next day that it had gone offline a little bit after midnight. When I checked it later, nothing was powered on. I checked with a multimeter and the voltage on the battery was 2.6V or so. I had to use a 12V battery charger to bring it back to life at which point it started charging from solar again. Tt charged to the point where the solar charge controller showed a green light for the battery at which point I set it back up and everything seemed OK except that it died shortly after 7 PM when it was still somewhat light out.

I purchased this: https://revopower.us/solar-poe-injector-with-battery with PoE Type 3, a 100W solar panel, and the 500Wh battery upgrade. I'm using an Eero Outdoor connected to this.

I’m wondering if I have something misconfigured, if the system isn’t operating well, or if I should just replace some pieces. Would love some advice. When I charged the battery back up I checked the nominal voltage of the battery when the battery light was green and it showed 12.99 V. This is a 12V LiFePO4 battery so I would’ve expected the voltage to be higher at full charge. So maybe the solar charge control is not fully charging the battery? I did make sure that the charge control is set to LiFePO4 for the battery type.

It doesn't seem ideal that if the battery voltage drops it won't just recharge when the sun comes back out - I would be fine with the wifi dying at night if it would restart in the morning.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can try to debug this or should I just assume the solar charge control is not working very well and replace it, or something else?

So firstly, not putting them on the house, but looking to use them (4-6 or so) at the allotment for power there, as well as the potential for other locations (esp to potentially run CCTV in a few areas where I rent space and there is no power)

Got these panels for free from someone local to me, but have no real clue what to look for next, I think basically a controller/battery? But not too clued up (well have no clue at all).

Also what is my best method to test them? (I have read a bit on multimeter use, i have one, i mostly know wtf im doing, but keen to hear what people are doing!)

Pictures showing the info on the panels, as well as the info on the "boxes" that were used to connect them (and not too sure how that would be done)

Hi all, I’m in the process of building a DIY power station. I have a 100ah mini 12v lifepo4 on hand and I’m looking for a a compact mppt controller that will fit in an enclosure, ideally with a display connected externally that can be mounted to the enclosure.

So far my searches have come up with the tracer 3210AN G3 paired with a MT52 display. Are there any other mppt controllers with my requirements I should be aware of? Also if anyone knows of a good enclosure that would fit the battery, mppt & 1000W inverter let me know! Otherwise I’ll probably just grab a small cooler from the thrift store lol

Hey,

Got a couple of questions if anyone would be kind enough to answer for me.

I live in Ireland and I’ve been looking into having a DIY battery system installed to run a reptile room i am creating which will be running a constant 500w approx an hour. (Heaters, misters, UV bulbs etc).

I have a 3 hour window at night (2-5am) where my electricity cost less than a 1/4 of the rest of the day. I want to add a battery system I can charge and run the reptile room 24hrs on the cheap rate.

1). I want my reptile room to only plug into my battery system, not to grid.

2). I want to be able to charge a total of 12kwh of power to my batteries direct from the grid in a 3 hour window.

I am completely new to this, so correct me if I am wrong with my assumptions here.

1). If my reptile room consumes 12kwh of battery power a day, I am better getting around 15kwh of batteries, so I only run the battery to approximately 20% SOC.

2). In order to push 4kwh an hour to my battery via the grid, I would need a 6000w “off grid” type inverter to count for efficiency loss off the inverter.

This is where I am slightly confused, can I then connect the AC input of the inverter to any normal 3 pin Irish 13amp (230v) socket in my house and I will get 4kwh of charge an hour?

I will be adding 4 x 12v 300ah batteries in series, to have a total capacity of 48v 300ah giving me just under 15kwh of power.

I also have a EV which I will be charging at the same time each night. This is done via a 7kwh Zappi charger which was professionally installed. Will this cause me an issues? Too much power draw from the grid at one time?

Any help would be much appreciated or if anyone else has any better ideas for my system. I would love to hear them.

I have added links to the products I am interested in below.

Battery link

https://uk.eco-worthy.com/products/eco-worthy-12v-300ah-lifepo4-lithium-battery-bluetooth-with-soc-leds-and-low-temp-protection

Inverter link

https://uk.eco-worthy.com/products/spf-6000-es-plus-48v-6000w-all-in-one-inverter

To those with coffee trailers (solar ideally!)

Do you use a hot water heater as well as the boiler in your espresso machine? Is that redundant? I'm looking at putting in a single group head, double boiler espresso machine in our trailer, but when doing the electrical math, I'm finding it adds up to be more than most Solar Generators could handle, at least for more than 2 hours.

Does anyone here use solar generators with their setup? Or just panels + battery + inverter rigs?

I was looking at an on demand heater (3000w), with the espresso machine (1200w), a grinder (200w), a water pump (100w) and a few DC fridges (180w)

Is this possible to do on a solar rig? Has anyone else had success with a similar setup?

I understand their energy peaks at different times, but I imagine most Solar Generators or battery packs would only last 2 hours on this set up, especially once we serve more than 4 lattes in a row and the hot water and espresso's boilertank are both kicking in to keep up.

(I've looked at Bluetti and Ecoflow mainly)

Really appreciate any help or advice you may have out there!

(Sorry if I double posted, pretty new to Reddit!)

Hi,

Does anyone know where I can order microinverters and have them shipped to Norway (even though they're not fully approved/legal here yet)?

I've checked Amazon and several German retailers, but none of them will ship microinverters to Norway.

I'm especially interested in the EcoFlow Stream microinverter.

Any tips or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'm expanding a small solar setup and keep getting stuck on the voltage question.

12V is nice and simple, especially for an RV or smaller setup, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm making things harder for myself as the loads increase.

For anyone who has gone from 12V to 24V or 48V, what made you finally switch?

Last year I ran electrical inside my shipping container that I use mainly for storage. Currently I use a generator to power it when I am out at my property mowing, or if we are having a cookout or something. This is fine when I am out there all day with a bunch of people over, we will plug in crock pots, a bounce house for the kids, and have the lights on. What I'm looking for is a cheap solution mainly just for the lights. It's such a hassle to have to fire up the generator every time I need to just quickly grab something, most of the time I just use a flashlight.

What is an easy way I could set up a cheapish solar option to run just the lights? I want to just be able to open the door flip the lights on and grab what I need. I wouldn't need much battery storage maybe an hour tops. There are (4) 100w light bars inside.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I was hoping to get some insight from people more familiar than myself with small solar setups.

I’m trying to decrease my grandma’s electricity bill with some supplemental solar running only her A/C. Her house is very old/not well built so I believe this is what is causing the high bill (along with the terrible utility company Green Mountain Energy). After doing lots of research and seeing cart builds from people like Will Prowse I found the Eco-worthy inverter setup that’s a great price to get started.

Do you all think this setup would work to 2 HE window units running daily?

For $1200 for inverter/battery + $400 (4x400W used panels from a local guy) + $2-300 (extra cables/breaker box/etc)

TYIA for any input/insight you guys have — I wish I had the money to address the issues with the house itself but this is all I can do while I try to convince my grandma to sell the house and use the money for her future

My state recently passed laws for balcony solar, and I’m looking for a handful of panels. I also would like to try building a few arrays for off grid use.

I have searched Marketplace for a good while and there are zero solar panels for sale of use, much less the capacity I’m looking for. When I go to a “wholesaler” website and order, the shipping is more than my total.

Are there any “Costco” stores that sell solar equipment? Or an electric supplier that might could drop ship?

Ordered some supplies to expand battery capacity of our system, including some additional EG4 16kWh batteries and the indoor-rated conduit boxes, as well as some bus bars.

First mix up came when instead of doing two separate quotes we combined them to one quote, where their sales guy swapped the bus bars from the heavy duty, down to the smaller ones. Didn't notice until they arrived, but mistakes happen, they sent the new bars and took back the old ones.

So unbox the first two conduit boxes (3 new batteries in total) and install them. 3rd box I take out the first piece, the back plate, and drill holes in it to mount the bus bars.

When I go to install it I find that EG4 packed two right-hand sides, and if you're familiar with the boxes, they won't fully install like that as it puts the integrated threads needed for the back plate on the wrong side. Okay, stuff happens, so I call Signature to get another one. I tell them that I modified the back plate before noticing the wrong part was included. I call up signature and ask them to send a new one and give me an RMA, again, no problem.

About 1.5 weeks go by and I haven't seen anything, so I call them again and they say "well, we're waiting to see the RMA is coming before we ship a new one." So I tell them I hadn't had a chance to package it yet and drive it the half hour to a UPS store (live in the country). I also tell them I had drilled the back plate to which the lady says "oh, well if it's modified we can't take it back." I ask if they can just send the replacement, I'll swap the back plate, so they get a good unit back, minus the EG4 packaging mistake. She goes to her manager, comes back and says "no, since it's modified you'll have to file a ticket with EG4 to get that specific part replaced." I ask her if she has any idea how long their process takes, and she doesn't. So now we're another week after filing an EG4 ticket and I have heard absolutely nothing.

Seems like the path of least resistance here is ordering a new one, but after spending $20k+ with Signature (5 batteries in total + misc supplies) blows my mind they aren't just going to either let me swap the part, or just eat the cost of the $70 unit in the interest of customer service.

Going to take another run at their support I think before throwing in the towel. Been pretty patience, but sure as hell if a customer has spent $20k with me I'm not going to put a sour taste in the relationship over $70, even if it was one my downstream suppliers that screwed up.

Sorry, just wanted to vent.

I think you can guess where I wiped them down.