Chinedu7:

George, a lot of people will be interested in having such dish, including myself but if you don't mind share the result of this setup with the jack. I am curious.

Chinedu,
Needless to say, the results have been quite impressive. From hispasat to nilesat, hotbird, eurobird 7A, badr, etc
I will take a little time to compile and publish channels receivable along with signal quality.
This will be the subject of another post. Coming soon.

Meanwhile I'm using a 36" Eurostar heavy duty jack.

Freshclean777:


Congratulations for this investment and bravery. So how much did the antenna cost as well as the installation ?. Is the antenna made of solid metal or fiber? Where can we buy the same? Congratulations!

Freshclean777,
The dish itself was bought a couple years back and I only did renovation on it recently, hence the need to re-install. I may not know the current price for now. It is made of metal (pan) with galvanized sheets. The guy's name is Okey in kaduna. I can drop his contacts here if needed. Cheers!

TSHIRT2:

Oga george,is the dish transported this way or was assembled,in case I need one in Ogun state,Abk to be precise.

TSHIRT2,
The dish is segmented. Six petals in all. It was transported all the way from kaduna down to warri and assembled at site.

life707:


To also attest to what you said about Mr Adewest is my discussion with the Dish fabricator, Mr Okechukwu in Kaduna, when I went to discuss a 4.5M fibre Dish deal with him.

Mr Adewest was well praised by him.
I also remember those days on the forum ,he was the only one that can nail nilesat on 1.8M in Lagos.

@George D, discovered you changed the colour of your 4M Dish....is there any particular technical reason?

Though from experience with my 3.5M Dish painted grey, during the setting of the focal length and adjustment of the lnb, the heat concentrated at that point was enormous even when the sun wasn't very bright/ hot (morning hours).

@Life707,
There was no particular reason for the change in paint color. I wanted a high quality oil paint for the job and berger paints was what was available and I ended up choosing black.

spartacus11,
yawwilson,
Dlee,
warboy3,
all,
Thanks for the compliments. Although most of the credit
should really be going to Mr Adewest who took time off his
tight schedule, traveling down all the way from Bauchi to practically
take over the installation. If there was ever a work horse, that guy is one.
In him I saw the passion for signals this thread was once known for.
The dedication to perfection is unmistakable. I was so impressed.
Viva FTA!!!

Barezzi:


At about N24 per kwh, na only N2,400.
Barely enough for a bottle of wine.

How much your upgrade cost you?

barrezi,
cost is only a tiny fraction of what comes into play when going for renewable energy.
let me flip the question the other way round: what is the cost of staying in darkness?
i guess the answer is zero naira? so if cost is our only consideration we might as well
decide to save the huge amount we have invested so far and remain in darkness while
waiting for the elusive phcn to supply us power whenever they deem fit. however, will
that be a good option? no?
so here comes the fuel guzzling, noisy generator to fill in the
gap for those long hours almighty phcn decides to keep us in darkness. and this is where
it gets really interesting: if mr idsolar had been running his generator for this length of
time (august till date) commensurate with the up-time of his charge controller, he
certainly would have spent enough money on fuel to buy his solar system all over again.

Mission accomplished!

Fixing the heavy duty jack

And the inverto red classic finally makes a come back!

More pictures

For this assignment, I had the pleasure of having another
founding member of the thread Mr Adewest who basically did all the work while i was on
hand to lend whatever support needed.

All,
As promised here are pictures of my 4m pan dish install. I'm sorry it took this long.
I've been unavoidably busy.

DMerciful:
Oga GeorgeD1,

Battery replacement has been the biggest cost in offgrid systems for most people but somehow you have managed to draw appreciable longevity from your batteries. kindly educate us how you do this as well as telling us the configuration, brand, and maintenance strategy for these batteries.
I know you use Zenith but fake zenith abound now and i also know your previous batteries lasted long before replacement with 260AH zenith.
We need to learn as i got frustrated from premature failures and went lithium.

hello dmerciful,
the secret to battery longevity is spread over a range of factors. it has everything to do with the battery type, charge
controller type, inverter type and usage habits. like i said in my last post, having a high end inverter which incorporates
a battery monitor system (bms) certainly has helped preserve my batteries by ensuring they never get depleted beyond
a preset value - and this works regardless of whether i'm home or not. with my previous inverter, i had to leave specific
instructions for my folks to follow whenever i'm going out of town. and this was always subject to abuse.
besides the bms and high end inverter, my wiring configuration also plays a huge role. i have four batteries wired in series
to make up 48v and three of these joined together with equal length of cable to make 12 batteries. in effect its like having
3 separate battery banks operating independently. this configuration ensures each bank receives an equal amount of
charging current from the cc while charging and also gives out equal amount of load current while discharging.
as for cc, i guess the saying that you get what you pay for is true especially for solar. in my experience, a large number of
the so-called cheap and pocket friendly controllers flooding the market these days are nothing but battery killers. they
either consistently undercharge or overcharge your batteries leading to premature failure. i have been using the tristar for
over seven years now and over this period i'm happy to see best in class performance in terms of charging algorithm. until
recently of course when i was forced to incorporate the midnite classic due to my solar array upgrade exigency.
lastly, i carry out yearly turn around maintenance on my battery bank. by this i mean battery rotation. i load test them to
confirm each battery's condition of health.

Barezzi:

Yes, you do. You never know when one of your neighbours will plug in a "boiling ring" since you always have "light". lol!
I use mine for auxiliary load control.

I set it to disconnect at 52v and reconnect at 57v.

barrezi,
high end inverters like magnum come with a battery monitor system (bms) as an add-on. this carries out the lvd function among others thereby protecting your system.
i can't count the number of times the bms has intervened to protect my batteries so far and in hind sight, maybe its another reason my batteries have gone nearly five years and still performing as new.

hello pranil,
for those with protek solar water heater products like myself,
it comes with an assistant tank which does exactly the same job
so really no need to buy additional accessories to control water supply
pressure.

notice the assistant tank on top of the system in the first picture.

life707:


And if u want to deny what I am saying the I will prove my point by posting all my WhatsApp discussion with u and the account the monies were paid into and for the various cccam accounts they were meant for.

I won't now but if u say I am lying, I will to show how long I have been patient with u.

This and many more reasons is why it's better to go pure FTA.
The money we think we are saving by going darkside ends up in the hands of
shady vendors who are smiling to the banks at the expense of original content providers.
Let us be wise.
Viva FTA!!!

opeoluwat:
Hi All,

This is to introduce to you Gorilla Ceiling Fans a very efficient ceiling fan that consume 28 watts at full power.
It works very well with Inverters and Solar Power system allows for longer battery backup time. It comes with a remote control and doesn't use regulator.
It has consistent performance even at low Voltages. Operating input Voltages 140V-285V.
The size available is the 48inches span. it matches any similar sized fan.

It costs #30,000
Please contact Ope on 08188723705 to get yours.

opeoluwat,
what happens when the remote gets lost or damaged? don't you think a regulator would
have been more handy as a back up?

NiyiOmoIyunade:
@BigRovar. Yourself and GeorgeD1 have stoutly defended the reputation of your Su-Kams - in my own experience I rank them as 'okay' inverters - they don't excel in charging amps capacity and they lack ability to select different voltage algorithms for different battery types, I wouldn't confidently load them over 70% their rated capacity and everyone I know has visited service center at least once in a 5 year period.

What is the final verdict? Are there some techniques or practices you follow to derive such good value from your Su-Kam inverters? Do you have some extra protections or limits set on your systems or add-on devices to supplement the base performance?

brother,
in the hierarchy of inverters sukam can be classified as mid-range and not to be
confused with high-end models like schneider (formerly xantrex), magnum, outback, sunny boy, etc.
however what stands it out is it's surprisingly low idle power consumption and the quality of its
sine wave output as well as its ruggedness. if visiting service centers within 5yrs of use is to
be used as a valid rating criteria then I think almost all inverters would score low on that point.
take my magnum for instance, the fans failed within two yrs of use and I had to send it for
repairs - which was done free of charge by the way. does that make magnum any less rugged?
I think the answer is no.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Oga GeorgeD1 - I always thought you had maintenance free/AGM type batteries and not flooded? - most likely you may not be 'equalizing' them above 15v per 12v battery - I distinctly remember setting off the high voltage alarm on my APC clone, Su-Kam & Sinergy inverters at voltages above 15v - again this was ages ago and my memory may be foggy

Again, people don't really equalize maintenance free batteries because most manufacturers say its unnecessary and also no easy way to replace the lost water if the battery starts to boil dry - I kind of just assumed the OP was using flooded batteries and would be equalizing around 15.5v. My bad

bro,
you're very much on point but there is an 'equalize' setting that seems to work for agm/sealed maintenance-free
batteries suggested by morningstar. its a little bit lower than the real equalize voltages for flooded lead acid. i use
that to keep my zenith batteries happy.

Monlo:


One of the Founding fathers,@GeorgeD1,we await your update please.Thanks for being an inspiration.Keep the fire burning.Enjoy

@Monlo,
Thanks for the compliments. For the pictures, pls be a little patient.
I will upload them soon. I've been busy with work

dsunmade:
Quick question. Can a Sukam inverter withstand the high equalization voltage of a charge controller ?

actually the answer is yes. i have a sukam 3.5kva fusion series and
no problem at all with equalization voltages from my tristar cc. others
may have a different model but mine is not exactly a recent brand so
it's hard to see how more recent versions should have this problem.

earthrealm:


thnks for the extensive explanations, guess the batts are undercharged.
the setup is in the villa, miles away from me/anybody who can perform the extensive tests wch can give a truer picture.
guess i wud hv to reduce the load on the system to maybe give the batta fighting chance in this cloudy weather.
its totally offgrid, no phcn.
4 x 12v 220ah mecury fla batt, 1.5kva 24v luminous inverter, 60amp epsolar CC


loads
190w fridge [130w energy name plate, but wattmeter says 190w...lol] runs for 8hrs daily
30w sec flood light runs for 11hrs daily.
about 8 x 18w bulbs......used at night say 6pm to 10pm
70w tv and 70w fan used intermittently, say 8hrs combined total daily [worst case scenario]

1500w panel..max harvest i hv ever recorded is 7.3kwh.
in this rainy season..average btw 3kwh n 4kwh

ahaha...i think i hv seen the problem.. with this bad weather, and the fridge +sec light beeing on timer switch...the batt is being drained below acceptable levels, its a rudimentary system n no tech savvy person around to monitor or effect intelligent load shedding.
need to reduce the fridge run time to 5hrs or4 hrs daily to allow the batts hv some charge, until the weather improves

earthrealm,
you may want to consider replacing those batteries with maintenance free agm or gel batteries going forward. for your setup and especially for remote locations it's always a better option.

zeestone99:
Mr JUO man of the year, God bless you brother, keep up the good work.

As for the controller war, are we saying the classic beats the Tristar,cos according to oga George's review Tristar lost the fight. Can we rank controllers according to brand. Of course we ll need more reviews, over to the house pls.

Who ll giv us review on the schineider controller.

zeestone,
contrary to your speculation, the cc war is far from over. remember that i've just had the midnite classic
for about a month and i'm still putting it through its paces. monitoring is still in progress while i continue
tweaking and re-configuring its settings. the tristar on the other hand is what i've had for over 7yrs.
in another month or two, i will update the house on my findings. who knows? perhaps in this space of time,
a game changing happenstance might occur that could spin all that review on its head!

warboy3:
@GeorgeD1 i see u,i greet u sir. Any solution is welcome.

warboy3,
Unfortunately I don't do ccam or Alphabox. Right from early days and up till now,
my moto has always been clean FTA. No illegalities, no breaking of signal.

Viva FTA!

yawwilson:


Hello GeorgeD1, why hibernate? we need your input no matter how little it is. Years past you and the others made this forum very very lively, hope you're doing good?
So long bro!!!!!

@yawwilson,
No hibernation bro. I and others are still very much active FTA enthusiasts outside
of NL. As founding members, we realize that the only constant thing in life is change
so we decided to leave the forum in the hands of the young ones, trusting that they will
keep the fire burning. And, so far, inspite of a few deviations to dark matters via cccam,
cline and the like, I see the thread has thrived and the overall goal of disseminating much
needed satellite info is being achieved.

Viva FTA! Break the myth!!

IHacked:
Greetings to all members especially the old guys George D ,odilibe ,Badaru,Andex70,Gadutor ,Kungu,and all .....how are you all? Is bean a very long time

Brother, how are you doing? Indeed it's been quite a while

amlad66:
I great you all followers of this educative threat, kudos to satellite Gurus of this forum! Indeed, in the absence of George D, Badaru, Adex, Odilibe and others for long time; Chinedu, life707, and others are very busy in keeping us up to date, thank you very much.

By the way, gurus i have problem with my C Band strong LNB, whenever i attache it with diseq cable the receiver get off. I changed wire cable and rotated diseq but same problem, so, please what might be the exact problem?

@amlad66,
We are still here my brother. Just watching from a distance.
Very soon I will update the house on my 4m pan and 3-in-1 orbitron
dish. Stay tuned!

bigrovar:


Thanks for this review. It adds to the heap of knowledge on here. I have always suspected the midnight classic is indeed the lion king of offgrid charge controllers due to its legendary status among offgriders. I remember reading somewhere that they and Outback are a branch from the same tree and their founders it was who pioneered the concept of MPPT solar controllers.

About JUO. He is the most understated Underestimated unassuming seller in this part. I remembered one time one of my controllers went lemon and even though it was under warranty and a replacement was on the way from the manufacturers, the time lapse meant I would be without solar insurance policy for close to 3 weeks. This happened on a saturday, I called JUO explained to him my situation and informed him of my need to have a new controller the next day in Abuja... The fact that I had the controller in my hands is not the exceptional part, it is that JUO sent the controller even though I explained to him my tight financial state and the fact that he might not be paid until much latter. BY sunday evening I was taking delivery of the charge controller and crisis was averted.

Just recently procured 4 Front Access AGM batteries from from him for a neighbour, The price he offered those batteries was so mouth watering, I give him 20K back for the boys. My neigbour called me last night to thank me for the batteries. Said they are working better than what he expected.

hello bigrovar,
indeed, a gold fish has no hiding place and juo has proven to be the man with the golden touch.

but while we're here heaping praises on one of our own, it may not be out of place to give some advice
(and sound a note warning) to the numerous shylock traders teeming around in the internet space. they pop
in here and browse through our thread and pluck in much needed knowledge which they use to update
their overpriced solar wares.
first of all, the advice: please wake up to reality and reduce your prices! the same price adjustment mechanism
you used to hike your prices when dollar rose steadily from 220 to 550 naira should be used to re-adjust those prices
downwards now that dollar rate has fallen to below 370 naira.
now the warning: if you choose to stick your heads in the sand and feign ignorance of current realities, savvy
peeps like us will keep going the juo route! we know where you source your wares and we know how much you
make off each imported item you sell. we only chose to patronize you in the past because your prices were reasonable
and we couldn't be bothered if you made a little income from your sales, afterall, you're not a charity organisation.
but when your profits and mark-up starts getting in the region of hundreds of thousands of naira for an item that
we know can be gotten for much less, then you will keep losing our business! pure and simple!!

DMerciful:
Thanks GeorgeD1, our grand Patron and inspirer when it comes to solar and new technologies.

It was a decent review however i have always preferred midnite classic and even common itracer to morninstar due to its lack of aesthetics....i love beautifully made things and this is a criteria for choosing for me funny enuf esp as many of these controllers performances are close to 99% efficiency.

dmerciful,
i'm glad you found the review useful. remember however that i've only had the midnite for less than a month.
so consider this as a work in progress. i'm still experimenting with quite a number of settings and observing its
performance. who knows? three months, six months or even one year down the line i might decide to do another
review and a lot of things might have changed by then.

kiekie1:


Welcome on board .. Nice you finally got the midnite order tru James ! My only dislike about midnite classic is the thermostatic fans which kicks in almost every time (2 underneath & 1 on top) & must be serviced when they get weak to avoid internal temp rise . Secondly it comes with real small 16mm ports for solar - battery cables , if you were using 25mm cables above on morningstar, you will find it a bit difficult to fix on midnite . . overall , its a nice mppt ! I also await users of the magnum mppt to attest -give a review on its ruggedness

hello kiekie,
thanks. i also do worry about those midnite solar fans and in comparison the tristar seems quiet but i guess that's the
price for its higher current carrying capabilities compared to the tristar.

babaegun:


@GeorgeD1

Thanks for this wonderful review of the Midnight Classic 150. Quite insightful. From the pictures to the analysis, everything was just fantastic.

From the comparison, I was so sure the Midnight Classic will carry the day and you just confirmed it.

One thing you fail to mention though which I saw from the picture, the Midnight Classic can also work with Hydro & Wind power aside Solar. I think this is a plus too. I doubt if the Morning star have that capability. That triple feature is missing in most charge controllers. Most ship with the Solar capability ONLY.

What about the Android/ios/windows apps suggested by dapsyra,, the Internet ready features. The Midnight Classic is really wonderful because in other Charge Controllers, you will have to pay more to access those features.



JUO is really the man! Any day, any time. His Customer / After sales support is simply super. Don't know if the guy did ITIL self .

Once Again, GeorgeD1, Thanks a million.

babaegun,
you're welcome. thanks for pointing out the wind/hydro capabilities of the midnite although the tristar mppt-60 also incorporates
those features with the right dip switch settings. if i had mentioned it, both controllers would have drawn that round.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Finally, the much promised review from somone here in Nigeria. A man of experience who thoroughly knows his onions.

So it appears the Midnite Classic won over the MorningStar overall - though I find the setup complexity issue relative having setup quite a few MorningStar CCs - I don't even think about it these days - there is something comfortingly solid & reliable about flipping dip switches.

I wanted to point out that the MorningStar is not limited to 2300watts - more like 3200watts output power as the below capture from my LiveView shows.

[img]https://4.bp..com/-BQvgsfBjyvc/WaFO4mUUqfI/AAAAAAAAAak/Lzt0ImVM2-IDQo0JJauvHgZROwUAeqDIQCLcBGAs/s1600/CC.jpg[/img]

So the jury is out on whether the Legacy P&O mode will clearly beat the MorningStar - hopefully you get a chance to try that and report to the house.

So I guess the next review would be the Magnum PT100 vs other CCs - hopefully someone would do the honors

NiyiOmoIyunade,
indeed the morningstar can do up to 3200w at 48v. please forgive my error. the point i was trying to make is the
overall higher capacity of the midnite @83a 48v as against tristar's 60a at same 48v.
and yes, those dip switches really give a comforting feeling knowing fully well that no software glitch can suddenly
change whatever settings you have made.