NiyiOmoIyunade:
400Ah 48v of lead acid to support water pumping for a max of 45 minutes every other day or so?

I think it is rather much - most agree that some juice coming in from the PV will offset some of this burden quite nicely if not all depending on timing and irradiation levels.

Truly it is not even compulsory to run a 1.5hp pump off the solar system - a standby generator fired up every 3 days or so may just be perfect for the need.

I started off with lead acid and used and sold all the common variants from AGM to Flooded to Gel, now I sell LFP batteries exclusively (Pylon tech) and assemble my own LFP packs - despite my very positive experience with the LFP chemistry I do not recommend it blindly for all situations - small systems can make do with lead acid and give a very nice return on investment (I gifted 3 small 12v lead acid systems to 2 relatives and a young friend in December 2022 and all are as happy as can be) . Lead acid is a very easy and simple place to begin the RE journey from.

400AH 48V for pumping water is certainly too much IF you are looking at the battery capacity. But you should size your battery bank for two major factors; your total energy need and your instantaneous current draw. While 100AH 24V may provide enough energy top ump your water and still have some energy left, the current draw will sag the voltage so badly that the inverter will shut down. In addition, you are also likely to exceed the permitted rated current draw from the battery, possibly cause an internal shorting and destroy the battery.

With 1.5 hp, the current draw will be about 40A for 48V or 80A for 24V. In addition, unless you completely shut down other uses the current may exceed this. All these may not happen if the sun is good. But, no one should size their battery banks for blazing sun. If there is prolonged cloud cover or if it rains, the sun support may drop significantly to pull down the battery to dangerous levels.

And finally, what is the joy of using solar if you are going to be bringing out your generator every time you want to pump water?

An addendum. Many people have been discouraged from using solar/inverter because the installers over-promised them and they ended up disappointed. Sometimes, the installers are more interested in securing an installation rather than offering customers a frank assessment of what they will need. If one's expectation is not realistic, the solar journal will be frustrating. I personally will not recommend two lead acid batteries to anyone wanting to use pumping machine in addition to other things in the house.

vta2008:


Abeg no vex how do I calculate the recommended discharge rate of my setup? It's a 5.5kva 24v inverter with 4 pieces of Hausstrom HS-22043 12V 220AH Tall Tubular Battery. I don't know the C rating of the battery as it's not included in the package.

The discharge rate is per hour abi? Thanks

If it's C20 which I believe it's, then a 220Ah/20 = 11A x 24v = 264w.
You may decide to multiply it with the number of battery you've to get the total watt to be drawn.
I'll advise you to do your calculation on 200Ah or 190Ah and not 220Ah as it's very hard to get the rated battery capacity these days in Naija. If you truly carry out the capacity test of those batteries, you may be surprised to see 180Ah instead of 220Ah pasted.
This is one of the reasons most of our batteries do not last. Imagine discharging 60% to 70% of 180Ah everyday thinking you're discharging 50% of 220Ah.

isangjohnson:

If it's C20 which I believe it's, then a 220Ah/20 = 11A x 24v = 264w.
You may decide to multiply it with the number of battery you've to get the total watt to be drawn.
I'll advise you to do your calculation on 200Ah or 190Ah and not 220Ah as it's very hard to get the rated battery capacity these days in Naija. If you truly carry out the capacity test of those batteries, you may be surprised to see 180Ah instead of 220Ah pasted.
This is one of the reasons most of our batteries do not last. Imagine discharging 60% to 70% of 180Ah everyday thinking you're discharging 50% of 220Ah.

Thanks man. This country na jungle sha . The seller is an authorized distributor of the brand sha so if fake capacity issue dey na direct from the brand.

Shebi even if fake capacity dey the battery, the koko is not to let the inverter reading drop below 24V abi?

Let us decompose this a bit.

1hp is approx 746watts and 1.5hp is approx 1,119w. Since we are discussing a pump and not an AC, there are really no other ancillaries drawing power apart from the pump motor and we need only worry about the spike from start up draw in the first few seconds.

In a 24v nominal system, the system voltage is not at 24v. Let us assume 27v operating as a good midpoint for when the battery has a charger applied and is in bulk, absorb or float.

When I gross up consumption over operating volts - 1,200w / 27v - I see a max draw of 45a from the 1.5hp pump and if I generously allow for voltage sag to 24v, a max draw of 50a. The average 12v 200Ah lead acid battery is rated to deliver 40a safely for well over 30minutes and for our test case we have at least 2 units to make up a 24v nominal system.

Further, if OP triggered his water pumping based on battery at absorb voltage, there is some PV potential to fully offset the pump's draw or take some of the bite off.

I know you know this math, I have just rehashed it and done it properly so that people are not misled - I also design systems like this on the regular and they do work in practice apart from the fact that they work on paper.

If you wish to explore a practical mechanism to make this happen and not throw the battery to LVD, then we can do that upon your request.

adrusa:


400AH 48V for pumping water is certainly too much IF you are looking at the battery capacity. But you should size your battery bank for two major factors; your total energy need and your instantaneous current draw. While 100AH 24V may provide enough energy top ump your water and still have some energy left, the current draw will sag the voltage so badly that the inverter will shut down. In addition, you are also likely to exceed the permitted rated current draw from the battery, possibly cause an internal shorting and destroy the battery.

With 1.5 hp, the current draw will be about 40A for 48V or 80A for 24V. In addition, unless you completely shut down other uses the current may exceed this. All these may not happen if the sun is good. But, no one should size their battery banks for blazing sun. If there is prolonged cloud cover or if it rains, the sun support may draw significantly to pull down the battery to dangerous levels.

And finally, what is the joy of using solar if you are going to be bringing out your generator every time you want to pump water?

An addendum. Many people have been discouraged from using solar/inverter because the installers over-promised them and they ended up disappointed. Sometimes, the installers are more interested in securing an installation rather than offering customers a frank assessment of what they will need. If one's expectation is not realistic, the solar journal will be frustrating. I personally will not recommend two lead acid batteries to anyone wanting to use pumping machine in addition to other things in the house.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Let us decompose this a bit.

1hp is approx 746watts and 1.5hp is approx 1,119w. Since we are discussing a pump and not an AC, there are really no other ancillaries drawing power apart from the pump motor and we need only worry about the spike from start up draw in the first few seconds.

In a 24v nominal system, the system voltage is not at 24v. Let us assume 27v operating as a good midpoint for when the battery has a charger applied and is in bulk, absorb or float.

When I gross up consumption over operating volts - 1,200w / 27v - I see a max draw of 45a from the 1.5hp pump and if I generously allow for voltage sag to 24v, a max draw of 50a. The average 12v 200Ah lead acid battery is rated to deliver 40a safely for well over 30minutes and for our test case we have at least 2 units to make up a 24v nominal system.

Further, if OP triggered his water pumping based on battery at absorb voltage, there is some PV potential to fully offset the pump's draw or take some of the bite off.

I know you know this math, I have just rehashed it and done it properly so that people are not misled - I also design systems like this on the regular and they do work in practice apart from the fact that they work on paper.

If you wish to explore a practical mechanism to make this happen and not throw the battery to LVD, then we can do that upon your request.

I used to run a 1 hp pumped rated 0.75Kw. Now I run a 1.5 hp pump rated about 1.2Kw. These values are well below my measured power consumption by the pumps. The 1 hp uses above 1KW while the 1.5 hp runs slightly above 2kW. So, these your calculations are not correct. You may check with your own pumps.

In addition, your voltage figures are overly optimistic. You can only see 27V for a 24V lead acid system when the batteries are either charging or floating, with any moderate current draw, the voltage goes down, unless you have a big bank.

I hope the OP does not get trapped into unworkable setup with all these very optimistic calculations and advise.

This is very conservative advice but it does pay to be conservative with lead acid.

I would say a running draw of 132w per 220Ah battery so that he has ~500w draw for 4pcs of the 220Ah battery.

+10 points for the advise to determine true battery Ah capacity before deriving how much to draw and this is not a one time exercise but to be done over the battery life (determination of remaining capacity)

I wanted to delve a bit into battery cutoff LVDs - when they say cutoff at 24v, the expectation is that all charge and discharge sources have been removed and battery left to rest for several hours before you measure the voltage - the implication is that if you cutoff immediately at 24v under load, you may be leaving a lot of unused Ah on the table - some rigorous work properly done may be needed to determine what battery voltage corresponds to X% DoD or X% SoC with Xwatts of load applied.

Why then do lead acid batteries die relatively early despite the fact that most people have misinterpreted the usage rules and landed on the conservative use side? The major issue is undercharging especially for series connected batteries - you have to have a mechanism to ensure that each battery in your bank actually gets a proper full charge (per manufacturer spec) on the regular - imbalances between the batteries make it so that this full charge may not be dispensed unless some extra work is done per battery.

This is one of the reasons why Lithium batteries do better apart from the advantages of superior chemistry - the BMS is doing some work on a per cell basis to allow each battery cell get a proper full charge.

isangjohnson:

If it's C20 which I believe it's, then a 220Ah/20 = 11A x 24v = 264w.
You may decide to multiply it with the number of battery you've to get the total watt to be drawn.
I'll advise you to do your calculation on 200Ah or 190Ah and not 220Ah as it's very hard to get the rated battery capacity these days in Naija. If you truly carry out the capacity test of those batteries, you may be surprised to see 180Ah instead of 220Ah pasted.
This is one of the reasons most of our batteries do not last. Imagine discharging 60% to 70% of 180Ah everyday thinking you're discharging 50% of 220Ah.

A 1.5hp water pump running at 2kw is either ancient, inefficient or falsely labelled. You should be able to call it what it is for your specific case and not generalise about how all pumps behave.

I have 2pcs of 0.5hp pumps for pressure boost, 1pc 1hp pump for lifting water to the roof and 1pc 2hp pump for running garden sprinklers and irrigation - all these pumps work very close to spec as per wattage.

Quoting verbatim, I said the below about voltage yet you have managed to make it seem like it was not a part of the text you quoted.

I wonder what is your objective in this our back and forth engagement?

NiyiOmoIyunade:


In a 24v nominal system, the system voltage is not at 24v. Let us assume 27v operating as a good midpoint for when the battery has a charger applied and is in bulk, absorb or float.

When I gross up consumption over operating volts - 1,200w / 27v - I see a max draw of 45a from the 1.5hp pump and if I generously allow for voltage sag to 24v, a max draw of 50a

adrusa:


I used to run a 1 hp pumped rated 0.75Kw. Now I run a 1.5 hp pump rated about 1.2Kw. These values are well below my measured power consumption by the pumps. The 1 hp uses above 1KW while the 1.5 hp runs slightly above 2kW. So, these your calculations are not correct. You may check with your own pumps.

In addition, your voltage figures are overly optimistic. You can only see 27V for a 24V lead acid system when the batteries are either charging or floating, with any moderate current draw, the voltage goes down , unless you have a big bank.

I hope the OP does not get trapped into unworkable setup with all these very optimistic calculations and advise.

Guys something wierd just happened to my Inverter ryt now and it went off .not displaying at all

So I got closer to d inverter it has a burning smell in fan vents side of my MUST inverter.

I was using my 6.5kva generator to charge it.

It's not turning on now...

I checked the back of my lipo battery it already switched itself off ..like a surge or something

What could be the problem please!

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Say you want to build a smallish system and your household can get by on like 500w of day time loads and 300w ish of night loads - you may have to run the 1.5hp pump off grid or gen primarily.

If you go the lead acid route, every 12v 200Ah battery can support about 120w of loads (the C20 rating) so you would need 4pcs of 12v 200Ah to run your 300w of night loads from 6pm to 8am every day - 4 pcs of 12v 200Ah also fits your existing 48v Luminous inverter perfectly.

The solar panel wattage needed to support 500w of loads from 8am to 6pm and 300w of loads from 6pm to 8am will be any where from 3000w to 4000w of solar panels - at this point in tech and time, I would say choose the larger panel sizes so at least 450w - 9 pieces of quality 450w panels will get you to 4000w mark nicely and put you on the energy independence side of the curve. 6 pieces of quality 450w panels will give you enough energy most days.

All these above assume you are fully offgrid, if you get some hours of PHCN or Gen then you can size your panels leaner, if you are able to reduce your loads too then all the better.

You will see that the bill of materials for this 'small' offgrid system runs into a few millions at today's prices. If budget constrained, the more you can prune down your loads, the more you can make your system lean.

The idea is that this will be your system for 2 to 3 years and then you can upgrade to better tech - the panels and your inverter can likely be retained through all your upgrades but you will most likely need new batteries.

If your budget supports it, you can get 51.2v 135Ah LFP battery pack instead of 48v 200Ah lead acid pack (4pcs of 12v 200Ah lead acid) - with Lithium you just need to get your charge profile right and set a suitable LVD and you can worry less about whether you are overloading the batteries or whether there was enough solar charge for that day. With Lithium also, you can expect from 6 years and above of use vs say 18 months - 4 years with lead acid. The level of positive assurance is higher with Lithium i.e a well designed pack with decent cells will likely give you 8 years or more of service. If you cross 1 year with your lead acid, you will celebrate, 2 years you got something good and 3 years and above you got it right.

If your budget does not cover enough for 9pcs of 450w panels + 4pcs of 12v lead acid batteries at least then you are going very lean, if you already made the decision to go solar any ways then I would say just get 4pcs of 450w panels + 2pcs of 12v 200Ah + compatible inverter (you will need to jettison the 48v Luminous) and use this system to learn what is possible - later with your learnings and more cash available and faith in renewable energy you can build a system more in line with your needs.

One viable way to proceed as a newbie is to get a quote from an installer and bring it here for people to help you critique the materials used and costs. If you are more DIY inclined you can purchase an energy meter within 10k and use it to determine what your appliances consume - this will put you in a very good place with respect to sizing your system properly.

Oga Niyi I agree with the brilliant break down above just would advise caution with pairing a 200Ah tubular battery with 4kw. 2.6kw (6 x 450w) would be a good sweet spot.

For anyone wondering why I won't pair 4kw array with 200ah/48v tubular

The problem of using a 4 tubular with 4kw solar array is the potential to go over battery rated current charge rate.
Tububar batteries have a current charge rate is of 10% of battery capacity in Amps hence a 200Ah battery (12v/24/48v) should be discharged at 20A 26A max. Anything above that and you are killing the battery. It would cause heat build up and wear out the lead in quick time.

Also remember that the issue of capacity inflation is very common. Heck the Indian lead engineer for a major distributor for tubular batteries did confirm that one of their product labelled 220Ah is in fact 150Ah which they relabeled due to pressure from marketers.

Hence when you consider the fairly high self discharge of Tubular and the storage conditions of most Tubular batteries you would be extremely lucky to get a Tubular battery that has 80% of it's rated capacity. This needs the be factored into your design.

I used tubular for 4 years (2 years completely off-grid) and it served very well powering a house of 4 people with a refrigerator, freezer, tv, fan etc. Even though by batteries where said to be 220AH I deratee them to 180AH for my use. Even my 4 x 200AH tubular I upgraded to were derated to 180Ah. Derating was used for the purpose of calculating deapth of discharge, current charge and discharge rate.

A 4000w panel rated for 75% loss is 3000w. Such a panel will deliver about 58A to 62A to a 48-51v battery.

A 200Ah tubular battery has a recommended charge rate of 26A max so you will be feeding it with 2x the recommended charge current. It is for this reason I would not recommend pairing a 4kw solar setup with a 200ah tubular battery. Either you half the solar panels to about 2.5kw or better still use an AGM Battery.

I do think for most application in Nigeria AGM is actually better. I used tubular for years and I don't recommend it any more. The issues of what can go wrong are much and the chemistry propensity to always voltage sag coupled with the low charge and discharge rate makes it extremely not ideal for solar application. Tubular can't be fast charged. It doesn't like to be fast charged. It prefer a slow charge and long time in absorption.

AGM is a good mid point. It can be charged at 20 to 30% of capacity thus 60A for a 200AH battery.

It supports relatively high discharge rate and doesn't experience voltage sag the type you see with Tubular so you can run a 1.5hp pump on a 48v 200Ah AGM battery without worry and charge same with a 4kw solar array without over shooting the limits.

AGM is also relatively maintenance free, no need to look for distilled water or worry about equalization (which many inverter / charge controller doesn't support) as long as your set your charge voltage to 14.3 for absorption you are good to go.

Quanta is still the best AGM battery. The capacity you get from is pretty on the mark. I have also heard good things about NXT AGM.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
A 1.5hp water pump running at 2kw is either ancient, inefficient or falsely labelled. You should be able to call it what it is for your specific case and not generalise about how all pumps behave.

I have 2pcs of 0.5hp pumps for pressure boost, 1pc 1hp pump for lifting water to the roof and 1pc 2hp pump for running garden sprinklers and irrigation - all these pumps work very close to spec as per wattage.

Quoting verbatim, I said the below about voltage yet you have managed to make it seem like it was not a part of the text you quoted.

I wonder what is your objective in this our back and forth engagement?

Pressure pumps and sumo/submersible pumps dont usually have the same real life load draw.

Sumo pumps draw a lot more than the spec sheet, as i think the spec sheet wattage is based on surface installation. The deeper a sumo is installed, the more work it has to do to send water up, hence the more energy it will consume.
It appears you havent worked closely with sumo pumps before?

2 units 1.5hp sumo pumps one installed at 80ft and the other installed at 130ft, will not consume same energy, nor will the energy they consume be anywhere near what you quoted above for your surface pumps.

I have actual reallife experience of running sumo pumps on inverters.
1. 0.5hp. .....actual load on inverter 830watts
2. 1.5ph.........actual load on inverter 1820watts
3. 1.5hp.........actual load on inverter 1550 watts

The water depths of sumo 1 and 3 are below 100ft as they are in same neighbourhood with high water table.
Sumo 2 is in a different state with lower water table and sumo depth is about 130ft

My last advice for anyone running or intending to run 1.5hp and above sumo on inadequate qty of lead acid batteries is to assume your panels are not bringing in any juice or have a device that will cut off power supply to the sumo if the solar harvest drops below a preset threshold ,

Now everyone is bringing their edge case pumps as the norm? I wonder again what is the objective? As you already clarified that the pumps you have measured to consume more energy than normal are doing more work than normal too

Please what is a SUMO/SUMP pump? Is that the type used for moving waste water/partial or semi solid waste/flood water and the likes? I don't know how those got into this discussion about household water pumping but yes indeed I have no direct experience with them.

All the places I have lived or supported pump water from a ground level tank to an overhead tank and the few places where we have a submersible, the pumps behave pretty close to their rating.

If a 1.5hp pump is drawing 1.8kw for its regular run then it is either ancient or inefficient or falsely labelled (should have a higher hp value stuck on for the duty cycle it can actually handle)

You have brought values between 1.55-1.82kw for your 1.5hp pump's power draw, Oga Adrusa has said his 1.5hp pump consumes over 2kw and I have both seen and have several regular water pumps that behave very close to spec. Sadly I do not have a 1.5hp pump to measure and I am loath to pull numbers out of thin air.

It seems both of you want to credit the special mystery/magic of pumps to why a moderately sized system cannot run a relatively large load for short periods and especially if assisted by some solar but sorry I do not subscribe.

If we still have energy for a laugh, recently someone here mentioned he would continue using his air fryer on his 24v 200Ah FLA battery system if PHCN failed while he was cooking or solar proved insufficient and he noted the voltage sag when the battery was unassisted by a charger - no one brought the various brands and generations of air fryer they use that would make it impossible to run those last mile minutes needed to finish cooking

So let us not get distracted by all these use/misuse of pumps and marginal cases with their insane power draw - in my advise to OP, it was clearly stated he may be better off running his pump off grid or gen and using his solar system for basic household needs and if he had to do anything at all, start off with taking energy measurements of all appliances - with this he would know if his own 1.5hp pump consumes 3kw and be properly guided how to handle the matter.

earthrealm:


Pressure pumps and sumo/submersible pumps dont usually have the same real life load draw.

Sumo pumps draw a lot more than the spec sheet, as i think the spec sheet wattage is based on surface installation. The deeper a sumo is installed, the more work it has to do to send water up, hence the more energy it will consume.
It appears you havent worked closely with sumo pumps before?

2 units 1.5hp sumo pumps one installed at 80ft and the other installed at 130ft, will not consume same energy, nor will the energy they consume be anywhere near what you quoted above for your surface pumps.

I have actual reallife experience of running sumo pumps on inverters.
1. 0.5hp. .....actual load on inverter 830watts
2. 1.5ph.........actual load on inverter 1820watts
3. 1.5hp.........actual load on inverter 1550 watts

The water depths of sumo 1 and 3 are below 100ft as they are in same neighbourhood with high water table.
Sumo 2 is in a different state with lower water table and sumo depth is about 130ft

I agree with you!

As you may know and I have said several times on this forum, I am not a fan of flooded batteries and keep wondering why all the rave about them - perhaps it is their perceived longevity and 'ruggedness'

I would take an AGM battery over flooded or Gel if I had to use lead acid and when I said a regular 12v 200Ah battery would take 40a - that is definitely AGM or Gel and not flooded.

I understand the point about not charging flooded faster than they can handle BUT I wish to call attention to a feature on most decent CCs that allow you to cap the amps the CC would put out - so you can still have your large array but limit how many amps would be used for combined charging and loads - especially easy to do if your day time loads are fairly constant but a bit harder to find a sweet spot if day time loads will vary a lot.

By way of preaching the gospel there is a feature in the Victron ecosystem called DVCC [Distributed Voltage and Current Control] - if you activate this feature you can set the 'Maximum Charge Current' specifically - so in my system I can pull 12kw easily from my solar panels and allocate only 7kw/140a at ~51v to battery charging with balance of energy going to the loads - as the loads vary, the MPPTs will optimise the solar production to service the loads but maintain a constant charge amps output to the battery.

Beautiful feature and these and many more features can be modified programmatically pretty easily too in the Victron ecosystem.

All the more reason why people should port to Victron or systems that offer these value added functions - the Deye inverters have this feature but a bit more rudimentary and not as flexible.

Thus endeth my sermon, and may the Good Lord bless the hearers of His word and prosper both them and it! Amen

bigrovar:


Oga Niyi I agree with the brilliant break down above just would advise caution with pairing a 200Ah tubular battery with 4kw. 2.6kw (6 x 450w) would be a good sweet spot.

For anyone wondering why I won't pair 4kw array with 200ah/48v tubular

The problem of using a 4 tubular with 4kw solar array is the potential to go over battery rated current charge rate.
Tububar batteries have a current charge rate is of 10% of battery capacity in Amps hence a 200Ah battery (12v/24/48v) should be discharged at 20A 26A max. Anything above that and you are killing the battery. It would cause heat build up and wear out the lead in quick time.

Also remember that the issue of capacity inflation is very common. Heck the Indian lead engineer for a major distributor for tubular batteries did confirm that one of their product labelled 220Ah is in fact 150Ah which they relabeled due to pressure from marketers.

Hence when you consider the fairly high self discharge of Tubular and the storage conditions of most Tubular batteries you would be extremely lucky to get a Tubular battery that has 80% of it's rated capacity. This needs the be factored into your design.

I used tubular for 4 years (2 years completely off-grid) and it served very well powering a house of 4 people with a refrigerator, freezer, tv, fan etc. Even though by batteries where said to be 220AH I deratee them to 180AH for my use. Even my 4 x 200AH tubular I upgraded to were derated to 180Ah. Derating was used for the purpose of calculating deapth of discharge, current charge and discharge rate.

A 4000w panel rated for 75% loss is 3000w. Such a panel will deliver about 58A to 62A to a 48-51v battery.

A 200Ah tubular battery has a recommended charge rate of 26A max so you will be feeding it with 2x the recommended charge current. It is for this reason I would not recommend pairing a 4kw solar setup with a 200ah tubular battery. Either you half the solar panels to about 2.5kw or better still use an AGM Battery.

I do think for most application in Nigeria AGM is actually better. I used tubular for years and I don't recommend it any more. The issues of what can go wrong are much and the chemistry propensity to always voltage sag coupled with the low charge and discharge rate makes it extremely not ideal for solar application. Tubular can't be fast charged. It doesn't like to be fast charged. It prefer a slow charge and long time in absorption.

AGM is a good mid point. It can be charged at 20 to 30% of capacity thus 60A for a 200AH battery.

It supports relatively high discharge rate and doesn't experience voltage sag the type you see with Tubular so you can run a 1.5hp pump on a 48v 200Ah AGM battery without worry and charge same with a 4kw solar array without over shooting the limits.

AGM is also relatively maintenance free, no need to look for distilled water or worry about equalization (which many inverter / charge controller doesn't support) as long as your set your charge voltage to 14.3 for absorption you are good to go.

Quanta is still the best AGM battery. The capacity you get from is pretty on the mark. I have also heard good things about NXT AGM.

I wanted to respond to this portion of things with actionable design.

We have discussed in the back end forums about battery sensing relays such as the XH M611 - I recall you may have posted links both here and there to sourcing these devices on AliExpress.

With a relatively small lead acid battery system assisted by solar, you would want to trigger the large load to start off at the most opportune of times e.g once the battery has entered absorb voltage the XH M611 relay would trigger a suitable load bearing relay/contactor that would activate the pump to start - you can make doubly sure by also fitting a timer so that the pump only runs between say 1pm and 3pm when you have good chance of having sufficient sun.

The XH M611 has both a setting to trigger on (we suggest absorb voltage) and another setting to trigger off (we suggest a voltage level higher than the inverter LVD). This way if the pump comes on and there is sufficient PV assist it will run full cycle and only stop once the water level sensor says the tank is full. If there is insufficient PV assist so that the battery voltage starts to sag then the XH M611 will cut off the pump before battery LVD is breached.

The XHM611 relay is pretty cheap and with it you can create a secondary inverter AC output amenable to logic control.

The Good Lord may not be pleased if I did not preach the Victron gospel - the Victron Multiplus and Quattros all come with a secondary AC out that you can put on or off based on a host of conditions. The MPPTs also have a battery sensing relay (potential free or dry contact) that can be used to drive a regular inverter to have a secondary logic controllable AC output just like I described above for the XH M611 - with the Victrons you get an industrial grade relay that can respond to battery voltage, SoC %, presence or absence of grid input, amount of watts passing through and so on.

In the graphic below, two water heaters are attached to the secondary AC output of a Victron Quattro - once battery SoC above 79% and just before the PV starts to throttle current for absorb, the output comes alive to power the heaters, if PV is insufficient so that the SoC drops below 77% then the output switches off. If the combined houseloads exceed 5000w for 60 seconds then the secondary AC out switches off and the loads have to be under 3000w for 120 seconds for the output to come on. Because this household loves their creature comforts, the output must stay on for at least 2 hours/7,200 seconds when triggered - all these done with native functionality bundled in the Victron inverter and no external equipment at all.

A guide for the curious reader - in the Victron world the 'generator' is a logical construct for allowing energy to flow. Since we chose to Open Relay to Start the Generator [Energy Flow] the logic is inverted so that START means STOP and vice versa

2nd picture is of the XH M611s left in my spare parts drawer just as a visual guide anyone interested (please note these are not for sale)

earthrealm:


My last advice for anyone running or intending to run 1.5hp and above sumo on inadequate qty of lead acid batteries is to assume your panels are not bringing in any juice or have a device that will cut off power supply to the sumo if the solar harvest drops below a preset threshold ,

Do you have solar and is your system properly earthed?

It may well be that Thor the god of thunder and lightning passed through your neighborhood and decided to check in.

You should start with trying to wake up the battery - was it drained too low and is there any burnt smell coming out of the battery pack? If the battery pack works or can be woken up with a charge then you can figure out what happened to the inverter - it seems something shorted out or you experienced a surge

You may need to call your installer for help. Once you have repaired all broken parts, please be sure to install suitable voltage and surge protection as well as making the required sacrifices to the gods (bury copper rods deep in the ground and bring the connection via cable into your power service).

Most electrical failures due to surge or internal component failure would be milder if the equipment had been properly earthed so that fault currents had a place to go.

drizzypat:
Guys something wierd just happened to my Inverter ryt now and it went off .not displaying at all

So I got closer to d inverter it has a burning smell in fan vents side of my MUST inverter.

I was using my 6.5kva generator to charge it.

It's not turning on now...

I checked the back of my lipo battery it already switched itself off ..like a surge or something

What could be the problem please!

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Do you have solar and is your system properly earthed?

It may well be that Thor the god of thunder and lightning passed through your neighborhood and decided to check in.

You should start with trying to wake up the battery - was it drained too low and is there any burnt smell coming out of the battery pack? If the battery pack works or can be woken up with a charge then you can figure out what happened to the inverter - it seems something shorted out or you experienced a surge

You may need to call your installer for help. Once you have repaired all broken parts, please be sure to install suitable voltage and surge protection as well as making the required sacrifices to the gods (bury copper rods deep in the ground and bring the connection via cable into your power service).

Most electrical failures due to surge or internal component failure would be milder if the equipment had been properly earthed so that fault currents had a place to go.

this happened in the night by 3am,no rain been here for days..

So now I turned on the switch from the back(the battery)

Den I perceived a smell of wire burning from the connection at the back of the battery

Ealier on I said the smell came in from one of the fan inside the MUST inverter itself then the battery trip itself off from the back[felicity 15kw has some surge switch,that was what went off] ..
NB: it came when I was using my gen to charge it as we had very cloudy weather.had to use the gen to charge it..


Now the inverter came on but has error red light on

As soon as I got to switch the surge from the battery smell now came frm there.

The battery was showing 2 bar (ie 50%+)

Can I put a call through you so I can explain further,?

Lightning does not need rain before it comes and wreaks havoc.

I cannot yet say if your inverter is shorted out internally or you experienced an externally induced surge or a mix thereof.

You should totally isolate the battery (disconnect the inverter from battery) and see if the battery can come on by itself - check the battery voltage with a multimeter at the battery terminals to see what reading you have.

Do you have solar via a separate CC? See if the CC can charge the battery - you are trying to find where or which component of your system has issues.

If battery reads fine as per voltage and the external CC can charge it with no issues then you can narrow down on your inverter as the likely device with issues.

If you do not have the required skills and tools, let your trusted installer have a go at it.

drizzypat:
this happened om the night by 3am,no rain been here for days..

So now I turned on the switch from the back(the battery)

Den I perceived a smell of wire burning from the connection at the back of the battery

Ealier on I said the smell came in from one of the fan inside the MUST inverter itself then the battery trip itself off from the back[felicity 15kw has some surge switch,that was what went off] ..

Now the inverter came on but has error red light on

As soon as I got to switch the surge from the battery smell now came frm there.

The battery was showing 2 bar (ie 50%+)

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Lightning does not need rain before it comes and wreaks havoc.

I cannot yet say if your inverter is shorted out internally or you experienced an externally induced surge or a mix thereof.

You should totally isolate the battery (disconnect the inverter from battery) and see if the battery can come on by itself - check the battery voltage with a multimeter at the battery terminals to see what reading you have.

Do you have solar via a separate CC? See if the CC can charge the battery - you are trying to find where or which component of your system has issues.

If battery reads fine as per voltage and the external CC can charge it with no issues then you can narrow down on your inverter as the likely device with issues.

If you do not have the required skills and tools, let your trusted installer have a go at it.

the battery does have a light that comes on when a button is pressed then the surge at the back to basically turn it on

I did turn it on

It powered the inverter as it came on..

Bt it was still displaying a red(fault) from the inverter when I turn it on

Then I notice a smell of burn at the end of the battery..like a wire smell

Initially like I said it was coming from the inverter itself (ie the smell) now from d back of the battery.

This is jst where the issue is

My installer is quite far from me .and I wanted to know what was wrong that's why I come on nl b4 I make a move to call him to come immediately..

This thing is just worrisome.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Lightning does not need rain before it comes and wreaks havoc.

I cannot yet say if your inverter is shorted out internally or you experienced an externally induced surge or a mix thereof.

You should totally isolate the battery (disconnect the inverter from battery) and see if the battery can come on by itself - check the battery voltage with a multimeter at the battery terminals to see what reading you have.

Do you have solar via a separate CC? See if the CC can charge the battery - you are trying to find where or which component of your system has issues.

If battery reads fine as per voltage and the external CC can charge it with no issues then you can narrow down on your inverter as the likely device with issues.

If you do not have the required skills and tools, let your trusted installer have a go at it.

so you are saying I should check if the CC if it's charging now? Well it's not since the back[battery]isn't on.. it's showing red also

And yes I have a separate CC

I did text you on whatsapp so I can explain further

Aboki01:
Good evening Oga's in here... Abeg I would like to ask if 400-600k can setup a solar(inverter). I intend powering
1. 5 energy saving bulb
2. 55" Samsung smart TV
3. 2 ox fan
4. A deep freezer and a 95l haier thermocool refrigerator
5. 1 ceiling fan.
Note: The major purpose of setting up the inverter system is for use at night time. From 7pm- Anytime it trips off in the middle of the night.

Someone has already responded to your question with a No. However i think to help yourself and all the knowledge contributors in this forum you should work out your energy consumption per day (check the back of your appliances or manual). For example you can do this

1. 5 energy saving bulb - assuming 10W/LED = 5 x 10W = 50W x 6 hrs = 300Wh . This is the amt of energy you need to power all 5 LED for 6 hrs in a day.
2. 55" Samsung smart TV - assume 100W and you use TV for 4hrs in a day = 100W x 4 hrs = 400Wh
3. 2 ox fan = 150W x 2 = 300W . Assume you use both for 3 hrs each in a day = 300W x 3h = 900Wh
4. A deep freezer and a 95l haier thermocool refrigerator = Assume 140W for both = 280W. Assuming 6 hrs operation for both in a day = 280W x 6hrs = 1680Wh
5. 1 ceiling fan. = Assume 60W x 5hrs use in a day = 300Wh

Therefore your total expected energy requirement in a day will be 300wh + 400wh + 900wh + 1680wh + 300wh = 3580wh = 3.58kwh.
This will help you know what kind of system, you need to build. it will also let you adjust your requirements and know what is realistic for you. (for e.g: with this knowledge you may decide you will run only freezer and not fridge).

I am not an expert, there are many more suitably qualified experts in the house. But we all learn and progress. I think having this skill yourself will help you in your solar energy journey.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
I agree with you!

As you may know and I have said several times on this forum, I am not a fan of flooded batteries and keep wondering why all the rave about them - perhaps it is their perceived longevity and 'ruggedness'

I would take an AGM battery over flooded or Gel if I had to use lead acid and when I said a regular 12v 200Ah battery would take 40a - that is definitely AGM or Gel and not flooded.

I understand the point about not charging flooded faster than they can handle BUT I wish to call attention to a feature on most decent CCs that allow you to cap the amps the CC would put out - so you can still have your large array but limit how many amps would be used for combined charging and loads - especially easy to do if your day time loads are fairly constant but a bit harder to find a sweet spot if day time loads will vary a lot.

By way of preaching the gospel there is a feature in the Victron ecosystem called DVCC [Distributed Voltage and Current Control] - if you activate this feature you can set the 'Maximum Charge Current' specifically - so in my system I can pull 12kw easily from my solar panels and allocate only 7kw/140a at ~51v to battery charging with balance of energy going to the loads - as the loads vary, the MPPTs will optimise the solar production to service the loads but maintain a constant charge amps output to the battery.

Beautiful feature and these and many more features can be modified programmatically pretty easily too in the Victron ecosystem.

All the more reason why people should port to Victron or systems that offer these value added functions - the Deye inverters have this feature but a bit more rudimentary and not as flexible.

Thus endeth my sermon, and may the Good Lord bless the hearers of His word and prosper both them and it! Amen

Hey God, you are just putting more and more pressure on me to go full Victron. Keep giving me reasons to complete the migration—hopefully this year sha.

Just have one question about Multiplus. One thing which has held ME back is the heat duration. e.g A 5kw Inverter produces 3.7kw if the temperature is at 40c and about 3000w if internal temp is at 60c. How much have your experienced this in practise and do you consider this a hold back feature for those in tropical environment like Nigeria.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Lightning does not need rain before it comes and wreaks havoc.

I cannot yet say if your inverter is shorted out internally or you experienced an externally induced surge or a mix thereof.

You should totally isolate the battery (disconnect the inverter from battery) and see if the battery can come on by itself - check the battery voltage with a multimeter at the battery terminals to see what reading you have.

Do you have solar via a separate CC? See if the CC can charge the battery - you are trying to find where or which component of your system has issues.

If battery reads fine as per voltage and the external CC can charge it with no issues then you can narrow down on your inverter as the likely device with issues.

If you do not have the required skills and tools, let your trusted installer have a go at it.

hello boss

I jst did that and the charge controller is charging the battery very..

It's also beeping that it's charging from the battery.

So sir what is the issue then

The must inverter?

Glad to be of help boss and nice to meet you offline

At this point you will need to call your installer to help troubleshoot the inverter.

Very likely it will need to go to service center for repairs

drizzypat:
hello boss

I jst did that and the charge controller is charging the battery very..

It's also beeping that it's charging from the battery.

So sir what is the issue then

The must inverter?

Egbon. If you choose to afford it, Victron is a worthwhile investment any day that will pay back several fold.

The Victron 5kva Multiplus is rated for 4kw at 25 degC and then derates accordingly to ~3kw at 65 degC BUT the transformer and internals are actually rated for 5kW load for 30 minutes or until the over temperature protection kicks in.

Technical note is that the over temperature protection kicks in ahead of any possible damage to the internals (before you actually have an electrical overload)

The surge rating for starting heavy appliances is of course excellent and you may not easily match it in a cheaper inverter.

In practice I have several sites that run 5kVa multiplus at a constant 3,500w in an unregulated room and no trouble - what we typically do is to separate the consumers into essentials powered from AC out 1 and large loads powered from the secondary AC out 2 - if you try to power perhaps a second AC off the secondary AC out and the inverter was already near peak loading, it would simply drop the supply to the large loads but lights and essentials stay on - so with a judicious use of 'assistant' programming you can govern the system and prevent overloading the output supply.

Pertinent to note that AC Out 2 can also run off mains and totally bypass the inverter and battery stage and in case of mains failure will just drop the large loads after say 60 seconds or as you program it.

Of course all our designs include external overcurrent protection apart from the robust safety provided by inverter logic.

In summary when they say their 5kVa inverter can run 4000w sustained and 5kW for 30 minutes at 25degC they indeed mean what they say - your ocassional burst loads will present no trouble at all.

bigrovar:


Hey God, you are just putting more and more pressure on me to go full Victron. Keep giving me reasons to complete the migration—hopefully this year sha.

Just have one question about Multiplus. One thing which has held ME back is the heat duration. e.g A 5kw Inverter produces 3.7kw if the temperature is at 40c and about 3000w if internal temp is at 60c. How much have your experienced this in practise and do you consider this a hold back feature for those in tropical environment like Nigeria.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
I agree with you!

As you may know and I have said several times on this forum, I am not a fan of flooded batteries and keep wondering why all the rave about them - perhaps it is their perceived longevity and 'ruggedness'

I would take an AGM battery over flooded or Gel if I had to use lead acid and when I said a regular 12v 200Ah battery would take 40a - that is definitely AGM or Gel and not flooded.

I understand the point about not charging flooded faster than they can handle BUT I wish to call attention to a feature on most decent CCs that allow you to cap the amps the CC would put out - so you can still have your large array but limit how many amps would be used for combined charging and loads - especially easy to do if your day time loads are fairly constant but a bit harder to find a sweet spot if day time loads will vary a lot.

By way of preaching the gospel there is a feature in the Victron ecosystem called DVCC [Distributed Voltage and Current Control] - if you activate this feature you can set the 'Maximum Charge Current' specifically - so in my system I can pull 12kw easily from my solar panels and allocate only 7kw/140a at ~51v to battery charging with balance of energy going to the loads - as the loads vary, the MPPTs will optimise the solar production to service the loads but maintain a constant charge amps output to the battery.

Beautiful feature and these and many more features can be modified programmatically pretty easily too in the Victron ecosystem.

All the more reason why people should port to Victron or systems that offer these value added functions - the Deye inverters have this feature but a bit more rudimentary and not as flexible.

Thus endeth my sermon, and may the Good Lord bless the hearers of His word and prosper both them and it! Amen

I wish your analysis and that of others trying to provide solutions for compatible and budget friendly energy independence system could generally/widely be viewed positively.
Very few Nigerians can actually and successfully carry out solar installation projects at this time, hence the reason we kept seeing different enquiries here and there.
Premium products like Victron/others are even out of the picture for now as majority can't even afford them, let alone people that are trying to fix the entire 24v system with 600k which we know such amount could probably go for only pv.
One of my friends who survived on Gen running as PHCN isn't always available once told me that he would've loved to switch over to solar or have it as a back up but raising bulk sum is really a challenge.
I told a cousin of mine to come and carry two of my 230ah tubular batteries (which I've only used for 6 months) free but he rejected the offer because I told him that about 800k will still be needed to purchase pv, Inverter and other accessories. Lol
We can now see why an average Nigerian prefer running his small Gen for few hours everyday not minding the long run cost of buying fuel today 2k, tomorrow 1k,.....
God will help us all as we begin this fantastic year 2023 with HIM.

isangjohnson:

I wish your analysis and that of others trying to provide solutions for compatible and budget friendly energy independence system could generally/widely be viewed positively.
Very few Nigerians can actually and successfully carry out solar installation projects at this time, hence the reason we kept seeing different enquiries here and there.
Premium products like Victron/others are even out of the picture for now as majority can't even afford them, let alone people that are trying to fix the entire 24v system with 600k which we know such amount could probably go for only pv.
One of my friends who survived on Gen running as PHCN isn't always available once told me that he would've loved to switch over to solar or have it as a back up but raising bulk sum is really a challenge.
I told a cousin of mine to come and carry two of my 230ah tubular batteries (which I've only used for 6 months) free but he rejected the offer because I told him that about 800k will still be needed to purchase pv, Inverter and other accessories. Lol
We can now see why an average Nigerian prefer running his small Gen for few hours everyday not minding the long run cost of buying fuel today 2k, tomorrow 1k,.....
God will help us all as we begin this fantastic year 2023 with HIM.

Thanks for stating this. Any of the old timers here would tell you how I am a big proponent of small efficient systems and I have always advocated for discussions around how to build budget systems. The problem I always see is that many people are not ready to adjust their expectation from solar with their pocket.

When I tell people I lived for 2 years off the grid with 2 Tubular Batteries and a 1.8kw of the solar array (made up of 80% using solar panels built over the course of 2 years) The key is and as always been load, putting work on making your load as efficient as possible. Even if you don't have a single panel, as long as you see yourself using solar in the future, start by progressively making your electrical appliances and usage efficient This means LED light bulbs, Efficient TV, Fridge, FAN, etc. This does not need to happen overnight. Take your time and gradually swap out the old inefficient appliances.

The problem I see is that many want a solution that works now now but does not have the money for such a system. They then end up in the hands of charlatans who scam them and get a system that becomes a money pit.

drizzypat:
Guys something wierd just happened to my Inverter ryt now and it went off .not displaying at all

So I got closer to d inverter it has a burning smell in fan vents side of my MUST inverter.

I was using my 6.5kva generator to charge it.

It's not turning on now...

I checked the back of my lipo battery it already switched itself off ..like a surge or something

What could be the problem please!

Please which model of must Inverter do you have?

I have a mains charging setup with a small lithium battery and Sorotec hybrid

Discovered when the battery is charged full it stops charging and starts discharging quietly over a couple of days.

For example I've had grid supply for more than 48 hours (new year bonus) and checked my bms to see my battery has lost 25 Ah.


Is there something I'm missing? Or that's normal?

ojeysky:


A 12v lifepo4 should not be charging up to 14.5v do reduce your bulk voltage to a voltage within 13.5 to 14

Thanks, the question was hypothetical, was just trying to get if anyone tried and got away with it.

Valto:
u seem to be even over charging your cells. from my experience, the perfect charge voltage for 12v lifepo4 lithium is between 13.8v to 14v bulk, 13.5v or 13.6v float.

Thanks, no cells are overcharging yet, lol.
I just wanted to know if anyone used those common PWM controllers with lifepo4 because I see it on some portable lithium packages being sold around, so it's either they're overcharging the cells or they've incorporated buck converters to lower the voltage.

IyaTola:
I want Canadian panel and lithium batteries

You're courting millions, it's now a matter of how many.
What appliances do you want to power?

AshipaEk0:
I have a mains charging setup with a small lithium battery and Sorotec hybrid

Discovered when the battery is charged full it stops charging and starts discharging quietly over a couple of days.

For example I've had grid supply for more than 48 hours (new year bonus) and checked my bms to see my battery has lost 25 Ah.


Is there something I'm missing? Or that's normal?

What's your charging profile,
Bulk and float voltage.

If your float voltage is too low, your battery may have to discharge some capacity.

FEGEITOK:


N1,000.00 gives you 13.6kWh.

I am sorting out my panels next working day.

This issue of price increase might not be general.
A friend bought 164 units for 10k in PH on the 26th of last month.