NiyiOmoIyunade:
Yes you can have a 48v inverter charging four batteries in series and still clamp on a 12v charger to each battery without issues so long as you do not mixup polarity. The Souer's absorb setpoint is 14.8volts so I just reduce the inverter setpoint to say 14.1 or 14.4volts during the treatment period so that the Souer does most of the charging and topping off.

So that is how I do it! I am sure by now its obvious if you go through my posts that I have pretty strange ideas about how batteries behave and should be maintained. These are the conclusions I reached based on careful study and hands on experience with various battery banks.

My kind of guy! The very reason I recently devolved 2 banks from 48V to 24V recently, including the one I use at home. Well, I use 250W x 12 PV panels so strings of 2, 3 or 4 are possible. Against routine principles, I upped my PV strings from 3 in series to 4 in series (logic says devolving from 48V to 24V banks should allow reducing strings from 3 to 2). Why did I do that? I'll post motivation, observation, inference and conclusion later. Right now, I can tell you my CC wakes earlier and sleeps only as the sun is going down. Of course it runs hotter as the fan keeps buzzing. Will solve that soon.

makavele:


Cos those are factory-based under STC which don't apply to real life . . .
Take for example, a battery spec sheet might tell you to charge your battery to 14.1V for optimum performance
And you might be living where you do not have enough sun-hours to float your battery.
What do you do? Increase bulk charge to say, 14.6 and let it smoke . . .
** and for those who might want to argue, it's called "max smoke" in the solar world & perfectly safe***
By the time the sun goes down; you would be closer to 100% SOC
If you seem to be smoking too much, reduce to 14.4 and try again . .
no battery spec sheet will tell you this.
so forget what the spec sheets say, they are theoritical and meant as guides
throw it away, and face real conditions applicable to you and you only.

Use the specs in the sheets as guidelines. Adopt them when and where possible. Get a CC with temperature compensation (most do that now) and choose a mid-point charge voltage for smaller batteries (golf cart types) or the upper limit for tall batteries (L16 and similar). Be ready to spend on distilled water.

Or use the lower setpoint and hawk over SG drifts for about 3 months, singling out and charging weaker ones, all the while monitoring cabling and corrosion. The you can go to bed. The choice is yours.

If you're using SMF/AGM, get it right the first time and pray all goes well. Same for lithium

pranil:


Gentlemen The battery terminals work like a DC busbar unless there is a real busbar. All this current exchange happens only in the terminals and only excess current ( +ve) goes INSIDE the battery for chemistry to charge the battery or if the load is higher than battery excess current is generated by chemistry and delivered to the load in addition to CC current

As long as the CC is maintaining higher voltage than battery the entire current will go to the load .


Now you can see the reason for Hybrid inverters like ipower/zinnox/gennex where the current going to the battery is limited by the inverter but Current produced by the CC can be directly consumed by the load as the busbar is formed inside the inverter.
At one time i was running 400 AH bank ( max 40 amp charge setting) with 5 KW panels without any issues. Any excess load was automatically supplied by PV power

Was gonna make a post on this seemingly tedious issue but seeing you've put it to rest, all is well. For those in doubt, install a shunt with a dispaly/readout and your doubts would be put to rest.

kiekie1:


Suoer smart battery charger which I also use is the 12v 50a blue color type... Works very well tho !

Price?

Sorry to say but this is not mppt. I have opened it up,it doesn't have the xteristic toroidal coil or inductor

NoMoreTrolling:


Thank you K.k, bigrovar, zeestone99 for your input regarding the setup.

I will call the contractor back to see if he can change the setup to 3X3 instead. I just didn't want to stand my ground then, because as they say, no one knows everything. So I figured I'd trust the guy that has done 100s of installs.

Here is the charge controller he bought, the first one he bought spoilt, so he had to replace it with this one.

The max PV voltage is usually like 60 something, but as soon as you load it, the pv voltage drops down to battery voltage, around 51-55v depending on the weather. It just doesn't seem right for MPPT.

Thanks again guys, may this thread and all our endeavors continue to blossom!

Mank1234 is right. The battery sees 10A. I have a meter installed in mine and I see this in reality

makavele:


I do not like guesswork.
Please place an ammeter between charge controller and battery bank;
and let us know what you get,
Then place between battery bank and inverter and let us know what you get too . .
before you do this, please ensure the CC is supplying more than the c10 or c20 current
thanks

With this I know if net my battery is charging esp when loads are connected during solar charging[kquote author=makavele post=62625690]

I do not like guesswork.
Please place an ammeter between charge controller and battery bank;
and let us know what you get,
Then place between battery bank and inverter and let us know what you get too . .
before you do this, please ensure the CC is supplying more than the c10 or c20 current
thanks



[/quote]

I am beginning to think 24v should be the standard
battery connection. From observation anything above 24v whether series or series- parallel is a problem..... 48v system is esp prone to premature battery failures

bigrovar:


The above is why I love flooded batteries. The ability to send equalising voltage cross all the batteries in the bank forcing all the cells to get higher voltage charge until you ensure (with the help of an hydrometer) that their voltage has been brought to an equilibrium, the ability to do this once a month means battery will never be allowed to be stuck in voltage imbalance for a long time. If you use a Valve regulated battery than your best bet is a battery balancer.

And it is better to have batteries in series connections than parallel. Parallel connection are generally less efficient, more expensive to setup and are more prone to imbalance, even with the best battery to charge/load connection the different internal resistance of batteries are more pronounced with parallel than with series. With series connection you are dealing mostly with voltage imbalance, which can be dealt easily with battery balancer, with parallel imbalance is more current.. some batteries would do more of the work and get more of the charge (thanks to internal resistance) you can try to fix this using battery connection but it only mitigate the problem.

durodee:


Price?

Hello Sir , I will keep you posted on the current price .. Cheer's

DMerciful:
Sorry to say but this is not mppt. I have opened it up,it doesn't have the xteristic toroidal coil or inductor

chai! all these useless contractors selling crap.

Well it is to wait for a couple of months before I buy another one personally.

I will let the bastard know sha

NoMoreTrolling:


chai! all these useless contractors selling crap.

Well it is to wait for a couple of months before I buy another one personally.

I will let the bastard know sha

Jst try and read through previous pages, diff controllers v been discussed. U can mk a choice from dem. from the reliable Chinese brands to Usa brands etc.
Here r a few you cud choose from when ready
Epsolar, fangpusen, Tristar, midnite classic, victron etc

You can contact me for purchase when ready...

zeestone99:


Jst try and read through previous pages, diff controllers v been discussed. U can mk a choice from dem. from the reliable Chinese brands to Usa brands etc.
Here r a few you cud choose from when ready
Epsolar, fangpusen, Tristar, midnite classic, victron etc

You can contact me for purchase when ready...

No problem Zee and thanks for the troubleshooting.

Will hopefully get the EPsolar from you or another dealer here in a couple months.

Good day house, I have a question
What's the most efficient way to prevent the use of high energy consumption loads. For instance, There is a socket outlet which I don't want to supply more than a certain watt (at most to charge a laptop which is about 40-60W) and charge phones or to be used for devices not exceeding 80-100W instantaneously. Would a 1Amp AC Breaker work? What other options are viable? Thanks

Jamzig1:
Good day house, I have a question
What's the most efficient way to prevent the use of high energy consumption loads. For instance, There is a socket outlet which I don't want to supply more than a certain watt (at most to charge a laptop which is about 40-60W) and charge phones or to be used for devices not exceeding 80-100W instantaneously. Would a 1Amp AC Breaker work? What other options are viable? Thanks

Hello, try using the AC breaker as an overload trigger for that particular socket and u must manually reset .. Cheer's

kiekie1:


Hello, try using the AC breaker as an overload trigger for that particular socket and u must manually reset .. Cheer's

Thanks, are there AC breakers that can protect such low current draw? (Theoretically speaking) My Laptop Adapter is rated 1.8A AC... Meaning I would need something like a 2A AC breaker... Are such available in the market?

Jamzig1:

Thanks, are there AC breakers that can protect such low current draw? (Theoretically speaking) My Laptop Adapter is rated 1.8A AC... Meaning I would need something like a 2A AC breaker... Are such available in the market?

Yes ooo , you just reminded me of years ago I usually use miniature AC breakers.. It comes in smaller shapes like the type you see on few devices or even smaller .. (2-5 trip amps) ..

I will try search my lab to see if I can lay my hands on some . what's app me with my num below! cheers

Smartcell global services
081-350-319-51

A 1Amp AC Breaker or Fuse would work BUT 1 AC Amp is approximately 240watts and therein lies the problem - a 1Amp breaker is rated to carry a 1Amp/240Watt load indefinitely without stress - it would only trip at best at 2 to 3 times its rated capacity e.g if you plugged an iron or heating element. So with a 1Amp breaker, you would have exceeded your target load limit of 100w several times before it would trip.

So you need like a 0.5Amp AC breaker which would be rated around 120watts which is closer to the load limit you want to impose.

AC Breaker is prefered over a fuse because you can reset and reuse it several times whereas a fuse is single use, once it opens/burns you need to put in a replacement - which bring another problem! Location!!! You want to place the breaker in a place where you can easily reset it as you don't want to be opening up your AC Panel/Distribution Board anytime you wanna reset the breaker so you place it in a easy to access place

A smart kid or other member of your household would quickly know "where Daddy presses to reset the breaker" and its only a matter of time before they figure out how to bypass it or hurt themselves while playing with it!!!

In the end breakers and fuses were designed to protect your WIRES/CABLES and not equipment/loads - they would only trip/open minimum around 2 to 3 times their rated capacity. . GFCI type breakers are designed to protect people but I don't see how you can use them in this load limiting scenario.

If you can lay hands on a 'type B' AC breaker for this current limiting exercise then all the better I would say.

Jamzig1:
Good day house, I have a question
What's the most efficient way to prevent the use of high energy consumption loads. For instance, There is a socket outlet which I don't want to supply more than a certain watt (at most to charge a laptop which is about 40-60W) and charge phones or to be used for devices not exceeding 80-100W instantaneously. Would a 1Amp AC Breaker work? What other options are viable? Thanks

NiyiOmoIyunade:
A 1Amp AC Breaker or Fuse would work BUT 1 AC Amp is approximately 240watts and therein lies the problem - a 1Amp breaker is rated to carry a 1Amp/240Watt load indefinitely without stress - it would only trip at best at 2 to 3 times its rated capacity e.g if you plugged an iron or heating element. So with a 1Amp breaker, you would have exceeded your target load limit of 100w several times before it would trip.

So you need like a 0.5Amp AC breaker which would be rated around 120watts which is closer to the load limit you want to impose.

AC Breaker is prefered over a fuse because you can reset and reuse it several times whereas a fuse is single use, once it opens/burns you need to put in a replacement - which bring another problem! Location!!! You want to place the breaker in a place where you can easily reset it as you don't want to be opening up your AC Panel/Distribution Board anytime you wanna reset the breaker so you place it in a easy to access place

A smart kid or other member of your household would quickly know "where Daddy presses to reset the breaker" and its only a matter of time before they figure out how to bypass it or hurt themselves while playing with it!!!

In the end breakers and fuses were designed to protect your WIRES/CABLES and not equipment/loads - they would only trip/open minimum around 2 to 3 times their rated capacity. . GFCI type breakers are designed to protect people but I don't see how you can use them in this load limiting scenario.

If you can lay hands on a 'type B' AC breaker for this current limiting exercise then all the better I would say.

Thanks for the illustrative response Sir.
Another challenge is that a Laptop Adapter for instance (which is the most important load in mind) is rated 100-240V ~ 1.8A for a 65W power... This means it doesn't draw exactly 230/240V which is the reason why the current is a bit higher (1.8A)... I know 1.8A is the Max current draw... If we are to go by 65W/240V = 0.27A. My question now is, which current should one look out for, is it the max rated current(1.8A) or the calculated current from P=IV (0.27A)?

DMerciful:
I am beginning to think 24v should be the standard
battery connection. From observation anything above 24v whether series or series- parallel is a problem..... 48v system is esp prone to premature battery failures

none of the batteries in my 48v battery bank setup has failed prematurely - yet
and this is going 5yrs and still counting. my first setup of only 4pcs 200ah batteries
went 7yrs before i changed them out. i have a feeling these ones will surpass that
milestone if their present superb performance is anything to go by.

GeorgeD1:


none of the batteries in my 48v battery bank setup has failed prematurely - yet
and this is going 5yrs and still counting. my first setup of only 4pcs 200ah batteries went 7yrs before I changed them out. I have a feeling these ones will surpass that milestone if their present superb performance is anything to go by.

You can say that again . .
batteries, if adequately pampered; will last a great deal
be it a 12V ; 24V, 48V, 96V, or 100000000V setup;
Doesn't matter

Amps can never be taken in isolation but rather you must ask the question "at what voltage" and are these AC amps or DC amps? Then you convert the amps to watts so you have a constant base to work off

My laptop power supply reads
INPUT > 100-240v~1.5A
OUTPUT > 20v~4.5A

The INPUT ratings are AC ratings and equipment manufacturers are required to list the MAX amperage the equipment will draw under load - in this case it is 100volts * 1.5Amps = 150watts

The OUTPUT side is a DC reading so 20volts * 4.5Amps = 90watts.

I can relate 150watts max power draw on the AC side to a 90watts DC output - a tad inefficient but plausible given the operational constraints with such a wide input voltage range.

In my case I would go with the AC side/INPUT load of 150watt because that is the load your laptop power supply would present to your inverter or PHCN or Generator - so size your load limiting breaker accordingly bearing in mind the rules I earlier stated - a 240v~1amp AC breaker is rated to carry a roughly 240watt load indefinitely without tripping

Jamzig1:

Thanks for the illustrative response Sir.
Another challenge is that a Laptop Adapter for instance (which is the most important load in mind) is rated 100-240V ~ 1.8A for a 65W power... This means it doesn't draw exactly 230/240V which is the reason why the current is a bit higher (1.8A)... I know 1.8A is the Max current draw... If we are to go by 65W/240V = 0.27A. My question now is, which current should one look out for, is it the max rated current(1.8A) or the calculated current from P=IV (0.27A)?

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Amps can never be taken in isolation but rather you must ask the question "at what voltage" and are these AC amps or DC amps? Then you convert the amps to watts so you have a constant base to work off

My laptop power supply reads
INPUT > 100-240v~1.5A
OUTPUT > 20v~4.5A

The INPUT ratings are AC ratings and equipment manufacturers are required to list the MAX amperage the equipment will draw under load - in this case it is 100volts * 1.5Amps = 150watts

The OUTPUT side is a DC reading so 20volts * 4.5Amps = 90watts.

I can relate 150watts max power draw on the AC side to a 90watts DC output - a tad inefficient but plausible given the operational constraints with such a wide input voltage range.

In my case I would go with the AC side/INPUT load of 150watt because that is the load your laptop power supply would present to your inverter or PHCN or Generator - so size your load limiting breaker accordingly bearing in mind the rules I earlier stated - a 240v~1amp AC breaker is rated to carry a roughly 240watt load indefinitely without tripping

Alright, thanks again... I would continue my quest with the info gathered.

You must draw us your battery wiring diagram or show clear pictures of your battery setup.

I know you have said before that you have an unorthodox method for your battery configuration.

How deeply do you cycle your batteries?

GeorgeD1:


none of the batteries in my 48v battery bank setup has failed prematurely - yet
and this is going 5yrs and still counting. my first setup of only 4pcs 200ah batteries went 7yrs before I changed them out. I have a feeling these ones will surpass that milestone if their present superb performance is anything to go by.

You use premium stuff , super connection strategy,
enough solar power to float d batteries most times during day etc

GeorgeD1:


none of the batteries in my 48v battery bank setup has failed prematurely - yet
and this is going 5yrs and still counting. my first setup of only 4pcs 200ah batteries went 7yrs before I changed them out. I have a feeling these ones will surpass that milestone if their present superb performance is anything to go by.

GeorgeD1:


none of the batteries in my 48v battery bank setup has failed prematurely - yet
and this is going 5yrs and still counting. my first setup of only 4pcs 200ah batteries went 7yrs before I changed them out. I have a feeling these ones will surpass that milestone if their present superb performance is anything to go by.

Seconded .. I use same batt bank connection tweak with you but on a 24v 600a agm set-up & it works real good ! Cheers

GeorgeD1:


none of the batteries in my 48v battery bank setup has failed prematurely - yet
and this is going 5yrs and still counting. my first setup of only 4pcs 200ah batteries went 7yrs before I changed them out. I have a feeling these ones will surpass that milestone if their present superb performance is anything to go by.

are your batts fla or smf?..especially the first set that lasted 7yrs. or the current ones.
kindly state the make/brand/specs

NiyiOmoIyunade:
You must draw us your battery wiring diagram or show clear pictures of your battery setup.

I know you have said before that you have an unorthodox method for your battery configuration.

How deeply do you cycle your batteries?

my configuration is nothing special. just the normal 48v battery setup
connected with equal lengths of cable to a single positive and negative
bus bar. then i carry out yearly turn around maintenance by rotating the
batteries within the same bank.

i seldom cycle my batteries beyond 50% dod. my magnum battery
monitor kit makes sure of that.

earthrealm:


are your batts fla or smf?..especially the first set that lasted 7yrs. or the current ones.
kindly state the make/brand/specs

zenith 200ah.
my batteries have always been agm. both the present ones and the set
that lasted 7yrs.
unfortunately they are no longer available in the market.

GeorgeD1:


zenith 200ah.
my batteries have always been agm. both the present ones and the set
that lasted 7yrs.
unfortunately they are no longer available in the market.

What happened to Mr. Henry the supplier?

I called Zeestone9 on Saturday afternoon and we struck a deal on the proviso that I will get the goods today (Sunday)

By 4pm today, I received the goods in Abuja.

Thank you Zeestone9 for a job well done. Thumb Up .

DUNKA:
What happened to Mr. Henry the supplier?

nothing happened to him. i guess he moved on to other products
for business reasons.