Good morning to my ogas in the house,Pls if you have an mppt charge controller you are no longer using and are willing to dash out or sell at a cheap rate, I need it pls. The pwm controller I have is not working optimally and I don't have enough money now to go for a new mppt controller. Thanks

Horlaarsco:
Can this be used with an inverter system (No need of solar panel because of the location) and what capacity will be advised to use?

hi,
yes you can. a 2kv inverter should power it, at least if it has at least 120% surge rating.

cheers

is there a whatsapp group on solar system issues? i will like to join.

ojeysky:


Yes my array is 1.5kw, planning to push it to 2kw to increase Voc so I can get better early/late mppt generation. Even at the moment, I actually feel I may have gotten more hervest if I had larger bank




A few things:
- Panels are sunfit, though not a popular brand but it seem to perform well and better than flames. There was a sunny day, that I actually pulled 8A off it.
- Not too far distance so I have little voltage loss; It's about 16 meter distance from array to cc and all my cable connections were done with 8AWG double core DC cable.
- I have a standalone setup for the panels. I have given details of that in previous posts

Finally, am not an expert on solar but I have learnt a lot from you guys here (yes including from you) and I owe it to that as well



Thanks, I bought mine directly from manufacturer by sending a mail to sales@mppsolar.com but it's also on AliExpress just that buying from there cost more.

That said, I am actually still trying to understand how the kWh is read, does it mean that I did 2kw every hour?

Regards

2kWhr from an array of 1.5kw is not impressive. You should be doing 3-6kWhr if the system is performing optimally (enough load and battery bank to accept all it can generate)

KWhr explanation: your system works from morning to evening generating power in kw ranging from 0kw to 1.5kw since your panel max at 1.5kw. The sum of all that generation is taken taken to hour term. Example if you have a constant 600w power output for 10min that's equivalent to {600*10/60} ie 100Whr.
So a 2kWhr generation can be said to be 2kW power output for 1hr but in reality the power was lower (less than 1.5kW) spanning a period between 6am and 6pm

mank1234:


2kWhr from an array of 1.5kw is not impressive. You should be doing 3-6kWhr if the system is performing optimally (enough load and battery bank to accept all it can generate)

KWhr explanation: your system works from morning to evening generating power in kw ranging from 0kw to 1.5kw since your panel max at 1.5kw. The sum of all that generation is taken taken to hour term. Example if you have a constant 600w power output for 10min that's equivalent to {600*10/60} ie 100Whr.
So a 2kWhr generation can be said to be 2kW power output for 1hr but in reality the power was lower (less than 1.5kW) spanning a period between 6am and 6pm

Thank you for clarifying this. There is a difference between kw/hr Value and harvested peak power value.

mank1234:


2kWhr from an array of 1.5kw is not impressive. You should be doing 3-6kWhr if the system is performing optimally (enough load and battery bank to accept all it can generate)

Right and I think I hinted that in my comment earlier; my current bank and load is not optimal so am not getting all the juice out yet. Nevertheless all my consumption needs are meet for now which is most important.

KWhr explanation: your system works from morning to evening generating power in kw ranging from 0kw to 1.5kw since your panel max at 1.5kw. The sum of all that generation is taken taken to hour term. Example if you have a constant 600w power output for 10min that's equivalent to {600*10/60} ie 100Whr.
So a 2kWhr generation can be said to be 2kW power output for 1hr but in reality the power was lower (less than 1.5kW) spanning a period between 6am and 6pm

Yup understood, though I must note that my generation period is currently between 8:30 to 5pm and this is due to the fact that I am currently running the minimum panel requirement for the system hence due to low Voc the CC doesn't commence mppt early/late enough, will add more Panels in future as budget permits.

Penuelseun:
Good morning to my ogas in the house,Pls if you have an mppt charge controller you are no longer using and are willing to dash out or sell at a cheap rate, I need it pls. The pwm controller I have is not working optimally and I don't have enough money now to go for a new mppt controller. Thanks

A client of mine had surge issues with this new model mppt and can give out if you can repair . Reach me if interested !

kiekie1:


A client of mine had surge issues with this new model mppt and can give out if you can repair . Reach me if interested !

For knowledge sharing, Please expatiate, what voltage and amps was he operating at? did he use excess panels than required?

If a 12 volt battery reads 11.7 volts, what does it mean/imply. Does it mean the battery is no longer good?

olaolu11:
If a 12 volt battery reads 11.7 volts, what does it mean/imply. Does it mean the battery is no longer good?

Under what conditions was that reading taken? What are you trying to get when you took the reading?

11.7v is just a value within the operating range of a "12v" battery.

kiekie1:


A client of mine had surge issues with this new model mppt and can give out if you can repair . Reach me if interested !

I will sir, thanks

Trippledots:


Under what conditions was that reading taken? What are you trying to get when you took the reading?

11.7v is just a value within the operating range of a "12v" battery.

I understand you can check the quality of a battery when buying it by using a multimeter. So i used it to check a supposedly new battery and it read 11.7 Unfortunately i coulnt get the ampere because it was a 10amps multimeter

A brand new battery reading 11.7v is a bad sign. It probably means it has been left without charge for at least a year - in this scenario, sulfation would have built up on the plates and very likely capacity would have degraded - a proper recharge should restore some capacity but you should not expect 100% - if you must buy this battery, discount the price appropriately.

You cannot measure how much power is stored in a battery by using a multimeter and measuring across the battery terminals - you will need to apply a constant load to a fully charged battery and measure how many hours it takes to discharge the battery and infer the Ah capacity as a function of Load × Backup Time (in Hours).

It is dangerous to attempt amps measurement across battery terminals with the test leads of a multimeter. Even high end multimeters are capped around 20A if you are doing in-line measurements - placing the test leads directly across the battery terminals is effectively dumping the entire battery into the multimeter - you may succeed in this enterprise if you connect the test probes only momentarily as the test probe cables will run hot very quickly - with cheap meters you will very likely blow a fuse as trying to measure amps across the +ve and -ve battery terminals is essentially shorting the battery and dumping the entire energy stored through the multimeter.

olaolu11:



I understand you can check the quality of a battery when buying it by using a multimeter. So i used it to check a supposedly new battery and it read 11.7 Unfortunately i coulnt get the ampere because it was a 10amps multimeter

Hello people,

Is it possible to use a 105,000mah powerbank as a substitute for batteries in an 80 watt solar panel , charge controller and inverter.

generationz:
Hello people,

Is it possible to use a 105,000mah powerbank as a substitute for batteries in an 80 watt solar panel , charge controller and inverter.

theoretically, Yes. but there will be some requirements.

1. the power bank should have inbuilt BMS. I guess that you are referring to the Zinox Powerbank?

2. you charge controller should have a feature for charging lithium or LFP batteries. not the ordinary pwm charge controller. this is because default voltages for AGM batteries are higher than those of LFP or lithium batteries. 12V AGM can take 14.5v charge, 12.6v lithium will not. this controller on aliexpress may be of help. someone on the forum here has used it, going from pictures he posted.
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32902994892.html


3. the 80w panel will produce like 4.5a at best, on cloudy days even less. you can go for the 150w (7-8amps max) panel instead, so that on cloudy days you could at least match the power bank Dc charger.

my 2 pence.

generationz:
Hello people,

Is it possible to use a 105,000mah powerbank as a substitute for batteries in an 80 watt solar panel , charge controller and inverter.

theoretically, Yes. but there will be some requirements.

1. the power bank should have inbuilt BMS. I guess that you are referring to the Zinox Powerbank?

2. you charge controller should have a feature for charging lithium or LFP batteries. not the ordinary pwm charge controller. this is because default voltages for AGM batteries are higher than those of LFP or lithium batteries. 12V AGM can take 14.5v charge, 12.6v lithium will not. this controller on aliexpress may be of help. someone on the forum here has used it, going from pictures he posted. select the model you want from the checkout. lithium versions have the DY PREFIX.
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32902994892.html


3. the 80w panel will produce like 4.5a at best, on cloudy days even less. you can go for the 150w (7-8amps max) panel instead, so that on cloudy days you could at least match the power bank Dc charger.

my 2 pence.

Hello,

I want to get ceiling and standing fan with low consumption. I have found some DC fans at good price, my question is considering I will be connecting it to a AC power source, what AC/DC adapter can I use for it?

Thanks

lexi28:


theoretically, Yes. but there will be some requirements.

1. the power bank should have inbuilt BMS. I guess that you are referring to the Zinox Powerbank?

2. you charge controller should have a feature for charging lithium or LFP batteries. not the ordinary pwm charge controller. this is because default voltages for AGM batteries are higher than those of LFP or lithium batteries. 12V AGM can take 14.5v charge, 12.6v lithium will not. this controller on aliexpress may be of help. someone on the forum here has used it, going from pictures he posted. select the model you want from the checkout. lithium versions have the DY PREFIX.
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32902994892.html


3. the 80w panel will produce like 4.5a at best, on cloudy days even less. you can go for the 150w (7-8amps max) panel instead, so that on cloudy days you could at least match the power bank Dc charger.

my 2 pence.

Thanks a lot.
Yes I use the zinox power bank. The black 105000 m a h. what about inverter? Which inverter should I use?

Good day everyone, have got a question pondering on my mind all day long, is this setup possible on Victron Quattro and also .. from the same power source ...
please kindly examine the picture attached.

You need three inverters to make it happen. Each inverter will represent a phase.

olopan:
Good day everyone, have got a question pondering on my mind all day long, is this setup possible on Victron Quattro and also .. from the same power source ...
please kindly examine the picture attached.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Yes Sir!

This is the very site I stumbled upon years ago that helped me understand what was going on for the very first time.

Same principles I believe founding fathers like Oga GeorgeD deduced from hard experience and used to wire up their battery banks.

Method 3 can be further simplified by using busbars.

A slightly modified Method 4 is the way we keep multiple parallel battery banks balanced using only one battery balancer.

All in all, once you are paralleling multiple battery banks, using busbars will help you reduce the number of hops/jumps current has to pass through.

niyi,
you're very much on point.
in the early days of my renewables journey, i did some extensive research on various methods of battery
connections in a bank and the method i finally adopted was ranked among the best.
that, along with my oversized solar array has ensured that my batteries remain in top shape these many
years, beating even the most enthusiastic predictions.
and, it's also the reason why i don't use a balancer despite having three parallel strings in my bank.

generationz:



Thanks a lot.
Yes I use the zinox power bank. The black 105000 m a h. what about inverter? Which inverter should I use?

modified sine wave inverters come cheap. 300-500w are readily available. but they have one drawback. they can't handle surge currents from inductive loads like fans and the rest. pure sine wave inverters are better. pure sine wave inverters are more expensive and hardly come in lower capacities less than 1000w.

p.s you should know that there is a load limit of 100w on the zinox power bank. so I guess buying an expensive pure sine wave inverter for a 100w load limit is not cost effective. depending on your load, buy a MSW 300W portable inverter. or check this link:
(kindly read the reviews, use Google chrome browser if necessary):

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32812776117.html

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32804402790.html

best of luck

Thanks for the quick response Mr Chris,
am just being a cheapskate here, trying to bypass getting a generator cabling to the inverter and using the output of both PHCN and GEN after the changeover and in the sequence of Line one for the AC1 Input and Line two as AC 2Input.
Guess its a NO GOOD Area with my diagram.

CC: Chris81964

chris81964:
You need three inverters to make it happen. Each inverter will represent a phase.

Let me share a little experience with you, especially for people who may be employing installers to do their solar jobs. A small solar set up was installed in my office with 8 batteries at 48v and what appeared like an a PWM controller but with MPPT written on it. We really didn't put it to use until sometimes last week. However, we noticed that the batteries soon died, even in the afternoon with blazing sun.

So my colleagues in the office informed me and I went down to see the installation. I asked that the NEPA input should be put off and put a load on the inverter. Lo and behold, the charge controller was not supplying any current to the battery. So, we were effectively running on the batteries. While the installer was fiddling with the installation, I looked at the label on the CC. Low and behold, it is labelled "auto 12/24v". So, the installer actually put a CC with max 24v input on a 48v system!

Fast forward to this afternoon, when the installer brought a Fangpusun CC (the FM80 Clone) to replace the CC. Still the CC was still not supplying any current to the batteries. Unfortunately, the installer was garrulous, unwilling to own up to his mistakes and was insisting that everything was fine. By the way, the Fangpusun was displaying "unloaded" at the right lower corner. I really have no idea what that means since I have never seen that on my original outback CC.

So, lessons

1. Don't assume that your installer know what he is doing, pay attention and ask questions
2. Ask a more knowledgeable friend to help you look over your installation if it is working well
3. Don't let any installer bamboozle you. If he can not explain what he is doing in a way you can understand, he probably does not know what he is doing.

But for the fact that I checked, we would have been thinking that our solar was working well, when we were only using NEPA to charge our batteries.

Finally, what does "unloaded" mean on Fangpusun Outback Clone?

lexi28:


modified sine wave inverters come cheap. 300-500w are readily available. but they have one drawback. they can't handle surge currents from inductive loads like fans and the rest. pure sine wave inverters are better. pure sine wave inverters are more expensive and hardly come in lower capacities less than 1000w.

p.s you should know that there is a load limit of 100w on the zinox power bank. so I guess buying an expensive pure sine wave inverter for a 100w load limit is not cost effective. depending on your load, buy a MSW 300W portable inverter. or check this link:
(kindly read the reviews, use Google chrome browser if necessary):

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32812776117.html

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32804402790.html

best of luck

Thanks.


Is the inverter needed for the solarbpanel or powerbank?

Considering the fact that I can use the power bank to charge my phone and laptop without an inverter on a normal day when it was charged with electricity.

The Quattro has 2 AC inputs and 2 AC outputs. Even if you do what you are thinking about, only one of the two will work. It looks at the most qualified and that is what it uses. I am guessing at what you are driving.

olopan:
Thanks for the quick response Mr Chris,
am just being a cheapskate here, trying to bypass getting a generator cabling to the inverter and using the output of both PHCN and GEN after the changeover and in the sequence of Line one for the AC1 Input and Line two as AC 2Input.
Guess its a NO GOOD Area with my diagram.

CC: Chris81964

ojeysky:
Hello,

I want to get ceiling and standing fan with low consumption. I have found some DC fans at good price, my question is considering I will be connecting it to a AC power source, what AC/DC adapter can I use for it?

Thanks

Bro, how much is it? I am considering buying one as well.

odimbannamdi:


Bro, how much is it? I am considering buying one as well.

16k do you have direct DC setup or you are doing conversion?

adrusa:
Let me share a little experience with you, especially for people who may be employing installers to do their solar jobs. A small solar set up was installed in my office with 8 batteries at 48v and what appeared like an a PWM controller but with MPPT written on it. We really didn't put it to use until sometimes last week. However, we noticed that the batteries soon died, even in the afternoon with blazing sun.

So my colleagues in the office informed me and I went down to see the installation. I asked that the NEPA input should be put off and put a load on the inverter. Lo and behold, the charge controller was not supplying any current to the battery. So, we were effectively running on the batteries. While the installer was fiddling with the installation, I looked at the label on the CC. Low and behold, it is labelled "auto 12/24v". So, the installer actually put a CC with max 24v input on a 48v system!

Fast forward to this afternoon, when the installer brought a Fangpusun CC (the FM80 Clone) to replace the CC. Still the CC was still not supplying any current to the batteries. Unfortunately, the installer was garrulous, unwilling to own up to his mistakes and was insisting that everything was fine. By the way, the Fangpusun was displaying "unloaded" at the right lower corner. I really have no idea what that means since I have never seen that on my original outback CC.

So, lessons

1. Don't assume that your installer know what he is doing, pay attention and ask questions
2. Ask a more knowledgeable friend to help you look over your installation if it is working well
3. Don't let any installer bamboozle you. If he can not explain what he is doing in a way you can understand, he probably does not know what he is doing.

But for the fact that I checked, we would have been thinking that our solar was working well, when we were only using NEPA to charge our batteries.

Finally, what does "unloaded" mean on Fangpusun Outback Clone?

I will rather call you the installer. It's seems your company gave the job to a Carpenter that watched YouTube unknowingly, or your company went for the cheapest available option and got a cheap result. No known installer here with good reputation will do this. Next time just call me . Don't let us waste company funds abeg. check my signature when you have a job for me. Gracias

We will be installing our set of lithium batteries soon. I will keep the house updated. Kudos to you all for making this thread lively and informative. Cheers

generationz:

Thanks.


Is the inverter needed for the solarbpanel or powerbank?

Considering the fact that I can use the power bank to charge my phone and laptop without an inverter on a normal day when it was charged with electricity.

hi, simple question.

your laptop & phone have ports / sockets to which they are plugged into. they basically are DC devices.

the solar panels are an alternative to the DC charger that comes with the power bank, so if you do not have PHCN, the panels will charge your power bank. knowing the Powerbank you are using, you can only use one charging source at a time.

the inverter comes into use when you wish to watch TV and other gadgets that require nepa supply. if your laptop and phone is all you ever use your Powerbank for, you do not need the inverter.
your connection will be:
solar panels=> charge controller => Powerbank charge input. that is all.

hope it helps