Invertor Charger Choice

Started by Herman, February 29, 2016, 05:20:27 AM

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Herman

Hi Guys

I have been looking at the SP PRO SPMC481 this will allows us flexibility to upgrade our Battery capacity (range) up to 10, 000 Ah not that we need that much the other reason for going this way is the ability to charge the Ni-Fe batteries to a higher voltage with out any over volt worries

russ_drinkwater

Did you buy some Iron Edison batteries Herman?
Standalone. 20 Hyundai x 220 watts panels, 2 x classic 150's, Latronics 24 volt 3kw inverter, Whiz bang Jnr, 12 Rolls surrete  4KS 25P  batteries and WBJ.
Grid tie feed-in, 12.5 kw in 3 arrays generating 50 kws per day average. Solar river grid tie inverters

mike90045

Do you have any gear now ?   I just use my generator to get the batteries up to about 80%, and I don't sweat getting them all the way up to 100% with the generator, I let the solar do that hard work.  NiFe batts don't care if they are not fully charged, unless you need that last bit of juice
http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar

Classic 200| 2Kw PV, 160Voc | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph )| Listeroid 6/1, st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | midnight ePanel & 4 SPDs | 48V, 800A NiFe battery bank | MS-TS-MPPT60 w/3Kw PV

Herman



Quote from: russ_drinkwater on February 29, 2016, 03:52:48 PM
Did you buy some Iron Edison batteries Herman?
Hello Russ

I got my Ni-Fe batteries from Chang Hong unfortunately the shipping costs from the US is far to expensiveness as I tried for one of the  Watering Gun for Nickel Iron Batteries worked out to the shipping cost is twice the price of the gun and water tank


Yeah much the same Mike
The invertor i have at the moment goes into over volt when it goes above 58 VDC cheap Chinese stuff complements of the installer luckily I have a  QPX600DP PowerFlex+ Dual DC Power Supply made by AIM & Thurlby Thandar Instruments which handle the charging from the gen-set. I will be getting the new piece of kit in the next week or two when the supplier where I live gets it in.

The other reason for it is so The better half can just check the generator for fuel and oil and not worry about any thing when I am away where as at the moment you have to turn start the generator turn on stuff and wait till it boots up then hit the on button then to turn it off hit the off button then turn it off to many moving bits so this will simplify the whole process for those cloudy weeks.

The other reason I will be upgrading the Ni-Fe cells to 800 AH or 1000 AH cells in the next 12 Months so I will have no troubles with the equipment i have in place. 

russ_drinkwater

Hello Herman,
So you bought the cells out of china?
What amp hours and cost of cells and freight as well as import crap from the AU gov?
I bought a small iron edison to "play" with and it cost a small fortune for what it was.
My only concerns is the material that the battery cells container are made of.
How solid and robust are your batteries?
I like the idea of the edison cells as far as live and forgiving nature in regard to charging and discharging.
Russ
Standalone. 20 Hyundai x 220 watts panels, 2 x classic 150's, Latronics 24 volt 3kw inverter, Whiz bang Jnr, 12 Rolls surrete  4KS 25P  batteries and WBJ.
Grid tie feed-in, 12.5 kw in 3 arrays generating 50 kws per day average. Solar river grid tie inverters

Herman

Hi Russ

to answer your questions the cells are 240 AH set up as a 48 volt system and know you will say small the system was set up by a shonky installer who undersized everything before I really understood it all but luckily we also a 700 ah Lead acid bank 24 volt system that runs during the day then switch to the Ni_Fe bank when they reach 24.3 volt DC which are normally at 57.4 Volt DC when the change over occurs so we generally have no power problems.

The Ni_Fe cells will be changed when the lead acid bank dies to 800 AH as a 48 Volt system with the 240 AH cells converted to 24 Volt and moved to another area to run a separate Fridge and electrical lighting

At the moment we only run lighting a 240 Volt 50 Lt Fridge Telly and some laptop computers so we have plenty of power especially since I change to solar panels.

For Info About Chan Hong or iron Core please look at http://www.changhongbatteries.com/ and http://www.ironcorebatteries.com.au/page3.php they use a hard plastic case which is quite strong and quite robust, the only complaint I have with the is it is hard to see the water levels when topping them up the 40 cells cost me about 14K

Much Like the original cells from Thomas Edison you can empty them out and fill with a new mixture and keep running them ad if they have any deposit in them flush the out shake it (using distilled water of course) also from Chang Hog they will provide new cases and a plate if you need to fix a cell were as the original battery from my understating you could unbolt clean it a replace plates fill it up and away you go.

The biggest headache I have is trying to convince people what the batteries are capable of how you can flatten them with no harm to them and how long they last for, as most of solar companies here  have there heads in lead acid and government rebates and making money.

The Ni_Fe batteries are great and durable  By the way the best price I have seen them for is 8 K for 10, 1000 AH cells ready to go.

Hope I answered most of your questions.
   

russ_drinkwater

Hello Hermann,
Mate no need to sing the praises of the edison batteries. After many months of research I am of the opinion they are the
real deal as far as length of life and insane indestructabilty and abuse tolerance. The only problem is the cost of the units.
I need 20 x 100 amp hour cells for my setup and the price is breath-takingly high.
My wife is always at me about a better car and if I could/did spend that amount of cash on the batteries she would be out
of this world insane to be around for as long as the batteries lasted! :o
Bad enough when I get 4 x L16 trojan cells as we have to go to a larger town to pick them up. Sigh, and there is no hiding them, Lmao!
I will have to make do with my trojan cells for the moment and continue to salivate over the nickel iron cells for some time to come.
What part of Aus are you in Hermann?
Russ
Standalone. 20 Hyundai x 220 watts panels, 2 x classic 150's, Latronics 24 volt 3kw inverter, Whiz bang Jnr, 12 Rolls surrete  4KS 25P  batteries and WBJ.
Grid tie feed-in, 12.5 kw in 3 arrays generating 50 kws per day average. Solar river grid tie inverters

RossW

Quote from: russ_drinkwater on March 09, 2016, 03:06:36 PM
After many months of research I am of the opinion they are the real deal as far as length of life and insane indestructabilty and abuse tolerance.

Yup.

Quote
The only problem is the cost of the units.

I disagree here however. Cost is only ONE of their problems. At least, in my situation it is.
The very low cycle efficiency is a major drawback, if you don't *ALWAYS* have enough free power to charge them, and need to run a genset. 65% (some dubious claims up to 80-85%, but that seems unlikely) really is a deal-breaker for me.

The very large delta from charge to discharge, makes charging them a little tricky, and an inverter that'll work at both ends of their working range (flat, but still got useful juice - around what, 1.1V/cell or a little lower) up to peak volts during equalize of 1.7V/cell... so for a "nominal" 48V system, that's 40 cells in series - you're down to 42V near "empty", 48V full (but not charging) and up to a monster 68V equalizing.

Size and weight become a concern. I couldn't fit them where my old lead-acid cells are, and still keep enough capacity to do the job. Not everyone has a purpose-built battery room that simply cannot be relocated or extended, so that may not be such an issue to others.

I do like my LFP cells. Not inexpensive either, but wow... just WOW.
3600W on 6 tracking arrays.
7200W on 2 fixed array.
Midnite Classic 150
Outback Flexmax FM80
16 x LiFePO4 600AH cells
16 x LiFePO4 300AH cells
Selectronics SP-PRO 481 5kW inverter
Fronius 6kW AC coupled inverter
Home-brew 4-cyl propane powered 14kVa genset
2kW wind turbine

Westbranch

I have a large batch of 100Ah wet NiCd cells, and I use them in my first system in the guest cabin... 
They are from 30 to 40 yrs old and like NiFe cells use lye as the electrolyte... and when they deteriorate you just have to dump it out,carefully,  and clean out  deposits and refill and recharge... 
Much better charge efficiency than NiFe... don't have the specs here, so just going on memory. 
They were from various truck radio repeater sites ...

Doesn't anyone else have some in service?  Railroads use a lot of them and the Military...
KID FW1811 560W >C&D 24V 900Ah AGM
CL150 29032 FW V.2126-NW2097-GP2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3Px4s 140W > 24V 900Ah AGM,
2 Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr, NetGr DS104Hub
Cotek ST1500 Inv  want a 24V  ROSIE Inverter
OmniCharge3024  Eu1/2/3000iGens
West Chilcotin 1680+W to come

Herman

Just a quick thing on my set up

When the Wife and I purchased the property there was already a 24 Volt Soar system in place using 700 AH Raylite Batteries (so I had been Told) we had enough power to run 24 VDC Lights 12 VDC water Pump (Washing etc) Edwards Solar hot water (which Scalds you if not careful) it also has an electric boost, so we just had enough power to run a 400 LT Fisher and Paykel fridge over night and nothing else, remember w are totally off grid.

The wife wanted enough power to run a normal household TV, Fridge, Washing machine, iron, hairdryer, all the mod cons. So in came the one who should not be named and tried to meld Ni-Fe to lead acid and ad more solar panels ETC, I said to him it would not work but him being the EXPERT convinced me it would as he had done it numerous times before with no problems, Should have listened to my gut and not be a solar dullard.

No it did not work so the next step was to move all the batteries off the veranda (which I did not like the location of them) and move it into the shed and set up two banks one being Lead Acid 24 VDC @ 700 AH (I think) being the original system and a Ni-Fe cells 48 VDC @ 240 AH Being the newer system all set up with their own panels and MPPT Inverter/Charger the old using a Power master MPPT and Out Back Charger Inverter (24 VDC) and the new with a Power Master Inverter and I have been using a Thurbly & Thandar 80 VDC Power supply which is adjustable to charge the Ni-Fe cells, then using a transfer switch to swap between the two banks, so at 25.0 Volt I am using the lead acid and at 24.1 Volt it switches to the Ni-Fe cells, yeah a bit complicated especially when it come to charging them with the genset on a cloudy week remember the lead acid loose resistance and bounce up to 27 - 28 volt after the transfer occurs and if the Ni-Fe cells have 56-27 VDC they run all night.

Then it all went down hill after a long wet spell and all his joins shorted out due to water and his beaut DCH BX65 panels went toes up.

So the plan is replace all the panels which I have done get rid of the power master inverter and remove the power supply and replace it with the selectronics SP Pro Charger inverter to make it far easier to use as it stands, heavy cloudy weather just start the Genset and it all happen automatically without having to turn on this that to charge then turn it off then turn the Genstet off (to complicated for the better half).

So when the lead acid 24 VDC die I will remove them from the system and at the same time replace the Ni-Fe cells with either 40, 800 AH cells or 1000 AH cells and use the 40, 240 AH cell set up in 2 x 20 parallel giving me 480 AH as a 24 VDC system  in a studio / self contained unit that the better half wants and sell the rest off the stuff I don't need.

That's the short story I hope 

TTFN Herman

russ_drinkwater

Ouch, I am kicking myself as there were approx 60 nicad in western australia cheap as chicks and housed in
stainless steel cases. So far away and the freight costs were painfull. They may have been good and redeemable and maybe not.
It sucks being so far away from a potential really good buy!
Here where I live we have mostly clear days (300 plus a year) even in winter. It is a rare year where we get over 28 inches of rain.
And I will have to travel 16 hours if I ever want to see snow in winter!
I noted with interest they are starting to advertise the tesla wall units here.
What are the cells in these walls units?
Standalone. 20 Hyundai x 220 watts panels, 2 x classic 150's, Latronics 24 volt 3kw inverter, Whiz bang Jnr, 12 Rolls surrete  4KS 25P  batteries and WBJ.
Grid tie feed-in, 12.5 kw in 3 arrays generating 50 kws per day average. Solar river grid tie inverters

CDN-VT

I hope all works well for you & the Mrs NOW Herman .
Many bad story's  over here as well.

I just stopped on a drive by from seeing 4 trackers with 10 panels on each , Huge money spent , then as I was viewing this setup , owner came out and made sure I was not casing his place (Industrial setting ) .
He showed me everything as a very proud new solar green Gent . Then 60 more panels roof mounted but facing west on the 50th parallel . Then to all of his grid-tie stuff & I noticed all Asian made (没有一个字,但数字,什么样çš,,顺序) ..
I didn't want to say anything to such a happy man & his daughter was so happy also to get me a coffee as he describe his setup .
He relied on household & industrial electricians etc.  I asked to see a manual , all in Asian.
NOT one SPD on any box / gutter , The gent who owned this setup gave me his industrial electricians card and said give this gent a call , he knows how all these gizmos work  !!

So I gave the gent (his industrial electrician) a call , Nice gent & we had a chat , seems  owner had a solar expert who supplied all this stuff & the industrial electrician wired it in . I let him on that I didn't see one SPD on 20 boxes plus .
Next week I get a call from him , the gent installed a whole house surge protector into the breaker panel !!

We live in a valley of 6000' mountains , lightning last night  or thunder , cuz I was sleeping .

Act of God is how the insurance might see it.

Better luck Herman

VT
Canadian Solar 350W 37.6 VOC  30.6 VMP 8.22 ISC 7.87 IMP ,-15 c +30c max  4 strings in 2 in Series for 24v Classic 150 -1020 Ah  Freezers & fridges ~~~ Second Array same panels of 3sx3 parallel for 24 V Classic 150 -440 Ah Outback Barns & out blds.
48Vdc almost done,11Strings up of 3s11P same panels