Once you mentioned that you have two friends with scrap yards I got so envious that I could hardly focus on the rest of the post Dave. 
Honestly, Iâm too much of a troglodyte to deal with much modern tech. A BMS seems way to complicated and fragile for me to deal with and depend upon for my power needs. Iâm comfortable with pre-OBD2 auto systems but prefer pre-OBD all together. Same with most other things. Iâve tried to find a place in the twenty-first century but so far we have not been simpatico. I do like the idea of flying cars though.
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Tom, installing a BMS is relatively easy. Especially considering all the big storage cells use screw terminals.
You have a small wire for every positive of the cell, and thatâs how the BMS reads and balances the voltage between the cells.
Thereâs some BMS boards that only balance each cell which are very inexpensive, and boards that runs all the ingoing and outgoing current to prevent too high of a draw or sucking down to 0%.
Pretty much any lithium battery thatâs in a case already has one installed.
In your climate, I would keep my eye out for batteries that have self heating, as well as High/Low temp battery cutoff.
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Sigh. I hope this does not distract too much from DavidBâs excellent topic he set up here.
CodyT., and Others; what TomH is trying to express is that once a fellow does reach into past his 60âs y.o.; the constant new coming-of-age youngâens; ed-u-ma-cated newly graduated Engineers, and Futurists new-better ideas has just has a fellows patience, and willingness to change, all worn out.
Give you and other youngâens, 40 more years under your belts and when a Tesla energy cube is introduced and you be just plum tired of setting aside previous existing you have bought and paid-for, learned to understand, warts and all, to new-learn another new system just to keep up with you-must-do-changes. Youâll be cranky, crabby, resistant, too.
And you to will have decades learned well by then that of any new 19th, 20th, 21st Centuryâs Techâs shake-out to the accepted useable, had matured out through at least a 90-99% attrition shake-out failure rate.
Think not? In the 1990âs I and others did use Ni-Cadâs batteries in our systems. Hey! They were non-liquid; all positions, solid state rechargeable. Yeah a few warts with those too. Low capacity. State of charge memory effects.
Before the switching over from NiCd to Nickel-METAL HYDRIDEâs NiMhdâs; was low-gassing lead-acids evolved and still available as true-sealed; gel-cell; spiral-cell; now AGM lead acid Techâs. Each requiring their own charging and use characteristics to learn and obey.
And this particular time frame in this 21st Century is really the worst of times. With a throw out the 1 year to 5 year âOldâ, for this years latest and greatest.
A wise person adopts the best of Yesterday to rely-on and use. With an eye for what will proof-out, new-today for depreciated costs-use, Tomorrow.
Steve Unruh
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His charge controller is a BMS but for Lead acid batteries. The difference is in the batteries I was talking about the BMS is integrated into the battery like it is on power tool batteries so he doesnât have to think about it.
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I fully agree with you all , howâs that for being diplomatic .
But to keep this on topic the batteries i talk about Tom are as Sean mentioned just that a battery you just wire into your solar or charger and away you go , just do the same as what you would do for your golf /traction batteryâs , the real differences are the AH if your lead acid are 250 AH you really should onlt take them down to around say 50% so you really only have 125AH of batteryâs with Lifepo4 a 120 AH battery can be taken down if you really need too as low as 10% so you are getting almost all out of that battery ,but of course you will reduce the number of cycles to around 2000 in my case , but that is still more than a typical lead acid .
Iâm old and dumb and hate change as much as the next grumpy old Bastard but some times you just gotta change a wee little bit , and once you have and you sit down with your evening cup of coco ,you ponder and think what was all the fuss about .
Dave
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Well, that answers a question Iâve had about the difference in AHâs I kind of figured that was the case.
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I would not throw out lead-acid battery without consideration. All depends on your skills and DIY capability.
While not too cheap, lead is abundant and obtainable/recoverable from scrapyards. Even sulphuric acid could be home made from common sources.
Could be stored indefinetely and easily processed.
Construction of LAB is simple and comprehensivesly documented in many sources. There is a lot of YouTube videos of DIY.
One can scale up LAB to get required capacity without significant obstacles.
Short lifespan in term of full cycles could be mitigated by enormous capacity which would provide only very low discharge requirment. Of course, at a cost.
Healthy LAB is frost resistant. It could be stored outside.
Many other features may apply for specific conditions of considered solution and purpose. So itâs up to the âcustomerâ or rather say âcreatorâ of the overall system to decide the best solution.
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If the research papers are anything to go by there is a good future for Lead acid either in a lead carbon or lead silicon formulation. Its just so prevalent understood and cheap that its not going away anytime soon. Having said all that the next new systems I install for larger off grid setups will have a lithium battery if budget allows and the client understands the plusses and minuses.
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all good Steve. Battery talk is completely relevant as is judging the mood for change out there. I recently purchased a 12 volt to 18 volt converter to run my cordless tools off of a car battery. I recently bought a Ryobi cordless compressor which is now the only one I carry in the work trailer. Its perfect for a one man show like me. Change is not good or bad but should be examinedâŠ
Cheers, David
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Kamil, I am of a similar opinion, the lead battery has been in use for more than 100 years, I donât see a better and simpler solution, it just has to be sufficiently robust and last for 20 years or more. But if something goes wrong, wellâŠ
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Maybe each of us has a different opinion on how SHTF is going and will climax. The one common thread is that essential supplies and supply chains are and will become increasingly tenuous. We need to understand that this is more of a transition period than the end of the world as we know it. The old controllers have declared war on the people of the planet. They openly admit it thinking that their intensive 70 year programming efforts will be so effective that the majority of the people will be compliant. Maintaining power takes money. We are going to see very soon if they have the funds. The US and Europe with our central banks issuing unbacked currency are currently scrambling to scrape up enough to function from month to month. Their only real hope is instituting a global war which they can use to usurp enough real assets to remain in control. Believe this or not, but people like us are their greatest obstacle and therefore enemy. Each person we teach to separate from the flock further drains their power. When enough of us realize that we are not sheep to be sheared then they will have lost the war. In the mean time they will continue to decimate your food supply, your electric supply, your fuel and heating supplies. So everything you can do to circumvent your reliance on an outside supply of these necessities is really the most important things you can do to come out the other end of this war and live well through the rebuilding phase which will follow. In this period which could well last several decades, you will at first fall back on more basic technologies. Things you can construct or jerry rig from broken and abandoned tools and machines. If you have a way to refurbish broken electronic tech then more power to you. It wonât be the case for most of us. Lead acid batteries are a prime example. They are everywhere and depleted they are considered to be of little value however they are in one simple package everything you require to resurrect a power storage system. You would be wise to at least gain a knowledge of how that is done.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+battery+book&crid=1EXGF6SJQKIBK&sprefix=the+battery+book%2Caps%2C213&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_16
I have The Battery Book. I recommend it. I need to purchase some of the others as well. The printed page is another example of old tech that will survive when E-books have died in your lap top. This is not to say that our dependence on outdated tech will last. Freed from the stifling regulations imposed on the creative people in this world there will be almost unimaginable innovation. Iâm sure that many here will still be around to see itâs birth. The future is bright but first me must forge a part through the current darkness. If you were to study the I Ching you would see that hexagram 24. The return/the turning point, is the energy operating at this time. In the wilhelm translation we have the following commentary.
Comments on the Hexagram (click to expand)
The idea of a turning point arises from the fact that after the dark lines have pushed all of the light lines upward and out of the hexagram, another light line enters the hexagram from below. The time of darkness is past. The winter solstice brings the victory of light. This hexagram is linked with the eleventh month, the month of the solstice (December-January).
The Judgement
After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force. The upper trigram Kâun is characterized by devotion; thus the movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results. Societies of people sharing the same views are formed. But since these groups come together in full public knowledge and are in harmony with the time, all selfish separatist tendencies are excluded, and no mistake is made. The idea of RETURN is based on the course of nature. The movement is cyclic, and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is the meaning of heaven and earth.
All movements are accomplished in six stages, and the seventh brings return. Thus the winter solstice, with which the decline of the year begins, comes in the seventh month after the summer solstice; so too sunrise comes in the seventh double hour after sunset. Therefore seven is the number of the young light, and it arises when six, the number of the great darkness, is increased by one. In this way the state of rest gives place to movement. I find it appropriate for our current times.
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Now that is definitely off topic. There are sections of the site devoted to philosophy, politics, musings etc. Please try to post it there. I agree with a good part of the post just want more focus or else the whole site blends to greyâŠ
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I agree with David, we need to try to keep the focus here. Lets try to limit the discussion here to solar, batteries and related tech - without getting into the weeds of personal beliefs etc.
Tom rather than delete part of your post I used a nifty feature called âHide Detailsâ, itâs available in the gear menu when you write your post. It creates a clickable link which will expand a very long section of a post when most folks may not be interested in reading it, if they are they can click into it. I think this is an appropriate case for it - however I would still recommend keeping that type of post somewhere else.
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Sorry for the drift. I get a little carried away at times. Iâll be more careful.
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Its ok Tom we still love you
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Yup we all drift off the subjects sometimes too. Me included. Lol.
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OMG I talked to a solar guy today about installing panels at my parents. My mom found this guy⊠For 9.4kw of roof mounted panels, using micro-inverters the quote was 40k (pre-tax savings). The funniest part is when he started, the quote for the electric bill if prices stayed the same was it was going to be 40k for 20 years.
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10 k max 
. And maybe half if you install them yourself and stay away from ac on your roof, even if it is 110 v. Maybe micros if there is a tree or something, otherwise unnecessary.
Micros are nice because they arenât affected as much by shading, as the panels arenât connected in series. My mom just dropped a bomb on me and told me two days ago, she scheduled an appointment. and she wouldnât even tell me with who, but she wanted me there. Probably the bigger irony is she doesnât want panels on the roof because of how it looks, and that is where they were going to install them. The third irony is she wanted backup power, and these donât provide that, they are just the cheap grid-tie ones.
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There is a lot of such experts over here. They use different stories, but generally they want to sell you a dime for a dollar. We call them energoscumbags.
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