If they are lead acid batteries in parallel you can do 5 to 10 amps per battery safety. I wouldn’t push it beyond that on a regular basis because it will shorten the battery life.
Burning cherry man every time I do that I cry a little it is about the prettiest wood around here to build stuff out of…
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WELL… I did it, Just ordered 10-265w Edison panels @ 50 cents per watt including shipping. Don’t know if that’s a good price, but seemed like it from what I’ve been pricing. Still looking at controllers, and batteries. Found 24v 800ah fork lift batt for $1700.00? Called power co. today got info on grid tie, have to read all fine print:dizzy_face:
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Welcome to the fun sometimes white knuckle ride that is Solar…8 new flooded lead acids l16 size would give you 800 amp hrs. Would be 3200 canadian -20% for conversion. Are the fork lift batteries new? Sealed or flooded?
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batts are recond. 2 yr warranty.flooded replaceable 2v cells
Nice to have the waranty. Usually if something is going to go wrong it happens early on the reconditioned ones. On 48 volt systems the 2 volts are nice because you can loose one, pull it out and still function. Would probably still work with 24 volt systems as well.
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I thought about fork lift batts too heavy for me though. if you go grid tie no need for the battery except for emergency backup, nice price on those panels its amazing how the cost has came down so much.
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on a side note today was the first time in almost 6 months I had to start my genny for a couple of hours still loving those lithium.
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I was wondering about li-ion batteries from cars, they have individual cells that can be reconfigured to other voltages.
and often can be found cheep in comparison but you need a bms to keep them safe.
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Paul, where can I find info on BMS for that size battery? I found them for small banks.
I don’t have any info on that mine was a kit and came with everything sorry.
Hi all, bringing this back to life, getting closer to having everything for my PV/hydro system. Now I am looking at inverters, 2650 watts of solar 2 midnite controllers. Now what inverter, or inverters do I need? 24v input, 240vac out. 2k,3k,4k,5k,watts?
How much inverter you need will depend on how much stuff you plan to run at the same time. I have an 1800W unit by xantrex that I have been quite happy with. I like that it has a sleep mode, so you can reduce its power consumption considerably. Most inverters draw something like 20 Watts just to be ready to go, which add up to ~500Wh just for the inverter to run. My 1800 is plenty for me to run my fridge, washer and a little AC unit - probably all at the same time, but I cant say I have ever tried that. If you are going to have a lot of batteries, and be wanting to run heaters, or microwaves, or a hot water heater, then you are going to need to think about something bigger. Lights and TVs and electronics dont really use much power, so you could run a household of that sort of stuff on like a 500 watt inverter.
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I have a true sinewave 1000 watt inverter, it runs a 24" LED tv, 50 watts), a satellite receiver (probably as much or more), and lights with no sweat at all. I need new batteries for it to run the toaster or microwave. I like that sleep mode feature, would be handy.
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I understand sizing an inverter for want usage, but you have to be able to produce enough power in to get power out. I am trying to match to the system average. Now, blocking diodes, need them? I would think on a hybrid(two different charging systems) diodes would be necessary.
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Solar panels generally all have their own blocking diodes. Solar seems the simplest and most practical for charging an offgrid system. Unless you are in the PNW, or an area with gloomy winter conditions, then some sort of alternator/ generator is going to be needed, and not a bad idea for adverse weather or high energy use anyways. But won’t all those systems be naturally blocked from discharging a battery bank?
The other factor is the battery bank, with an unlimited budget a person could specify a battery bank for any contingency, and possibly rely on just one power source.
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What do you mean by that? Are you saying you want an inverter that is sized to your solar/hydro inputs? Wait, I just went back and skimmed some earlier posts, are you talking about grid-tie here? I cant really weigh in on grid tied, as I have never gotten into that, but in truly off-grid applications the size of your inverter is going to be dictated by the loads you want to run, and maybe also by how much amperage your batteries can sustain. Did you end up getting those 800AH 24V forklift batteries?
Garry is right, solar panels do not generally need diodes, and I am pretty sure charge controllers will prevent back-feeding anyway.
I have used blocking diodes before, but it is really only an issue if you are hooking a DC generator directly to the batteries. I will say that this will probably only be the case if your hydro is really close to your batteries, or you build some sort of DC generator. If you have to transmit the power any distance, 24v is going to call for big-ass wires, and then you will probably want to up the voltage and probably use some sort of hydro charge controller, which will have its own blocking diode in there. When I built my pedal powered generator I plugged it directly into my DC system, and it would have turned the generator without the little 6A diode I put in there.
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OK all, please tell me what off grid inverters you are using, or have used, good, or bad. Something 5k-12k . Thanks
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I’m using a Magna Sine Magnum 4K inverter and a Midnight controller. I may set up another system for my garage to be independent from the house.
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