This is a pretty good look at my RV solar system in action.

Dry camped at a state park in Big Sur last night. (Completely shaded) Was cool enough that I didn’t need ac - but because I could, I did run the heat pump (Turbro Greenland) when it got chilly during the night (like 5a-8a). So had about 20% left in the house bat (314ah ecoworthy) and about 60-something ont ej Anker F3000 (they are tied together via Ankers bidirectional dc-to-dc charger, and I had it set to feed the Anker from the house at 200w)

Today I drove up highway one from Monterey to San Simeon and then over to Paso Robles. So while driving the victron Orion connected to the alternator (yes I have two dc-to-dc chargers - I don’t know how common that is - but it did what I wanted to do) puts out about 600-7xx watts (dropping way down or shutting off when idling or slow driving). The shot above I took while the engine was off - so no output listed.

I’m dry camping tonight and this is more of a transition stop than a pretty stop. It was a tad warm so I decided to run the ac. (80 inside) it’s supposed to get down to 60 tonight, so not worried. (It currently says it will run for 8 more hours - but the Turbro will scale down to near moth soon - if it’s just running the fan it pulls like 100w. Currently pulling 550).

The home assistant screen shows my dash board. The solar output is about peak what I get from these panels. This was grabbed right around noon. They’re rated 970 watts total - but they’re flat mounted so, while I was hoping for a little higher, it is what it is.

The sideways panel is on its own controller (previous owner install) and I might have space to swap it out with something bigger. Bit priority over that would be to get a second ecoworthy 314 and wire it in parallel. I habe space and they’re cheap. Thst would bring me just over 11kWh.

I did have a chance to test it in hot conditions while staying at Pinnacles National Park. Where I also had a space with no sun. I did connect a portable 400w panel to get as much I lit as o could - but it was minimal. It was unusually warm for the season (low 90s or high eighties during the day. I also arrived with batteries about halfway discharged (dry camped the night before, and make some beginner mistakes (this rig has an electric add on to the water heater - I thought it was off, it wasn’t).

It also taught me just how hard a hot rig is to cool down, and if it’s much over 85 it’s gonna take forever to cool off, the ac will still pull hard, and it will eat your batteries.

Regardless it only ran the AC for about 4 hours before I shut it down due to low power. Which worked out okay because it cooled down to 60 thst night and fans were enough)

Most places o could have run the generator for an hour or two and charged everything up and been fine - but no gens allowed in pinnacles.

Verdict: more battery!

Where are people in the DMV buying panels locally or within reasonable driving distance? Any distributors/warehouses worth contacting directly? I’m also open to just paying freight and receiving a pallet or two at my address.

Also interested in specific panel models/brands you would choose right now for a ~25 kW bifacial ground mount.

Looking to buy roughly 25 -30 kW of bifacial solar panels for a DIY ground-mount system in the DMV area.

Target is around 24–30 kW DC, so roughly 40 x 630W panels, 52 x 550W, or something comparable. Planning to buy by the pallet and prioritize good $/W, reputable manufacturer, N-type/TOPCon if it makes sense (ideally panels that should hold up for 25–30+ years.)

Want to eventually run a 9500 sq ft home off grid, but I won’t be purchasing batteries and adding them until later on. Going to 1:1 meter back to grid for a few years.

I just bought 9 710W Canadian Solar panels yesterday for a price of $195 each tax included. That is $0.27/watt. That is cheap right? These panels are HUGE! Part of me thinks I should have gone with the 570W panels that are a little smaller, but too late now!

I have my heart set on the EcoWorthy bundle they have a sale on right now. It is the 10KW inverter and a 16KW battery (48v, 314Ah) for $3800. That seems like a pretty good deal to me! Does anyone know of any other deals going on right now that compare? I am up for advice and ideas about inverter and battery pairs. But this is the approx. price range and size I am looking for.

My goal is to run as much of my house as possible excluding the dryer, heat pump and stove. I honestly think I can get pretty close. I will spend the winter experimenting with locations for my panels. I think I have a pretty good plan, now I just need to implement it. Thanks for all your help so far.

I've been looking into heavy-duty low-frequency inverters with a built-in transformer and came across ZLPOWER's GS series. The price looks quite a bit lower than Sungoldpower's, and the specs seem pretty comparable at first glance.

I checked out their website, too, but haven't found much independent feedback on the brand yet.

Has anyone here compared the two or looked into ZLPOWER before? What would you check before deciding whether it's worth considering?

I have been looking into setting up a 12kw hybrid inverter with 200 amp pass-through and two 16kwh batteries or one 32kwh battery. I found out that my city requires a $250 application fee for an interconnection agreement. Online, I read that the setup must include a UL 1741-rated inverter and a UL 9540-rated battery system. According to my city's interconnection agreement, the inverter must have a UL 1741 certification that can be presented. There is nothing about the battery or even the solar panels. It only covers the inverter connecting to the grid. My thinking is that I can use any battery system that I want, like a Docan Noon or ECO-WORTHY PowerMega 314, without issue. It may be an issue for insurance purposes, but if the batteries have UL certification and the battery chassis has fire suppression, then I should not worry. Using a non-UL 9540-rated battery will keep my cost way down.

Here is the related text on the agreement from the city:

Distributed Energy System Information

Location (if different from above):

Inverter Manufacturer:

Model

Nameplate Rating: (kWAC) (kVAAC) _

System Design Capacity: (kWAC) (kVAAC)

Energy Source: Solar  Wind  Battery/Storage 

Is the Distributed Energy System equipment IEEE 1547/UL 1741 Certified?

 Yes No [Note: Requires a Yes for an application to be considered complete.]

If Yes, attach manufacturer’s documentation and technical specification sheet showing IEEE 1547/UL

1741 certification.

Have all necessary government permits and approvals been obtained for the project prior to this

application?

 Yes No [Note: Requires a yes for an application to be considered complete.]

Is Utility Accessible External Generator AC Disconnect Switch Provided? (Required)  Yes No

Location of Accessible External Generator AC Disconnect Switch

(e.g. Two feet west of utility electric meter)

Below is an example of the connections.

Does the smart shunt provide more info than the bluetooth capability built into the batteries? and more importantly, is it more accurate?

​

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for some advice from anyone who knows about Voltronic hybrid inverters, specifically the Knox Krypton 8000 / Infini V IV 6KW Twin.

Background:

Unit: Knox Krypton 8000 (Voltronic Infini V IV 6KW Twin)

Battery: 52V 102Ah LiFePO4 pack via RS235

Firmware: I just updated the firmware using official files from support.

Original: U1 68.20 / U2 81.06

Updated: U1 69.37 / U2 81.14

The Issue:

Ever since the update, I’ve had a weird, intermittent problem

Random Drops: A few times a day, the inverter's AC output cuts out for about a minute.

Error Display: It shows a Bp error, and the screen voltage drops to 0V.

Battery Reality: The battery is totally fine at 55V with no BMS issues.

Auto-Recovery: After a minute, the display comes back, the voltage reads correctly, and the power turns on again.

October sun in Alaska is great when we get it.

Today sun angle was 18.1 degrees above horizon at 1351.

PV1: Gstar, 40° tilt PV2: AIKO, vertical
Voltage: 319.6 V 180.8 V
Power: 2,369.8 W 1,572.2 W
Rated: 3,650 W 2,425 W
% capacity: 64.9% 64.8%

June 21: the sun reaches 53° above the horizon. December 21: just 6°. At around 25° of sun elevation, the optimal angle switches between my two solar arrays. Pretty fun project up here in Alaska, and the data has been really interesting!

Also I have a weather station in the backyard, and the strongest wind we’ve recorded in the last year was 17 knots. Also is great for tracking solar radiation. Growatt is pretty terrible for interface so if you like data use other tools. The 4×4 posts are buried 4 feet deep in concrete. I’ll improve the bracing on the vertical array this summer. Just wanted to share having two arrays optimized for the season and hopefully I will max out my 3.8 KW inverter more!

I have a four panel array that I lazily setup this summer using Obama era panels and some plug ins. I decided to invest a bit of time into moving them and damn, still a very temporary B game install but damn, huge improvement.

everything i mention here is referring to the negative side of dc

i have 5 charge controllers, all their output feeding to a single bus bar, about 15kw of pv

that bus bar then feeds the smart shunt, this is to track combined solar gathered

that shunt feeds a load buss bar, think inverters, (also feeds below shunt and battery bus bar)

(also attached to that above bus bar is a lead that feeds to another non smart shunt) this is to track exactly the battery soc, incoming and outgoing power over time. this works great. this non smart shunt bus bar where all 30kwh of lifepo combine.

basicaly i want a shunt to track battery soc, which i have and am happy with

then i want one to track total pv that came in that day, as some power will got to battery, and some will go to inverters

i read that victron smart shunts can do this if you switch modes, you can even select solar charge controller mode.

it works, but its all over the place, its flipping polarity of current, then sometimes it flips polarity of voltage, and sometimes both and sometimes it just does its job correctly

in settings there is a way to flip polarity, but it seems to only flip voltage, not all of it. so then i said fine lets physically flip polarity on the shunt, and flip the settings back in the app. it will appear to work for a while, then i go back and check the data, and i can see that through out the day its flipping back on its own.

i really wanted to track peak watts, amps, volts, hours and see the wave form s the sun moved across the sky, but still end up having to play detective, as i have to add "ah to battery" and "from battery", then multiply nominal voltage to find watt hours

and the wave form is a joke its flipping back and forth between positive and negative.

i can throw this in the trash if someone can help me find a brand/model that will track all this data and let me store and see this on a phone or pc.

I have been doing a lot of repairs on SolarEdge inverters. Specifically non comunicating inverters. What are you guys telling clients when this happens. I find it so difficult to explain why this happens to clients and they are always getting upset.

We purchased a wonderfully constructed home-made mini camper from someone this past Summer, and are about to store it for the winter. It’ll be in a non-temp-controlled/non-electric storage unit.

It has two 100w solar panels on the roof, a lead-acid battery (to be replaced by a lithium battery next Spring), and we’d like to disconnect the battery for home storage & trickle charging through the winter.

The thing is, is it’s recommended to disconnect the solar charging before disconnecting the battery. With the DC switch (white box) off, the solar still charges the battery. It’s said that “you must cut off the photovoltaic (PV) power input before touching the wiring.”

Anyone know how to do that with what’s displayed here? Is that removing the 30amp fuses below the blue SmartSolar charge controller, or….? There’s no switch to turn off the SmartSolar control box.

Any help would be appreciated!

Tengo 2 bateria puesta en serie y dice el manual que el voltaje de flotacion es de 13.5 es decir en serie seria 27.0 volt pero mi controlador solar nama llega hasta 28.0 volt esto le haria algo a las bateria.

Hi,

I installed a 12.6 kWh DC system on our roof, connected to a Solis S6-US 10kWh. The panels are east- and west-facing. A tall tree to the south of our house throws some shade in fall and spring on some of the panels. The number of panels being affected increases gradually from around 12:30 to 6. The east-facing panels are not affected at all.

I activated the Multi-Peak MPPT Scanning setting on the inverter every 30 minutes (the default). I can see that the Voltage goes down and back up every 30 minutes, which I understand is the expected behaviour. What is unexpected is that the inverter throws DC-INTF alarms and some REVE-DC warnings, but recovers by itself. I do not see these alarms and warnings when running Multi-Peak MPPT Scanning every 60 minutes. Of course, at 60 minutes, it takes much longer for the inverter to optimize power generation. The time it takes to run the scanning seems to be 5-10 minutes, which makes me wonder if the scan is all that useful.

TBH, I'm not sure what question I'm asking here, but maybe someone can throw in some wisdom based on what I wrote?

Hi all, got a crazy one. My security camera died(sorta) the ir quit, but the camera is still taking pictures. I like the camera, and I've got a pile of parts in the bin. I was lookin at 10w external ir led lamps but the math isn't mathing for me. What do I need to run this lamp overnight? My math says a 2x4' panel and giant battery but that seems like overkill lol. What am I missing??

Seeking a bit of help, after getting in over my head on some issues.

I have two Hoymiles HM1200NT microinverters, loaded up with panels. That's working great. No complaints or struggles. The microinverters are 240v systems, hooked to a dual-pole breaker, feeding both phases of the 240v electrical. Power generation is 100% working as intended.

I then decided to add a smart meter (CHINT), because our local utility is being...weird...about solar, and that's where my troubles began. Hoping someone can help me out here.

• Before buying, I verified that the smart meter has the hoymiles/modbus configuration.
• The meter is attached and powered.
• The meter can see power on both phases, so it seems to be working as intended.
• The DTU-Pro for the microinverters is wired to the smart meter, as expected
• However, when I try to add the meter to my S-Miles portal, it says it's a bad serial...turns out, it has the hoymiles firmware, but isn't one of their serial numbers. Hoymiles doesn't even list that as something to be mindful of, so I had no idea. Adding the meter via the app and toolkit had the same results.
• I cannot get communication working between the meter and the DTU. They absolutely seem to refuse to work.
• I reached out to Hoymiles and was told, in essence, to go suck lemons, and they won't help, since I didn't buy it directly from them.
• I can't return the smart meter, which leaves me completely stuck.

Anyone run into this issue and found a way to make it work? Offline? Manual configuration through toolkit? Some funky setting on the CHINT?

I've been thinking about putting some panels on my barn roof for a few years and decided to just go for it. I got serious the first week of October and spent a few days researching. I decided to try and find some panels locally and ended up finding a decent deal on some 550W ZnShine panels a few hours away. I picked those up and started ordering other supplies.

Major pieces:

IronRidge XR100 Rail System

(18) ZnShine ZXM7-SHDB144 550W panels

EG4 Flexboss Inverter

Tigo TS4-A-F MLPE RSDs

About a week before the project I noticed a small leak in one of the exposed fastener roof screws and decided to just replace them all before they're covered in solar panels and much harder to fix.

I made a little lift jig for my tractor to lift the panels in place one at a time where my wife and I could pull them into place and fasten them down. It ended up working pretty well.

All in it took most of 3 weekends and almost exactly $9k. I did get a permit for the project and currently have an application in with my local utility for net metering.

I normally do more research for big projects like this but felt a time crunch between deciding to do it and cooler weather moving it. There are likely things that could have been done better, but overall I'm happy with the outcome.

This subreddit was a great resource and I appreciate all the helpful posts I found along the way.

My 240V well pump is the reason I can't pick a battery.

Plan is an 8 kW ground mount next spring, grid-tied with net metering. I'm doing the panels and racking myself, and an electrician will handle the main panel and battery side. The battery is the one piece I keep flip-flopping on. Backed-up loads: the pump (1 hp submersible), a mini-split, fridge and a chest freezer. Outages here usually run 12 to 36 hours.

What I'm weighing:

- Powerwall 3: PV goes straight into it, so no extra inverter box, and 10 years of warranty as I read it. The installer quote is what bugs me.

- FranklinWH aPower 2: 15 kWh per unit and 10 years as I read it. Only one local installer even answered me.

- EcoFlow TITAN 5000 Plus: 5 kWh modules, 7.2 kW rated, 8 kW of PV input over two MPPTs, so on paper it fits my array. Warranty is 5 years, it hasn't shipped, and I only have a spec sheet to go on.

I’m leaning toward the Powerwall 3 because I hate extra boxes. The TITAN is hard for me to judge, but I think its value for money is quite good—its price is much lower than the Powerwall’s. The only issue is that there are still no real-world installation cases. Black Friday is still a month away, so I’m also torn between waiting for a deal and buying before prices creep up.

The actual hang-up is the pump. Every spec sheet lists continuous kW and surge differently, and TITAN adds a per-leg number on top. For a 240V motor, which number should I compare?

I stumbled across what looks perfect for me, a Solpanet 5.12kWh Battery Module (No Base) Those are aussie dollars btw, so it's about 1400 usd. I think they may bring a new version in soon - can't see this one on the Solplanet site now.

Do you think I'd face any big issues slapping that badboy onto my busbars? I was mostly concerned with which connectors they use so I can buy my own and do what I want cabling-wise such as throw a class T on it and any others as I add more batteries. Otherwise I have to cut their cables up which isn't ideal. There is also a link cable as part of the modular system so I'm not sure if that has to be plugged into an approved Solplanet™ product before the battery works.

While I was trying to squeeze info from a stone about this battery, I resorted to watching the boring animated exploding diagrams and I noticed a small blurry reference to an add-on kit which looked to have two wires, with their fittings, but one end looked blank to fit your own lugs I presume. So that is sort of workable except I'd need 2 kits considering the fuse thing, plus Bunnings don't sell it and I have a sneaking suspicion there is some kind of exclusivity deal going on here.

I noticed also that the built in safety system if I were to really dumb it down seems to be a glass of non-conductive water that gets tipped onto a cell as soon as it gets too hot. And there's only one glass of water. Is that a pretty standard way of doing it with these things? I never really looked into that before. It's fine I just was expecting a bit more high tech.

Any thoughts how to proceed in general, and thanks.

Hi all, I am closing on my first home soon, in central ct.

Not being a fan of these high electricity rates and all, but also it being very expensive to get a full solar+battery setup here, I wanted to explore a semi off grid setup to load shed - we have 2EVs that combined drive 650ish miles a week.

Driving electric, even with CT electricity prices, is still cheaper than gas due to current prices, so we will likely be keeping these cars

That being said, I want to get a small-medium sized solar setup going. I am familiar with working on electrical systems, although not necessarily residential ones, but I can figure my way around it.

The gist of the setup is: approx 15kw of solar and 30-60kwh of batteries (thinking about eco worthy cubix 100 across 1-2 server racks, in my 1 car garage), feeding a eg4 12000xp v2.

This would feed a sub panel that charges our cars.

I was reading about that inverters ac input from the grid is an option, and that I can have it change its input from the solar/battery to the grid if the batteries are too low.

My question for y'all, since I have no actual experience in this topic other than lurking some forums, is actually feasible? And if it is, which of the 2 setups that I have here is the better (and cheaper) option?

(Pardon my MS paint skills)

I have a TAIYO inverter and the model is TY1512/24 and battery is MASSIMO Tubular battery and I want to know how to configure the inverter setting and it has 5 battery setting but there is no option for tubular battery but it has an option for Sealed Lead Acid Battery and I am using it for 2 years and noticed some dropped in capacity. Inverter has user customization.

Hi. Is it possible with a Multiplus-II to have it where if the batteries are full and there are no particular loads, then dump the energy from the panels to this terminal here. pointing vaguely at the bottom of the Multiplus

Also I have a small folding/camping panel with built in MPPT and it has two blank wires titled Load which I never understood what they were there for. Is it to do exactly what I just asked about doing?

Added: And a follow up. Is it bad for me to operate my folding panel without anything connected to the load wires?

Thank you.

I have been researching for weeks, trying to come up with the best solution for my home. I want to connect to my 200-amp service panel and have the inverter detect an outage, then automatically switch to battery storage. I have already installed a 50-amp generator service connection with manual switchover in case of an outage, which I could use to charge the batteries.

I am trying to avoid any kind of load shedding with a separate panel, but that may be the cheaper solution. I have a Micro EasyStart on my 4-ton heat pump already. The furnace is gas with an electric fan; the water heater is gas, the only big draws of current would be from the electric cooktop of wall oven/microwave combo and the dryer. If the power goes out, I would make sure that no one uses the washer/dryer, cooktop, or oven. If I go this route, I would need an inverter that is capable of 200-amp pass-through, which would be the EG4 18kPV, Sol-Ark, WattCycle Super 12kW Split-Phase All-in-one, Ruixu RX-12K, SungoldPower SGN-11K15PRO, and the Liniotech 15KVA Hybrid Inverter All in One solar or the POW-SunSmart LVM12K-GU. I was also looking at using two 16kWh batteries with a 200-amp BMS connected in parallel to a 500A busbar.

I can go the route of using a critical loads sub-panel with the AC, washer/dryer, cooktop, and wall oven in this so that it will never come on unless I manually switch it on. Can I then bypass the 200-amp pass-through-capable inverter and use something like two PowMr 12KW 48Vdc All in One Inverter 110/240Vac Split Phase for redundancy? Will something like this sense the outage and kick on, or do I need more in this scenario?

I should point out that I have been looking at using the Docan NooN 16kWh batteries or the Ecoworthy 16kWh batteries.

I appreciate any help with this.