Here's EXACTLY How To Copy Our Solar PV System
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- We're Joel and Emma, living tiny in our former school bus with our two pups. Follow along as we make this home on wheels a perfect Cozy Living Machine!
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SOLAR POWER SETUP 🔋
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I wish more folks describing their solar+battery systems would switch from talking about amp hours to kilowatt hours. Now that systems configured as 24,36, or 48 volts are becoming common, amp hours no longer adequately describe a battery bank. But kilowatt hours do. 12 kilowatt hours of storage completely describes how much energy is stored. It doesn’t matter (in terms of how much storage you have) if that is 1000 amp hours at 12 volts, or 250 amp hours at 48 volts.
7,833Wh!
LOL
Even on a cloudy day your batteries will go close to getting topped up. That's why having all those panels is so awesome :)
absolutely!
Man, that's a great list of sources. I wish I had something like that when I was starting my build - talk about a time saver!
I bought 8 gauge down wires and 8-gauge cable glands for my rig, but I found the 8-gauge gland fittings a little too big, so I had to wrap my wires with electrical tape where they entered the gland to ensure a tight, waterproof seal. I think the insulation thickness varies between wire manufacturers. To insure I got quality down wires I got mine from Windy Nation as they are a reputable solar provider with good prices. I bought 1/0 welding cable to wire my 48v battery to the controller as the run is short and I wanted to minimize voltage loss to my 5,000w inverter.
One word of advice to anyone building a system is to be sure and use DC breakers rated for sufficient voltage on DC circuits. AC breakers, while cheaper, won't quench a high voltage DC arc. I started to buy a 48v DC breaker for my 48v battery and was advised I needed a higher voltage breaker because a 48v nominal 16s LiFePo-4 battery charges at 56 volts, so you need a breaker rated for at least 60v DC. Don't be shocked by the price, as high voltage/high current DC breakers ain't cheap but are necessary. It's the same with fuses. Spend the money for the necessary protection. Cheap out somewhere else if necessary.
I cheaped out on my batteries by building them myself from the raw prismatic cells. I was able to build a 16.4kwh battery for only $1,726, including the flexible bus bars. A 200a 48v BMS cost about $150 more. This is the equivalent of 12.8 Redodo 100ah batteries (12 Redodos would cost $2,688) for $1,876 including shipping. You don't save a whole lot compared to using Redodos, but a battery made from prismatic cells is more compact with a smaller footprint and a little lighter too - though it's more work top balancing all the cells initially.
Great tips!!
Thank you so much Joel!! I will be ordering everything slowly but I will be copying your setup. Thank you so much for doing this video. ❤
I hope it's very helpful! 🙂
Lenny is a solar generating machine ;-) on to the next project huh
No it’s not the most expensive charge controller they make, the 450/200 is much more expensive.
Very fair, though that unit isn't quite the same because it requires a 48V system and this was the largest (and unfortunately, most expensive) I could find that will handle 12-48V systems!
I’m not sure why, but 36 volts has not become a common voltage to use. Your viewers will find far more choices of inverters and other devices like dc to dc voltage converters if they build a 24 or 48 volt system. For systems with substantial capacity I think most folks would be best off going for 48 volts. Keeps the current lower, and therefore makes the wiring much easier and less expensive.
How do you protect the panels from hail damage should a storm pop up.
You don't! Hail has never had an effect on our panels. If it's crazy enough to damage these panels, other cars and house roofs don't stand a chance! Very strong materials. 😊
So 204 AH at 36v not 612 AH at 36v?
Exactly. When the voltage multiplies, the amperage doesn't, and the wattage will remain the same!
I sort of wished you made a roof top deck and give up at least 2 panels? You will never need to be on grid...you are a bit of a genius ;-)
our insurance wouldn't have that! we would also definitely fall off, so sketch, but I love the idea!
Nice setup until you got to the inverter. Cheap, lightweight, high frequency, transformerless inverters like these have very short life expectancies and they offer gar poorer surge capacities than real inverters that use low frequency, transformer based inverter tech. You'd be lucky to get even a year's worth of use out of one of these high frequency inverters which is why they're know as poor man inverters.
We've been pretty lucky getting 3 years out of our last one, still working perfectly when we gave it away. I don't expect this to last forever, we'll upgrade to a much nicer hybrid inverter next time, along with a 48V battery upgrade.
you have a ton of extra wiring and components that are not needed. you can put all 10 panels in series and use a hybrid inverter. and that is all you need. Do not understand this obsession for the RV community to go with 12 or 24v systems
Lol yeah, we just went the complicated route for fun. 🤦
I Vote for 3 more batteries! I'm the village idiot so I don't understand why it matters how many batteries you have in line. Can't you just wire the batteries up that they are not multiplying voltage? How do you wire them if you have 6 batteries, any different? I hate being dumb.
Good question! So if you attach like we were previously with our 12 volt system, where every positive connects to the other positives, it will increase amperage. That's perfect for most RV setups. However, it limits you to larger cables because increasing the amperage increases the carrying of the heat and energy whereas increasing the voltage is more akin to increasing the speed of a highway rather than the amount of traffic. I'll be making a video on this, but essentially if you have the same amount of wattage, or traffic, you can use the slightly skinnier road if the cars just simply move faster, rather than needing to expand the road to carry all of the cars at once. It's sort of a terrible analogy, but it works in my mind! So by increasing the voltage, connecting the batteries in series to make 24, 36, 48 volts or more, the energy will move faster can you can use skinnier wires. Our solar configuration would not have been possible with a 12 volt system, our charge controllers simply could not push out enough energy because of the limitations of the copper inside and getting too hot. I suspect we will eventually go to a 48 volt system to be as efficient as possible, and we would have the option to expand even more! It's probably not going to happen, we don't need more solar lol but that would give us the most amount of wattage possible. In short, 12 volts is fine for lights and water pumps and light usage, but when you start putting more power on the line you need much larger cables and you start to reach a limit sooner than if you do the same thing with 48 volts or 120 volts, like we have in houses and such! Much smaller wire. As a side note, a lot of folks love to talk about 12 volt air conditioners, about them being more efficient, but there's also the factor of how large the wires have to be to push the same power through the lines! You're not dumb at all, it's just a whole world with a lot of new rules you haven't had to deal with!
To wire six batteries you would simply duplicate our existing wiring on another battery set, put those wherever they're going to stay, and then connect the two positives and two negatives on either end!
@@CozyLivingMachine Wow.. just wow. It really is fascinating and so much fun to watch you build! Thanks for taking the time to explain all of that!
From directly above alongside the highway, Lenny looks more like it might be a solar powered roadside fresh fruit & vegetable stand. Helpful comprehensive components and hardware list with source links and explanation of the entire build and underlying reasoning. I too have wondered about the leak. Loved the cameo of Sam and Colt -- they had that look of: "Okay dad, enough about the solar, whatever that is, let's go run and chase the ball already!".
Hahaha that would be some well-powered fruit! 😂 These guys could go run and swim for 3 hours at a park, take an hour long nap and be itching to go again for another 3 hours!
Looks great, i have 30 kw of lithium under the bed on my holiday rambler travel trailer and panels on the roof with another ground deploy array. Another 12 kw of lithium on standby if i ever need it. Its nice running everything and not worry about picking what or when we can use power. Looks great for sure bro.
That's a great setup!!
I like it, but what about drainage? Looks like the strut will act like a dam. Did you think about using hockey pucks as spacers as I sen on another video?
So far after a good rain it doesn't seem that there's much rain collecting at all to worry about. It may just be that our bus is rarely ever perfectly leveled. I don't recall that other comment, but hockey pucks would not have worked. I wanted much more contact with the roof given that we're using VHB in addition to the bolts, the surface area is much greater using these struts. We will also be attaching accessories and such down the road I suspect, though I'm sure hockey pucks would work just as well depending on how folks attach and bolt through!
That is a lot of panels for such a small battery bank.
I get it, though. Batteries are extremely expensive, and we almost did the same but after a lot of research we came across San tan solar then a few months later while researching something completely different I spoke to someone from a battery manufacturer in Chinese Seplos Technologies.
I got a crazy deal on 30 kilowatts of 24 volt batteries that almost cost me less than the shipping for any of the American companies. That includes shipping from China.
It was a very stressful process, I was told that I would received my batteries in 3 months, it took almost 7 months before they got to my door. The company said it was a delay in customs but I thought I was being scammed. But then they where delivered and it has been worth the wait A+ in quality and support.
The price I paid for Batteries also allowed me to splurge on a full top of the line victron setup.
Hey Joel, the install looks professional and those grade 8 bolts are bulletproof. I might of missed the update along the way , but did you ever find the source of the leak ?
Thanks!! Nope, no source of the leak, but thankfully the inside is bone dry today after pouring last night and a good amount yesterday!