"Project Overkill" Capacity Test-Sigineer inverter does weird things...12KWh 48V A123 Battery Backup
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- EDIT: IF YOU NEED THE BMS APP OR INFO ON WIRING THE BALANCE LEADS PLEASE EMAIL ME AT CODEMAN11901@GMAIL.COM. PUT ANT-BMS IN THE SUBJECT LINE.
In this video I do a very basic capacity test to ensure that there are no obvious issues with the overall system. I used an inconsistent load (air conditioner) that kicks on and off so measuring the capacity is not as accurate as I would like but I am more concerned with the duration that the system will run as opposed to a specific kilowatt-hour number. In the future I will probably do a setup similar to my BYD battery test and use fans or some other constant load to test capacity so that I can use a multimeter on the input side of the inverter and simply multiply that wattage by the number of hours that the inverter runs. However, that is not a very high priority right now. I am having a blast doing these projects and I hope you are getting some information from them or at the very minimum some entertainment! I have a SUPER cool project coming up very shortly that may be very interesting if you are into wireless communication. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback please comment below!
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I have a similar Sigineer 6kw inverter (3kw/phase), though 24 vdc system, because that was what was available a few years ago (and yes, I would have preferred a 48v unit, but it wasn't available at the time). I run a small off grid panel setup on my shop roof (4500 watts nameplate rating at STP, 3500+ watts actual MPPT output around 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. through the 6kw inverter. I use the inverter to power dual 1500w space heaters on cold days (and yes, they keep the whole house around 73°F, or several large AC units in the summer without any trouble (the system produced 22.2 kWh a few days ago). Due to the high parasitic draw at night of the unit (~200 watts including the WiFi bridge and power meters), I installed a cheap programmable digital timer from Amazon (with a 150-ohm resister in series with the 24-29.4 v batteries to reduce overvoltage issues) to shut off the inverter about 45 minutes before sunset (the output relay opens or shorts the shut-off contacts in the remote display unit). This allows the batteries to top off before nightfall most days. This lets me go through the night around full charge, allowing essentially full power after the sun has been up a hour or two and extending the life of my FLA batteries (12 x 100Ah) since they stay a long ways from 50% SOC. On milder days when running the heaters isn't appropriate, I use the system to power my entire house (less the high draw water heater, and dual HVAC units) and it does fine with the 1100-1500 watt nominal continuous power draw. It can easily handle the higher short term loads of a microwave, dishwasher, toaster oven, small burner on the stove when done separately (not simultaneously). I built the system for emergencies (for about $9k), but might as well get some financial benefit from using it, as electricity costs have nearly double from 2 years ago. I'm hoping to expand the system, and add some rooftop panels in the not-too-distant future.
If the grid were to go down for an extended period of time and I needed to run the system at night to keep the freezer and refrigerator/freezer cold, rather than running the unit continuously and losing the equivalent energy of 6 x 100Ah batteries, I would set the programmable timer to turn off several hours after sunset, then come on for an hour twice during the night (to chill the freezer and refrigerator/freezer) and then shut off again. Thus very little energy would be wasted through that parasitic draw at night.
Thanks for your video and insights. Hope you found my tips helpful as well.
This is an excellent comment and the timer is a great idea! That might be something I look into as well because the parasitic draw on these units is brutal! Thanks for watching and commenting!
I'm interested in seeing how you wired a night shutoff switch! Do you have a video?
Good to see its holding up....i was told paralleling bms's like this would result in "problems"....happy to see they were wrong
just came across the battery on battery hook up then searched videos on youtube and came across your tear down and setup... honestly pretty cool... just sad its 7s per module and not 8s... feels like for most inverter chargers this is going to cause issues as you found with yours, as one of the greatest benefits of 4s LiFePO4 is the closeness to 12V lead systems. Anyhow my desired use case is nearly the same.... starting with non-solar battery to act as a backup for critical loads in place of a generator for relatively short grid-down scenarios.... while up-time on electricity is good here in the city... still have had several thunderstorms knock out power for 4-6 hours.... which couple of kWh would be ideal. And hopefully something I could move with me to further projects. Still awesome to see your setup.
Yea, the charging side is a bit of a headache because of the slightly lower voltage, but it works well overall. 8S would have been perfect but for the cost vs quality/life expectancy of these cells it was hard to pass up. The BYD's are heavily degraded and a nightmare to keep balanced. This was overall a better option for a setup that will be used rarely but needs to be reliable. I appreciate the comment and thanks for watching!
If you have any questions feel free to ask!
really good stuff man! glad i found your channel! keep going!
I appreciate the encouragement! Thanks for watching!
Great test of your system!
Thanks! More testing to come that is oriented toward the specific reason this system was built. Home backup power!
3.2 volt per cell will help to longer life span of these battery and you can also use some hybrid inverter which is 97% efficient
Thanks for the heads up!
Inspirational 👍What's the next project or area of improvement? Is it possible to elongate the life of the system? Would it be possible to reduce the parasitic load by incorporating a smaller more efficient inverter in tandem connected to a load sensing ATS automatic transfer switch that will instantaneously switch between the different inverters when the load exceeds 100 Watts. Would it also make sense to create a equally balanced 96 volt lithium ion phosphate battery to power the smaller inverter reducing parasitic load increasing efficiency reducing amperage? 😉
You answered some of my question in the outro it's almost like we're thinking similarly. About a year ago I purchased a 14s 6 amp hour battery from Luna cycle which also charges to 58 volts it comes with a xt90 discharge and xt60 charge connector built-in BMS with ample overcurrent protection. The reason I'm mentioning this is because of the above mentioned 96 volt battery could easily be created out of dual 14s batteries in series conveniently having two separate charge ports. I am type of builder that doesn't like to buy things pre-made I like to batch things together and make them work seamlessly. Best of luck
Recently I've been looking for an unorthodox method of creating a customized automatic transfer switch out of two communication card installed UPS's and a ATS automatic transfer switch. Basically monitoring the current of both devices by debugging the logs of both UPS's in real time either locally with Tail(Outputs the last few lines of a log file) or remotely using a syslog server. Effectively switching between UPS's based on parasitic loads and current sensing parameters. Best of luck fam
@Robert Wooten how do you synchronize between the big and small sinewaves? As I understand it, without synchronizing, the appliances might get damaged. I like the big small idea though, when the AC is on fan only, small inverter is on, when the compressor kicks in, the big one is on. There's also the issue of having the big inverter instantly coming online without delay. There might be a need for a delay before switching over.
@@rcboosted they aren't synchronized they're on different phases.
@@rcboosted the transfer is so quick the appliance doesn't know the difference
3 years later, do you still have this inverter?
wait early in the video you said the battery was within .001, at the end of discharge the batt is out of balance
Correct. Because of the extremely flat discharge curve of lithium iron phosphate cells, the batteries can be very close in voltage around the midpoint of their capacity (probably 30-70% state of charge) and then at the very top and very bottom of the voltage range they go out of whack very quickly. Thanks for watching!
hi, nice video. When calculating your battery capacity, did you take the efficiency of the inverter into account ? I have an LV5048 all-in-one and it's measured efficiency is 91% with a continuous load of 70W.
So assuming the same efficiency for your inverter, the BATTERY capacity should be:
(8.4 / 0.91) + 3.5 = 12.73KWh
Of course the calculation is a bit academic since the useful energy available at the inverter output, under your light load, conditions is 8.4KWh.
Using a heavier load would reduce the effect of the idle current drain of the inverter.
No, I pretty much just added the parasitic losses of the inverter to the amount of energy the kill-a-watt meter gave me. Not the most scientific but it got me in the ballpark. All that I really care about on this system is runtime so it gave me a good idea of what to expect. If I had a hall effect sensor on the DC side of the inverter I could have been very accurate with my capacity measurement. I may do this in the future! Thanks for watching!!
Do you think the power use of the inverter is high? I would like to see comparisons on the internet.
I think the 48w standby consumption is fairly typical for this size and type of inverter. Most people think "psh 48w isn't much" and brush it off as insignificant but this test showed that around 30% of the battery capacity was consumed by the inverter. So to concisely answer your question, no I dont think it is high but it does consume a ton of energy over time.
I don't take mine below 3.0 just not much sense to beat it to death for a few kwh 90% of the power seems to be from 3.4 - 3.0
Yep! I see mine sit at 3.3-3.2 for a vast majority of the discharge curve. These cells are in excellent shape and will probably outlive me considering they will get about 10 cycles per year and these cells are good for 2000 cycles before they reach 80% degradation. They are already slightly degraded so even if I only get 500 cycles until it reaches 80% capacity its still going to last 50 years and that's taking it ALL the way down to 2.5 every single time. If your setup has the capacity to where you dont need to use that last bit of the discharge curve then you're wise for trying to extend the life of the batteries, in my opinion.
These are good videos!! I am continually suprised by the parasitic draws on these cheaper inverters. You are basically wasting 10% of your battery pack and 10% of all the energy you ever put into it. Mind you some of the even cheaper inverters are much worse!
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy them. Its pretty crazy when you think about it. I havr the same inverter on my solar setup and I use the "power saver" mode often. Simply because it sucks wasting 920Wh a day on the inverters parasitic draw!
Im interested in knowing how the power saver mode works!
I have the same inverter. I bought it because it was available and it seemed to work well for you and others online. I was wondering if you have an easy way to make sure it charges during the day while solar is available and discharges at about 4 or 5pm.
It’s still going strong. I’m a little confused by your question. Are you asking if you can set the inverter to charge off of the wall? For solar you use a solar charger controller which is separate from the inverter(inverter doesn’t do the charging). Can you clarify?
@@diyrenewableenergyelectron4996 I just want to make sure that it does not charge during peak ours. I want it to charge only when the solar is going or after midnight when the rates are low.
Ah I understand now. There’s a few options, but perhaps putting the input charging power on a timer would be the easiest. When the timer kicks on, the inverter will go into charge mode. When the timer kicks off, the inverters charger shuts off, the transfer switch engages and kicks over to battery power for your peak hours.
@@diyrenewableenergyelectron4996 Sounds good. I'll give it a shot. I am concerned that there is a possibility that I may lose power during that time since I'm trying to run most of the house on the system. Also was wondering if you went through the trouble of getting your system permitted as I am facing some resistance.
Let me know how it goes! Permitting is very different across different jurisdictions. Some places are lax, others are very stringent. Hopefully things work out smoothly for you in that aspect.