I heat water off grid by diverting excess power right from the array voltage. People would be shocked at how much power they throw away. The hot water control is proportional and can divert from 5 to 1,000W, just enough to bring the panels back to power point voltage. That doesn't use any CC, inverter or battery capacity and leaves the battery as full of charge as possible. I have to because I have 1/10th the battery you do. My goal is to run everything I can direct from PV without a battery, so far dishwasher and clothes washer. I have so much extra that the laundry has its own hot water tank and all cycles use hot water. That alone is worth it. Everyone should develop some diversion plan.
Yes your correct the best way is to drive the heater element direct from the panels once you’ve worked out the resistive load to match panels, it’s just my setup is more for power storage over hot water so I chose my method. Your setup sounds like it’s working well for you though 👍 cheers
@@readoryx373 Here is a simple explanation of what I do ua-cam.com/video/eKiCRogzjjA/v-deo.html This is a 600W camp system in MI which diverts excess to heat water and when the water is hot, diverts it to a space heater in the winter. This demonstrates how even people with really small systems can have free hot water without adding more panels. No charge controller capacity, inverter or battery needed. Just simple efficient diversion from 5-1500W depending on excess. I don't know why everyone isn't doing this. I will not reply further on this channel.
@@gregronan4592 I usually click on the name when I see an interesting comment. My designs have been built around the world, but YOU have to build them. This is an example ua-cam.com/video/iaLbLYhPLtw/v-deo.html
Thanks 😃 the low voltage (50v) wire can be really thin as it only powers the relay switch, I put a 5 amp fuse in but a 2 amp would be safer. The immersion heater wiring to the relay is 4mm that is sufficient enough for my needs, I wouldn’t recommend running anything more than 1.5kw through these Chinese switches to be honest. 👍 cheers
just to say it is worth switching 48v to a contactor as these relays are quite cheap this probably dosnt matter to you but mixing oltage bands is bad as the inverter could fry with mains on the battery terminals in a fault even when a fuse is fitted.
Yea you quite correct as lots of these switches are bad quality with clone components inside 😂 luckily I got a good one but still would be safer to just use the internal relay to drive a decent branded contactor for the AC switching 👍 cheers
Thee uppa vow'itch seh'inz eeh'ah o' thee inveh'ah o'mee ba'ry. - The upper voltage settings here of the inverter of my battery. Google translate burnt at least three holes in the ozone layer translating that one.
I also have load diversion controller. Not enough pv in winter and shit loads too much in the summer. This year I'm looking at an air con unit to dump spare energy into...
Well brilliant, this vid was exactly what I was looking for to do mine, and you have explained it spot on especially the relay wiring.The only thing I can say is, will the 48v have enough power on a 240v immersion? If I’ve understood your system correctly.
The immersion is still being supplied with 240v, the 48v is just powering the relay switch and it’s the 48v that fluctuates then triggers the relay that has the 240v being switched through it. 👍 cheers
@@mattmartin8366 it’s only the immersion element heating my tank, I could easily plumb my boiler for instant hot water but I like free energy 🤣 cheers 👍
Hi, thanks for all the great info, I have the same twin seplos battery setup. What's the pinout for the RS485 cable to connect the 2 batteries together? Is the battery to Growatt cable the same? I have the battery to PC cable working ok. Have a beer for me!
Thanks mate 👍 the RS485 battery to battery link cables are just standard straight pin to pin cables, then the CAN cable to the BMS or CAN port on the inverter is also the same but you need to cut 3 wires in the cable, (Orange, Orange striped, Green striped) then use Li protocol 52, also make sure you set the jumper switches correctly on the battery’s BMS. But if you change the CAN protocol on the Seplos battery to GROWATT then you need to use Li protocol 51 on the Growatt inverter 👍
@@joeelliott8454 T568B so I presume that’s RJ45 ASNI colour code B, (the green pair are on 2 and 6) so if you cut the wires as I stated but only on the inverter lead, some inverters don’t need the wires cut so try it first, I’ve got an inverter that needs them cut and another inverter that I can just use straight cable, also note that if the cut cable doesn’t work one way then swap ends and try the other way. The Seplos battery to battery RS485 don’t need any wires cutting, but remember to set the jumper switches as per CAN setting 👍 cheers
@@CarJunkeez with your help, I have on of my seplos 48v 280ah talking to my growatt spf6000t with seplos protocol set to growatt. It now shows the battery percentage ok on the Growatt, but every 10 minutes or so, the inverter shuts down with error #20, a BMS communication error. It then restarts and works for another 10 minutes ad infinitum. Any ideas? FYI, It works also with a straight thru rj45 but resets in 15 secs, with both orange and the green striped wire cut, it works for around 2 minutes, then I cut the solid green and it works for around 10 mins before resetting. Will it work on the rs485 ports or only the can port? All my jumpers are off as I'm testing with one battery for now.
@@joeelliott8454 it should be solid orange , orange striped and green striped that are cut, perhaps one of the wires your cutting could be the CAN ground, also try the lead the other way round too. Yes you can use the RS485 from the Seplos RS485 socket to the Growatt RS485 sockets but remember to set the Seplos jumpers correctly for RS485 and also set Growatt correctly. Your Growatt is a slightly different model to mine so not sure if settings are different or you may possibly need a firmware update for Seplos compatibility 👍
Can you send me the wiring diagram for the A30 that you used to to operate an AC socket when the battery is full? ie, is it ... Volt+ -> bat +ve Gnd -> bat -ve com -> AC neutral NO -> AC power Thanks!
Volt+ and Power > +battery Gnd > -battery NO > AC power Live in COM > is the switched AC live output that can go to the socket. Then just keep socket AC neutral connected to socket as normal 👍 cheers
Nice one man, since I did mine I think I should of used a slightly higher wattage element as I’ve got plenty of spare wattage, mining is a good way to use excess, shame it’s down a lot at the mo tho 😂 cheers 👍
Hi there , i wonder how it went? I wired mine in the same way as instructions and you have and found that a 500w heater caused my relay to overheat and the capacitor was at 45 degrees when i gave ot away. Would love to know how your 20amp system went Cheers from New Zealand 😎
Hi mate, I’ve been using mine mostly for my hot water on the 1kw element a few times a week since I fitted it and not had any problems. I do know though that there are some clones of the controller that can’t take much amperage (clones of Chinese clone 😂)and it sounds like you may have one of those, you can buy a larger amperage relay and wire that to trigger from the controller and use the big relay for your heater, I was thinking of doing this but mine has been fine and doesn’t get hot. 👍 cheers
@@CarJunkeez thanks for your reply, did you run an auxiliary relay or does the a30 carry all of the load? Curious if the components warmed up at all. This has frazzled me to the point I'm studying wiring diagrams at 3am lol
@@kevjoseph1032 no I didn’t use an external relay, I just ran straight from the A30 internal relay with no problem mate, just switching the live feed to the element 👍
I hope some of these viewers know what they're doing... Asking about stuff that's really dangerous if it gets misunderstood, improperly specced / installed...... Be careful folks. Always consult a competent and qualified person....
But the charge controller fights the switch and batteries at the same time because the batteries never get topped up. I've seen half charged batteries being given 57 volts by the bms, for whatever reason it wanted to, during its own method of a recharge. I have disconnected this and now use my litle voltage switch as a dump load dor when it's a tenth of a volt or two higher than the charge controller, as a safety, and to prepare for adding a wind turbine direcrly ro the battery bank
Hi It is quite finicky to set and have good control with lithium batteries and will work a lot better with lead acid due to the voltage difference. I was going upgrade the dump switch by fitting a small current clamp switch on the solar panel wires and set it to trigger at a certain amperage, but this could be problematic when battery’s are full and there’s no load on the system. I was looking into wind but you got to go big or it’s not worth it 👍 cheers
@@CarJunkeez I think I figured it out!?? Run an AC (instead of DC) load through the dump switch while it's still connected to the batteries to read voltage, at the same dump settings. Hurricane solar sells a switch that is sold for DC dump load but I called the creator and he said no problemmo with having it dump and AC load instead. That way the load comes through the inverter which balances available solar power instead of just pulling quickly from the batteries. It's the closest form of feeding extra power while off grid that I can come up with. Once the inverter balances power, the 'dump' can 'surf' the available solar power as an active demand through the inverter and be 'balanced' by the MPPT controls, thereby taking more from the sun than just just batteries.
@@readoryx373 I am already running an AC load through the dump switch, the AC is coming from the inverter output to the switch and then to the immersion element.
@@CarJunkeez assuming a 48v sys, how, if I may ask, have you configured the immersion charge voltage and the dump load voltage? Is it 57.6V for the limit on both the charger/inverter as well as the trigger point for the dump switch? I'm thinking of taking the dump switch down to 54V so there's some overlap and the batteries wouldn't be getting more than 54V immersion charge unless the sun is out
You are right and most don't understand that. This is the reason I run heaters right off the array voltage and dump proportionantly to the heating element to bring array voltage back to Vmpp. Operating off a battery requires more battery capability, wastes available power and screws up battery charging cycles.
My inverter’s can’t feed back to the grid, I purchased them as my goal is to eventually be totally off grid, but now Octopus do some good tariffs in the U.K. and no license is needed now to feed back to the grid on Octopus too 😂
Great video, back to the good old days when people could do stuff and think outside of the box , well done mate , love it 👍
Thanks mate 😃 I appreciate that. I love messing with stuff and trying to suss things out 👍 cheers
I heat water off grid by diverting excess power right from the array voltage. People would be shocked at how much power they throw away. The hot water control is proportional and can divert from 5 to 1,000W, just enough to bring the panels back to power point voltage. That doesn't use any CC, inverter or battery capacity and leaves the battery as full of charge as possible. I have to because I have 1/10th the battery you do. My goal is to run everything I can direct from PV without a battery, so far dishwasher and clothes washer. I have so much extra that the laundry has its own hot water tank and all cycles use hot water. That alone is worth it. Everyone should develop some diversion plan.
Yes your correct the best way is to drive the heater element direct from the panels once you’ve worked out the resistive load to match panels, it’s just my setup is more for power storage over hot water so I chose my method. Your setup sounds like it’s working well for you though 👍 cheers
@@readoryx373 Here is a simple explanation of what I do ua-cam.com/video/eKiCRogzjjA/v-deo.html This is a 600W camp system in MI which diverts excess to heat water and when the water is hot, diverts it to a space heater in the winter. This demonstrates how even people with really small systems can have free hot water without adding more panels. No charge controller capacity, inverter or battery needed. Just simple efficient diversion from 5-1500W depending on excess. I don't know why everyone isn't doing this. I will not reply further on this channel.
Could I have more info on your set up please,?
@@gregronan4592 I usually click on the name when I see an interesting comment. My designs have been built around the world, but YOU have to build them. This is an example
ua-cam.com/video/iaLbLYhPLtw/v-deo.html
I watched..... I didn’t understand a bloody word of it, but I watched 😂😂
Ha ha 🤣 thanks for watching anyway mate 😃👍👍
Nice, well done! May I ask how thick the wires are you chose and how much amp the inline fuse is rated at? Thanks!
Thanks 😃 the low voltage (50v) wire can be really thin as it only powers the relay switch, I put a 5 amp fuse in but a 2 amp would be safer. The immersion heater wiring to the relay is 4mm that is sufficient enough for my needs, I wouldn’t recommend running anything more than 1.5kw through these Chinese switches to be honest. 👍 cheers
This was really interesting, top job
Thanks mate 😁 appreciated 👍👍
just to say it is worth switching 48v to a contactor as these relays are quite cheap this probably dosnt matter to you but mixing oltage bands is bad as the inverter could fry with mains on the battery terminals in a fault even when a fuse is fitted.
Yea you quite correct as lots of these switches are bad quality with clone components inside 😂 luckily I got a good one but still would be safer to just use the internal relay to drive a decent branded contactor for the AC switching 👍 cheers
Thee uppa vow'itch seh'inz eeh'ah o' thee inveh'ah o'mee ba'ry. - The upper voltage settings here of the inverter of my battery.
Google translate burnt at least three holes in the ozone layer translating that one.
Ha ha 🤣 the voltages should be tweaked to your setup as I’ve had to tweak mine and can be a bit finicky 👍
I also have load diversion controller. Not enough pv in winter and shit loads too much in the summer. This year I'm looking at an air con unit to dump spare energy into...
Yea I was thinking of converting one of my classic cars to electric just to harvest that free energy in summer 😂 if and when I get time 😝 cheers 👍
Well brilliant, this vid was exactly what I was looking for to do mine, and you have explained it spot on especially the relay wiring.The only thing I can say is, will the 48v have enough power on a 240v immersion? If I’ve understood your system correctly.
The immersion is still being supplied with 240v, the 48v is just powering the relay switch and it’s the 48v that fluctuates then triggers the relay that has the 240v being switched through it. 👍 cheers
@@CarJunkeez got ya, is the immersion only heating the hot water cylinder or do you have to top up with gas?
@@mattmartin8366 it’s only the immersion element heating my tank, I could easily plumb my boiler for instant hot water but I like free energy 🤣 cheers 👍
@@CarJunkeez its definitely the way to go and great vid thanks👍
Hi, thanks for all the great info, I have the same twin seplos battery setup.
What's the pinout for the RS485 cable to connect the 2 batteries together? Is the battery to Growatt cable the same?
I have the battery to PC cable working ok.
Have a beer for me!
Thanks mate 👍 the RS485 battery to battery link cables are just standard straight pin to pin cables, then the CAN cable to the BMS or CAN port on the inverter is also the same but you need to cut 3 wires in the cable, (Orange, Orange striped, Green striped) then use Li protocol 52, also make sure you set the jumper switches correctly on the battery’s BMS. But if you change the CAN protocol on the Seplos battery to GROWATT then you need to use Li protocol 51 on the Growatt inverter 👍
@@CarJunkeez hi, thanks so much! Are you using rj45 cable ANSI color coding A or B? Or can you tell me the pin numbers? I'm hooking it all up today...
@@joeelliott8454 T568B so I presume that’s RJ45 ASNI colour code B, (the green pair are on 2 and 6) so if you cut the wires as I stated but only on the inverter lead, some inverters don’t need the wires cut so try it first, I’ve got an inverter that needs them cut and another inverter that I can just use straight cable, also note that if the cut cable doesn’t work one way then swap ends and try the other way.
The Seplos battery to battery RS485 don’t need any wires cutting, but remember to set the jumper switches as per CAN setting 👍 cheers
@@CarJunkeez with your help, I have on of my seplos 48v 280ah talking to my growatt spf6000t with seplos protocol set to growatt.
It now shows the battery percentage ok on the Growatt, but every 10 minutes or so, the inverter shuts down with error #20, a BMS communication error.
It then restarts and works for another 10 minutes ad infinitum.
Any ideas?
FYI, It works also with a straight thru rj45 but resets in 15 secs, with both orange and the green striped wire cut, it works for around 2 minutes, then I cut the solid green and it works for around 10 mins before resetting.
Will it work on the rs485 ports or only the can port?
All my jumpers are off as I'm testing with one battery for now.
@@joeelliott8454 it should be solid orange , orange striped and green striped that are cut, perhaps one of the wires your cutting could be the CAN ground, also try the lead the other way round too.
Yes you can use the RS485 from the Seplos RS485 socket to the Growatt RS485 sockets but remember to set the Seplos jumpers correctly for RS485 and also set Growatt correctly. Your Growatt is a slightly different model to mine so not sure if settings are different or you may possibly need a firmware update for Seplos compatibility 👍
Can you send me the wiring diagram for the A30 that you used to to operate an AC socket when the battery is full?
ie, is it ...
Volt+ -> bat +ve
Gnd -> bat -ve
com -> AC neutral
NO -> AC power
Thanks!
Volt+ and Power > +battery
Gnd > -battery
NO > AC power Live in
COM > is the switched AC live output that can go to the socket.
Then just keep socket AC neutral connected to socket as normal 👍 cheers
Well in my mate 👍👍🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧.
Cheers bro 😎 😃👍👍👍👍
I went for the 1.5kw element! And for any extra power generated i use a crypto mining rig that i built a few years ago, make some extra cash!
Nice one man, since I did mine I think I should of used a slightly higher wattage element as I’ve got plenty of spare wattage, mining is a good way to use excess, shame it’s down a lot at the mo tho 😂 cheers 👍
Hi there , i wonder how it went? I wired mine in the same way as instructions and you have and found that a 500w heater caused my relay to overheat and the capacitor was at 45 degrees when i gave ot away. Would love to know how your 20amp system went
Cheers from New Zealand 😎
Hi mate, I’ve been using mine mostly for my hot water on the 1kw element a few times a week since I fitted it and not had any problems. I do know though that there are some clones of the controller that can’t take much amperage (clones of Chinese clone 😂)and it sounds like you may have one of those, you can buy a larger amperage relay and wire that to trigger from the controller and use the big relay for your heater, I was thinking of doing this but mine has been fine and doesn’t get hot. 👍 cheers
@@CarJunkeez thanks for your reply, did you run an auxiliary relay or does the a30 carry all of the load?
Curious if the components warmed up at all. This has frazzled me to the point I'm studying wiring diagrams at 3am lol
@@kevjoseph1032 no I didn’t use an external relay, I just ran straight from the A30 internal relay with no problem mate, just switching the live feed to the element 👍
Can you please post the link to the user manual, I have tried to screenshot the qr code but it won't read
onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AOdnhReihR2tM%2DY&id=B96775081815F568%21614&cid=B96775081815F568&parId=root&parQt=sharedby&o=OneUp
@@CarJunkeez legend
@@ogfeen no problem pal 👍 cheers
What is that relay called?
It’s a 4 pole 63 amp 400v contactor 2NC 2NO (2 normally open , 2 normally closed) 👍
I hope some of these viewers know what they're doing... Asking about stuff that's really dangerous if it gets misunderstood, improperly specced / installed...... Be careful folks. Always consult a competent and qualified person....
@@MultiOutdoorman yes definitely not for people to mess with unless they totally understand 👍👍 cheers
But the charge controller fights the switch and batteries at the same time because the batteries never get topped up. I've seen half charged batteries being given 57 volts by the bms, for whatever reason it wanted to, during its own method of a recharge. I have disconnected this and now use my litle voltage switch as a dump load dor when it's a tenth of a volt or two higher than the charge controller, as a safety, and to prepare for adding a wind turbine direcrly ro the battery bank
Hi
It is quite finicky to set and have good control with lithium batteries and will work a lot better with lead acid due to the voltage difference.
I was going upgrade the dump switch by fitting a small current clamp switch on the solar panel wires and set it to trigger at a certain amperage, but this could be problematic when battery’s are full and there’s no load on the system.
I was looking into wind but you got to go big or it’s not worth it 👍 cheers
@@CarJunkeez I think I figured it out!?? Run an AC (instead of DC) load through the dump switch while it's still connected to the batteries to read voltage, at the same dump settings. Hurricane solar sells a switch that is sold for DC dump load but I called the creator and he said no problemmo with having it dump and AC load instead. That way the load comes through the inverter which balances available solar power instead of just pulling quickly from the batteries. It's the closest form of feeding extra power while off grid that I can come up with. Once the inverter balances power, the 'dump' can 'surf' the available solar power as an active demand through the inverter and be 'balanced' by the MPPT controls, thereby taking more from the sun than just just batteries.
@@readoryx373 I am already running an AC load through the dump switch, the AC is coming from the inverter output to the switch and then to the immersion element.
@@CarJunkeez assuming a 48v sys, how, if I may ask, have you configured the immersion charge voltage and the dump load voltage? Is it 57.6V for the limit on both the charger/inverter as well as the trigger point for the dump switch? I'm thinking of taking the dump switch down to 54V so there's some overlap and the batteries wouldn't be getting more than 54V immersion charge unless the sun is out
You are right and most don't understand that. This is the reason I run heaters right off the array voltage and dump proportionantly to the heating element to bring array voltage back to Vmpp. Operating off a battery requires more battery capability, wastes available power and screws up battery charging cycles.
I recently did a small solar array. Had a few good offgrid days in June
Awesome mate 😁 it’s a good feeling getting all that energy for free 👍 cheers
Great video, now repeat it in English please
Thanks 😁 sorry I’m not to good at English, not to bad at a northern Mancunian with a Yorkshire twang tho 👍 cheers
His ukrainian is good enough to understand.
@@andrii2402 🤣 дякую друже 😀👍
Have you thought of exporting the excess power back to the grid and get paid for it?
My inverter’s can’t feed back to the grid, I purchased them as my goal is to eventually be totally off grid, but now Octopus do some good tariffs in the U.K. and no license is needed now to feed back to the grid on Octopus too 😂