After procrastinating for weeks, I finally just ordered the E3600LFP! My first power station. Mostly for outages/UPS. Not sure if constantly fiddling around with a power station every day is worth saving $30-50 a month in electricity. We'll see. Maybe I'll get addicted like you.
Just having something sitting there that can get you through a bad day is worth the feeling of comfort :) P.S. Welcome to the power station owner's club. P.P.S. And yes, you will get addicted to solar, we all did....LOL P.P.P.S. Take it slow and learn before you try :)
Thanks for all the E3600 LFP vids. I'm wondering, do you think we need to use both of the host's expansion battery ports? I'd like to stack just 3 batteries underneath the 3600 generator and use only 1 of the expansion battery ports on the side of the E3600LFP. Thanks you!!
We thought of doing this as well but are afraid to try it....LOL Having all 4 batteries on just one port. and just having a really tall single stack system. I am pretty sure that you have to put 2 on each port since there are 2 ports. We will ask pecron about this :) P.S. We would really love to be able to put 100 batteries on this bad boy and have a HUGE system, but 4 is the limit according to pecron....LOL
@RamblinBobReviews You're probably right... as on the E1500... only 2 batteries per port. I bet within a year Pecron will be offering various lengths of these excellent cables. Thanks again. We ❤️ ur vids!
We were hoping that they would have figured out how to chain many batteries in daisy chain this year, but nothing yet. Some companies have systems were you can have like 10 batteries in a row. Never tried those, but would love to be able to see how they did it :)
Hey Bob great job on your full E3600 Setup, glad you finally got your two extra batteries to complete your setup! I wanted to ask you do you have a video that explains your over panel method, do you mean going over on the wattage? I do that with my eco D2M it only takes 500w but I use 550W and can get to the 500W more easier on cloudy days like you had on this video lol. anyhow I have 3 Renogy 550W Bifacials and 2 Eco 400W panels, what would be the best configuration to overpanel them for my Pecron E3600 LFP? thanks for your contribution to the Solar Community brother! Cheers
Over paneling is pretty simple, you can put as many watts and amps as you want, you just can NEVER go over the VOC of your system. The solar panel act like a cruise control on a car. when you need more power it gives it to you. and when you can not use it, it holds back :) P.S. Just make 100% sure that you NEVER go over the VOC voltage of you system EVER !!!!!
@@RamblinBobReviews Hey thanks for this info, I think my best configuration to over panel with the 4 panels i have is using my 3 Renogy Bifacial 550Watt panels in series, they have an open circuit voltage of 49.5V, x3 panels would be within the 150V(VOC Max) input voltage of the E3600 LFP (Per Slot). The Renogy's 550W panels do go a bit over on Amps I think upto 11.3Amps of current per Panel, so I am a little over on amps but I think you said I can go over on amps right? so is this configuration to overpanel my E3600 LFP sound ok to you per the VOC numbers again each has VOC of 49,5V so 3 panels is under the 150V(max) on E3600 LFP thats per slot right? thanks for your help I really enjoy your videos and learn so much from you, Thank you (one suggestion: when you are talking about the touch screen, if you could zoom in a bit more it would be great to be able to see the screen a bit better, I could see it but looks blurry cant read alot of it, only a suggestion) thanks again bud!
I would not use 3 of those panels on this system on one input, it is way too close to the VOC for my opinion. What if you get a power spike of 5% or so and you burn out your MPPT or your power station :( P.S. YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT THE PANELS ARE RATED FOR + OR - 5% IN MOST CASES :( (And that would put the VOC over 150v if you got that power surge) note: We always leave an extra 10v on the VOC (underneath the limit for safety) on all of our systems for safety. You better look into that setup more before you decide to do that.
@@RamblinBobReviews yeah I thought of that but you would think that Pecron has already taken the extra possible spike in mind, their manual says you can use 3 panels in series as long as they are 50v or below VOC, so you would think they already added into consideration any possible extra spikes. I will think this through before proceeding but dont you think they would have already calculated this in already? if they recommend you may use 50v and under VOC why would it be unsafe?
Because they are not responsible for that VOC rating that solar panel companies put on their panels. To give an example, those harbor freight 100w panels say that they are rated for 18v right on the box, and they are not... They are really 22.5v (and we have logged them at almost 25v VOC many times) and reached 122.5w each on video !!!!! That is 7v & 25w higher than thunderbolt said they were....Very dangerous if you had a system that could only take in 20v VOC. Power spikes could happen in any situation. Our e2000lfp had some trouble with any VOC over 80v. and other youtube channels as well. We made many videos warning people of this. Remember that video we did a year ago? So we learned from doing it the hard way. we had to change 2 x MPPT controllers to upgrade them in that system to get the 80v and up to even work. (And they were supposed to be rated for up to 95v VOC) If it was really hot outside, and some really cool water fell onto the panels from the rain, your voltage and power could spike to much higher than the panel is rated for. or you could get a bird poop on a panel and create a very dangerous hot spot and spike the power. We have had many conversations about this very question on the channel. and how dangerous it is to push any system to the max all the time. research the term "HEADROOM" to understand this better. As a sound guy myself....I do not care who makes the speaker or amp or whatever. And do not care how good they say the quality is. I will "ALWAYS" run at least 10% or more under the rated power (MAX) because it is always a safer thing to do if you want your equipment to last longer and not over heat. HERE IS A GOOD EXAMPLE... Your car could drive with the gas pedal all the way down to the floor, right? The car company said that it can go the speed on the dashboard, right? But for how long until you pop that engine? or burn it up? So just because the dashboard says that it can go 110 miles per hour, we do not recommend doing it ;) P.S. ALWAYS be safe when messing with electricity in any form, of you could lose everything you own making a small mistake like not leaving some VOC headroom for safety just in case :(
Hi, I am also interested in this system. I am wondering when you over panel your system, where does the excess energy go to on sunny days when the Pecron is already at its limit. When I ground my panels would the excess energy go into the ground? Do you ground your panels and the Pecron? Thanks for your intakes!
When the system is maxed out, the solar panel just does not create any extra power. It only creates what it can use. You can ground your system also if you want an extra layer or protection from power surges.
Bob, can you recommend any 200-220w rigid panels that get output (percentage) closest to the 100w thunderbolts? Thanks. (I know you got the ones from the solar installer, but what about a panel that's widely available) Thx.
The only ones that we tested so far in the 200 watt range is the acopower ones. And these are not the best output, but we really liked them because they were full black panels. Then we skipped right to the 400+ panels.
Very simple. Set each battery to number 0,1,2 or 3 with that little screw driver and just plug them in and you are done :) P.S. Start with number "0" when adding extra batteries, then the next battery would be number "1" etc, etc...... *This system auto detects them for you :)
I know you're mostly solar, but what do you think of that proprietary ac/wall cable? I like to have back ups and I see you can't even order one on their website
We really dislike when cables can only be used on one power station :( P.S. But, in this case....we can understand why they had to have a proprietary cable for this power station. That same port can pull 1,800 watts or 3,600 watts, and if it did not have that special cable to tell the system what to pull, it might try to pull in 3,600 watts on a standard 120v outlet & cable. so it needs the communication pins in their to hold back this beast. P.P.S. This system can really eat power (3,600 watts AC or 4,150 watts solar)
@RamblinBobReviews that I understand. The lack of availability of getting an extra is the thing I don't like. Really has me looking at a smaller system like the ecoflow delta 2 max.
They have always been late selling their cables, the 30a cable is not on the website yet either. P.S. We really like that Eco Flow ultra (45,000wh) power station system :)
Hey Bob what is needed to get 240 to a rec room I have a mini split that can’t run it I have the electrian here he said I can only run 120 would another 3600 run 240
If you please sir I have a question. Does the 15A AC cable also charge the ep3000 expansion battery direct to household outlet? The ep3000 manual confused me labeling it DC input. Mine are in route shipment and your Amazon video review concerns me about charging both properly.
I was thinking on reviews on Amazon that you were describing not to do it that way. Or at least that was the impression I got with the e2000lfp. So if there happened to be a greater than 10% difference between the host and expansion battery when I receive shipment (because there’s no way I’m going to know until I plug the 2 in) it won’t degrade either one ?
The was for a completely different system.... The e2000lfp had problems balancing the batteries, now the systems auto check all the time and this helps with that. The new systems are much better because of our complaints years ago :) You can charge the battery if you want to, but if the e3600lfp is at 50% and the battery is at 50% because that is how pecron ships them. right?
ABSOLUTELY NOT !!!!! That cable is designed "ONLY" to be used with the e3600lfp charging port on the side of that unit. EXTRA WARNING !!!!! That is a AC voltage power cable...How the heck would you have tried to plug that into a EB3000 or EP3000 anyway, they have different ports and they are DC Voltage in the batteries. *Hope that you did not try to do this somehow :( Not to mention, the ports on the eb3000 or ep3000 are DC inputs, not AC :( *You need something in between them to convert AC to DC before you try to get that power into the battery. (example: AC to DC charging brick) P.S. Please be safe out there, solar power can be dangerous or even deadly !!!!! *AC and DC do not play nicely with each other unless you have a conversion box between them ;) P.P.S. Only charge these batteries this way...... 1. solar input 32v-95v (5 pin) (400 watts max) 2. Cig port (12v-24v) (5 pin) 3. AC charging brick from e600lfp or e2000lfp power station (5 pin) 4. hooking them up to e2000lfp, e1500lfp, e2400lfp,or e3600lfp (using pecron's cascading cables)
After procrastinating for weeks, I finally just ordered the E3600LFP! My first power station. Mostly for outages/UPS. Not sure if constantly fiddling around with a power station every day is worth saving $30-50 a month in electricity. We'll see. Maybe I'll get addicted like you.
Just having something sitting there that can get you through a bad day is worth the feeling of comfort :)
P.S. Welcome to the power station owner's club.
P.P.S. And yes, you will get addicted to solar, we all did....LOL
P.P.P.S. Take it slow and learn before you try :)
Should be getting my expansion battery on Monday!!
P.S. NICE !!!!!
Thanks for all the E3600 LFP vids. I'm wondering, do you think we need to use both of the host's expansion battery ports? I'd like to stack just 3 batteries underneath the 3600 generator and use only 1 of the expansion battery ports on the side of the E3600LFP. Thanks you!!
We thought of doing this as well but are afraid to try it....LOL
Having all 4 batteries on just one port. and just having a really tall single stack system.
I am pretty sure that you have to put 2 on each port since there are 2 ports.
We will ask pecron about this :)
P.S. We would really love to be able to put 100 batteries on this bad boy and have a HUGE system, but 4 is the limit according to pecron....LOL
@RamblinBobReviews You're probably right... as on the E1500... only 2 batteries per port. I bet within a year Pecron will be offering various lengths of these excellent cables. Thanks again. We ❤️ ur vids!
We were hoping that they would have figured out how to chain many batteries in daisy chain this year, but nothing yet.
Some companies have systems were you can have like 10 batteries in a row.
Never tried those, but would love to be able to see how they did it :)
Hey Bob great job on your full E3600 Setup, glad you finally got your two extra batteries to complete your setup! I wanted to ask you do you have a video that explains your over panel method, do you mean going over on the wattage? I do that with my eco D2M it only takes 500w but I use 550W and can get to the 500W more easier on cloudy days like you had on this video lol. anyhow I have 3 Renogy 550W Bifacials and 2 Eco 400W panels, what would be the best configuration to overpanel them for my Pecron E3600 LFP? thanks for your contribution to the Solar Community brother! Cheers
Over paneling is pretty simple, you can put as many watts and amps as you want, you just can NEVER go over the VOC of your system. The solar panel act like a cruise control on a car. when you need more power it gives it to you. and when you can not use it, it holds back :)
P.S. Just make 100% sure that you NEVER go over the VOC voltage of you system EVER !!!!!
@@RamblinBobReviews Hey thanks for this info, I think my best configuration to over panel with the 4 panels i have is using my 3 Renogy Bifacial 550Watt panels in series, they have an open circuit voltage of 49.5V, x3 panels would be within the 150V(VOC Max) input voltage of the E3600 LFP (Per Slot). The Renogy's 550W panels do go a bit over on Amps I think upto 11.3Amps of current per Panel, so I am a little over on amps but I think you said I can go over on amps right? so is this configuration to overpanel my E3600 LFP sound ok to you per the VOC numbers again each has VOC of 49,5V so 3 panels is under the 150V(max) on E3600 LFP thats per slot right? thanks for your help I really enjoy your videos and learn so much from you, Thank you (one suggestion: when you are talking about the touch screen, if you could zoom in a bit more it would be great to be able to see the screen a bit better, I could see it but looks blurry cant read alot of it, only a suggestion) thanks again bud!
I would not use 3 of those panels on this system on one input, it is way too close to the VOC for my opinion. What if you get a power spike of 5% or so and you burn out your MPPT or your power station :(
P.S. YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT THE PANELS ARE RATED FOR + OR - 5% IN MOST CASES :(
(And that would put the VOC over 150v if you got that power surge)
note: We always leave an extra 10v on the VOC (underneath the limit for safety) on all of our systems for safety.
You better look into that setup more before you decide to do that.
@@RamblinBobReviews yeah I thought of that but you would think that Pecron has already taken the extra possible spike in mind, their manual says you can use 3 panels in series as long as they are 50v or below VOC, so you would think they already added into consideration any possible extra spikes. I will think this through before proceeding but dont you think they would have already calculated this in already? if they recommend you may use 50v and under VOC why would it be unsafe?
Because they are not responsible for that VOC rating that solar panel companies put on their panels.
To give an example, those harbor freight 100w panels say that they are rated for 18v right on the box, and they are not...
They are really 22.5v (and we have logged them at almost 25v VOC many times) and reached 122.5w each on video !!!!!
That is 7v & 25w higher than thunderbolt said they were....Very dangerous if you had a system that could only take in 20v VOC.
Power spikes could happen in any situation. Our e2000lfp had some trouble with any VOC over 80v.
and other youtube channels as well. We made many videos warning people of this.
Remember that video we did a year ago? So we learned from doing it the hard way.
we had to change 2 x MPPT controllers to upgrade them in that system to get the 80v and up to even work.
(And they were supposed to be rated for up to 95v VOC)
If it was really hot outside, and some really cool water fell onto the panels from the rain, your voltage and power could spike to much higher than the panel is rated for. or you could get a bird poop on a panel and create a very dangerous hot spot and spike the power.
We have had many conversations about this very question on the channel. and how dangerous it is to push any system to the max all the time. research the term "HEADROOM" to understand this better.
As a sound guy myself....I do not care who makes the speaker or amp or whatever. And do not care how good they say the quality is. I will "ALWAYS" run at least 10% or more under the rated power (MAX) because it is always a safer thing to do if you want your equipment to last longer and not over heat.
HERE IS A GOOD EXAMPLE...
Your car could drive with the gas pedal all the way down to the floor, right?
The car company said that it can go the speed on the dashboard, right?
But for how long until you pop that engine? or burn it up?
So just because the dashboard says that it can go 110 miles per hour, we do not recommend doing it ;)
P.S. ALWAYS be safe when messing with electricity in any form, of you could lose everything you own making a small mistake like not leaving some VOC headroom for safety just in case :(
Hey Bob
P.S. Hello :)
Hi, I am also interested in this system. I am wondering when you over panel your system, where does the excess energy go to on sunny days when the Pecron is already at its limit. When I ground my panels would the excess energy go into the ground? Do you ground your panels and the Pecron? Thanks for your intakes!
When the system is maxed out, the solar panel just does not create any extra power. It only creates what it can use. You can ground your system also if you want an extra layer or protection from power surges.
Would you go for the ecoflow if money was of no concern?
Eco Flow are very nice systems, we hear lots a good things about them.
P.P.S. And that Eco Flow Ultra is a BEAST, and I would take that for sure !!!!!
Bob, can you recommend any 200-220w rigid panels that get output (percentage) closest to the 100w thunderbolts? Thanks. (I know you got the ones from the solar installer, but what about a panel that's widely available) Thx.
The only ones that we tested so far in the 200 watt range is the acopower ones. And these are not the best output, but we really liked them because they were full black panels.
Then we skipped right to the 400+ panels.
@@RamblinBobReviews OK. Thanks.
Which video do you go over the expansion battery and set up to the 3600?
Very simple. Set each battery to number 0,1,2 or 3 with that little screw driver and just plug them in and you are done :)
P.S. Start with number "0" when adding extra batteries, then the next battery would be number "1" etc, etc......
*This system auto detects them for you :)
Dont know if youve mentioned this in one of ur E3600 vids... but what does 'eco mode' do? Thanks.
When there is no draw or charging on the system, it shuts down to save battery :)
I know you're mostly solar, but what do you think of that proprietary ac/wall cable? I like to have back ups and I see you can't even order one on their website
We really dislike when cables can only be used on one power station :(
P.S. But, in this case....we can understand why they had to have a proprietary cable for this power station.
That same port can pull 1,800 watts or 3,600 watts, and if it did not have that special cable to tell the system what to pull, it might try to pull in 3,600 watts on a standard 120v outlet & cable. so it needs the communication pins in their to hold back this beast.
P.P.S. This system can really eat power (3,600 watts AC or 4,150 watts solar)
@RamblinBobReviews that I understand. The lack of availability of getting an extra is the thing I don't like. Really has me looking at a smaller system like the ecoflow delta 2 max.
They have always been late selling their cables, the 30a cable is not on the website yet either.
P.S. We really like that Eco Flow ultra (45,000wh) power station system :)
@@RamblinBobReviews I'm just starting out. I just now grabbed the ecoflow delta 2 max for 989 shipped!
Nice :)
Let us know how you like it.
Hey Bob what is needed to get 240 to a rec room I have a mini split that can’t run it I have the electrian here he said I can only run 120 would another 3600 run 240
You have to have 2 x e3600lfp to get 240v output, and 2 full systems is 30,720wh when you build the complete setup :)
If you please sir I have a question. Does the 15A AC cable also charge the ep3000 expansion battery direct to household outlet? The ep3000 manual confused me labeling it DC input. Mine are in route shipment and your Amazon video review concerns me about charging both properly.
You can just plug the battery into the e3600lfp and charge it that way :)
I was thinking on reviews on Amazon that you were describing not to do it that way. Or at least that was the impression I got with the e2000lfp. So if there happened to be a greater than 10% difference between the host and expansion battery when I receive shipment (because there’s no way I’m going to know until I plug the 2 in) it won’t degrade either one ?
The was for a completely different system....
The e2000lfp had problems balancing the batteries, now the systems auto check all the time and this helps with that.
The new systems are much better because of our complaints years ago :)
You can charge the battery if you want to, but if the e3600lfp is at 50% and the battery is at 50% because that is how pecron ships them. right?
Thanks 🙏
How is the new beta update going? I have not seen any updates to either the 1500 or 3600.
The 1.7 app? Much better, less glitches, stays connected bette also. they are going in the right direction.
Can you charge the expansion battery with the 30 amp cable?
Are you talking about the AC 30 amp charging cable for the e3600lfp?
That is only for the main unit (e3600lfp)
@ yes
ABSOLUTELY NOT !!!!!
That cable is designed "ONLY" to be used with the e3600lfp charging port on the side of that unit.
EXTRA WARNING !!!!!
That is a AC voltage power cable...How the heck would you have tried to plug that into a EB3000 or EP3000 anyway, they have different ports and they are DC Voltage in the batteries.
*Hope that you did not try to do this somehow :(
Not to mention, the ports on the eb3000 or ep3000 are DC inputs, not AC :(
*You need something in between them to convert AC to DC before you try to get that power into the battery. (example: AC to DC charging brick)
P.S. Please be safe out there, solar power can be dangerous or even deadly !!!!!
*AC and DC do not play nicely with each other unless you have a conversion box between them ;)
P.P.S. Only charge these batteries this way......
1. solar input 32v-95v (5 pin) (400 watts max)
2. Cig port (12v-24v) (5 pin)
3. AC charging brick from e600lfp or e2000lfp power station (5 pin)
4. hooking them up to e2000lfp, e1500lfp, e2400lfp,or e3600lfp (using pecron's cascading cables)
@ no I haven’t….i don’t even have that battery yet, I was just wondering if you could do that. Sorry for the confusion.