SOLAR SHED UPDATE & VICTRON PHOENIX 12 | 800 INVERTER
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- Опубліковано 22 лют 2018
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Hey Andy, you have an awesome setup! Thanks for the review and walkthrough of your shed. You even performed a load test:)
That's a great setup the new 800w inverter looks good and the fact under load it stayed cool with that 500w heater is good and with it being a pure sine wave you can use electronic devices without damaging them. Thanks for sharing it with us looking forward to more videos as you keep updating the system fantastic job 👍
The input is 12V which is very low. The thing is that the higher the voltage - the lower the amps. And thus the less heat losses in the cables and in the converter. On top of that with lower amps the circuit will be more safe. So at least go for 24 or even better go for 48V input.
that is a badass setup! i just got a Victron inverter. it's amazing! just a heads up, Victron doesnt recommend mounting with the fan on the top like the way you have it. I guess the fan is intake so for proper cooling, it would take in cooler air from the bottom, pass it through the unit, and exhaust the heat from the top vents. anyways, nice work! subscribed!
need to invert the inverter
The plastic hooks on the sides to mount the Victron looks like it is mounted upside down, which will effect cooling I think. great review
Love all your videos Andy ... have ever looked into ultra capacitor to power your heavy tools?
030421/0131h PST -0131h UTC. Hello Andy, Thanks for the informative video. If you carefully look, then you’d find that the inverter is placed on the wall upside down. This could be an oversight. I do similar things at my lab too. But the airflow will be restricted to cool down the Toroid. The Toroid must get unrestricted air flow. If you also look carefully, the unit wall hanging eyelets are different on each side.
Meaning one is elongated and the other just a hole. The elongated side must be on top, ensuring free flow of air. Please pardon me, if you have already corrected the mounting. Thanks and looking forward to viewing many more sequences in future. 73s...
Hi Andy, first off great content and love the solar progression. Have you tried to run the Raspberry Pi on WiFi? I am having trouble configuring the on board interface on my Raspberry Pi 3B for use with my Victron gear.
I think camp sites have Commando plugs that hook up to your van to make the A/C sockets work?
Have you tested the no load power draw of your inverter with a clamp meter? I have the 12|1200 and it draws more than twice the claimed 8 watts.
I love your videos Andy, keep them coming mate. I'm about to insulate and board my garage to set up a small gym. I'm putting solar on my roof because my garage is across the street with no power. I got a small Calor Gas Cube heater to keep the space warm and i'm going to power the TV and other bit from a Power Oak 400w power pack which has a direct solar input to charge it.
Awesome! Thanks for watching. I looked up that Power Oak battery, looks good, what power rating is the inverter in there? I couldn’t see it in the description. Cheers!
It has a 300w pure sine wave inverter and can accept a maximum solar input of 120w when charging. It charges from the wall charger at 40w so hopefully on a sunny day it'll charge faster from solar. I was originally going to put 500 watts on my roof and a bank of 12v deep cycle batteries for storage but this was because I wanted to heat the garage with an electric heater. When I decided to get the cube heater I thought the Power Oak 400w pack would be more useful because I can take it anywhere.
That new inverter looks awesome mate love the idea of a road trip in a motor home with electric bikes for exploring the area. Those last fiew shots loiked slightly alcohol fueld lol nice one mate great vid as always
Haha yeah I thought that whilst I was watching it back and editing but I hadn’t drunk anything!!! Weird!
andy kirby maybe all the coffee u had through the day gave u a caffeine rush hahaha u looked like u were enjoying it mate thats the main thing
Are you sure that inverter is turned the right way up for optimal cooling
Thanks for a great informative video , is there any chance u can Please do a short video on using the raspberry pi in a solar system as I have both but had no idea we can use the pi in this way , thanks a lot , liked and subscribed 👍🏼👍🏼
Very interested in which software are you using on the RPI for controlling your setup.
Regarding motorhomes, most of them don't have an inverter as standard. Quite odd, but I guess it's down to cost saving from the manufacturer.
That's a really fancy looking system with awesome functions which is great and I hope you enjoy it. But for me there are way too many extra things to break in the years to come with all the computer controls and interfaces, bluetooth etc... Even just the Victron stuff has a lot of extra functions that add many extra parts to the circuits reducing reliability and adding extra cost. Many hundreds of extra parts on all the circuit boards I'm sure. I'd rather buy 2 decent inverters and MPPT charger controllers at the same price as 1 Victron and have a backup of each in case something goes wrong with the system. Down time with power outages is just a real pain especially on a boat or in a house.
The additional functions are essential to quick trouble shooting from experience they have saved me days of downtime also each component works independently in the event of a system failure for the controller.
At 4:30, I got a 12V/1200 Phoenix Inverter and the back of the general "manual" says 27th March 2013!
Just bo ugh a victory inverter for my van conversion... quick question totally unrelated, where can I get me one of your led / neon lightening bolt lamps? 👍
Awesome
As always😎
Great work, am I right in saying that you've wired a cigarette style charger into the load on the mppt and then plugged your USB hub into it ?
You can turn the VIctron inverter on and off with bluetooth with the Victron mobile phone app too
I'm curious why you powered the inverter through a Victron Battery Protect device. This seems redundant, since the inverter has its own highly programmable high voltage and low voltage shutdown features, and the Battery Protect MOSFET creates additional IRds power loss. What was your thinking there?
you could use an arduino to monitor temps and then wire it into the spare switch on the blue thing to cut power if the temp gets to high
Good call, Arduino is great for stuff like this. You could probably emulate the ve direct protocol so that temperature shows up in the monitoring system, then you can configure the system to turn off load, charger in the event of high temperature condition.
Hi. Can you drawing some sketch how to connect all together and name of all parts. Thanks.
Hello
To you have the inverter connected to the battery protect? I have read that it will break the battery protect unit.
Hi i got a similar one work perfectly until yesterday it stopped (no output 240v), i noticed that both Leds red and green blinks in sequence. can you tell me the problem and how to fix it...thanks
Nice job. Well done...
Does anyone know the limit amperage? Can o connect this inverter into a 200ah battery?
you know what you need to do? add more panels :) make it a super shed :D
Hi, I have the red led(alarm) permanently on and the inverter not work, without any load??? Can you help me? I have the 12/250, it is new and never used more than 50w of load. Thanks
Great stuff Andy.
Sure, the Muliplus is fantastic. Like you say, it's amazing what can be done. The bit I really like is how it will use all solar to charge the battery, but when it's full, the MPPT keeps going at full chat with the excess power going back to the grid, all seamless and automatic.
I'm planning on getting Alexa to interact with the Venus system. I've got some ideas in the pipeline.
Yeah it’s awesome isn’t it. Cool about Alexa and the Venus system, being open sourced anything is possible!
Hey Andy a trip to St Ives would be good in Camper as a test run think there is a site called Ayr overlooking porthmeor beach
Stunning Beaches Ect
Sounds lovely, very nice part of the world.
Is this victron inverter V.E. direct?
The inverter can manage 17v maximum I have one
did you fit an external fuse to the inverter if so how many amps thanks
200A mega fuse with 40mm2 cables.
15:37 What music/track is that?
Hi Andy, quick question on 500w heating, how many panels would you need to run a 500w heater directly in the uk winter? I think in this video you have 2 panels of whatever size they are.
Hi Mike, it depends on how long you need it to run for. I can only run my 500W radiator for a couple of hours with just two 200W panels without dipping into the batteries too much. If it’s sunny I would get quite a bit longer.
To explain.. a 500W heater uses 500wh if on continuously for an hour (500 watts per hour), one 250W panel in optimal position will provide about 1kWh (1000Wh) per day with 5-6 hours sunshine. So you would only get 2 hours runtime with just one 250W panel.
If it’s off grid you would need a battery and inverter to buffer the power as panels alone couldn’t run the heater.
If it’s on grid you could use a grid tie and compensate your energy usage with energy from the solar panels.
I reckon if you had 4 x 200W panels and 100ah battery it would run all day and not dip into the battery much during a sunny day.
andy kirby thanks for the reply, ok now I get the maths to generate batteries s unless I’m actually using a 500w heater all I can do is charge battery(s) in a hope to use them later. So for me I’d say on grid (tie) Inverter(s) with as many panels I can fit and then I don’t need to worry about using the stored energy in batteries. I think your new Inverter could be retro fitted underneath a panel. Great vids by the way 👍 can you just connect an Inverter to the mains and not get any other official calibration/testing from your local electricity company or is there more to it than that? Can you fit wind generator to your system?
Yeah that’s right, if you have mains in the area you want to use the heater then the grid tie would be a good option. I don’t think it’s technically “allowed” to plug a grid tie into a plug socket, they should be wired into their own point with a breaker. Maybe a small consumer unit. The other thing to be careful of is pushing power back to the grid because if the heater is off and your house loads go down to below what the inverter is putting out your meter might freak out. Best case it will just go backwards but it’s not a good idea.
*Just be aware everything I’ve done here is experimental, I’m not recommending anyone does this. You can make your own mind up whether to experiment with this stuff.
I run a water heater and space heater off the panel DC buss. Connecting directly to the panels is a really bad idea except for two hours mid day. A fixed resistance kills the panel voltage with just a tiny drop in sunlight. I have a module I use to keep the panels voltage at power point and doing that it doesn't screw up the battery. I use a 1500W 120V heater and that is a good match for my grid tie panels producing 60V. This has two heating elements and I put them in parallel. Half voltage is one quarter power, but at +300W you can't hold your hand on it. Please don't run heaters from batteries.
hi andy why haven't you gone down the 24v route im running a 12v setup now but thinking about selling my 12v inverter and going 24v thanks
Hi Chris, actually Iiked the challenge of making 12V work! The reason most people don’t like it is because of the high currents when running 1000W+ and that it stresses the batteries more, need fatter cables etc. My system rarely runs above 800W at the moment and for intermittent off grid support for the house in a powercut it’s working really well. My cells are huge EV cells so they don’t even sag under loads of 50-60A. I think if you want to continuously run a house for example at 3kW+ then you need to be on 48V or more but Unless you are completely off grid there’s not much point in my opinion. For grid backup 12/24V is fine.
fantastic informative video,i have just bought the victron 12/375 for use in our caravan here in the uk and the wifey needs ghd's straightners BUT its just overloading is it possible you could try a set of ghd's on yours and if they work i will buy the same model as you thank you
I tried my wife’s GHDs on my other 1000W inverter and it worked fine, they only consume about 200W but may have an inrush current. Also your battery voltage may be sagging when put under any meaningful loads?
thanks for your time mate i had a sealey 800 watt and it ran them fine but i gave it to my son .So i have seen your video's and thought yes i will have a victron but my 375watt should give double to start but watching the victron app it produces 290v then goes overload so im not going to give up ill find out if that model you use works and ill buy one of them,if you get chance please could you try,sorry to bother you but i wont go into it but she needs cheering up thanks again
i have 2 110ah gel batterys
well i have asked loads of people to try the 800 watt victron and never got anything back,so i bit the bullet and bought the victron 800 watt as the straightners use 150 watt thats loads of headway AND they don not run even as the 800 victron can surge 1600 watt it overloads so i guess its back to mastervolt
@@fester. that's so funny so I've had loads of experience with victron multiplus units I installed a 3kva multiplus and it worked well to the point where it ran loads that were almost double capacity of the inverter . For a long long time ...Then I bought a 800va running on 60ah lifepo4 batteries which can deliver 60amps at 25v that's a heap of power ... and guess what so dissapointing the product fails to run a hair dryer and any other devices that run in the same region of power the most I've pulled would be 600 watts and no error ... frankly the surge rating on the device is terrible at best it won't even sustain the load for a limited time to get a feel what type of load it is .. heck even my bosch fridge and freezer would cause an over load .. I have a few other high frequency units that run the same loads easy ..victron this is a poor product offer 800va and deliver 1400 va like your other products.. Not 800va and deliver 500va.....
I tried a test run with a electric stove and the red alarm led was constant on. Does this mean I have to turn it of immediately or how long can I run it like this? What are the dangers?
It’s overloading something. Sounds like either the inverter isn’t big enough to run the stove or more likely the battery voltage is dropping too much meaning it can’t handle the power. Either way the inverter will eventually just shut down completely if you leave it on.
Could you post details of the BMS and where you purchased it. I am stuck for a 4s bms
I used this BMS www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B075296PDZ?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_t1
It’s only 30A but I’m just using it on the charging side.
I’m also testing a Chargery BMS 8 and there will be a video about my findings soon.
Thanks Andy’ I am trying to get a bms to protect overdischarge. At 3.0v
George Aitken have you looked into on cell battery protection? I mean a small bms for each cell? Most do have a cut off around 3v-3.3v anyway.
Hi, yeah the issue with that is that it could take a cell out of circuit and then how does it reset? Maybe when it senses a charge current.. could be problematic...I think the best solution is one that constantly monitors each cell and then sends a signal to a BMS that can deal with the alarm condition by turning off the charger or load and also telling you what the problem is. Batrium with their Longmon system does this but it’s really designed for huge packs.
Hey what is that blue box over the inverter what flashing blue?
battery smart disconnect
Pl display trunking diagram of inverter
How much is one in Kenya 12/800
I just bought the Victron Phoenix VE 12/1200VA here in Oz.
I’m about to test it with a LG microwave oven with a 125ah AGM battery.
The microwave oven is one of the newer inverter types which can be set to operate at 200w/400w/600w/800w/1000w power levels.
I expect the Victron to be able to supply the microwave at least up to the 600watt power level.
Testing it this weekend.
Hello Roland, do u still have the invertor? How is it now, after 2 years? Greets
Lowest microwave ive seen is a converted to 350 watts it still draws 900 watts.
hi andy can you help me setting up my pi 3 iv been out and bought one and 2 ve connect usb ports to connect to my mppt and inverter. the issue im having it the pi 3 wont boot iv been messing about with it for a few days trying to get it set up. it wont boot up right thank you
Hi, how did you create the SD card? I found the best way is in Linux or maybe use Win32 disk imager. Does the SD card that came with the pi boot?
hi no iv got 2 1 8gb none brand and a 16gb samsung u3. that iv been trying to use. i formatted it using sd formatter as recommended online then flashed the image using Etcher. i did try using win32diskimager but it needs an iso file not a rpi-sdimg file i have manage to flash different os on the sd cards successful like Raspbian worked fine. just having issue with the victron thank you
what flashing software did you use in Linux
have you got a link for the heater thanks
sure - amzn.to/2jTUoHZ
cool vids Subscribed
Off the grid for America 10kW to 15kW inverter, advice
Jose Garcia America is greedy , now look at the mess it’s in
so the total amount your spending on gear to have electric from the sun out weighs the cost from the gride supply price. how long before its payed for its self
Probably a long time! it’s the same with any solar system. You are basically just buying your energy upfront. For me it’s all about learning how to do DIY off grid setups. This is where I see the advantage. When there is no real grid to attach to.
@@andykirby thanks im going to try it my self
@@andykirby plus you have a backup :)
Love your channel. One question. Why did'nt you get a multi compact? I have one in my MH. It works like a UPS, when you're draining more then grid can supply.
O. You mention it at the end....
Yeah thought about it. May do this next not sure if the new type are available yet in the U.K.
These devices are around for years now,but they evolve fastly. I wanted to get a Venus, the same image as your PI, but I found it a bit expensive. This device has ports for tanks, wich will be useful for RV's
www.victronenergy.com/blog/2018/02/02/venus-gx-new-explanatory-videos/
I sended you my VRM, it;s offline now, because it is winter...
I saw the link thanks! I’m sure everything you can do with the CCGX you can do with the Venus + Pi, you just need the interfaces from USB to whatever your connecting. That’s what I did. I’ve got like 4 USB to ve.direct adapters to connect all my Victron stuff to the pi running Venus.
In the US all premade RV's come with 12v inverters and chargers, but hey are usually not that good so they get replaced a lot.
At the moment the switch terminal runs in emergency mode ;-) Cut the loop and the inverter is off ;-)
Ah ok, but the main on/off/eco switch still works?
How well does that victron inverter work?
Like a dream
How long has it been running ? Considering to get a victron 24/1200 or the samlex evo 1224f-hw but dont know which is better or durable. Just want to set a small backup system that can power a 32" tv, ps4 , small fridge an some lights
Jovani Hutchinson I think nearly 2 years now 24/7. I can’t speak for the Samlex but I have lots of victron stuff now and it just runs 24/7 365. It’s expensive but very high quality.
Hey buddy! Very nice set up! Cool!
I have a raspberry of running Venus OS on my Car and I can get my BMV 712 connected to it via VE Direct to USB just like you and it works perfectly. The thing here is with my phoenix inverter. It is also connected to the Pi via be direct to USB cable and is recognized in Venus OS however I cannot see any load when I plug my laptop to the output AC of the inversor. Would you know what is going on? Thanks a lot.
Hey, with a Phoenix inverter the load only shows on the second screen (with the list of connected devices) it won’t show on the main screen if that’s what you mean??? this is a software limitation. I’ve asked them to fix it. It works with multiplus and big inverters but not Phoenix unfortunately.
andy kirby I cannot even see the consumption on the device screen actually. Even if I connect to my inverter via VE direct to my computer I cannot see how much watts the AC devices are draining... it only shows it as Normal and no lost at all.
And yes. Having the phoenix inverter on the main screen would be awesome. That's my goal but unfortunately it is not possible yet. Hopefully they will make it happen soon.
I am trying to upload a picture here for you but I don't think I can :/
Would you be able to add me on Facebook at all? Igor Peixoto living in Brisbane Australia. Cheers mate and thanks again.
Hi, I don’t really use Facebook but did you try to update the firmware of the Phoenix??
andy kirby it seems the latest firmware is the 1.12 from 2017i believe. Mine came with 1.12 already on it. Do you believe the ve.direct cable could be the problem?
What version of Venus OS are you running on your RPi?
is it modifie sine or true sine ?
Yes true sine, the best sine you’ll probably find coming from an inverter 😁
andy kirby Need to hook it up to a scope to find out but being a Victron I’m guessing pretty good.
Is this place going to be your home? :O
Kinda! It’s where I work!
andy kirby That is amazing!
why don't you have more subscribers?
Looks really complicated 😕
I got the 24/1200. Broke within 3 weeks. Now it just blinks red/green with NO output. Internal fuse was not blown. I should have spent the extra money on a REAL inverter(Xantrex). I will definitely avoid Victron products in my next upgrade.
Xantrex is overpriced junk duh, with zero product support and useless warranty.
what did you end up doing with it?