Solar project thoughts.

What a great job, Not sure if I missed it, How many watts are each panel?

tattoobob wrote:
What a great job, Not sure if I missed it, How many watts are each panel?

Thanks! (6) 180 watt.

Started cables today. The board (within the pencil lines) will be part of the battery bank clamping and double as device mounting board. Very tight... Never built cables this short before. :h Hopefully there will still be enough flex for heat expansion.

Very nice work!

Where did you get your solar panels?

And....from what I read on the CALB web site, your batteries are Lithium-Ion, not LiFePo4. That correct? Big difference.

Geewizard wrote:
Very nice work!

Where did you get your solar panels?

And....from what I read on the CALB web site, your batteries are Lithium-Ion, not LiFePo4. That correct? Big difference.

They are LiFePO4. Read here.


If you go into the user manual portion of the site you find this.



The panels are grape solar 180 watt. I ordered them through Home Depot of all places. They are not a great bargain for $/watts but they we the only panels I could find that fit the roof of the TC well, produce over 1000 watts and still allow me to get up and walk around up there.

GpnAZ wrote:
Holy smokes, what a bank of batteries and you probably need a bank to buy all those!! What type batteries are you using and what's the weight on all of them? How many total watts do you have for solar panels? I can't help with wiring or monitoring needs but we have some pretty knowledgeable people on this forum when it comes to solar, BKA being one of them. Nice project!

FYI for anyone wiring in a switch...
a switch anywhere between the batts and solar controller that is switched when the panels are producing can be very damaging to the system, mostly to the panels themselves.

properly, the panels should be covered, THEN disconnected with a switch or by being unplugged... or wait until nightfall to disconnect them... there is NO HARM to them setting in full sun and disconnected, but its the switching on or off that can cause damage.

centerline wrote:

GpnAZ wrote:
Holy smokes, what a bank of batteries and you probably need a bank to buy all those!! What type batteries are you using and what's the weight on all of them? How many total watts do you have for solar panels? I can't help with wiring or monitoring needs but we have some pretty knowledgeable people on this forum when it comes to solar, BKA being one of them. Nice project!

FYI for anyone wiring in a switch...
a switch anywhere between the batts and solar controller that is switched when the panels are producing can be very damaging to the system, mostly to the panels themselves.

properly, the panels should be covered, THEN disconnected with a switch or by being unplugged... or wait until nightfall to disconnect them... there is NO HARM to them setting in full sun and disconnected, but its the switching on or off that can cause damage.

I have never heard this perspective, and am certainly interested to review. Can you point to material I can study?

Most manufacturers of solar charge controller advise a fuse or circuit break between the CC and battery/panels. Every high end system I have seen utilizes some sort of disconnect.

A little more progress today. The blue boards are the mechanical restraint HMS asked about. They are connected together with all thread to keep the batteries tight together. Nothing is aligned or tightened at this point.
The large 4/0 cables on the right will go to the inverter. The solar CC and the house power will tie into the busbars on the bottom. The whole assembly just fits into the genset compartment, but first the battery cells need to be bottom balanced. Hopeful that will start next week.



*EDIT*

Victron no longer recommends the Battery Protect for any reverse currents from a charging source to the battery. Only a discharging current from the battery to a load. This component has been removed from the system.

That looks like a pretty neat install. Are the end plates plywood? Does Calb specify how stiff/robust the end plates need to be?

HMS Beagle wrote:
That looks like a pretty neat install. Are the end plates plywood? Does Calb specify how stiff/robust the end plates need to be?

Yes 5 ply hardwood. The bottom of the ply will be secured by angle at the base as well as the threaded rod. I have found very little info researching cell clamping requirements aside from opinions that claim cell swelling is minimal with these CALB cells. At peak charging/discharging rates I will be interested to measure cell terminal temps to see if location within the bank (as well as voltage) varies.

I have also read that prismatic cells should be restrained. I have decided to bind them with low pressure as general good practice to keep them together going down the road.

I have not read anything from CALB describing a binding process aside that one should be used. Since my redneck application is not engineered I doubt CALB could help much with (or I could measure accurately) a system of measured restraint.