Reply With QuoteI'm guessing THAT was the reason he was connected to the mains.
I'm sorry, usually the sun is down when its low cost, how is he going to charge his batteries using solar when the sun is down?Originally Posted by watchdog
I'm guessing THAT was the reason he was connected to the mains.
If you read his post, the energy company did the shits because he WASN'T using any power from the grid.
I dont think a 3kW system would supply a whole household with electricity AND keep a 700Ah battery bank charged especially in Tassie. But I really dont care . You sound like you are after an arguement & I'm not interested
Not after an argument whatsoever.
Just clarifying what you obviously couldn't read...
Tiny (15-09-15)
That would definitely be the case if you were using 19th century technology, as with lead acid batteries and their charge and usage regimes. I use lifepo4, light years ahead of lead acid in charge regimes, capacity usability, safety, weight and size. It also depends on how you use energy, the majority and especially urban residents tend to waste energy. If you regulate your energy usage properly, 3kw is quiet adequate with a small wind generator. It doesn't run my workshop, but there's 800w of solar there and 120ah of lifepo4. Also connect the bus 1kw of solar and 480ah of lifepo4 to it as well and along with the veggie powered gennie, have all the energy I need for free. Anyone can do it if they want control over their energy and not be subject to the whims of the greedy corporate elite
Tiny (15-09-15)
Do you have a link for those batts?
This might help
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
No I imported and made them up myself, the retail cost of lifepo4 cells is way to high and very few know how to use them properly. I've yet to see a commercial charge controller that is designed and works properly for lifepo4, so had some made to my specifications and they work great. If you don't charge and control them properly they will only last as long as lead acid and if you look after them, you can get well over a decade out of them easily.
With lead acid, you are lucky to get 35% usable energy out of your battery, with lifepo4 you can get 100%. But to be safe and have a long life span, you only use 80% which is still over double what you can get with lead acid and all you lifepo4 usable energy is above 12v.
There are a few lifepo4 sellers on Aus, but they are way to expensive and don't have a clue about what they are selling. But there is a business that sells lifepo4 starter batteries which are excellent and had one for more than 3 years, they are called lithiumax, !
So do the Batteries have a sticker on them??
Hence website link.
Last edited by ol' boy; 16-09-15 at 07:45 AM.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
I purchase the raw cells from the manufacturer and make up my own packs from industrial and military cells. Retail commercial cells are inferior and expensive compared to industrial and military. Commercial retail suppliers use large capacity cells, so if one cell goes down, your entire system is lost. With military/commercial, they use small cell capacity so if one cell goes down, they still have energy, just a little less capacity and they are metal cased, not plastic, like retail cells.
I looked at building a bank from parts from these guys once.
For me, it was price inhibited, as i get AGM batteries at a reasonable price.
So to improve my usage %, it was just cheaper to add another 100Ah Battery to the system.
This allowed a very shallow cycle which in turn i hope will give me a longer Battery life.
The downside was weight
There is no doubt, Lifepo4 is the future of off-grid power storage, just needs a few more years to come down in price for bigger systems
Motorbike batteries, no problems, but 300Ah deep cycle, too $$$ for me
Last edited by ol' boy; 16-09-15 at 08:55 AM.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
If you do the economies of scale, lifepo4 come out years and dollars on top of 19th century technology. For mobile situations, you also need to consider weight and safety, as well as usable capacity and placement. For fixed home installations, weight is not a problem but cost longevity and safety are.
With lifepo4, you can put them under your bed, sink or anywhere, can't do that with lead acid. If you buy retail then you will get ripped off and be dealing with people who don't have a clue and probably have little or no experience using them, they are a new technology and chemistry and are vastly different to lead acid. You have to re-program your brain form lead acid thinking to lifepo4 thinking and I can tell you, it's very hard when your life has revolved round lead acid.
Any way this is someone else thread relating to their installation, not mine, so will leave it here.
Its all useful info spook.
I'm sure admin will be looking into Battery Banks to completely eliminate his grid energy use in time.
If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!
Spook. you should start your own thread as this sounds interesting and you seem to have the knowledge
Last edited by allover; 16-09-15 at 06:02 PM.
There is a fine line between "Hobby" and "Madness"
Yep, that sounds good, but as always different areas/states of Australia/different panels/inverters etc etc will give different results. That was for the last 12 months up and including now. We havent seen much in the way of sunshine for a long time here, its been a long winter
By all means, start your own thread, thats what this forum is here for.
Has anyone in NSW taken the plunge and changed to Powershop?
If yes, comments please.
If Australia is a democracy why, then, is voting compulsory?
"What has changed between the arrival of the First Fleet and today?"
"Wearing leg irons is now not required."
There is a fine line between "Hobby" and "Madness"
Tiny (18-09-15)
Please explain from where and how you imported them for reasonable cost.
A few of us DO know how to build/install appropriate chargers/protection circuits.
Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...
allover (20-09-15)
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks