This is me!!

[johnb80]

It was suggested that I should make a post in here to introduce myself.

I'm John, 70 years young, retired offshore ROV Senior Pilot and for the last 2 years commercial drone pilot and CAA trainer examiner.. That's my career in one sentence!

Interests include CAD Design work (City & Guilds Autocad), Laser Cutting (I have a laser cutter) and I'm just about to embark on 3D printing but I'm struggling at the moment with Solidworks.

My last project that did take a while was a home storage battery, 14 kWh with it's own inverter. Completed 18 months ago and has run ever since, my daily electricity is provided by solar and this AC coupled battery making all of my energy used either off peak rate (7p) or free.

My Battery Project

The 16 Evie cells were built up into modules of 4, theyre very heavy so 4 was a good compromise for ease of handling. As you can see, the laser cutter came into it's own of this project.

The BMS system was fitted into a custom made stand.

Due to a management decision, this all had to live outside so I purchase a small toolshed from Amazon which fitted nicely in the space at the side of my house and was a good fit for the equipment.

In the bottom half there are 4 battery modules containing 4 cells each, 16 cells in total giving around 54 volts.

In the top half, the inverter (5 kW), the BMS, MCB's, Isolation Switches and temperature control.

This battery system cost less than half of commercially available units and has a more powerful inverter than many.

Thats my intro done, if I can help anyone with CAD design, laser cutting, electronics etc please shout out. Thank you for accepting my registration on here.

John #8o)

 

[DeBangis]

That's nice.
Welcome to UKW.

 

[Blister]

Only 2 things I can say,
1, Hello and welcome
2, Wow , Impressive.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Only 2 things I can say,
1, Hello and welcome
2, Wow , Impressive.

Ditto

 

[johnb80]

Thank you all for the welcome, I'll go into lurking mode for a while to see what goes on around here

 

[Fred48]

Welcome to the forum @johnb80 .
Fred

 

[Stigmorgan]

Welcome to the asylum

 

[Bingy man]

It was suggested that I should make a post in here to introduce myself.

I'm John, 70 years young, retired offshore ROV Senior Pilot and for the last 2 years commercial drone pilot and CAA trainer examiner.. That's my career in one sentence!

Interests include CAD Design work (City & Guilds Autocad), Laser Cutting (I have a laser cutter) and I'm just about to embark on 3D printing but I'm struggling at the moment with Solidworks.

My last project that did take a while was a home storage battery, 14 kWh with it's own inverter. Completed 18 months ago and has run ever since, my daily electricity is provided by solar and this AC coupled battery making all of my energy used either off peak rate (7p) or free.

My Battery Project

The 16 Evie cells were built up into modules of 4, theyre very heavy so 4 was a good compromise for ease of handling. As you can see, the laser cutter came into it's own of this project.

View attachment 185535

The BMS system was fitted into a custom made stand.

View attachment 185537

View attachment 185538

Due to a management decision, this all had to live outside so I purchase a small toolshed from Amazon which fitted nicely in the space at the side of my house and was a good fit for the equipment.
View attachment 185536

In the bottom half there are 4 battery modules containing 4 cells each, 16 cells in total giving around 54 volts.
View attachment 185540

In the top half, the inverter (5 kW), the BMS, MCB's, Isolation Switches and temperature control.
View attachment 185539

This battery system cost less than half of commercially available units and has a more powerful inverter than many.

Thats my intro done, if I can help anyone with CAD design, laser cutting, electronics etc please shout out. Thank you for accepting my registration on here.

John #8o)

Ground control to major Tom - very impressive equipment- look forward to seeing your projects- welcome to ukw ..

 

[johnb80]

Ground control to major Tom - very impressive equipment- look forward to seeing your projects- welcome to ukw ..

I'm not doing anything much at the minute other than a 'busyboard' for my 18 month old grandson - Wilf. He used one at a playgroup and I was horrified at the cost (£150+) of one so Autocad and the laser cutter will be in use for a couple of weeks.

Something like this:-

J

 

[Bingy man]

I'm not doing anything much at the minute other than a 'busyboard' for my 18 month old grandson - Wilf. He used one at a playgroup and I was horrified at the cost (£150+) of one so Autocad and the laser cutter will be in use for a couple of weeks.

Something like this:-

J

I don’t posses the knowledge to understand cnc 3d printer cad etc in fact anything computer related but I’m always amazed at what the end result is..

 

[Silken]

It was suggested that I should make a post in here to introduce myself.

I'm John, 70 years young, #8o)

Hi John and welcome, that's impressive.

A quick question relating to battery storage, I am with Octopus Energy.

With their EV smart charging tariff of peak electricity is 7p per KH. I was wondering could this be hooked up to a battery storage system and provide cheap electricity during peak times.

It's not something I would do, just that looking at your system the idea popped into my head.

 

[johnb80]

Hi John and welcome, that's impressive.

A quick question relating to battery storage, I am with Octopus Energy.

With their EV smart charging tariff of peak electricity is 7p per KH. I was wondering could this be hooked up to a battery storage system and provide cheap electricity during peak times.

It's not something I would do, just that looking at your system the idea popped into my head.

I'm on Intelligent Octopus Go as well, 2 x EV (MG5 and a BMW i3). I have run my battery system now for over 2 years and my average energy cost is around 7.2p kWh. I use very little peak energy.

Here's the Octoaid report from last month:-

My batteries charge every night, all solar generated is exported and the house runs all of the time on the batteries. As you can see, I save £153 last month and that is about the average every month, that totals over £1800 per year, the break even on my DIY battery is around 2.2 years !

If any of you want to gr through this process, I'd be more than happy to start another thread and lead you through the build process. It really is a lot easier than most people imagine but I must admit, it took me over a year of researching before I pressed the button ordering the cells, inverter and BMS and had a nervous time thinking what have I done LOL.

It's not rocket science, then end result just needs Live, Neutral and Earth connecting on to it any youre away, even if a local sparky connects it to the mains for you it wouldnt cost a lot.

 

[Jester129]

@johnb80 - Yes please! Love a good thread!

 

[Blister]

I have some questions you may be able to shed some light on
I have a 10 panel solar system all directly facing south with a 3.4KW battery and things have changed from when it was first installed .
What happens now is as follows
If the sun is not shining at 9.45am somehow my inverter changes into a battery charger , My amber light comes on on my smart meter , The inverter charges my battery and I pay import rate for the energy.
Then at say 11.30 the sun comes out for the remainder of the day , As my battery is fully charged all the energy is sent into the grid and I get export rate that is a lot lower than import rate ?
Question is who has control of my system and can change things like this ? any ideas , as I am loosing money / credit as it is now .

Also since the system was fitted the area has had 2 power cuts , One for about 20 min and just recently one for just over 1 hour , In the time of the cuts I sat in the dark with no power , I though I should have run of the battery ?

 

[John Brown]

Very nice.
Forgive my ignorance, but what are Evie cells? I googled it, but that didn't help at all.

 

[johnb80]

I have some questions you may be able to shed some light on
I have a 10 panel solar system all directly facing south with a 3.4KW battery and things have changed from when it was first installed .
What happens now is as follows
If the sun is not shining at 9.45am somehow my inverter changes into a battery charger , My amber light comes on on my smart meter , The inverter charges my battery and I pay import rate for the energy.

This as you rightly say is not a good way to work your system unless youre running an agile tariff and your inverter is picking cheap times to charge your battery (probably not).

Then at say 11.30 the sun comes out for the remainder of the day , As my battery is fully charged all the energy is sent into the grid and I get export rate that is a lot lower than import rate ?

These legacy systems are normally used with a dual rate electricity supply - peak and off peak. Timers and charge % can usually be set in the inverter settings eg 00:30 to 04:30 charge batteries to 80%. The inverter would switch over to charge mode, import energy from the grid and charge the house batteries up to 80%. If the target was met earlier than 04:30, it would continue to import energy from the grid and supply your house. Once 04:30 is reached it would then start to supply your house from the battery and then later as the glorious sunshine appears the solar would start to charge the batteries up and supply the house at the same time.

My tariff with Octopus gives me 7p off peak, 22.3 peak and 15p export. I always charge my batteries overnight, run through the day from the batteries, any solar energy is exported. During the evening, any remaining spare capacity is exported.

Question is who has control of my system and can change things like this ? any ideas , as I am loosing money / credit as it is now .

Unless it was some odd scheme that was operated by a company (rent a roof type situation), you should have access to your inverter settings either by controls on the inverter or by an app. Check the time, charging times and percentages. What make and model of inverter do you have?

Also since the system was fitted the area has had 2 power cuts , One for about 20 min and just recently one for just over 1 hour , In the time of the cuts I sat in the dark with no power , I though I should have run of the battery ?

Most inverters have an emergency power output. The normal way of outputting power is via it's feed into the inverter, it back feeds out to power your house. It achieves this by raising it's voltage slightly higher than your incoming supply, this causes energy to flow from your inverter rather than from the grid. When a power cut occurs, it's a legal requirement that your inverter switches off the back feed, it could be potentially dangerous if a power worker had switched off the supply to you locale, started working on the dead cables only to receive a shock when your inverter starts up back feeding! The emergency power output does start up in a power cut and would provide power from your batteries and solar during a power outage. They are often wired to provide power to heating systems, lighting and fridge/freezer supplies. It depends on the installation done if this has been configured, most installers dont bother, some of the better ones connect a 13amp socket to it so you can run devices from an extension lead etc. It is also possible to fit an automatic changeover switch (around £100 ish) which is what I have on mine. When the power fails, it takes about a quarter of a second to switch over to emergency power for the whole house, when power is restored, it switches back to grid connected. It's not perfect but it is very convenient.

Come back with the make and model of your inverter and I may be able to help you more.

 

[johnb80]

Very nice.
Forgive my ignorance, but what are Evie cells? I googled it, but that didn't help at all.

Apologies it's Eve not Evie, my mistake, we have a new granddaughter who is called Evie and my fingers typed her name rather than the cell manufacturers name. Eve cells are the acknowledged best LifeP04 batteries you can buy. I purchased mine in the UK from Fogstar, 16 cells to make up my battery.:

https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/lifepo4/products/eve-lifepo4-280ah-prismatic-cell

 

[Blister]

This as you rightly say is not a good way to work your system unless youre running an agile tariff and your inverter is picking cheap times to charge your battery (probably not).

These legacy systems are normally used with a dual rate electricity supply - peak and off peak. Timers and charge % can usually be set in the inverter settings eg 00:30 to 04:30 charge batteries to 80%. The inverter would switch over to charge mode, import energy from the grid and charge the house batteries up to 80%. If the target was met earlier than 04:30, it would continue to import energy from the grid and supply your house. Once 04:30 is reached it would then start to supply your house from the battery and then later as the glorious sunshine appears the solar would start to charge the batteries up and supply the house at the same time.

My tariff with Octopus gives me 7p off peak, 22.3 peak and 15p export. I always charge my batteries overnight, run through the day from the batteries, any solar energy is exported. During the evening, any remaining spare capacity is exported.


Unless it was some odd scheme that was operated by a company (rent a roof type situation), you should have access to your inverter settings either by controls on the inverter or by an app. Check the time, charging times and percentages. What make and model of inverter do you have?


Most inverters have an emergency power output. The normal way of outputting power is via it's feed into the inverter, it back feeds out to power your house. It achieves this by raising it's voltage slightly higher than your incoming supply, this causes energy to flow from your inverter rather than from the grid. When a power cut occurs, it's a legal requirement that your inverter switches off the back feed, it could be potentially dangerous if a power worker had switched off the supply to you locale, started working on the dead cables only to receive a shock when your inverter starts up back feeding! The emergency power output does start up in a power cut and would provide power from your batteries and solar during a power outage. They are often wired to provide power to heating systems, lighting and fridge/freezer supplies. It depends on the installation done if this has been configured, most installers dont bother, some of the better ones connect a 13amp socket to it so you can run devices from an extension lead etc. It is also possible to fit an automatic changeover switch (around £100 ish) which is what I have on mine. When the power fails, it takes about a quarter of a second to switch over to emergency power for the whole house, when power is restored, it switches back to grid connected. It's not perfect but it is very convenient.

Come back with the make and model of your inverter and I may be able to help you more.

Thanks for your advice , will see if I can find the inverter number and come back to you, Regards Allen

 

[John Brown]

Apologies it's Eve not Evie, my mistake, we have a new granddaughter who is called Evie and my fingers typed her name rather than the cell manufacturers name. Eve cells are the acknowledged best LifeP04 batteries you can buy. I purchased mine in the UK from Fogstar, 16 cells to make up my battery.:

https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/lifepo4/products/eve-lifepo4-280ah-prismatic-cell

Interesting. I have an EcoWorthy 24v 100ah lifepo4 battery in my solar shed. What's their reputation?

 

[johnb80]

Interesting. I have an EcoWorthy 24v 100ah lifepo4 battery in my solar shed. What's their reputation?

I have no direct experience of EcoWorthy, their batteries seem to be packaged cells which could be a quality brand like EVE or equally be trash. Reviews online (Trustpilot) come back with 2.7 and there are a substantial number of 1 star reviews. These reviews need to be studied to form an accurate position really, sometimes it's operator error that results in poor feedback. If it's working for you that's all that matters really.