What voltage is too low ?

Charlycop said:
Speaking of BMS, what is the minimum model you recommend for 14S ?

Is something like this enough (granted there is no heat sensor) ?
for budget battery
 
The minimum BMS is hard to tell since it vary. For me no less than Batrium for a home system or equal :p
 
Pure sinewave inverters are also "normal", it's not like they are special over the other type, which are the modified sinewave inverters. Both are normal inverters. Pure sinewave ones are more complex and therefore more expensive and modified sinewave inverters are cheaper to build because they aren't as complex.

The difference between them is the waveform of the AC voltage they produce. Pure sinewave inverters produce, as their name implies, a pure sinusoidal wave just like the AC coming from the mains. Modified sinewave inverters just do an approximation of a pure sinewave in the shape of a rectangular waveform.

Which type you want depends on the devices you want to run from it. Some of them, usually the ones with electronic control circuitry, might require a pure sinewave to run. You will find lists with examples all over the internet.
 
DarkRaven said:
Which type you want depends on the devices you want to run from it. Some of them, usually the ones with electronic control circuitry, might require a pure sinewave to run. You will find lists with examples all over the internet.
Actually this was my question :) I wanted to know for which appliances should I go to pure sin wave inverter.
 
Basic rule of thumb is, if you plan on running anything that uses a motor, you need pure sine (fridge, A/C, dryer, fans, etc). If they don't have a pure sine, they can hum and some can hum very loudly. It also shortens their life span as they get hotter than designed.

Resistive loads don't really care either way, so something like an electric water heater wouldn't have an effect.

Some electronics will be ok as the signal is rectified back to DC anyways, but not all appliances do this. Some electric stoves that have a lot of buttons and functions runs on A/C, it just gets stepped down to about 24V or so. This is usually done with a transformer, which likes pure since not modified.

Basically if you heard hums or the device acts strange on modified, you need to use pure sine. Pure sine doesn't cost a whole lot more than modified, and everything will run with it. So why save up a little extra and get what will work with everything w/o worry.
 
Same is true for some switching power supplies. They might have reduced efficiency and might develop a slight humming noise, but it's always worth a try.

Pricing seems to be heavily dependent on region though if you say that pure sinewave inverters aren't that much more expensive than the modified sinewave ones. As a rule of thumb you can expect a pure sinewave inverter be to 2 or 3 times as expensive as its modified sinewave counterpart from the same manufacturer with the same build quality and power.
Not counting the cheap inverters advertising pure sinewave, none of them are actually pure sinewave.

But it's very likely that the manufacturers already made the decision for you and modified sinewave isn't an option at all. Especially the high power inverters for stationary use at home usually are pure sinewave.
 
Yeah, I guess it does depend on region, brand, surge, and I'm sure other variables. AIMS has some pure sines that are about 25% more than modified. But they are low wattage, <1500W. Going up to 2500W with surge up to 6000W, it's almost double the cost.

There are some off-brand versions of the AIMS where the prices are closer, but I can't think of those off top of my head atm. Daromer/mike might know those.

And then, going with the 'cheap' chinesium inverters like Reliable and such, the price difference is even closer. Not saying these are crap inverters, but it is a gamble as to whether they will work as advertised. I know several people who have had great success, and great failure, of this brand. The good thing is that most of the sellers of these units will readily send replacement parts, and sometimes even send a brand new unit and not ask for any returns. So, there is possibly a silver lining if something goes wrong.
 
I will use 12V buck converter for my lights, and the inverter will be mainly use to run some low power drill (dremel), or heat gun, so clearly I will need a pure sinewave inverter. Thanks for the help !

by the way, my harvesting is going great :)


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Test it and see if you get the expected results. You have to test it to be sure, there might be differences in quality and so on and you can't just ask for it as a general question. If you want it to fuse at 4A then get some of the stuff you want to use and test if it actually does fuse at 4A and how long it takes before it does.
 
34/35 AWG are very thin wires! They will be hard to work with but tinned wire like that is most likely around 4A but you should not push it above 1A....

I runt 36 SWG that is 32 AWG. Those are 0.2mm and they are generally rated for 5A-7A fuse and blows instant at arount 7a.

They are perfect for normal 1A max load. NOTE that you do not fuse against 1 cell going above the generic max but against dead short in the cell where all other cells push current into it....
 
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