Time to upgrade my old Solar/Ups system

just an INTRO on what my plans are and a little about the requirements of my project for context for future questions.

located Brisbane 20mins from the city.

I run an usual set up for my industrial site urban farm.
There is no metereddirect power supply to my lease, despite being advertised with power to the office,except a 3 phase and single phase connection from next door on my property.
I wasusing theslaved off connection fromthe neighbors at a charge rate of a 70/30 split of the billwhere I have topay the 70%whichtotals at$340 a quarter for the daily use of 4 1/2 kw to runmy aquaponics system. which is nearly X3 the cost of the consumption.

In order to reduce further operational costs I installed a reclaimed Solar/Ups system consisting of 4 X 250w panels and 24V 200ahon my Acto/mushroom inoculation lab driving the fans and lighting and emergency air backup system for my fish during outages or tripped breakers as I don't have access to the meter box inside the neighbors shed.
Because of this any use of my high load power tools are run offthe generator.

After 14 months of this I finally had the shits, disconnected the supply told the neighbors i am no longer paying theconnection and half their usageto their businessand increased my battery bank to 24V 440 ah and now run the genset of a day to top up the banks when required. which costs me $20 per month in fuel.

I am now in a situation were I need to go commercial and the genest is no longer a viable option, food safety reasons and I need to power a setof air-consfor my coolroom and mushie grow tents.

I am looking at 2 separate builds the first will be a DC set up to power my 24/7 low load fans,humidifiersand led flood lighting which tallys up to 20amps per hour at 12V
this build I want completed within the next 2 months ready for next winters mushie productionand should be a good project to learn from before tackling the 5 kwAc system next year, ideally I would like it near completed byjulyas I will be working on the second story of the hoophouse roof in winter installing panels.

I am very fortunate to have close friends on the property behind me that own a junk removal/ recycling business and at this point of time about 80% of the building materials used on the farm project have been sourced from them, about six months back i scored 20sets of tough books from them each with 2 sets of battery packs and a few NIB, laptops, medical equipment, scrap copper and building supplies arrive daily to my yardif i bribe the truckdrivers with Dan Murphys Gift vouchers"as the junk gods only respond to prayers offered in exchangewith alcohol"




I appreciate any advice on these builds and I will post full details of what the usage requirements are, and thematerials that I havealready sourced.
If there is any thing I should really keep an eye out for at the recycling centre throw me a pic as the boys there have no idea on what the have in the trucks.

Day (1) 18 months ago

Over size the aircon or go with ice makers, make ice in the day with the solar and try and cool the area down in the day and allow it to warm up overnight. so you don't need as much battery capacity to run the aircon... Also ground mount some panels if you can source some additional cheap panels, they don't have to be on a roof...

Get more solar installed on your neighbour(s) or ground mount and back sell power to them in the day from the solar output, finance the panels and build by selling back to them. Separate grid tied unit with a DC feed for each "customer". Turn the tables on the 70/30..


These units are handy as a customer export option... as you can set the output power and then switch it on/off when needed... they have timing adjustment for export delay, not sure about any "official" certifications so will probably get a "can't use them" confirmation.... they do work though..

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-func...21916.html

nothing beats anything that's free

My landlords at my residential lease just upgraded their 2 X 2.5 grid tie system this week to a 6 kw and were able to salvage the inverters one is fully operational the other has a relay fault which should be an easy fix, a few panels and all the connections/ pre-existing breakers isolators from the installers.
I missed out on the rails. but its still a great score and kick-start to this project and has saved me about 800+
All of these were on the dinning room table when I got home last night including some ofthe owners electrical toolson loan that are better than my own.








I presume jaycar would be my best bet in QLD to purchase some sparereplacement tips for this iron.

All the components for my cells are ordered and a few cheap chargers to speed up the charging and testing process, I really need to bulk up the quantity I can charge at once instead of replacing batteries every 8-10 hrs during the night to keep up the pace. at my current rate i am about 1/10th into my stockpile.

Now that my fingers and thumbs have healed from all the flashing cuts I can look forward to to the burns, fingers crossedhopefully I should have the firstbank up and running by Xmas to replace my UPS .

and just aquick question:
Has any one builta sliding rack mount for their cell banks? looking at something like petes system but horizontally. Considering adaisy chain of anderson conectors per cell for quick removal.

rosco_argus said:

Has any one builta sliding rack mount for their cell banks? looking at something like petes system but horizontally. Considering adaisy chain of anderson conectors per cell for quick removal.

Click to expand...

Yes some of the guys have the 18650 packs sitting horizontally on a shelf with terminations at the front.
You could do this in a rack as well with suitable depth & shelf sizes/strength for your pack sizes. You could probably get at least 4 packs across a shelf.

There's another recent thread discussing other connectors like XT150 & XT90(?) which are cheaper

There are a few of us that have racks. Instead of cabinets I built mine out of 2x4s and electrical conduit.

Thanks for the ideas not2bme and redpacket. its given me a lot to consider, I have salvaged a fewups racks and lots of shelves and draws like the images below





The atco/ demountable is 2100 high and has very little wall or floorspace availablethat they will be stored in, with the tall racksI should easily be able to fit 2 baysof 7 deep X 4 wideat 80 and have enough room above for the charge controller and inverter.
Thanks again guys for the comments, Iwill do mine similar to yourlay outno2bmebut spun 90 degrees.