Amish_Fighter_Pilot
New member
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2019
- Messages
- 14
Hello! I am new to the forums and new to 18650 batteries in general. I have only used them(knowingly) on one device(a vaporizer) and otherwise have very limited experience with them. I've seen DIY powerwalls before but until I started researching off-grid storage I hadn't taken them seriously enough.
So my current situation is that our little family of 3 has been homeless for the last 2 years and living in a friend's basement in a temporary setup that ended up being less temporary than we hoped. Fortunately though, we found a property owner in a nearby county that was willing to sell on contract. Unfortunately, the electrical infrastructure on the lot was completely in ruins. The original mobile home had been removed and the half-acre yard has a 2-stall garage there(which was wired in a disturbingly amateurish manner).
Our sun-track over the garage is actually quite great, but we're not going to be able to do solar this year. We have most of our money tied up in our tiny home(all 172 sq feet of it), the property, and all the electrical for both. So we currently have two options: figure out a way to get on the grid(more about that in a second), or run a diesel genset.
I was mistakenly lead to believe that I could do the electrical work on this place myself. I told the county, the power company, and the state main office what I was doing and nobody seemed to think it was a problem. Unfortunately, the specific inspector for my area says that I basically can't do the work myself because I don't yet live there and don't yet have the Homestead Exemption. So I either beg a licensed electrician to stamp their approval on the extensive work I've done (panels, meter base, conduit, grounding rods, outlets, etc), or I go off grid because the state inspections aren't mandatory for off-grid and my county literally has no inspectors or rules regarding it other than windmill tower restrictions.
I found a diesel genset that is abnormally cheap and has very low hours on it, and its 7500W(really more like 7200W outputting 240V), and seems to be in very good shape. I'm going to go look at it, but I am a bit scared to plop down even the very reasonable less-than-500 they want for it until I'm more sure what we're doing.
So where things get complicated is that I don't want to run the generator all the time. I have an ME2012 inverter/charger from Magnum Energy, and although its only a 2KW modified sine inverter, the charger functions on it are quite extensive. I think its really geared toward lead-acid batteries though, and as such I am not sure if it would even work with any other storage mediums. Where things get even more complicated is that we have an on-demand water heater that is 18KW(on three 30amp breakers), but would run maybe 20 minutes a day(so 6kW/h a day). Unfortunately, installing a propane water heater in its place isn't possible so for now its basically electric or just none. Between computers, TVs, lights and other things, we might use as much as 1-2kw(assuming maximum usage across the full day, that's anywhere from 24-48 kW/h). During warm weather we also have a 5000BTU window AC unit that is installed as a central air system(not sure what that draws). During cold weather we have been heating it with one 1875W space heater that runs maybe half the time(so 1.875 kW/h multiplied by 12 = 22.5kW/h). Our place is very well insulated and is going to be a lot more so when we're finished.
As if all that weren't bad enough, we also have the garage to wire. We have a large number of kitties so they need lights and fans and probably air conditioning sometimes. I really have a few big things that spike to high draw levels but don't run constantly. I was really hoping to come up with some sort of power storage system that can take care of the high draw spikes and then get charged by the diesel genset(probably running some sort of waste oils) as needed.
Lead-acid systems are quite expensive and I am in many ways not at all impressed by their longevity or charging speed. I was curious how hard it would be to produce a bank of lithium batteries to produce the very large startup currents I need on some things and reduce generator run time. If it even runs 12 hours a day, that's at least 0.5 gallons of fuel per hour and so about 6 gallons a day total(currently that would be about 16 dollars a day and as much as 500 dollars a month in fuel(if I buy road legal fuel. So reducing the genset to as few running hours per day as possible is vital.
I would appreciate any thoughts that you all might have on what sort of storage to build, what things to remove from my system. I am sure there are things I am forgetting, but that covers the core of it. Thanks in advance!
So my current situation is that our little family of 3 has been homeless for the last 2 years and living in a friend's basement in a temporary setup that ended up being less temporary than we hoped. Fortunately though, we found a property owner in a nearby county that was willing to sell on contract. Unfortunately, the electrical infrastructure on the lot was completely in ruins. The original mobile home had been removed and the half-acre yard has a 2-stall garage there(which was wired in a disturbingly amateurish manner).
Our sun-track over the garage is actually quite great, but we're not going to be able to do solar this year. We have most of our money tied up in our tiny home(all 172 sq feet of it), the property, and all the electrical for both. So we currently have two options: figure out a way to get on the grid(more about that in a second), or run a diesel genset.
I was mistakenly lead to believe that I could do the electrical work on this place myself. I told the county, the power company, and the state main office what I was doing and nobody seemed to think it was a problem. Unfortunately, the specific inspector for my area says that I basically can't do the work myself because I don't yet live there and don't yet have the Homestead Exemption. So I either beg a licensed electrician to stamp their approval on the extensive work I've done (panels, meter base, conduit, grounding rods, outlets, etc), or I go off grid because the state inspections aren't mandatory for off-grid and my county literally has no inspectors or rules regarding it other than windmill tower restrictions.
I found a diesel genset that is abnormally cheap and has very low hours on it, and its 7500W(really more like 7200W outputting 240V), and seems to be in very good shape. I'm going to go look at it, but I am a bit scared to plop down even the very reasonable less-than-500 they want for it until I'm more sure what we're doing.
So where things get complicated is that I don't want to run the generator all the time. I have an ME2012 inverter/charger from Magnum Energy, and although its only a 2KW modified sine inverter, the charger functions on it are quite extensive. I think its really geared toward lead-acid batteries though, and as such I am not sure if it would even work with any other storage mediums. Where things get even more complicated is that we have an on-demand water heater that is 18KW(on three 30amp breakers), but would run maybe 20 minutes a day(so 6kW/h a day). Unfortunately, installing a propane water heater in its place isn't possible so for now its basically electric or just none. Between computers, TVs, lights and other things, we might use as much as 1-2kw(assuming maximum usage across the full day, that's anywhere from 24-48 kW/h). During warm weather we also have a 5000BTU window AC unit that is installed as a central air system(not sure what that draws). During cold weather we have been heating it with one 1875W space heater that runs maybe half the time(so 1.875 kW/h multiplied by 12 = 22.5kW/h). Our place is very well insulated and is going to be a lot more so when we're finished.
As if all that weren't bad enough, we also have the garage to wire. We have a large number of kitties so they need lights and fans and probably air conditioning sometimes. I really have a few big things that spike to high draw levels but don't run constantly. I was really hoping to come up with some sort of power storage system that can take care of the high draw spikes and then get charged by the diesel genset(probably running some sort of waste oils) as needed.
Lead-acid systems are quite expensive and I am in many ways not at all impressed by their longevity or charging speed. I was curious how hard it would be to produce a bank of lithium batteries to produce the very large startup currents I need on some things and reduce generator run time. If it even runs 12 hours a day, that's at least 0.5 gallons of fuel per hour and so about 6 gallons a day total(currently that would be about 16 dollars a day and as much as 500 dollars a month in fuel(if I buy road legal fuel. So reducing the genset to as few running hours per day as possible is vital.
I would appreciate any thoughts that you all might have on what sort of storage to build, what things to remove from my system. I am sure there are things I am forgetting, but that covers the core of it. Thanks in advance!
