What controllers?

DIYResto

DIYResto

New member
Joined
Feb 14, 2019
Messages
8
So I have a simple 5kw solar array. When I got my inverter last year I specifically told the salesman I was going to add batteries later. He sold me a SunnyBoy 5.0 us. I installed the whole system myself, as you do. And after it was all in and humming along for 6 months I went through the manual looking for what module I would need to buy to add batteries. Nothing, you can't. So I call up Alt E store where I bought it and say I need battery charge controller for my system. They had several suggestions for 48v 5000w systems and then I mentioned I was building my own powerwall. The sky cracked open and cthulu belched forth fire and death. The tech almost immediately blew me off the phone. Suggested I call a controller manufacturer to plead forgiveness. When I did they threw their hands up and said it can't be done because the bms has to talk to the controller otherwise the batteries explode. My question was, how the hell do dumb lead acid batteries talk then.
Basically it's a liability thing. Now I have seen your videos for over 2 years and it's obvious yours work, and have seen like 5 systems from other tubers working as well.

Tldr: what do I need to integrate these batteries into my system so I can have it run my home at night until it gets low and have to go back on grid.
Thanks
 
DIYResto said:
So I have a simple 5kw solar array. When I got my inverter last year I specifically told the salesman I was going to add batteries later. He sold me a SunnyBoy 5.0 us. I installed the whole system myself, as you do. And after it was all in and humming along for 6 months I went through the manual looking for what module I would need to buy to add batteries. Nothing, you can't. So I call up Alt E store where I bought it and say I need battery charge controller for my system. They had several suggestions for 48v 5000w systems and then I mentioned I was building my own powerwall. The sky cracked open and cthulu belched forth fire and death. The tech almost immediately blew me off the phone. Suggested I call a controller manufacturer to plead forgiveness. When I did they threw their hands up and said it can't be done because the bms has to talk to the controller otherwise the batteries explode. My question was, how the hell do dumb lead acid batteries talk then.
Basically it's a liability thing. Now I have seen your videos for over 2 years and it's obvious yours work, and have seen like 5 systems from other tubers working as well.

Tldr: what do I need to integrate these batteries into my system so I can have it run my home at night until it gets low and have to go back on grid.
Thanks


FYI - Received a similar response when I dealt with Alte and told them I was using Chevy Volt batteries. In someways we are breaking new ground but in other ways this has been proven already - ex. GM VOLT UPS - 6 years ago I can't speak to 18650s but I can speak for my experience with the Volt. After 8months, bullet proof. 2 whole 2011 Gen1 car packs, 32kwh and no issues. Purchased BMS system but have been holding off for now given everything is in balance, biggest delta has been 10mv (3.76 vs. 3.77). I think the system naturally balances given low solar demands vs. the intended purpose (high drain and high charge life).
Click to expand...
 
Solardad said:
DIYResto said:
So I have a simple 5kw solar array. When I got my inverter last year I specifically told the salesman I was going to add batteries later. He sold me a SunnyBoy 5.0 us. I installed the whole system myself, as you do. And after it was all in and humming along for 6 months I went through the manual looking for what module I would need to buy to add batteries. Nothing, you can't. So I call up Alt E store where I bought it and say I need battery charge controller for my system. They had several suggestions for 48v 5000w systems and then I mentioned I was building my own powerwall. The sky cracked open and cthulu belched forth fire and death. The tech almost immediately blew me off the phone. Suggested I call a controller manufacturer to plead forgiveness. When I did they threw their hands up and said it can't be done because the bms has to talk to the controller otherwise the batteries explode. My question was, how the hell do dumb lead acid batteries talk then.
Basically it's a liability thing. Now I have seen your videos for over 2 years and it's obvious yours work, and have seen like 5 systems from other tubers working as well.

Tldr: what do I need to integrate these batteries into my system so I can have it run my home at night until it gets low and have to go back on grid.
Thanks


FYI - Received a similar response when I dealt with Alte and told them I was using Chevy Volt batteries. In someways we are breaking new ground but in other ways this has been proven already - ex. GM VOLT UPS - 6 years ago I can't speak to 18650s but I can speak for my experience with the Volt. After 8months, bullet proof. 2 whole 2011 Gen1 car packs, 32kwh and no issues. Purchased BMS system but have been holding off for now given everything is in balance, biggest delta has been 10mv (3.76 vs. 3.77). I think the system naturally balances given low solar demands vs. the intended purpose (high drain and high charge life).
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
My thing is as far as the charger is concerned the batteries are stupid. These powerwallbatteries will have their own BMS which should balance the load. I dont think they understand that. In their minds (from my discussions with them) they expect that each cell in the battery reports back to the charge controller. That seems really strange while Lead Acid batteries couldntbe assed to do that at all. A plate could be bad in a lead acid battery as much as a cell bad in the power wall.
 
Just FYI the only difference why we don't have to manually balance lead acid batteries, is because they self balance by charging, because if a cell gets nearly full the resistance will drop and the other cells get more charge. But I get what you mean some people stop listening, when they think you're wrong...
 
LEDSchlucker said:
Just FYI the only difference why we don't have to manually balance lead acid batteries, is because they self balance by charging, because if a cell gets nearly full the resistance will drop and the other cells get more charge. But I get what you mean some people stop listening, when they think you're wrong...
Click to expand...
The BMS we attach to the groups do the same thing right, that plus the fuses add a layer of protection. It should all be self balancing if I am not mistaken?
 
Lead acid do self balancing, Lithium cells not!
I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but for Lithium cells you have to use a BMS with balancing function or a separate balancer.
 
LEDSchlucker said:
Lead acid do self balancing, Lithium cells not!
I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but for Lithium cells you have to use a BMS with balancing function or a separate balancer.
Click to expand...

Ya I mentioned BMS in the post above yours.

So any charge controller would work?
 
So any charge controller would work?

If the battery pack is in perfect balance any charge controller will work. The controller uses overall voltage to monitor the battery and when to switch to float/stop charging.
If the battery is out of balance, the bms will trigger the charging to stop early, and you might not get a full charge. On mybattery it always goes out of balance when charging at high amps, I use active balancers to compensate, they work for me.

The only controller I know that actually monitors balancing is the electrodacus controller, theres a thread on this site about it and the designeranswers anyquestions you might have. The electrodacuswebsite shows it being usedon large systems, so it will probably work on your system.
 
jonyjoe505 said:
So any charge controller would work?

If the battery pack is in perfect balance any charge controller will work. The controller uses overall voltage to monitor the battery and when to switch to float/stop charging.
If the battery is out of balance, the bms will trigger the charging to stop early, and you might not get a full charge. On mybattery it always goes out of balance when charging at high amps, I use active balancers to compensate, they work for me.

The only controller I know that actually monitors balancing is the electrodacus controller, theres a thread on this site about it and the designeranswers anyquestions you might have. The electrodacuswebsite shows it being usedon large systems, so it will probably work on your system.
Click to expand...

Thanks JonyJoe! That is what I was looking for something to get me pointed in the right direction. I will look for that thread later on today. :heart:
 
The big difference between LA ability to self balance compare to a BMS on a lithium is that a LA can take a higher current without issues and they balance faster meanwhile you easily saturate the max current a BMS can take before it cant keep up with charge.

Aka a BMS can take for instance 500mA and above that the voltage will raise meanwhile a LA battery just regulates it rather fast. Thats why lithium batteries need disconnect function and preferable proper feedback to the charger to regulate it towards the end.

Unfortunately not many are aware of this and how it works.

Batrium for instance have this function built in and can manage several inverters and chargers. Victron also have support for this on some models.
 
daromer said:
The big difference between LA ability to self balance compare to a BMS on a lithium is that a LA can take a higher current without issues and they balance faster meanwhile you easily saturate the max current a BMS can take before it cant keep up with charge.

Aka a BMS can take for instance 500mA and above that the voltage will raise meanwhile a LA battery just regulates it rather fast. Thats why lithium batteries need disconnect function and preferable proper feedback to the charger to regulate it towards the end.

Unfortunately not many are aware of this and how it works.

Batrium for instance have this function built in and can manage several inverters and chargers. Victron also have support for this on some models.
Click to expand...

So are there any solutions for what I am looking for? It's strange that so many people have this setup but I can't seem to find what exactly they use. Examples from HBPowerwall are different because I am in the US. Ill include a diagram of my system. I am looking to push to batteries during the day and then either manually or preferred automatically pull from them at night until they drop low enough to then switch to grid w/o interruption. I have heard of systems doing this but no details for the equipment they use. Maybe its made up but I am trying to figure out how they did it. Either way 5kw system into a sunny boy 5kw grid tie inverter, somehow I should be able to add batteries to this mix (I think).
I am ok with Batriumsystem, I do like the monitoring that HBP has shown in his vids. How do I tie that into a charge controller I guess?

This diagram only shows 3KW, the system has 5kw now


image_mbcwfk.jpg
 
DIYResto said:
So are there any solutions for what I am looking for? It's strange that so many people have this setup but I can't seem to find what exactly they use. Examples from HBPowerwall are different because I am in the US. Ill include a diagram of my system. I am looking to push to batteries during the day and then either manually or preferred automatically pull from them at night until they drop low enough to then switch to grid w/o interruption. I have heard of systems doing this but no details for the equipment they use. Maybe its made up but I am trying to figure out how they did it. Either way 5kw system into a sunny boy 5kw grid tie inverter, somehow I should be able to add batteries to this mix (I think).
I am ok with Batriumsystem, I do like the monitoring that HBP has shown in his vids. How do I tie that into a charge controller I guess?
Click to expand...

Have you watched daromers videos?





He shows "exactly" what he's using and how to set it up and why you want this type of system. HBPowerwalls uses another type of ATS. The one Daromer uses you can actually manually trigger it as well just by cutting the feed to one of the switches, it'll auto switch to the other load. This can be done either by your fingers, or an mcu/relay.
 
Korishan said:
DIYResto said:
So are there any solutions for what I am looking for? It's strange that so many people have this setup but I can't seem to find what exactly they use. Examples from HBPowerwall are different because I am in the US. Ill include a diagram of my system. I am looking to push to batteries during the day and then either manually or preferred automatically pull from them at night until they drop low enough to then switch to grid w/o interruption. I have heard of systems doing this but no details for the equipment they use. Maybe its made up but I am trying to figure out how they did it. Either way 5kw system into a sunny boy 5kw grid tie inverter, somehow I should be able to add batteries to this mix (I think).
I am ok with Batriumsystem, I do like the monitoring that HBP has shown in his vids. How do I tie that into a charge controller I guess?
Click to expand...

Have you watched daromers videos?





He shows "exactly" what he's using and how to set it up and why you want this type of system. HBPowerwalls uses another type of ATS. The one Daromer uses you can actually manually trigger it as well just by cutting the feed to one of the switches, it'll auto switch to the other load. This can be done either by your fingers, or an mcu/relay.
Click to expand...

I HAVE NOT! Thank you for the vids I'll watch later. Thanks for that again
 
You're stuck in a hard place. What you have is a Grid-Tie solution. As so it's simple to hook up and tie into the grid. That's why it's the most popular system with very few components.

So you really have two solution if you want to have battery storage involved.

First is to keep the SunnyBoy, but this is where it gets tricky. SMA makes something called SunnyStorage and I believe others can be set to work. So basically AC coupled. Essentially, you're going to use the AC to charge the battery during the day, then discharge at night. So you're not going to be able to charge the batteries directly from the Solar PV. So there's lots of losses because you're converting to AC, back to DC, back to AC.

PV --> DC --> SunnyBoy -- AC --> Mains <---> AC <---> Charge inverter <--> DC <--> Battery

It's also called load shifting and used where the time of use during nights is higher than during day. A good example of where the above technology is used is the Tesla Powerwall.


Second is to rip out the SunnyBoy and put in another controller that will handle battery operation along with grid-tie. Victron, Schneider, Outback all make these kinds of units. This way the PV charges the battery directly and only converts from DC to AC when it sends power back to the grid.
 
You dont need anything as clunky and cumbersome as an ATS,you just need a grid parallel ESS. This sits in parallel with your existing installation, feeding all surplus to your battery, both AC and DC coupled generation is supported.

This image depicts my home system - it doesnt show the DC and AC coupled wind, and I dont have any PV on the critical loads. I also dont use Victron batteries, just one I cobbled together. Your SMA supports frequency shifting generationcontrol, so it'll play nicely with the Venus OS, which is open, so you dont need the expensive colour control GX, or even just a GX, as it'll run on a Pi.

Have a read of this https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ess:design-installation-manual


image_gpbaff.jpg



image_kkpsng.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top