Inverter and batteries

[Geoff.D]

That suggests the charger circuit is able to handle a total of 3 or 6 BMs, while maintaining the "approximately 4-hour" to full charge times. Will need to read the rest of the manual to confirm. Not sure if this setting is relevant to the discharge process, but it may be a setting that tries to "balance" the current draw between the BMs), ensuring all batteries are equally charged and discharged.

NB! You must understand what type of EBMs you can add to the device you have! Please read the manual to make sure you know how the internal batteries are configured! Especially what the battery voltage is feeding the Inverter/charger!

As far as I can see after having a look at a manual I found on the Internet, The internal batteries are all 7 AH units configured in a range of voltage setups from 24V up to 96V. It means you cannot go and add two external 2 x 12V 102AH batteries to that setup!

The EBMs are supposed to an exact copy of the internal battery modules.
In other words, If the internal BM is a 96V module, then the external BMs must be 96V and probably also made up of 7 AH batteries.

What I don't like about that design is that the internal batteries will take most of the load regardless, and then each EBM added will take less and less, with the last EBM in the chain taking the least! It is a bad design in my opinion, which may be why it has gone off the market.

 

[Tabac]

saw someone earlier today talking about that puppy.
If i had nothin and had to start from scratch i would buy that puppy in a heartbeat.
Great specs.

Thanks for your vote. I posted early this morning. Now to start schitting out R14K .... Because the schit fcking ping pong's fcked up Eskom.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

I lived through that, 2016 and parts of 2017 in Wilgeheuwel. The suburb one side had a massive influx of townhouses pop up and the substation couldn't handle the load. On top of the constant cable theft in 2016 that would also pop the substation, we'd go out roughly 4 times a month for up to 18 hours and my inverter and battery setup would last about 12 hours for just a 50" TV and the decoder.

18hrs??? Hectic

 

[Lupus]

18hrs??? Hectic

Yup once hit 36, the other thing is City Power has no active monitoring in that area, they rely on people reporting the issues.
Another area sat for almost a week without power due to a substation fire, the infrastructure is shot dude, like really shot.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

Yup once hit 36, the other thing is City Power has no active monitoring in that area, they rely on people reporting the issues.
Another area sat for almost a week without power due to a substation fire, the infrastructure is shot dude, like really shot.

i would be pissed about hot beer in the fridge... and then hrs later about that bad smell coming from deep freeze

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

So I have gone through the manual of the UPS in order to figure out at what rate it charges, but all I could find was "approximately 4 hours to full charge"

I then saw this: Apart from adjusting up-time, would this setting also adjust the charging/current rate?
Thinking of adding 2 x 102ah bat.

View attachment 618642

If you can afford it please do, but then dont be a naai and run more stuff off it, rather be conservative and dont let your batteries dip too much.
I installed an external LCD volatge meter to my 24v setup and it reads 27.4 Volts at all time, during load shedding it quickly dips to 25.4V and then just sits there during entire 2 and a half hours and eventually goes down to 25.2V before ESKOM comes back online again.
Yes I could go all the way down to 23.0V but that is punishing the 24V array. So I rather don't.
Get your self a LCD Voltage meter in and play around, if you see you are using too much battery power either reduce load or add another bank of batteries

 

[*Zealot*]

That suggests the charger circuit is able to handle a total of 3 or 6 BMs, while maintaining the "approximately 4-hour" to full charge times. Will need to read the rest of the manual to confirm. Not sure if this setting is relevant to the discharge process, but it may be a setting that tries to "balance" the current draw between the BMs), ensuring all batteries are equally charged and discharged.

NB! You must understand what type of EBMs you can add to the device you have! Please read the manual to make sure you know how the internal batteries are configured! Especially what the battery voltage is feeding the Inverter/charger!

As far as I can see after having a look at a manual I found on the Internet, The internal batteries are all 7 AH units configured in a range of voltage setups from 24V up to 96V. It means you cannot go and add two external 2 x 12V 102AH batteries to that setup!

The EBMs are supposed to an exact copy of the internal battery modules.
In other words, If the internal BM is a 96V module, then the external BMs must be 96V and probably also made up of 7 AH batteries.

What I don't like about that design is that the internal batteries will take most of the load regardless, and then each EBM added will take less and less, with the last EBM in the chain taking the least! It is a bad design in my opinion, which may be why it has gone off the market.

Thank you kindly for your expertise Geoff. I guess it now comes down to getting a bunch of 7ah batteries or going the inverter way as with @Dairyfarmer solution.

 

[Geoff.D]

Thank you kindly for your expertise Geoff. I guess it now comes down to getting a bunch of 7ah batteries or going the inverter way as with @Dairyfarmer solution.

Can you confirm what model you have and what the internal battery configuration is, please? everything depends on these two issues.

 

[*Zealot*]

If you can afford it please do, but then dont be a naai and run more stuff off it, rather be conservative and dont let your batteries dip too much.
I installed an external LCD volatge meter to my 24v setup and it reads 27.4 Volts at all time, during load shedding it quickly dips to 25.4V and then just sits there during entire 2 and a half hours and eventually goes down to 25.2V before ESKOM comes back online again.
Yes I could go all the way down to 23.0V but that is punishing the 24V array. So I rather don't.
Get your self a LCD Voltage meter in and play around, if you see you are using too much battery power either reduce load or add another bank of batteries

Thanks Chuckmyster - I think I will take some internal pics of the wiring etc. and revert to you experts before I blow up my UPS
Thanks for your time.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

Thanks Chuckmyster - I think I will take some internal pics of the wiring etc. and revert to you experts before I blow up my UPS
Thanks for your time.

If you follow the instructions and buy the correct gear and addons and configure it you run a very low risk of something going wrong.
I on the other hand like to experiment and in doing so i run the risk of electric failure.
My UPS at home is always switched off if i am not at home.
I dont want load shedding to occur and my batteries run flatter than what i want them to be (or there might be a earth leakage trip at 9am and i only see it when i get home at 6pm) and result is my batteries are super flat and now when it comes to recharging them off ESKOM it takes much longer than normal and in doing so the charging system gets very warm. There is a big risk of electrical failure here.
I have felt my UPS get very very warm after many hours of charging after load shedding.
Some people have suggested I add an external computer fan onto the electronics but i dont like this as it will now start putting dust onto the circuit boards. Over time this will build up and circuit board components start heating up and eventually explode. Right now when i open casing off UPS and loo at circuit board it is brand new squeeky clean.
Last thing i need is an explosion in my apartment and the entire complex burns down.

 

[ISP cash cow]

Yup once hit 36, the other thing is City Power has no active monitoring in that area, they rely on people reporting the issues.
Another area sat for almost a week without power due to a substation fire, the infrastructure is shot dude, like really shot.

yep our company is situated in the area where the substation fire was. We had no power for a week but lucky enough we have a generator at work but the $$$ spent on diesel to constantly top the thing up for the week was a bit. And the noise from the area with all the generators running.

It took so long for the power to come on, when it did come on it was like a "is it true moment" we were all afraid to go back onto the mains for a while in case City power were just fcking with us.

 

[Lupus]

i would be pissed about hot beer in the fridge... and then hrs later about that bad smell coming from deep freeze

You'll be surprised on how long food actually lasts in a deep freeze. Especially if you don't open it at all. The beers were lukewarm when the power did come back

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

You'll be surprised on how long food actually lasts in a deep freeze. Especially if you don't open it at all. The beers were lukewarm when the power did come back

oh i know very well from my Afrikaburn camping days of not opening freezer at all except in the morning to take out tonights dinner to start defrosting.
And when i did run out of solar power on my 10th day there i had no energy into freezer for remaining 2 days.
On 12th day everything was still frozen.

 

[Lupus]

oh i know very well from my Afrikaburn camping days of not opening freezer at all except in the morning to take out tonights dinner to start defrosting.
And when i did run out of solar power on my 10th day there i had no energy into freezer for remaining 2 days.
On 12th day everything was still frozen.

Yup it can survive awhile

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

Hi Geoff
I took some pictures:
Seems to be 9AH 12V batteries in parallel configuration.
UPS has 2 sets of 4 batteries
EBM has 2 sets of 8 batteries.
Total batteries: 24

Should I be able to hookup the additional bank of batteries, I'd like to connect via that 5-pin connector at the back of the BM.

( Sorry for the pic overkill guys )
View attachment 618878View attachment 618880View attachment 618882View attachment 618884View attachment 618886View attachment 618888View attachment 618890

no you have 16 batteries there, half are in series with the other half in series giving you 96 volts - from what i can see, cant be certain
DO NOT connect that 12v battery.
Something will go kaboom

 

[SilverNodashi]

You keep the batteries on the floor?

Why not?

 

[Geoff.D]

As Chuckymyster has indicated, that is a 96Volt setup. So unless you are fuly aware of what the alternative configurations are that are possible, stick to 96 Volts.

That means 8 by 12V batteries in series = 96 Volts

The UPS has two strings of 8 batteries , 16 in total. So does the EBM unit.

You could try and source replacement batteries of a similar type.

Cos theta = 0.7 (2100W/3000VA) typical.
Conversion efficiency about 80%

 

[Lupus]

yep our company is situated in the area where the substation fire was. We had no power for a week but lucky enough we have a generator at work but the $$$ spent on diesel to constantly top the thing up for the week was a bit. And the noise from the area with all the generators running.

It took so long for the power to come on, when it did come on it was like a "is it true moment" we were all afraid to go back onto the mains for a while in case City power were just fcking with us.

Yeah that week was interesting driving around with the dead robots as well :-(. A friend stays in the area and they were up, then down constantly for a week. They eventually just unplugged everything until it was on stable for more then an hour.

 

[TheChamp]

no you have 16 batteries there, half are in series with the other half in series giving you 96 volts - from what i can see, cant be certain
DO NOT connect that 12v battery.
Something will go kaboom

What a good idea it is to post here and ask for advice, that was clearly not going to end well.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

What a good idea it is to post here and ask for advice, that was clearly not going to end well.

I'm glad he did ask.
Otherwise kaboom