Swing Gates & Lighting - Solar System

[W@P]

I have a site where we had the following installed. There is no Eskom fallback available. So it is an off-grid system

1 x Onesto SIP 1600 - 24v inverter
1 x 2.56 kWh 24 V Mega Lite battery
1 x 460w solar panel

The use case is to power 2 x swing gates (Entry & Exit), meaning it has 4 x Centurion Vantage swing gate motors, 2 per gate.
About 70w of LED lighting at night
4 x Centurion G-Speak Ultra intercom units.

It seems as if the inverter has shat a brick. Fsck knows why, so we are looking at upgrading the inverter.

How would you rate the components for my use?

The solar needs to charge the 24v lithium battery during the day, and this in turn charges the 2 x 12V 8Ah lithium batteries I installed for the gates. 1 x battery per gate controller.

The system has been running for a month now. Most nights, the Mega Lite battery is flat before sunrise, which means no lights at the site. The gates usually still operate due to having their own lithium batteries. The gates operate maybe a maximum of 10 open-close cycles after the sun has set.

With this kak weather, the system has been dead for days now.

Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[Tomtomtom]

About 70w of LED lighting at night

This is your main problem. Make the lighting switched on PIR or gate activation or both, or get its duty cycle down by at least half by some other means.

Otherwise you need to at least double the panels and battery capacity.

 

[W@P]

This is your main problem. Make the lighting switched on PIR or gate activation or both, or get its duty cycle down by at least half by some other means.

Otherwise you need to at least double the panels and battery capacity.

I will confirm what the exact lighting draw is.
It's only a few lights that I am sure I can change out for lower-wattage units.

 

[W@P]

Tomtomtom's call on the lighting is right, and the whole night is worth a number before spending anything. 70W of LED across a full night is roughly 840Wh, a third of your 2.56kWh pack before anything else gets a turn. Then there's the inverter's own draw. A small 24V unit typically burns 10–20W just being awake, another 240–480Wh a day, plus a few watts each for four G-Speak intercoms on standby. Call it 1.3–1.5kWh a day, most of it after dark, before a gate moves.
The gates aren't your problem — they only pull while cycling, and their own 8Ah packs carry them, which is why they still work when the site goes dark. Generation is the other half: one 460W panel, well angled, might make 1.5–2kWh on a decent day, a fraction of that in this weather. So a good day roughly breaks even and every overcast one digs deeper.
If it were mine, cutting that lighting load is the cheap win, and it takes roughly a third off the night before you add more panel or battery. Whichever inverter goes in, find out what it burns at idle first. Ten minutes with a clamp meter at sunset and sunrise keeps the arithmetic honest.
The kit itself is fine for 24V. The balance is what's off. Are the lights and intercoms on 230V through the inverter, or DC?
(Disclosure: I work in hybrid storage manufacturing — nothing here is a pitch.)

There is no AC available at this point in time.

I told the guys who installed the system to come take out the shiiit they gave me and pay back the money.
They now confessed that

1. Apparently, the inverter cannot charge a lithium battery.
2. The inverter does not have an auto changeover to AC, even if AC were available.

We managed to charge the battery from AC using an extension, which doesn't make sense if they say the inverter cannot charge lithium. Fsck knows.

Their solution now is to add a Victron 100/30 Charge controller in order for the solar panel to charge the battery. And install a auto changeover switch for AC to kick in when needed.

I am also in the process of applying for a prepaid meter for the communal area of our complex. SO that AC is available when needed.

Light bulbs will be swapped out from 9W LEDs to 6w units, and only one globe per light, not 2 as it is now.

Will see how it goes. If their solution does not work, they said they will rip everything out and pay back the money.

 

[W@P]

Edit: wrong thread.

 

[Tomtomtom]

That confession is the answer to the whole thread —

Thanks ChatGPT. Now be gone.

 

[Spar5c]

Let them try it, your inverter has a PWM rather than a built in MPPT.
So it loses around 40% production /charging compared to a proper mppt.

I would put in another panel as well

 

[upup]

So solar to 24 volt to 220 vac, then in gate 220 to 12vdc.
Go solar to battery to gate motor. 12 Volt led.