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spicedreams avatar image
spicedreams asked

add RS 48/6000 to EasySolar II GX 48/3000/35-32?

I have an EasySolar II GX 48/3000/35-32 with 12x 320W nominal solar panels, 8x 12V sealed Lead Acid Deep Cycle batteries and a BMV-700. We are 100% off grid in northern New Zealand.

The inverter component struggles when using power tools (we are building a home off grid) despite a soft start device. I also wonder why a soft start capability is not built in to every solar system?

The system also struggles when the sun is shining and I use excess power to charge my electric vehicle (standard mains charging unit, draws ~1800W continuous). It raises high temperature alarms which (if I don't disconnect the EV charger in time) result in a shutdown. I don't understand why this should be given that the load seems well within the advertised parameters.

So my thought is to add a more powerful 'compatible' inverter to the system that gives us much more reliable power draw- short term for electric motor loads, and also sustained to charge the EV when the sun is shining. As I understand it the RS 48/6000 would be DC coupled (connected to the batteries in parallel with the EasySolar) in this circumstance but would need a data connection back to the GX component of the EasySolar.

I am keen to hear

* whether I am trying to solve the wrong problem, or

* what would make the RS 48/6000 not a great fit to the situation?

Thanks

Graham

EasySolar All-in-Onemultiple invertersinverter rs
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1 Answer
Alexandra avatar image
Alexandra answered ·

@spicedreams

Sounds like you are having an aweful time with derating due to temparature.

This means in part that either:

1. your room cooling is not great,

2. or your inverter is not big enough for the job, especially factoring in derating

3. Batteries are not able to do the job.

Or a combination of all three.


If you add the rs 6000 you would ideally want more battery. The 6000 (plus the 3 -on one bank is not an officially supported setup btw). But a ve direct cable to the gx on the other inverter is possible.

I doubt your lead acid bank can let the amps out needed to run the loads. And if they do they will be dead soon. If you look at their C rating that is where the limitation is.

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spicedreams avatar image spicedreams commented ·
Thanks Alexandra

We have 8x SLA cells, each of which has a 100h C=2.6A. Therefore across the set, 100h C=20.80 A. We are drawing less than 10 A across all loads. So I don't think that is the problem.

I think heat certainly has a part to play. The EasySolar is in a shipping container and the only time we try to draw more than maybe 3 A is when the sun is bright, the battery is near full, the container door is open and we have excess power to charge a Nissan Leaf (8 A @ 230 V). The EasySolar does seem unable to get rid of heat within the case- the fan runs but doesn't stop it getting hot.

We seem to have no way to see the internal temperature in VRM, yet by discussion here that would seem to be a vital piece of information. Ideally we would be able to drive a relay that turns off the car charger if too hot. Is there any chance of a firmware tweak for that?

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spicedreams avatar image spicedreams spicedreams commented ·

I am still looking for advice on whether I can add an RS 48/6000 to my EasySolar-II 48/3000/35-32 MPPT 250/70 GX (serial HQ20223NHBL-a85, new series 2629470).

I would add the RS with a new (additional) set of solar panels, 12 x 390 W. But the RS would share the existing SLA battery (2 parallel, 4 serial each 200 Ah at C=10 hours). The idea would be to have a chevron of panels, the older panels facing North East to put morning sun into the batteries via the EasySolar, the newer panels facing North West to put afternoon sun into the batteries via the RS.

So far so good I guess, the only interaction between EasySolar and RS is through the DC connection to the battery.

Then, can both systems put power onto a single AC phase? They need to synchronise the sine wave I guess. The VE.CAN is proposed for linking the RS to other things, and the VE.CAN ports on my EasySolar are free, so that sounds easy too. But will is achieve the desired effect?

Worst comes to the worst we could disable (in software/config) the MultiPlus built into the EasySolar but we would still end up with double the amps (6000 W RS vs 3000 W EasySolar/Multiplus).

Who can tell me whether that should work?


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Related Resources

EasySolar 1600 product page

EasySolar-II GX 3000 & 5000 product page

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