I have recently purchased an Ecoflow Powerstreaminventer and already have a small 12v offgrid setup with a Victron 100/30 mptt. Currently I have the powerstream connected to a 300w panel, but I’d like to be able to use this panel to switch between powering the micro inverter and and to charge the 100ah battery in the offgrid system ideally automatically. After much googling, i’m struggling to work out how to do this.
I know the powerstream is designed to work with the ecoflow batteries, but I already have the stand alone 12v system and it seems silliy to have to have two completely seperate systems.
Anyway any suggestions for a simple way of doing this would be much apprecaited.
The EcoFlow has no Node-RED or communication about SOC. You can’t see when it’s full. I am pretty sure this would all be manual. There are two solar disconnects you will need, one to the 100/30 and one to the micro.
Note, I have never seen these before and awesome idea from ecoflow well done.
I am going to add more thing, you can charge the eco DC-DC, why not charge the victron and use a DC-DC buck boost to charge the ECO. When the eco is full the victron will charge.
I am sorry I run 3 ESS and I do things most will not or think about with their victron gear but it works and does what I want it do and thats what matters to me.
He (Andy Kirby) is working with a 400w panel, so i think he will be fine.
All the “powerstation” units i’ve seen have absolutely anaemic charge controllers, so you can’t put much panel on them anyway. Also, i would trust the Victron MPPT to get the best out of the panel way way more than the EcoFlow.
The most efficient way to do this is to have the Victron charge its own battery, and when this battery is full, send DC to the EcoFlow’s DC charging input. To do this, it would be better to have a 100/20 because it has load terminals, but you have what you have, so lets see what else we can use;
Victron Battery Protect - very cheap, solid state relay with a dead simple interface (VictronConnect, so you are already familiar), and with good control over the voltages.
A PLC - usually more expensive and a steep learning curve, but if you have done PLC programming before it will be easy peasy
hack your own relay and voltage divider with FETs - fun for some, but if you don’t have the skills already, it will be a lot of work learning each step of the design and fab process.
I would use the BatteryProtect - its a great bit of kit, and if you end up changing things around, the BP will be very useful on almost every project with a battery.
I didn’t draw the negative to the EcoFlow, but it just comes off the battery.
In the config of the BP, you want to set the ON point very high - set it unobtainably high initially, and then bring it down by 0.1v at a time while the 100Ah battery is full - that way your 100Ah will still have a chance to do some balancing. Then set the OFF point quite close (but lower) to the ON point, so that as soon as a little bit of energy is taken from the 100Ah, the parasitic load of the EcoFlow is removed.
You don’t say what voltage your 100Ah is, but i’m presuming its 12v. The EcoFlow takes a 12v DC input, so you just need to source the right plug or hack one of the cables that came with the EcoFlow.
