Hi from Worthing

[Tay]

Cheers for that. I'll have a looksee after writing this.

I've started broaching the subject of panels possibly on the right side of the garden per the picture, the scrubs and bushes do offer a lot of privacy that I'd rather not sacrifice but needs must an all that. Fence mounted would face South and could get a decent angle on them too..alas, we have grandkids and footballs and all manner of thrown stuff, I'd be worried about them if on the wall but its not ruled out, alas, there is a mature Camelia and wild rose that she likes too !!

I'll keep looking for solutions but now we've got the house power usage down to a manageable levels even 3 panels on the south roof is like to come close covering our usage during a good solar day, with 4-5 panels on the west facing roof and that would give me an opportunity to charge a house battery solution and fill in with cheaper mains after midnight if needs be.

Now I've seen first hand how effective 2 small poorly positioned panels have been (I went out around 1pm today (battery was at 88%ish) and back around 3:30 to a fully charged battery and solar was sitting on zero having fulfilled its job perfectly. I then turned everything on, sucking as much juice as possible to see how efficient backfilling with solar would be, whilst drawing 550+W's I saw the solar cut in again but that time of day I was only seeing around 220w but it was able to slow the discharge.

Unfortunately there is little in the way of constant monitoring and charting of data with this solution, but to be fair its a bit Heath Robinson

One big selling point today was that British Gas just gave me the latest bill and its £35 cheaper than last month in line with my predictions. Next month I hope to see bigger savings with this solution in place. my PV generation is also now showing 1.3kWh generated since yesterday, a bit of a result .

[openspaceman]

I saw some refurbed Bluetti units from Bluetti themselves on eBay and saw an immediate shoe in for solar and battery power, without going down the full on PV panels on roof, invertors, charge controllers, shunts, batteries and <add rest of the stuff here>.

I see a bluetti AC500 and B300s package is available well discounted from their list price. I'm tempted just because I am fed up of waiting for the electrician who agreed to do work and more recent quotes for sunsynk or givenergry 5kW hybrids and battery packs, fitted, have come to over 8 grand.

I just wonder if the above package will produce a clean enough sine wave to keep my Solarmax inverter alive if I plug it into my generator socket.

I could then charge the battery with the excess solar that I currently export and, depending on how it interacts with my ac coupled 6.5kWh battery it would give me a total capacity of 10kWh. Best of all I can do it all myself.

What's your opinion of the kit? Will it also work with other batteries like the DIY kit Colin Deng sells?

[Tay]

I saw some refurbed Bluetti units from Bluetti themselves on eBay and saw an immediate shoe in for solar and battery power, without going down the full on PV panels on roof, invertors, charge controllers, shunts, batteries and <add rest of the stuff here>.

I see a bluetti AC500 and B300s package is available well discounted from their list price. I'm tempted just because I am fed up of waiting for the electrician who agreed to do work and more recent quotes for sunsynk or givenergry 5kW hybrids and battery packs, fitted, have come to over 8 grand.

I just wonder if the above package will produce a clean enough sine wave to keep my Solarmax inverter alive if I plug it into my generator socket.

I could then charge the battery with the excess solar that I currently export and, depending on how it interacts with my ac coupled 6.5kWh battery it would give me a total capacity of 10kWh. Best of all I can do it all myself.

What's your opinion of the kit? Will it also work with other batteries like the DIY kit Colin Deng sells?

I feel your pain, still waiting for my electrician to call and pop in to do a check on the kit he put in 10 years ago and add a plug in the cupboard near the Consumer units he put in for my monitoring kit, and lastly add my CT's inside the Consumer unit for energy use capture.

Over the last 2 months I've had contractors turn up to provide a quotes for a chimney repair work without ladders, one missed 2 appointments and never called back, another never bothered to reply.

I saw an AC500 unit from Germany, it seems to be the EU version, there appears to be some question in the Bluetti group about the plugs on the front of the unit and whether they were converted from an EU model, naturally Bluetti UK suggested not to go near it. But caveat Emptor and all that. the price was very competitive if I recall, was it a company called Softel or something similar?. My refurbed units came with 2 years warranty on them, I wrote a really nice review and feedback on eBay and they kindy extended it to 4 years ...cant complain.

Not sure I can help you with the solarmax stuff, there is a ton of connections on the thing, happy to test if thats even possible?

I like the kit but it lacks a little finesse with the software, log and PV totals dont seem extractable to something more useful. The mobile app lacks much of what is possible through the touch screen display which. is disappointing, they missed a trick there. Or perhaps they are designing some sort of exporting feature or device they can sell.

For my use case it works well, the modular design is nice and the units are pretty tidy. cable seem top notch and thsu far its done exactly what it says on the can. You might some youtube vids where your questions are answered, sorry I cant be more help.

[openspaceman]

Thanks that is positive enough for me and the money is burning a hole in my pocket so I think I may commit. Worst case I can charge the battery off peak here and cart it down the road for my grand daughter to use this winter.

[Tay]

Thanks that is positive enough for me and the money is burning a hole in my pocket so I think I may commit. Worst case I can charge the battery off peak here and cart it down the road for my grand daughter to use this winter.

I like the fact the batteries are clever its nice they can run independently of the inverter so if you had a bank of 2-6 batteries on an AC500 and needed power elsewhere you could just lug a battery or 2 elsewhere leaving the AC500 and remaining batteries as a full on backup. You could put a small 12v inverter into the 12v 10A cigarette socket on the front of the battery and get AC that way or DC for small USB devices etc. Can also charge from solar without the AC500 or with an AC/DC soap on a rope type charger block.


Not sure I have a use for this myself, but I suspect caravaners/camper or those at real risk of power outages users might find the flexibility useful for emergency backups. I just like the fact the battery can be used/charged independently of the main inverter.

[openspaceman]

By the time I got to ordering the discounted setup had been pulled, apparently bluetti uk object to suppliers discounting and it looks like they then market in competition to their stockists, undercutting them. So the cheapest deals currently are from the official site.

[Stinsy]

By the time I got to ordering the discounted setup had been pulled, apparently bluetti uk object to suppliers discounting and it looks like they then market in competition to their stockists, undercutting them. So the cheapest deals currently are from the official site.

That's not the way to keep your resellers engaged!

[Joeboy]

By the time I got to ordering the discounted setup had been pulled, apparently bluetti uk object to suppliers discounting and it looks like they then market in competition to their stockists, undercutting them. So the cheapest deals currently are from the official site.

That's not the way to keep your resellers engaged!

I had a look at the bluetti gear. Seems like a lot of money for gear that is limited in modular expansion capacity and discharge rate. It looks decent enough gear but I'm not sure it's best for static homes and scale though?

Although I did like the idea for small scale complimentary to balcony solar when I read about the two combined.

[openspaceman]

By the time I got to ordering the discounted setup had been pulled, apparently bluetti uk object to suppliers discounting and it looks like they then market in competition to their stockists, undercutting them. So the cheapest deals currently are from the official site.

That's not the way to keep your resellers engaged!

No and each time I look there seem to be less independent sellers and their prices are a few hundred more than the Bluetti direct. There is also some ambiguity between the bluetti amazon, ebay and bluetti online sites with regard to whether cables are included.

The unit appears only to work with bluetti batteries.

[Tay]

By the time I got to ordering the discounted setup had been pulled, apparently bluetti uk object to suppliers discounting and it looks like they then market in competition to their stockists, undercutting them. So the cheapest deals currently are from the official site.

That's not the way to keep your resellers engaged!

And annoyingly, gives you some idea of the margin on this kit too.