rdst_1
Innovator
How much KW solar setup are you going for?
And how many batteries for how much total backup?
Looking for a home UPS that is smart
- Thread starter blr_p
- Start date
How much KW solar setup are you going for?
And how many batteries for how much total backup?
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Northstar
For now just enough solar capacity to top the batteries up and that is if exide insists that warranty applies only with solar attached.
was thinking of 2 x 200AH Solartron sealed batteries.
Not worked out how solar capacity i need for this ?
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rdst_1
Innovator
So you are looking for a solution for just backup, right, in case of electricity cuts.
If that's the case, why are you spending so much on a solar setup. Wouldn't a normal inverter setup be much cheaper.
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Northstar
Right, just backup. And power cuts frequently are a few short minutes. When it warms up they can go into couple of hours a day if the rains fail. I'm not even taking into account transformer maintenance which results in at least 6-8h power cut once or twice a year with no advance warning. This is exempting any unexpected substation break downs that can also occur as adder mentioned.
Cost is more for C10 over C20 but not by a lot.
The idea is to last at least 5 years until such time litium become available in India. I don't think we will be power cut free for at least some more time.
Normal inverters i've learnt are very basic. I wanted some thing smart that could give me some useful data.
With a solar option to play with that isn't just a toy. Solar panels to charge up the batteries won't cost much. I don't even know how well solar will work for this purpose. More solar capacity does not make as much sense in a residential setting as it does in a commercial setting where they work when the sun is up and stop when the sun sets. On top of that there is even no inventive to pay back into the system as we have just a state escom in my state without the competition you get in places like Delhi & Bombay.
Enough headroom to handle more load.
Flinn has all that once i hookup either a headless PC to it or a laptop.
The question that goes around the house is why do we even need this when we managed without one for so long ?
What happens in the cooler months is we don't get too many power cuts and you think you don't need such a back up that is until the power cuts happen and you wish you got one.
Well, i'm tired of putting up with those power cuts and having emergency lights around the house.
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I will do this eventually, I used to have a 100w incandescent bulbs not anymore. The two batteries had the same packing month july, but one with a lower count serial no had the lower voltage. Even before connecting I tried to balance it out, by discharging but the battery with higher voltage, but it always goes back up after a few min rest. Exide data sheet also says that these batteries will gain their full capacity only after a few weeks or months of float or 3 about charge/discharge cycles.
He had 2 new powersafe boxes in his scooter as replacement for the failures that day, he said in one diagnostic center out of a around 12 plus batteries or (was it 30 cannot) recall but he said two had failed.And does Exide honor these warranty claims or find some way to weasel out of it ?
Given how careful you are i doubt you will be seeing him any time soon
He came with a fluke clamp meter, but showed only 12.5v for eg our MS2108 mastech shows 12.54 . So whats the point of buying a basic fluke meter if it doesn't show more then 1 digit after the decimal.
My battery log meter shows 3 points after the decimal for DC voltage, when I showed him all of the measuring device I had including the uni-t, he switched off his fluke meter and was using the mastech. But I think he was quite honest and gentle person from the 30min or so that he was in my place.
Another info that I got is that the main warehouse for exide for bangalore is located in tumkur road, which is also the place where they service or RMA the batteries.
He also said if the Exide solar battery goes kaput within the 5 year warranty they would replace it, if a cell is damaged or if the battery doesn't discharge with the said amps for the said amount of time for 2 or 3 hrs instead of the doing a 10hr rate at C10 discharge rate. So whats stopping me from hammering the battery to heavy discharges when I install solar panels and then getting a replacement during the 5th year.
But a lot can happen in 5 years, that Exide person has been working with exide for 15 years and he was quite honest, I was expecting a lot of BS that comes from service personal. Cannot say it will be the same after 5 years.
I would suggest to go for the flooded type, sealed batteries suck plain and simple, unless you are made up your mind for 5 year warranty and then rinse and repeat cycle. Solartron is even more expensive, the area around the inverter will get quite warm from the intitial test that I did, especially in summers.
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Mine didn't have panels and the warranty card is not even stamped, just the serial number sticker is placed on the warranty card, he said bill matters more. I doubt they will go into such a detail inspection of the site. But neverthless its better to have panels.
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The amount of power cuts last month meant I didn't have time to source the lithium 20ah t0 40ah batteries which are not in ready stock with bangalore suppliers and folks in my house would have been up in arms, if i delayed for a month or more.
With the Flin you could switch on the microwave or even switch on the water Geyser, for me the power cuts last month also meant that I had no water going into the solar water heater from the pressure booster pump during crucial cold days. Some times when it rains and is night, the power won't be restored until next morning.
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rdst_1
Innovator
I get that you wanted a smarter inverter but as much as a Flin solar inverter is smart as well as futureproof, it is much more expensive than a good normal inverter like the Cruze series from Luminous.
Actually, even I wanted to buy a Flin as it is definitely enticing for guys who get enamored by technology, like us. However, since going solar doesn't make sense for me, spending extra for just the inverter doesn't make sense for me so I am dropping the idea for now and will probably go for the new iCruze series from Luminous.
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Northstar
Cruze was my first choice and then the regalia came out and i wondered why can't i have something that i can use with my phone or at least remote desktop to. Cruze has nothing like that. As an inverter its capable but as pointed out months back it needs a minimum load to work. So for the 2kVA model unless it has a minimum load of 200W then it won't turn on (!)
That is ridiculous. So if the power goes off at night and all i have is a modem & router working then the inverter won't switch to battery unless i add the fridge. Well, the fridge switches off too and does not run all the time. So Cruze from that pov is unreliable.
Cruze has no feature to equalise batteries which is required in multi-battery setups. It's a smart capable charger but not configurable. So you would need some 3rd party product to do equalisation.
Future proof for Flinn means programmable charge settings that can accomodate different chemistries. With the other inverters i'd need to replace them outright for one that can handle lithiums.
Life of Flinn i expect should be ten years, fingers crossed.
I'm looking at the 2 battery 3KVA model. Cruze needs 4 batteries for 3kVA. 2 battery model for Cruze tops out at 2kVA.
What would have made Flin even better is if they allowed to configure batery voltage and offered a choice of 2, 3 or 4 batteries instead of fixing the battery number. I was holding out in the hope that such a model from Flin might emerge. Nothing yet. It's either 1, 2 or 4 battery. No flexibility. You pick the inverter to match your requirement and that's it.
4 batteries is a killer, i don't know how adder will manage costs here unless he gets no more than 100AH max capacity per battery. Cost of 4 x 100 AH comes close to 2 x 200 AH i suppose.
The worst thing is they ALL have to be replaced if one fails. Otherwise there is a mismatch that can occur where the new one ends up killing the remaining 3 (!) WTH!!!
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The question of spending extra for the solar inverter has been asked by my family members too. Yet this purchase will be returning the investment albeit it will take some years (sooner if you have air conditioner running all day or if you have a electric vehicles). But those very people in my family don't mind spending 40 to 70k every 2 year to 3 years on a perfectly usable working phone and all they use the phone is for browsing, watching youtube videos and taking pictures.
I already bought 150ah batteries , the 100AH would have costed 10.8k each, where as the 150AH costed 14k each. These are the absolue best price i could get in bangalore. I also have the sukam BMS for balancing the batteries, I have seen a video of a guy using 3 old batteries and a new exide battery and BMS will do the balancing.
rdst_1
Innovator
I will actually be adding a commercial electric vehicle which will run 80-100kms everyday to my fleet soon and it will also earn me money. The thing is solar only makes sense for me if I go for a battery-less setup. As soon as you add batteries to the mix, the cost benefit goes down to zero for me as electricity is cheap where I live.
This will change when Li-ion batteries become more affordable in the future as they are much more reliable than lead-acid and have much better cycle life especially when it comes to deep cycling.
This will change when Li-ion batteries become more affordable in the future as they are much more reliable than lead-acid and have much better cycle life especially when it comes to deep cycling.
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Northstar
What will you do if you have a dead cell in one battery ? get it replaced.
Let's say this happens 3 years in.
How will the new one get along with the other 3 older batteries ?
If its withing warranty you will get a new battery, if its not I would derate and get a lower capacity battery to compensate. But with BMS people use discarded laptop and power tool batteries to make a lithium pack. For lead acid battery you do have similar solutions like below which does balance it out or I hope so, since I too bought it before sukam closed shop.
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Northstar
When the float is little over the minimum level are the plates for the cell below covered with acid ?
Or does it need to be higher to ensure that
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Don't see a 2.5kVA model in the iCruze line in this catalog (pg.19)
No idea what the 'i' means but i saw a YT vid where this guy is talking about a 10kVa which has a wifi label on it. Curiously he does not bother to demo the app that supposed to work with it.
I notice the cruze models now have a '+' after them. No indication is given as to what that '+ allows over the first version that came out back in 2013. It's like somebody in marketing thought it would be a good idea to refresh the name. Is it more capable nothing mentioned. Otherwise they'd be saying meet our new cruze model but as the saying goes, same as the last one applies here
If you got the first crize back in 2013, you'd be glad to know there has been bugger all progress since in the cruze line
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Well when I got the 4 x 150AH batteries, it also had issue with 1 battery, where during the transport the water/acid was out all over the top of the battery and inside the box, drops of water was coming out of the transport vents even after 2 days in that particular battery, after the exide person came he checked the specific gravity and said it was fine, he said he will add water and you can charge it latter. But I refused and wanted to add water after fully charging the batteries, as per the norm mentioned in several online battery sites.
All cells still had water/acid above plates by atleast 1inch, while the other batteries had water almost an inch more. The one battery that had spillage, had lower water in 3 of its cells, those cells the acid was at the lowest point of the float (at the start mark of lower red ring) , yet the cells plates where still covered with acid by almost 1inch. So after charging they seem normal. So even at the lowest float level the lead plates are still immersed in acid by close to 1inch. This may vary from manufacturer and from Tall to non-tall batteries.
Two of the batteries had a "CERAFIL Sp4127" brand stamped at the bottom of vent plug while the other two had a "SUBHAM Sp4127" both are kolkata based companies. I think this float is common to tall tubular battery from exide.
As per that exide personal they do sell the floats in their office/service center and is also available aftermarket.
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Which vehicle is that, EV lithium batteries have a poor cycle life because they are of either NCA chemistry(mostly used by tesla) or NMC chemistry used my the majority. NMC cells like the ones used by Indian EV manufactures are off the shelf batteries, they have a cycle life of about 300 cycles(high discharge version) to 500 cycles( for low discharge versions). So for a commercial vehicle which will do a lot of Kms a day, let say the EV has a range of 200km and you do 100km a day, that means the battery by 2 years and 8 months the capacity of the battery would have dropped to 60%, so now that 200km EV can go only 120km max range.
If you have a big battery pack like the ones in tesla they cycle less and also have about 200cycle more life then the competition. For large commercial vehicles like a BUS or a truck, a Lifepo4 pack or a LTO pack make sense, since these have a cycle life 2000 to 8000 cycles for LifepO4 and upto 50000cycles for LTO battery, after which they still have 70 to 80% capacity left.
So unless you are prepared to change the batteries every 3 years it will not make sense for EV commercial use with existing chemistries and low kwh packs available in India.
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Northstar
Are these 150AH the Exide Solar C10 ?
If the float at its lowest point still has acid over the plates then that is a good sign. So long as you refill before it hits that point you will never have acid levels exposing plates.
The top indicator tube seems shorter than ones i've seen in videos. The lower float does extend a fair bit at the lowest point.
Yes but you said there was a problem with threads. Better stock up on them if they're good
exide Plastic All Battery, Water Level Indicator (Yellow, Small)-6 Pieces : Amazon.in: Industrial & Scientific
exide Plastic All Battery, Water Level Indicator (Yellow, Small)-6 Pieces : Amazon.in: Industrial & Scientific
www.amazon.in
Found this on amazon, reviews seem positive.
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rdst_1
Innovator
I am looking to buy an e-rikshaw actually. There are 2 types. One with rugged lead-acid battery and other ofcourse are Li-ion. The lead-acid last around a year. For the company I was looking at 'Kinetic Green', sell 2 capacities at 32k and 41k. They are using Exide batteries.
In Li-ion, it is Mahindra that have recently launched 2 e-rickshaws by the name of Treo and Treo Yaari. They are giving 3yr, 40k kms warranty on lower end variant and 3yr, 80k kms warranty on the upper model.
If one uses solar panels for charging the batteries, then your basic cost comes down to that of the batteries. Otherwise, even commercial rates are Rs 5/kWh over here. I still don't know the cost of the batteries or the chemistry Mahindra is using but I'll definitrly ask around. Still, considering everything these vehicles will be easier and cheaper to run and maintain than their diesel counterpart for me. Much cheaper.
Yes these are C10 battery 6LMS150L with 60month warranty, there is also a cheaper C10 series battery with 36 month warranty , they lack the letter "L" at the end (6LMS150) and they also weigh less.
Mine does extend lower when its free suspended in air, since mine has acid the lowest it went was about 1mm lower then the red ring and they still covered the plates by about an inch.
Yes I saw those caps in amazon, I had a bunch of used caps that a local battery dealer gave and none of them fitted my older EL40. These caps are available according to the exide person.
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If you happen to charge during day time, then you don't even need batteries provide you don't have dark clouds or rain. If its raining you can get about 12% power.
Neither of those two companies mention what exact chemistry they are using in their E-rickshaw, 48v system is within the specs of NMC and even lifep04, every one calls then lithium Ion irrespective of the chemistry/
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Northstar
I was just thinking how much do spare batteries for the Treo & this Yaari cost and their capacity ?
Whether these would be suitable for back up purposes or some other chemistry is required for that
Anyone knows what this carbon foam battery is? Specs look impressive. Don't know the price though.
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