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[sam_sam_sam]

What are the draw backs using a GTI system is limited to what you have plugged into your GTI output seeing how you have to have it plugged in an outlet
I am assuming that if you have a 200 watt panel then your output would be what you are providing from the solar panel or panels

[sam_sam_sam]

Of course if it has battery pack capability it's better. I didn't have a choice, I got the broken one for free. If you want plug and play definitely get the one with it integrated.

GTIs should be pure sine to match the grid sinewave...

I don't know what your focus is. Mine was to offset grid power costs, I have grid power. I have batteries to store energy and eventually want to just run offgrid if needed, but that's a different project. For running when the grid is down, I have a whole bunch of regular inverters (300W, 350W, 400W, 2500W) but need 12V to run them...

Annoyingly my 400W inverter with a 35Ah lead acid battery was insufficient to start my refrigerator (due to inrush), and my 900W genset also didn't like it (probably due to same). I will need to try a bunch of 12V LiFePO4's ready to see what it can do with the 2500W...

Use a hard start kit for compressors and should be able to start the compressor with a sign wave inverter
But make sure that it has a fairly large capacitor on it

One note of caution do not use it when you are using utility power for the regular hard start kit that are not made for generators

A Hard Start kit is really made for compressors that have a hard time starting on utility power source if used on compressors that start normal can cause them to run hotter than normal

The one that is made for use with a generator is made to use by both types of power

You can also buy a device made for compressor to be started with generators but they are more expensive to buy

Here is an example of the type of hard start kit that I am talking about

https://www.ebay.com/itm/12551574560...4aAudREALw_wcB

One final note when running a refrigerator on a generator or sign wave inverter is hard on a compressor especially when starting the compressor hard start kit help not so much when it has started and is running in normal mode

You can has in it demise a lot sooner than normal if running it this way for a long time you should only consider doing this on an old refrigerator that has a lot of age on it but be prepared to buy a new one in the near future

The simplest refrigerator is the best candidate for doing this type of project because of this type of issue

Now you can buy compressors that can run off of battery power but they are more complicated than a normal refrigerator compressor and the inverter does not seem to last long for some reason I have had experience with them on my sons small refrigerator type cooler for basically drinks when it works it works great

There was an eBay seller that sold these compressor I have one but I need an inverter for it to work in an application
I have been thinking about maybe getting one of those very small refrigerator that is made for a dorm and converting it to a battery operated refrigerator but I would have to have a very big battery pack for this application to run when there is no sun shining outside

One note the cost of the inverter was also as much as a compressor inverter replacement kit that is why I bought the kit in case you were wondering why I have a compressor and no inverter

On the original refrigerator inverter temperature controller the temperature controller display was not coming on any more I had repaired once before because of an issue and when it display would not turn on anymore I just decided to buy a repair kit with an old fashion thermostat much easier to install than one with a digital thermostat controller

[eccerr0r]

I don't even know if my compressor motor's start cap is accessible, didn't look. I actually found a hard start cap which I ended up snapping up for $1 in case I ran across a motor that would need it but unsure if I'll ever use it.

My GTI is really a GTI. I don't need to use any specific outlet in my house to take advantage of it. All the power that my panels generate gets dumped onto the grid. If it doesn't like at night, I just use regular grid power. Yes, if the grid goes out, I lose access to my panel power and that is an issue I'm figuring out a way to resolve. Technically there should be a way to disable the anti-islanding but of course I don't want to be powering the neighborhood, besides, there's no way I could generate that much power with such a tiny GTI.

The main thing I don't like about my GTI is more of a infrastructure issue - I can't tell when I'm generating more power than I'm using - and that's what properly designed GTI systems do and not these ad hoc GTI's. I really need to get CTs on my grid, though still kind of hesitant installing them without disabling power, even with split ring CT's, mainly because I don't want to powerdown my computers...

[sam_sam_sam]

You do not have your computer on a battery backup why not

As far as back feeding is concerned all you have to do is turn your main breaker off and you have solved that problem it the same thing that is done with generator feeding into your electrical grid system which is a no no to being with anyway

For what I going to setup a GTI system is not going to work for I want to do base on what you have in this post but thank you for being very candid about your results because this was the information that I needed to make some decisions that I was going back and forth about

I did answer a question about what would happen if you only hooked up the solar panel to the MPPT charging controller with out a battery hooked to it it does nothing so I am going to have use some capacitors so that I can change battery packs not a real big problem but something I have to deal with for how I want to use this setup

And for the issue with knowing weather or not producing power from your solar panels you do not have one of those meter module that claims that you use them for this particular purpose they have ones that the core can be taken apart and put around the power supply cables and you only have to do on the main coming from the meter can not in the meter can ( but you need to make sure that it can read + and - read out of current because some of can read in both directions but the wattage meter portion can not calculate it that way) from some of the descriptions that I have read about them for ac current ones )

Or buy an old fashioned electric kilowatt meter used they are available on EBay I just bought a digital one for 120 volts 200 amps for $60.00 new and just use an old plastic enclosure to hide the electrical connections to the meter I have wanted to do this for a while but was having a hard time finding a 120 volt version which this one is

I want to know how much power I using for my battery testing station that I will be putting together in shed very soon I hope by the end of this year

Some of it will be powered by solar panels and some of it will be power by the electric grid but this will be high current battery testing machine that I also have which I think would be a challenge to power them from a solar panel system which if did that I would need a very large battery pack to power it when the sun wants to play high and seek you need constant power power supply for accurate testing

[eccerr0r]

It's more of figuring consumption vs generation. Right now all I can tell is production. The electric company knows aggregate consumption-generation but not in real time, and that's the data I need.

Technically if I could decode(decrypt?) the data my electric meter is sending away over whatever wireless network it uses ... would be sufficient...

[sam_sam_sam]

Technically if I could decode(decrypt?) the data my electric meter is sending away over whatever wireless network it uses ... would be sufficient...

You might find this YouTube video interesting about just what you are asking about there are four parts to it

I just happen to watch this video last night

Unfortunately there a lot of networks not just one it hops from one frequency to another constantly which I did not know

One other thing you will find out how some electric company are charging you and how I suspect some of this was going on but just how they were doing it is hole another story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sKDRsiy07k

I found this video very interesting to watch because I have wondered about this as well if it could be done with the right equipment

[eccerr0r]

I've known it was encrypted and they were aware people could tamper with it so there was some thought to prevent this, hence not pursuing it further.

I'm surprised some meters the code is extractable, after assuming that most were like Atmel or Microchip MCUs that have a lock bit that disables reads...

[sam_sam_sam]

Here are some pictures of the MPPT controller board and display board

[sam_sam_sam]

I've known it was encrypted and they were aware people could tamper with it so there was some thought to prevent this, hence not pursuing it further.

I'm surprised some meters the code is extractable, after assuming that most were like Atmel or Microchip MCUs that have a lock bit that disables reads...

That is the reason I sent you that YouTube video I thought you might find it interesting and maybe useful

But apparently you can glitch it into unlocking until you power it down and back up and then it is locked again that makes me feel real secure knowing that about some smart kilowatt meters

I wonder what else they are not telling you about this type of meter technology and what other things we should be aware of and are not told about

Give analog meter any day of the week and I would very happy to know it can not be hacked

[eccerr0r]

Chances are they are using PKI, and even if it's of 64 bits it will still take forever to recover the key.

TBH I'm not even sure what the value of hacking them is, perhaps a blackhat can disable your power remotely but you can always shunt the meter to steal power until the power company fixes things. The thing is that it's random too, unless you're close by you won't know whose house is which meter.

Alas it blocks fair use. I want to know my own power consumption and I should have the right to read those bits.

[sam_sam_sam]

Here are some pictures of the MPPT controller board and display board

Is this a good quality design for a cheap MPPT charging controller it seems to work decently from the testing so far but it has a few short coming

One is that you can use the clock timer to turn on the output for a light which seems to work I do not know how well because I did not do a real world test yet but where it falls short is that it does not dawn to dusk setting which is what I really need for some outside LED lighting I can ad a photo eye controller for not very expensive to buy and use the timer function to roughly turn on the output during night time hours

I had bought some incandescent style LED lights bulbs that are 3 volts each and wire three in series for 12 volt battery pack
Now it also has a dc output power jack that can be used for a low power device it uses a thin pice of wire as a fuse I remove the thin pice of wire and put a one amp fuse instead

There are no relays in this device from what I can see but when you turn on light control you hear a clicking noise so I do not know how this could be

[eccerr0r]

MPPT is purely software. It's very hard to do this analog, so it's impossible to tell by looking at the board layout. At best if a MPPT controller board layout is designed as well as a PWM controller, then it's good enough from the circuit side.

[sam_sam_sam]

MPPT is purely software. It's very hard to do this analog, so it's impossible to tell by looking at the board layout. At best if a MPPT controller board layout is designed as well as a PWM controller, then it's good enough from the circuit side.

The software seems to be decently done other than a couple of minor inconveniences flaws that I would have been nice to offer but not a big deal

I will have to do something on the battery end if I want to change from one battery pack to another one because when there is no battery pack present it does stay on this is the reason for the comment in the description that the battery must be connected first then the solar panels not a real big problem but an inconvenience to use it the way I want to use it but I know how to work around it just use some super capacitors to fool the charging controller that there is a battery pack present because what I want to do is make a semiautomatic battery pack charger based on time

I know that using a 2 amp solar panel on these 24 battery pack would take about 2.5 hours but I would set the timer module for 3 hours and then switch to the next battery pack

But I am going to make a battery pack that will fit in a battery enclosure that I bought for 12 volts but I going to make it 24 volts if I can fit the battery pack into I hoping that it can fit two 24 volt battery packs in it that something I going to check out today and see what will fit in it

[eccerr0r]

If possible I'd rather charge all of them in parallel, too much work in switching. Ideally the panel is sized appropriately to charge them all.

TBH I still don't understand your usage. If it's solely used to charge arbitrary batteries when you have grid power available, I don't think this is proper use of the system. What you should do is GTI all solar power and just use any old grid powered charger to charge the batteries since apparently you have a whole bunch of batteries that don't match each other. If you do have a blackout then use the batteries as needed, separate from the charger.

The MPPT controller was designed for you to have a dedicated power bank that stays static - you never disconnect these batteries. For off grid use you'd charge your experimental batteries with this power bank, not charge them with the output of the MPPT directly. If you also have grid power available, then this complicates things unless you have a GTI.

[sam_sam_sam]

So what you are telling me is that I need to make supper big battery pack to efficiently use this solar panel charging controller if so what can I use a super big battery pack for offline 120 volt inverter possibly ( if this is the case I need to rethink my approach to this application approach

The BMS balancing protection board are they capable of being put in parallel with out damaging anything this is the biggest question for me to answer if I am going to use this approach and realistically how many should be the maximum BMS boards together or would it be better to use one big BMS balancing protection board

[eccerr0r]

What is the *primary* focus of the solar energy? Power outage(emergency)? Supplemental power/power cost reduction(alternative energy)? Off grid (like a shed that's too far away to wire grid power or perhaps camping)? Ignore secondary purposes at first.

If you have and will continue to use grid power, the offgrid options will not make sense.

The key to efficiently using solar panels is that every watt hour of energy gets used. When your batteries are full or if you're not connecting them to anything, the solar panels have just become useless - you only do this if you have no choice, specifically for offgrid. When you use a GTI you'll always use the energy (unless you overproduce) and that's why this is the most efficient way, though you will still need to alter the system to be able to deal with the other situations.

TBH solar for emergency as primary doesn't make sense. Don't do this. You're probably better off with a genset.

[sam_sam_sam]

Is it true that when you use a GTI inverter that line voltage might goes up about 5 volts and that some electrons devices have issues the higher voltage
right now my battery backup is reading 119 volts ac

Sometimes like after 7 pm at might be at 121 to 122 volts ac if that is the case then that would 124 to as high as 127 volts during the day when you have plenty of sun

Just recently the power company had to change my transformer because it was fluctuating from 117 volts to as high as 127 volts just doing it randomly and no rime or reason for why it was doing it after the transformer was changed it is very stable now is this going cause issues with voltage fluctuating when using a GTI controller when the sun is out and the clouds are playing around outside and you are producing power and when you are not

Now I was watching a YouTube video on the difference between a probable GTI and a hard wire unit with the hard wired ones do not have the issue with the voltage being higher when in use

I think in my case I would prefer a hard wire version instead of a portable one because of the voltage being higher now if my line voltage was low then the portable GTI would not be a problem

[eccerr0r]

It goes up if your wiring is bad.

[sam_sam_sam]

I going to have to do more research on the GTi solar controller system before I make a decision to spend over hundred dollars on one because I want something that I do not want to have to upgrade before I even get started

What brand would you recommend that I look at but my budget for one is not more than hundred dollars at the most that I want to spend on it but I going to have to wait a little bit before I can even think about doing it ran out of project money for now

[eccerr0r]

If you want small you can always get a microinverter (micro grid tie inverter, usually less than 300W) and just get more if you get more panels (or if you get a LOT more panels, a regular string inverter and you can still run the microinverter in parallel), and people have gone this way mainly for incremental growth. Microinverter systems are also very shade tolerant. However microinverters are not meant to be part of a backup system, you'll need to setup another system for power redundancy - charging batteries to power a regular inverter, perhaps.

But I still don't understand what your primary focus is for solar, or was the primary intent was for emergency use (and hence not the best solution?)

I can't give any suggestions for brands/models. I have to always target cheap.