I went to Pickles last Tues, bought myself a Commuter. I won't used a lot of power, but I do want a 3000W inverter so I don't have to worry about which household appliances I can use. Questions I am pondering today. Which cheap LiFePO4 battery. I have been using a Mobi in the predecessor, reviewers universally say they're crap. I had wondered, but with no good means of testing I had only wondered. You have just added BIY to the option list. One or two? The inverter will draw lotsa amps. 12V or 24V? DC2DC. My previous supports MPPT, but I now think solar is unlikely. My previous is rated at 50A. I'm starting to think I should not go higher. Inverter that supports shore power? I have shore power before, but only at home. I like that the features are integrated and switchover is invisible. Just what I might like in a caravan park on a powered site. Battery leads from Supercheap are readymade cables for battery to inverter, so long as you can attach them.
Ok, lots to cover here. So when using an inverter with Lithium you need to make sure the battery or batteries BMS can cope with the peak amp draw. A 3000watt inverter @12volt is 250amps. But add in the initial surge, this would be 300amps. also need to factor in how long off grid you’ll be and how much solar (watts) will be added. Battery wise if you’re looking for something budget friendly I would recommend ATG lithium batteries here in Perth. I’ve been using them for a while now. Nicely priced, with great customer service/support. I would be looking at a set up of maybe 2x 150amp batteries in parallel or 3x 120amp batteries in parallel. But if your budget allows have 2x 200amp or 3x 150amp in parallel. This also keeps everything 12volt for simplicity. When connecting everything use good quality oversized cabling to avoid any volt drop and future issues. And a 50amp DC charger will be ok. The only large inverter i use is the Enerdrive 2600w with changeover, but at around $1800 it is expensive, but good.
@@vesautoelectrics Powering a domestic powerboard it's more like 200A, but yeah. Out and about I move around a lot, even when I'm notionally in Witchcliffe. It would be different with a caravan, it might stay put for a week at a time. Part of my thinking with 24V was to reduce current. Finding a 12 to 24 converter has been challenging, though I did see a 24V to 24V that will run on as low as 9V in. Ok, off to sort out the lawnmower and log grass before Mandurah gets excited. Then look at batteries. My previous inverter is Renogy. My beef with that is that it requires someone like yourself to install, and someone qualified for mains to add cabling for mains input and output. Thanks for the quick response, I thought it might not happen until next video.
I built my own 48v 20ah battery packs for electric scooters. Over 10 years ago actually. The price on average retail for one was $1000, my cost was $460 including a 5amp charger. I know 2 of them are still going today. I sold those to friends. I purchased a battery pack charged it up put it in my scooter I went for a test ride which ended about 100 yards down the street, one bad cell in the pack was triggering the bms. I think building your own is a good idea, because you know what components you have. Back then lithium batteries were just coming in, It was hard to get people spend the extra money over lead acid. If the only knew how much they would have saved in the long run. I'm looking forward to see your next video.
Thanks for watching. Yeap exactly my thoughts too. You just don’t know what you’re getting, so building your own gives you peace of mind that it’s all good quality components and cells. Unfortunately not much is built to last these days. And in your case confirms that. I am about to film the build so hopefully won’t be too long till upload. Fingers crossed it works!!
@@vesautoelectrics before you hook the cells to the BMS make sure the voltages are very close to each other. Otherwise you could overload the balancing circuit. Hook up all the batteries in parallel or charge them individually. Very important.
Great point, I didn’t want to charge them individually as i want to make it so anyone can build there own with basic tools. I was going to connect them all in parallel for a day to allow them to naturally balance. Would that be a good way?
The cost difference between EVE LF100/LF105's vs LF280K/LF304 is just so small that it doesn't make sense to buy the smaller cells. Not sure what the price is on the newest MB30 and MB31 (actual capacity for EV Grade A cells is like 320Ah and 330Ah respectively but nominal capacity is 306Ah and 314Ah IIRC). Grade A EV cells should yield a few percent over the nominal rating during a 0.2C discharge so the 280K's are yielding 300'ish all day and the 304's are yielding 320'ish all day. Last I checked the 100/105's were $55 and 280's were $75-$80 with the 304's coming in at a few dollars more. Triple the capacity for about 50% more? Just a no brainer unless space is absolutely the biggest hurdle....in which case why settle for such....mediocre prismatic cells? Get some higher discharge cells...quite a few options that will do 3C continuous and 5C burst. If you step it down to 20Ah cylindrical cells (or even a few prismatic and a bunch of pouch) you can get 10C cells. Currently the hottest thing in the BatteryHookup/Jehu Garcia world (or any used cells really) is the LEV60F cells. Dirt cheap from BH at $30 each. 74Ah and capable of 5C continuous....Jehu was pushing them at 8C and they were holding 12V with a 600A load. I guess BMW used to use them and they are new old stock, not used. The 4 I've purchased got capacity tested at 50A (so like...0.66C figured I'd give them a hard discharge since they are power cells) and I pulled 72Ah from each one. Internal resistance is about 0.40mR per cell on the RC3563....I know the YR meters tend to give a lower number but their manual does flat out say that it can't be relied upon for measurements below 0.3mR and under 0.5mR or 1mR you need to have the ZR function on. So you could build a 148Ah battery capable of pushing out 1000A technically for $240+shipping on the cells...lets call it $300 USD. Then $50 for a BMS and another $100 for various other parts depending on how you want to build it. Jehu does sell aluminum plates that are meant to keep these cells compressed which is essential for high discharge applications.
I’ve had to remove all my advertising as I couldn’t keep up with all the calls and new work coming in. Also didn’t want to start hiring people so just concentrating on my current customer base and new jobs through RU-vid.
