HomeGrid Lithium Battery Review! 

I have an 8-stack at 952 lbs that I'm installing. I love the caster idea, but concerned that 4 of the ones that you recommended just aren't strong enough for the weight. Read some of the 1-star reviews and noticed that some users with heavier loads experienced collapse of the casters. Any thoughts? Also, my base has 1/2" wide slots for 1/2"-13 stem casters. Did you have to drill the 4 holes each for mounting the flat plate casters? I'm thinking, given the weight of my stack that perhaps a 1" thick plywood sheet with 8 casters might be a better idea. Your thoughts? - Update: I just finished building a dolly combining the 8 plate casters from two 1000-lbs. rated furniture/piano dollies. ~120 lbs per caster seems reasonable.

its the caifornia thing, id guess

UL9540a certification, CA ESS listed, so can be used in California. Super easy to setup.

Slightly cleaner look? Easier assembly? Normal marketing differentiators (and the UL Cert thing).

@@dangeist2899 - Sure, that's totally worth a 70% price increase and 10% less usable capacity.

Is Homegrid a diy friendly product/company, or is this really only sold through channels/installers?

Batery? Sorry the ADHD kicked in for a moment

What you’re looking for is wiring/wire trough.

I hear you. I have an 8-stack as well. How long the charge lasts all depends on how much energy you draw at night. At 5kW/hour, e.g. mostly running an HVAC unit, the stored energy will only last 10-12 hours. If you cut down usage to 1.5kW/hour by shutting off that HVAC unit, then the charge will last much longer. So it has to do with load management. We do laundry during the day, heat/cool the house during the day, take showers during the day and go to ECO mode at night. A space heater can heat a bedroom for less energy than a whole-house HVAC unit. You may be able to program the Sol-Ark not to charge the batteries from the grid until a certain point. I'll have to look into those settings. How are your casters holding up? An 8-stack weighs 952 lbs (according to HomeGrid's specification sheet). A number of the 1-star reviews of casters suggested that they collapsed under high weight or the wheels developed a flat spot. I made my own dolly using 8 plate casters from two 1000-lbs furniture dollies, so ~120 lbs per caster. I never want to risk a stack tip over, nor rust from where the plate mounting holes were drilled.

HomeGrid supplies a 6ft cable. If you need longer, yes, you have have to make it. It does NOT use a standard pinout.

EG4 Lifepower4 batteries hold UL 1973 listing and Lifepower LL have both UL 1973 and UL9540a.

I don't believe that you can, as they are of different Voltages. Perhaps someone can educate my in why it could be done?

These types of batteries are not going to be compatible with your older lead acid style inverters and charge controllers. I suggest you get a high end lead acid battery and keep the rest of your equipment as it is if it is still working.

True to a point. I looked at those casters in detail. Didn't like the 1-star reviews (as with most casters). While the HomeGrid's base is milled with slot on the bottom of the "braces" for 1/2-inch threaded stem casters, in reading the reviews on Amazon for a variety of caster models nothing, except perhaps low profile stem casters for commercial refrigerators, has any of the strength to carry a 952-lb. 8-stack of the HomeGrid batteries. For me (as a former P.E.), that's just not enough margin of safety. Four plate casters are questionable at that weight as well. I ended up using 8 casters from 2 x 1000-lb large piano dollies and making my own platform on which the base sits. No drilling the 16 holes into the braces (which could then rust over the 20-year design life), and the weight on each caster (assuming even distribution) is 119 lbs, which I consider reasonable. For smaller stacks, such as this project has, the casters he lists may be adequate.

@@boblatkey7160 you should read up on sol arks emp protection protocol. Its robust and comes with the associated pieces required to protect major (non smart) appliances as well. The 30k is not offered with emp hardening however

You do not. They will auto balance just fine. I even added a new stack to my existing 7 without worrying about the charge imbalance beforehand.

@@greg_takacsfacts

NEC 300.3 (c) (1)

They cannot couple onto microinverters as they are DC batteries. You would need a hybrid battery inverter capable of AC coupling (like the sol-ark shown in the video)

That's a strange question, the batteries are DC, but you can AC couple them to a sol-ark inverter.

We have an EMP rated 15k Sol-Ark. Unfortunately, the Lithion HomeGrid batteries are not EMP hardened. That being said, as a former EMP engineer, putting some ferrites over both ends of the transmission and CAT-5 communication cables to the inverter would be helpful. I suspect there are also some avalanche zener diodes that one could place across the terminals to reduce any pulse between terminals. As far as the HomeGrid case and BMS is concerned, I wouldn't be too worried if the clamping ferrites are put in place. If the case is grounded, most of the pulse will go to ground. Voltage spikes only form over distances / lengths of cable. I'll be looking into further into it.

Beacon Solar Construction. Ask for Mike

Nope. We just have a lot of battery offerings to cover any installation scenario. For some asthetics is a big deal and the homegrid is hard to beat for looks. It's not always about saving money.

@@engineer775 I guess not when these HomeGrids are more than double the price per kWh than others.

That price u can double ur kwh its the same size a a server rack who wants to waste money on a battery that cost almost 19,000 when u can get more from eg4 or current connected..... Makes no sense good video brother but real people want more for there buck... Keep it up brother

@@dangoras9152 His clients seem to have deep pockets and not care much about ROI like us common folk lol...

@@FJB2020 Trophy battery has some REALLY good looking batteries and a HUGE pack coming out here soon. They do not have the UL ratings required to be compliant in CA but for offgrid usage is a really good option. They have a 15KW/h pack coming out for a little over 4200$ and all their batteries have integrated heaters for those in colder weather. Looks like a really really good battery.

So they can stay right under that 20kw limit in California with four batteries.

@@engineer775 If you mean 20kWh , that is a peculiar number. That’s an off grid office with climate control here in Texas. It’s a decent short term backup energy supply, of course. 40 kWh would be more fitting for most homes, at least in my experience.

Try adding the cost of the inverters as well as a professionally installed system by a licensed contractor and this system will cost you $50-$60,000 installed.

because of that, you can't mix

I mean the 15 cells compared to 16 cells, Can not run a them in parallel with a lot of other batteries