Solar Power

Post by **rjj04** » August 18, 2015, 7:21 am

First floor, inside Big-C at the Ring-road/Sakon Nakhon junction.

Post by **glalt** » August 18, 2015, 9:42 am

At the house, I am using 4 65 AH AGM sealed batteries. They are in the house so I went for the sealed batteries. They are 2 years old with no problems so far. At the totally off grid farm I am using 2 125 AH flooded batteries. I bought them from a local FB battery store. They were 5,300 baht each 2 years ago. Again, no problems so far except having to add water. The AGM sealed batteries are about twice as expensive as the flooded type. How long they will last is another unknown. I try to never discharge them below 50 percent. Everything I have is 12 volt so the batteries are connected in parallel.

Looking at deep cycle batteries, I check the weight thinking that the heaviest batteries are the best because the plates are probably thicker.

Post by **kubotatim** » August 18, 2015, 4:10 pm

rjj04 wrote:First floor, inside Big-C at the Ring-road/Sakon Nakhon junction.

They are actually on the ground floor, as you go in turn right and walk as far as you can and they are there. 1st floor is the Big C store.

Post by **rjj04** » August 18, 2015, 4:54 pm

Not sure where you are from but in the USA the 1st floor and ground floor are synonymous. We are the top dogs in the world now, so...

Post by JR » August 18, 2015, 5:40 pm

rjj04 wrote:http://siamcbm.com/product.asp#how

JR, can you share with us where you found these batteries for purchase? It looks like this is a Thai company, Globatt come from Bangladesh I believe.

That website is not updated due to they are looking for a new webdesigner. But the owner is Khun Wuthichai Naothaworn and his email: [email protected]. He also had another with the same before the at and after @siamcbm.com. Rung Seng is the company I have contact with.
He attends an exhibition now at Thong Thani but will be in office from Aug 23.

Post by **kubotatim** » August 18, 2015, 6:30 pm

rjj04 wrote:Not sure where you are from but in the USA the 1st floor and ground floor are synonymous. We are the top dogs in the world now, so...

What????? ground floor is at ground level, 1st floor is one up or it is in the civilised world where I come from,

Post by **rjj04** » August 19, 2015, 12:08 am

glalt wrote:r. The AGM sealed batteries are about twice as expensive as the flooded type.

glalt - Your AGM batteries... does that mean on a Ah basis the AGM cost 4x more than flooded? My flooded batteries are kept inside the house, and I vent the Hydrogen through the wall by a pipe at the top of the room. I built a simple Arduino based Hydrogen sensor that beeps when the level gets too high. I guess one day if that fails and I cause a spark from something I might be in serious trouble

Post by **glalt** » August 19, 2015, 9:43 am

The brand of AGM batteries is BSB. I bought them through the Internet from Bangkok and delivered to my house. A 65 AH AGM battery is about the same price as a 125 AH flooded cell battery, thus about twice as expensive.

Post by **rjj04** » August 19, 2015, 10:58 am

So, AGM are 2X more expensive than flooded, but apparently they get the same number of cycles at 80% DOD (depth of discharge) as flooded do at 50%.

A flooded deep-cycle might get 1200 cycles at 80% and 2000 at 50%, or 66% more cycles at 50% vs 80% DOD

So, an AGM battery gets about 66% more cycles for the same DoD (greater DoD means more energy can be used, and less batteries need to be purchased to do the same amount of work).

So, AGM cost 100% more but deliver 66% more useful Whs over their lifetimes. For the added benefit of not having to worry about Hydrogen explosions or spills of acid, AGM might be the way to go.

One issue that is a problem for solar with AGM is that if your MPPT charger is slow it can (and often does in my case) overshoot the voltage setting for bulk-charging. The bulk voltage default setting on the PIP4048 for flooded batteries is 58.4V, but on a cloudy day I sometimes see the voltage shoot up to +60V before the MPPT algo can bump the panel voltage up. AGM batteries are much more sensitive to overvoltage issues than flooded and thus might have problems with this.

Post by **glalt** » August 19, 2015, 2:18 pm

You're much more of a techie than I am. My charger controller has settings for three different battery types, flooded, gel cell and AGM. The controller seems to adjust quickly to voltage changes. My batteries are connected in parallel as are the solar panels, so lower voltages may make it easier for the controller to react quickly. I won't know which type of batteries are better until one or the other set dies. At this point, it's doubtful that I will expand my systems but if I do I will buy flooded cell batteries and keep them outside simply because of the cheaper price. I think it is advantageous to have more battery capacity than you need because keeping them topped up will prolong the life considerably. Fewer batteries and deeper discharging is false economy. The experts tell us to never mix different types of batteries. It is recommended to keep identical sets and buy them together if possible. Apparently the age of the batteries also makes a difference.

Post by **maaka** » August 20, 2015, 6:05 am

thanks guys for the directions...much appreciated.

Post by **glalt** » August 20, 2015, 11:10 am

I found this site;

www.solarmateth.com

The price of TBL1600 Double Deep cycle 150A 12V 6,300 baht per unit, Delivery 350 baht per unit and delivered by The Transport Co., Ltd

The tubular batteries are supposed to have a much longer life. I'd give them a try if I needed batteries.

Post by **rick** » August 20, 2015, 9:06 pm

Amorn at the Big C had quite a stack of batteries earlier this week, more than i have seen before. So worth a look. I think Globatt and one other brand.

Post by **glalt** » April 5, 2016, 10:11 am

I thought I would resurrect this thread. Us solar power tinkerers are never really satisfied with our systems. In my case, I'd like to run the air con in my computer room. The question is if the tubular batteries are better than the flooded lead acid batteries. I have a 40 A charge controller and a 2,500 watt inverter that I bought for spares and the thought that I may eventually build a larger separate system than I already have. The original components after three years are still running fine so I have not needed the spares.

The air con is a 12,000 BTU inverter type. The 2,500 watt inverter should easily run that air con since there is no start surge.

Post by **frankdemchenko** » April 5, 2016, 11:59 am

guys,
I would like some help to add solar to my house so I can run my swimming pool filter and take it off the house power. it is a salt water pool and it is required to run 8 hours a day. I know nothing about solar and the more help the better
thanks

Post by **maaka** » April 5, 2016, 5:30 pm

my guess is that your pool pump sucks some power, and if needed to run 8 hrs a day, everyday, would require a sizable inverter 2400amp and battery bank, (4 or 6 big jobs 104amp hrs each ) and just as sizable solar panel collection..( 6,or 8 @ 120w) ...so might not be worth the cost of changing over.....I might be overkill, so will let the other tinkerers chew over the actual volts v amps, v watts equation to help you decide..whats the pump output? ..watts/amps

Post by **glalt** » April 5, 2016, 10:44 pm

Your goal is probably just to save on your electric bill. If you want to do it legal, you will have to get government approval. That will be a long drawn out process. OR, you could go with a small grid tie setup. All you need Is maybe three 250 watt panels and a thousand watt grid tie inverter. That system will feed the power directly into your main box. It's a simple system and as long as you are using more than that small system is making, your meter won't turn backward and it will go unnoticed by your meter reader. You do have to make certain that your grid tie inverter has what they call island protection. That shuts down the inverter if the main power goes off. You wouldn't want to electrocute a lineman.

If you want to run your pump totally off grid you will need to know how much power you need. Then you need an off grid solar charge controller, an inverter sized to run the pump off a battery bank. Batteries are expensive.

Post by **rjj04** » April 6, 2016, 6:01 pm

Concur with glalt, with a slight correction. The meter wheel may spin backwards, which may or may not be noticed by your meter-reader at his monthly reading day (17-18th of month?). But, it seems PEA only cares when the actual meter reading is lower than the previous months meter reading. If that happens, all hell will break loose... as in they will change your meter so it will not spin backwards. If that happens then if you have a swimming pool pump that switches on and off, you will be losing probably at least half your power to the grid without any credit... so beware.

On another note, I see Amorn now has installation options. Two options actually. One is just to install the system and get approval from the PEA, the other is to get your system into the "solar roof-top program". I don't seem to be able to find the webpage that had the prices with the installation options, but if I recall the first installation option almost doubled the price of the system. So, the 55K THB system was around 90K with option one and 100K with the second (roof-top) option. I know the parts and labor to install the 55K THB system can't be more than 20K THB with a profit for Amorn so I suppose the "value added" must be the paperwork that they do with PEA. I tried to get PEA to accept my system (bought from Amorn but DIY installation) but they wouldn't allow it, so why Amorn can do it but a home owner can't is strange to me. That's when PEA locked my meter from spinning backwards...so same old story.. TIT

Post by **parrot** » May 14, 2017, 6:53 pm

I saw this solar powered water pump at Amorn's today. 30,000 Baht. One of the clerks says it can pump water from 40m down. Don't know any other details.

Post by **Marcosteffano** » May 15, 2017, 9:30 pm

Done a little research into solar and grid tie.can get off eBay plug and play inverter 1,000w. @£85.. not found 4x250w panels but on eBay £150 approx,so maybe find around same price here.maybe..so if lucky could pump in 800 watts to supplement my usage and not turn the meter back more than the previous reading.maybe 10 hours a day.thats 8kw @ 7baht 56b a day or 1680b a month..for a system that would cost of 32,000baht.so 20 months it should pay for itself.remember no batteries involved and it's only to keep the bills down.i would like to hear off any egg heads if I've got something wrong in my calculations and any other advice.maybe start a new thread on solar.

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Solar Power

Re: Solar Power

Re: Solar Power