Surrette and Full river AGM's Been berry berry good to me!
Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar
"we go where powerlines don't"
[1]https://offgridsolar1.com/ [2] [1]
e-mail offgridso...@sti.net
text 209 813 0060
On 2024-02-17 9:43 am, Drake Chamberlin via RE-wrenches wrote:
I fully agree that off grid solar has taken a major downturn. Once the
equipment became software based, the reliability dropped. Sure, there
are nice features available with these cyber enhanced systems, but the
cost in reliability makes being energy independent off the grid hard to
accomplish.
There are good reports on Samlex products. Has anyone tried their new
120/240 split phase units? Are they stack-able yet?
As far as batteries go, I'm pretty much in the Lead Head club,
especially for off grid. That being said, lead acid batteries,
especially AGMs have gotten really expensive and it seems the quality
isn't what it used to be.
What is the best AGM battery these days?
Thanks,
Drake
---
On 2024-02-16 17:02, Michael Morningstar via RE-wrenches wrote:
We gave EG4 and Signature another chance after promises from their
dealer oriented support department that we could expect better service
from them. We had an EG4 BMS crap out a couple months ago after only a
few months. Lots and lots of communications with Signature and we still
don't have a BMS or replacement battery. It's been a shit show with
them. I think we are going to remove them and install 3rd party BMS's
and find some use for them. Maybe donate them. We've only had luck with
Schneider/Discover pairings in closed loop. A large system we did with
Sol-Arks never really worked in Closed loop, despite Discover coming to
the site. Most likely it's a Sol-Ark issue, but we've reached Sol-Arks
technical expertise limits. Even with Schneider/AES, there have been
some issues that are causing me to re-consider Li for offgrid. I just
had a conversation this morning with a long time off-grid pro and he
said the same thing. It used to be, we'd install a wet lead acid bank
and then ten years would pass before hearing from the client when it
was time for another bank. Sometimes fifteen years. Our call backs with
systems over the last ten years, first with a decline in equipment
quality and then the switch to Li are costing us too much money and
causing a lot of heartburn for our clients. Rant Over
On Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 12:57 PM Howie Michaelson via RE-wrenches
<re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
Hi All,
I've searched the archives for info pertaining to EG4 inverters and
batteries. The comments have been mostly positive. I have stayed away
from EG4 until now in part, for the reason the Michael Morningstar
suggested last June - that is, they seemed very oriented to the DIY
market and not real serious contenders in the lasting marketplace.
However, I was at RE+ Boston this week and was quite surprised to see
that the EG4 18k inverter is, for all I could tell, identical to the
Fortress Envy 12k, in both physical layout as well as menu structure. I
have very limited experience with the Envy (having just installed my
1st one last week, in order to compare it to the Sol-Ark 15). I don't
have any thoughts about it yet, except that the font on the screen is
quite small and the opening screen is not as intuitive as the Sol-Ark,
but that might just take familiarizing myself more to the Envy (and/or
the EG4).
My question is, for folks who have had either the Envy or the EG4
inverters installed for a decent period of time, what is your current
take on their functionality, durability, and for the EG4, the quality
of support? Also, what experience have folks had similarly with the EG4
LLI batteries? I'm not unhappy with the Sol-Ark or in general the
Fortress eVault Max battery, but there are some attractive things about
the Envy and potentially the EG4 18k, and the price point and seemingly
smart configuration of the EG4 LLI batteries are certainly
eye-catching.
I'm also currently starting to lean toward using Lithium batteries and
inverters from the same manufacturer, as I'm growing weary of the
mismatching firmware updates that are causing somewhat frequent issues
between the 2 components. Although the inverter/battery integrated
units (i.e. Sonen, Tesla, etc.) don't seem ideal, since the market is
so volatile at the moment. If one component fails, I'd like the option
to replace it with a different brand without having to replace the
other component as well. Using the same manu doesn't necessarily cut
down the problems, but it certainly will help in the troubleshooting
process by hopefully having less of the "not my problem" or "we haven't
seen that problem" responses from tech support.
I really don't like making forays into bleeding-edge technologies, so
I'm hoping to gain some experienced insight.
Thanks,
Howie Michaelson
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Michael Morningstar
Morningstar Electric
PO Box 1494
Mount Shasta, CA 96067
530-921-0560
mjmornings...@gmail.com
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Links:
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[1] http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/
[2] https://offgridsolar1.com/
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