Setting up solar battery storage questions

Yeah, it's the V3 version, but are the built in balancers not shít? Particularly for first charge cycle. I have read threads with batteries taking days, or weeks to top balance without a proper balancer.

What would your opinion be on isolator type?

Grand, so one of these babies then…except i'd be getting 80-100A DC, most likely sticking with Hager brand

Good to know I can do without a balancer. Saved me a few quid there 😉

Or maybe I would be safer getting a pack of these

Ive ordered the smaller kit and also larger ferrules and hydraulic crimp. Hopefully that's all I will need. A

Delighted to say I have connected my battery (temporarily) to the inverter and went with my memory on the settings. I'll post about the settings in another thread, but I have observed the battery being fed by solar and it is now topping up the house with no need to take from the grid. I set the charge time for 1am to 8am. First day since install that self consumption has been over 50% and I only hooked it up at about 4pm.

I have a load of materials stored in the side entrance, including one of the cabinet frames, so it really is a temporary fix 😂

I'll be ordering some battery cable wire for when I mount the battery to the wall, as the cables just won't reach.

Where is the best place to pick up some nice long copper bars to make up some bus bars to connect both batteries to the same bars when I get to that stage? I probably want something a good 1500mm long x 2

I considered that option and reserve it a backup. I think I just prefer the copper bar idea and have it in my head as a neater solution.

Outside. The house is quite well insulated. Our BER is now B2 and when it gets cold, we boost the gas boiler for an average of an hour per day. If the inverter and batteries were inside the house, we would have no heating costs and would need the windows open all day in the summer 😁.

I’d love to see your setup. Sounds like a great system

It was showing 32% when I turned it on. I think voltage per cell was 3.14V. I’m pretty sure it charged up full last night. It was 80% this morning when I checked at the inverter and it had been supplementing the house before the sun came up. I’ll have more info once I get it connected to the app again.

In one way, I would have saved myself a whole load of pain in not having to build really strong cabinets to mount the batteries on the wall, but then I have pipe work in the way which means I can't mount the batteries/cabinets against the wall at ground level. I have a 4" drain pipe directly below the first cabinet I have just mounted. Mounting at ground level would shrink the available space and impede/block through access for bicycles and other things. Here are a couple of pics of the frame I mounted yesterday and the mess below I plan to box in.

Slowly getting there! I'm now starting to really think about Bus Bar mounting. Most likely, I will mount them below the cabinets, giving easy access to the breakers I will be putting between the batteries and BBs. I could also mount them inside the cabinets which would keep them completely out of the way. I'm pretty sure I have space to mount a breaker inside the cabinet too, or I could mount it outside (maybe under the base of the cabinet) by increasing the length of the cables.

On the wiring. Would you stay with 25mm or upgrade to 35mm for battery to bus bar and bus bar to inverter?

Assume 3 batteries, each with a 1m run to the bus bar and then the bus bar will have a 1m run to the inverter. I'm thinking stay with 25mm, but looking for another opinion(s).

I tend to over-engineer, but in this case, I don't want to cause problems with the the installation by going too large unless there is some real benefit. If I went to 35mm, I would probably have to upgrade the cable end plug to the inverter, as well as the receptacle, which I really don't want to be doing for reasons of inverter warranty.