DIY Whole House Off Grid Solar System -ANYONE CAN INSTALL - MADE EASY

hey everyone uh welcome back all right so here is the new system that replaced my um older system i had a double stack outback inverters dc breakers ac breakers uh i had tesla batteries mounted to the wall over here um so i got rid of that i sewed that old system once i took everything out i went ahead and cleaned out the power room repainted all the walls in the ceiling um and then i went ahead and mounted a um hearty backer board as well so there's hearty backer 5h drywall plus plywood on all the walls and the ceiling so um yeah the walls this building is very strong as far as the walls is concerned uh so here's the system itself so let's go over the components of the system so i have six life power four batteries um these are roughly a little a hair over five kilowatts each so this is technically um 30 kilowatts of power here these are lithium-ion phosphate batteries the tesla batteries or the tesla modules that i had on the wall were lithium-ion um so we've switched up the chemistry a little bit um but i really like how this is operating so i have the battery cabinet here so i'll open it up in a second show you guys all the details um so i have the battery cabinet all the six batteries slid in there and all mounted up um coming out of the top over here i have four out so that's four zeros guys um cable so it's a really thick cable and all my cables are the exact same length so none of the cables are shorter than the other we want to make sure all the cable lengths are the same and so forth um and so then we have the grow watt 12k um inverter solar charge controller all in one and it's up and running as we speak and it's powering right now it's powering my home it's powering these lights obviously um and we have solar coming in charging these batteries um so this growa 12k model is a beast it is it is awesome this thing is just awesome um this weighs 165 pounds um the last inverter system i removed was actually 200 i think 260 pounds um so yeah so now um let's kind of go over a little bit more of what's happening in here so over here is actually the wind turbine solar i mean sorry the wind turbine charge controller so i'm using a um midnight solar 200 that i've had for years now so when i sold my last system that was the only component that i kept was that charge controller right there for the wind turbine itself and then up here we have a heat sink for the bridge rectifier so here's the three wires coming in from the wind turbine up here and then we have our positive and negative coming out on the bottom on the bridge rectifier heat sink it goes directly in right now it's not even windy um but you can see there's about five watts five or ten watts coming in it's not even windy today uh and then i have anderson connections connected to the output of this um charge controller here going into the battery cabinet as well uh and then i just got done installing another breaker panel here so i have this is actually a split phase inverter so this inverter has l1 and l2 and l1 and l2 is 120 volts each so since my house was previously wired for 240 that's why i wanted to make sure i had a split phase inverter because if you buy a single phase inverter and you want to add another inverter what you're going to end up having to do is you're going to end up having to install a transformer to do that well this is it's a split phase already so it's already happening in the unit so i really like that because it simplifies things and it makes it simple so this 12 000 watt um grow watt all-in-one inverter has a peak of 36 000 watts now what's also interesting is there is two solar inputs on the bottom of this um all-in-one system here and the maximum voltage that you can bring in is 250 volts which means you can wire your solar panels in in series right you can wire more panels in series which means it cuts down on your wiring it cuts down on the wiring costs it cuts down on your installation labor because really you can just wire them from positive to negative positive negative positive negative until you get to the point where either you're maxing out at roughly a hair under 250 or you can run two separate strings in here right now i currently have one string of 12 panels running into one of the inputs on the bottom of this unit itself i also have the wi-fi dongle right here so you guys can see it it's the grow wi-fi dongle and i also have that connected to my internet and so i can monitor this whole system um through their their app their app is really nice i really like their app um so i can monitor the state of charge i can monitor the amount of solar coming in i can monitor the amount of loads i'm using and it tracks everything so it's a really useful app for sure um and that's pretty much it so it's a lot simpler a lot cleaner a lot nicer i really like this setup if i didn't have all this extra slack for my four-watt cable it'd be even more clean um but i left the extra slack because i may end up moving this battery cabinet over here out of the way and then run the wires around or whatever i need to do so that's why i left the extra slack because i you know four oh cable you want to try to leave it in the you know in one piece you don't want to start just cutting it up unless you absolutely have to um so that's why i have more cable on the top because if i want to move this battery cabinet around i have that ability and then also i gave myself some extra slack right here on these um six gauge wire coming from the wind turbine solar charge controller so that way i can also maneuver the battery cabinet around if i ever need to so that's pretty much why we have wires on the top if i didn't have the slack we wouldn't really have any wires up here except for this white wire right here which i'm going to end up running through the um grommet over here so let's go ahead and open up this battery cabinet kind of explain what's happening in here how it's hooked up and go from there so we'll go ahead and open up the cabinet open the door so we have six lithium ion phosphate batteries life power four i purchased all of this equipment all the batteries the battery cabinet and the inverter from signature solar they're not sponsoring this channel they didn't give me any of this for free i paid with my own money um so yeah we have six of these batteries and what i like about these batteries is a couple things first of all lithium ion phosphate is a safer battery chemistry way safer than the tesla batteries that i had on the wall over here right so i wanted a safer battery chemistry um yeah that was a big thing for me so um on each battery each of these are individual batteries so we have one two three and so forth each of these batteries have their own breaker right there they have a state of charge symbol over here so you guys can see the last light is flashing because we're charging we have an alarm light just in case there's something faulty or something going on with the battery that'll light up and then we have the run light which is saying that it's running then we have dip switches here and then we have our um you can link all your batteries together so they can communicate and why is that important because inside of these batteries it has a built-in bms system every battery has its own built-in bms system so they're linked from one battery to the next to the next to the next to the next to the next until you get to the top and then from here you have your communication port coming out right here and this plugs into the bottom of the actual inverter all-in-one system so it's a really nice setup so what happens is all these batteries can communicate with each other you can communicate with the girl wad inverter and manage themselves and condition themselves and do what they have to do and also protect the batteries if something goes wrong um then we have our positive and negative coming off each battery and then on the left side here we have the positive bus bar that actually runs the full length from here all the way down here and what you're doing is you're basically paralleling all these batteries so the positive comes off and it comes in because we're running a 48 volt system these batteries are set up for a 48 volt system they have 12 volt and also 24 volt batteries that are identical to these as well but we're running a 48 volt system here so we have all of our terminals here coming down connecting and then it's vice versa over here on the left side we have all the negative coming down what i did was i actually flipped this bus bar so when i was assembling the cabinet i flip the bus bar upside down that way i can have my negative way down here so that way we're charging we're charging you know kind of like it's hard for me to show you guys my hands but uh instead of just charging down we're charging across right cross charging here that way the positive is down there the negative is up here and we're charging the whole pack together like that um a lot more efficient and then we have all our negatives just connected to that bus bar coming down so yeah it's a very nice clean setup and also all these batteries are secured in here they have all these um nuts and bolts here um screws to hold the battery into the racking system so you guys can hear the fan turning on so the fan's turning on because we're producing um solar right now charging these batteries and in fact it's way for the fan to turn off a little bit and then we'll talk a little bit more because it's pretty loud um but yeah it's a very nice setup i do need to connect my um yellow wire here to ground the cage so that's the only thing i really have to do but this is actually the last night was the second night of running this system so i've been running this system for two nights now testing it putting some heavy loads on it checking it out making sure everything's good and yeah i am impressed i really love this system here guys this is for me going in the future if i hook up anybody else's solar or if i decide to upgrade down the road again um this is the type of system i will be looking for you know so let's go ahead and close this cage up here um it is also ventilated on the bottom and it's ventilated in the back and in the front as well i got the one that had the cage so that way nobody's fingers can go in there and just mess with my stuff and we'll lock it up and have comes with a key as well so um coming out of the inverter like i said it is a um split phase so l1 l2 and the neutral that comes through through these six gauge wires right here i have a grommet right here on the box so i don't um chafe the um the wires uh and then it comes into the terminals and then from here this is actually the main this is the main breaker um going to my house so this pipe right here the power wires are going down into the conduit underground to my home itself so this is actually the main so if i shut this one off it'll shut off the house itself and then i have some 115 brake 100 i'm sorry 120 volt breakers here this one's not connected to anything but this top one is this one is connected to the plugs over here and the motion sensor light and all that stuff um i also have excuse me on this side here that i had previously because this was all previous that i had installed already um in this pipe here i have four communication cables two is dedicated for internet and the other two is for low voltage signaling if i need it for whatever i want to do so i have one of the internet cables going up to a wi-fi router here that way i can communicate with the dongle down there so that's communicating with that that's connected to my home internet system and then from there you know it's connected to my cell phone and everything else so i can monitor this system from anywhere so it's really really nice so um yeah that's pretty much it if you guys eliminate the wind turbine stuff out of there eliminate some of the wires that i have on the top obviously it'll be a lot cleaner um here's the solar so i ran some new wires so i have my solar coming in i have 12 solar panels um six of them are wired in series and it goes to a breaker um sorry a combiner box outside so let me show you guys this right here so here's my combiner box and this one right here and this one right here these two 15 amp breakers is what um one solar array is on and the other solar array on and then inside of here i'm actually um paralleling them down um in order to utilize um one input on the um girl watt inverter solar charge controller there so um when i'm going to be adding another probably 7 000 watts to the system and then i'll utilize these other breakers here so i will be adding more solar panels i have another array over there and i have the wind turbine up there so we'll be adding more solar panels for a total of technically 7 000 something um the maximum input on this all-in-one system is actually 7000 watts and um yeah it works great so now let's look at the some of the features here really quick so over here we have inverter on inverter off inverter on but power save mode and then over here we actually have the display itself i'm trying to get it where i don't have a glare let's see there we go so um here is our display you guys can see it says battery voltage is 53.8 right now we're outputting 240 volts split phase going to my house we have this you guys can see it solar um coming in our battery is charging and we have some loads in the house and maybe another video i'll go over more of the details of the setup of this but it's actually very simple and straightforward which i really like and these batteries here when you first initially set this up you're going to be putting your battery because you can select what type of battery you have you're going to be putting your batteries into li mode and what that is is is basically set up for these batteries so that way they can all communicate with each other and everything communicates with each other now the only thing that's not communicating with all this is that which is the wind turbine um charge controller itself this is just basically separate and i have these battery cables coming in and i have it connected to the same um areas of my four rock cable so we're charging in the same spots and we're you know discharging from the same spots so i went with 4 ot just because i wanted to make sure that there was zero loss um coming through coming in and coming out of the batteries itself uh it's probably overkill but you know why not so yeah um i'll be going in more depth on a lot of the information on this but this is a killer system guys i mean i don't even need the wind turbine stuff you could just take that out of the equation really and this is just an awesome system right here really clean more consolidated compared to like a lot of systems out there and compared to my old system my old system took up almost the whole wall of you know inverters and breaker panels and all that stuff and this whole top of the wall here was all tesla batteries so a lot simpler way simpler um i also installed i made my own mc4 connectors right here so this is the solar coming in right and um so that way i can have pigtails essentially so i can disconnect this mc4 connector that's connected to the bottom of the um inverter here for the solar um input so i can easily disconnect them if i want to there's going to be another set of wires coming in because i'm adding more panels which is going to be connected to the second input um on the solar input for this um all-in-one system here now there is a little bit difference compared to the last outback inverters i had compared to this one first of all i noticed the fan in this is very powerful but not only that it runs when when it's charging from solar like it is now you guys can hear the fan um it runs all the time it never turns off and unless there's no solar coming in on my other system i had a flex max 80 outback solar charge controller and it would only run when the temperature got up to a certain temperature then it would turn on to cool it down um and my inverter itself on the outback would almost never turn on unless i'm pulling a really heavy load then the fan would turn on to cool it down so i noticed that the fan in here is not only is it very powerful but it runs more often so like right now that fan is running to keep the unit nice and cool while we're charging and doing everything now if i'm running loads in the house um there's another more powerful fan that'll kick on uh and then it'll kick on and it's pretty loud the fans on this thing is pretty loud but that's okay i don't i really don't mind it um as long as it's keeping the unit cool and doing what it's supposed to do that's that's all that matters to me so um if i turn on a really big heavy load like my hot water heater my electric hot water heater which is 240 volts um this will obviously the the bigger fan in here the more powerful fan will kick on and actually start you know running so but when you run like a lower lower load you know not as high um it doesn't kick on as often so it's only when it really needs to but i do notice the when it's charging from solar the fan the smaller fan in here just runs all the time so that's something that to be cautious of because if you're going to be putting this maybe inside of your house for an example um you know that noise may be a little bit too much for you right luckily it's out in my powershed so it's not a big deal or you could mount it outside and build a waterproof box and everything to put everything in whatever you want to do um so today like i said we've run on this system for two nights now and it's been working awesome i've had haven't had any problems the only problem i actually had was when i was actually setting this up was the wi-fi dongle this wi-fi dongle is very very um it's a little complicated to hook up to say the least everything was really simple but the wi-fi dongle that one thing was the one thing that was a little headache and from me doing some research it looks like a lot of people had issues trying to make it connect it's just how they have it set up um but other than that it does work now i have it all connected i had to basically set it up twice and then finally it went on the second time and now it's wired in so um let me open my phone here really quick and i'll show you guys the app for this system here so here is the actual app trying to get the glare out of the way so let's refresh it so today i have produced 10 kilowatts of power for my solar um so far i've actually produced 18.4 kilowatt hours um like i said it's only been online last night was the second night only so yeah it's also cloudy and then here's what's interesting you can also type in how much um you you you how much your utility charges you in your area so here in hawaii it's 60 roughly about 64 cents per kilowatt hour so this is how much i've already saved in about two days um i've saved eleven dollars and eight cents already um so and actually on these two days that has been running only one day was it actually on solar because the very first day i was connecting everything right and then that night we ran on the battery power itself and then the next day which was yesterday was the first day of it just running on solar itself so um yeah we only have like maybe one or two days of actually running on solar so that's why the numbers are lower right now um but yeah it's got a lot of interesting things in here so let's go over here so it shows us how much power is coming in currently right now we have let's refresh it we have 1175 watts coming in from the solar and it is super cloudy outside right now um it is charging the battery the battery is at 86 percent right now and it's charging the battery at 1034 watts and then inside of my home i have a load of 151 watts right there um so yeah it's really nice so here is the state of charge so you guys can see i was down at the 60 mark and we're going up because we're charging today so it's a really nice system and then here is the state of charge so we have a 134 watts coming in we're at 86 percent and yeah it's doing really well there's more details in this but we'll go into that in another video so my impressions is it a good system so far it's an awesome system um i like i said the only complaint i had was the wi-fi dongle gave me some issues and i'm making this video so a lot of you out there that are thinking about purchasing these batteries or purchasing this type of system you guys know what to expect it's actually very simple and easy to put together these batteries are really heavy okay they're like 100 or 109 pounds a piece so be ready to move a lot of weight because the batteries are 100 something pounds a piece the inverter is 165 pounds even the battery racking system here the cage is heavy so it's all heavy so you're definitely going to want some help um putting it together i actually mounted this 165 pound inverter by myself i used some pulleys up there i had three pulleys on the wall and i had two pulleys connected to the um grow watt inverter itself and i hold um hoisted it up got it to where i wanted and i have it um anchored into the wall so you guys can see i have one two three four five i have five on that side and five on the other side as well as you guys can see right here anchoring everything to the wall um so yeah if you guys have an extra pair of hands available um a friend family whoever that'll make your life a lot easier and it'll actually get installed a lot faster because these batteries are heavy and that inverter is also very heavy so i'm going to get my label maker out i'm going to label this as main i'm going to label this as plug-in light for the powershed uh then i can close that up there we go close that up um i do need to consolidate some of my other wires over here for the lights but you know it's working progress guys so yeah i like this i really like this system because here's an example guys with the outback system that i had previously and a lot of the outback equipment keep in mind the outback inverters are solid units they work great they work great they've been proven they've been out there longer than most brands have been out there they work the the problem i find with outback is you need a lot of extra things to make their stuff work you need the mate 3s you need a shunt you need a transformer you need this you need that so you you know unless you're buying all the system that's all pre-wired and pre-put together if you're going to try to put your own together you're going to buy all these little components to make it work which adds up in the end like the shunt itself is very expensive well it's all in one here this is all built into one the shunt everything is all in there you don't have to worry about it you know so i like this setup here

Channel: Modern Off Grid DIY

Views: 292,142

Keywords: DIY Whole House Off Grid Solar System -ANYONE CAN INSTALL - MADE EASY, DIY Whole House off grid solar, Off grid solar made easy, Simple off grid solar setup, diy solar panel system, diy solar, off grid, 12k growatt inverter, eg4, eg4 battery 48v, lifepower4 battery, lifepower4 server rack battery, lithium ion phosphate, Growatt, growatt wifi setup, signature solar growatt

Id: VHccue5bcW8

Length: 25min 8sec (1508 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 01 2022