I’m using an AC200Max and a B230 battery to power a smallish off-grid cabin up in Maine. This past season was the first real trial of the system and generally went very well. I was able to run a refrigerator / freezer, lights and occasionally a vacuum, blender, toaster and electric kettle (obviously not all at once).
One of the big unknowns for me was how much input I was going to get from the solar panels, how much the fridge would actually draw on a daily basis, and would we have extra power for stuff like toasters and kettles.
I have 3 360W panels mounted on the roof of the cabin that are powering everything. On sunny days, I’ve seen 900watts coming into the AC200Max at times, which is plenty to charge everything back up and let us use toasters and kettles as needed. Cloudy days however are a different story and is really the issue I want to sort out.
On cloudy / rainy days incoming power is around 100~150W. This is not enough to sustainably run the fridge and lights, hence the expansion battery that I added mid season. If I’m super careful and turn the inverter off at night, don’t use anything other than the fridge and a few lights, I could probably get away with 3 days before the system really went to zero charge.
Sooooo, I’m looking at options to increase the amount of power coming in. I know I could buy and hook up a few more panels to a D050S and have that connect to the AC200Max which I guess would give me another 500watts potentially. My question though is can I do that (add more panels and use a D050S with the AC200Max) AND also add a few more panels, an additional D050S and hook this up directly to the B230? In this set up I’d have potentially an additional 1000w of potential input. But I don’t know if the AC200Max can handle that? Is it a hard limit of 1400watts for the system? Or can you push 1400 into the AC200Max and push 500watts into the B230 at the same time?
In reality I don’t think I would try to use all ‘3’ inputs on a sunny day. This is really just for a cloudy / rainy day when I would more likely see 200 ~ 300 watts total input. I just need to know if the setup would allow me to use all ‘3’ inputs simultaneously.
You shuld know best?! Let it run a day on battery an see how mush it drains it.
That’s not mush
Sure you can uses all 3 inputs simultaneously but you can add way mote panels per input.
You don’t have to care to mush about what you get in the summer but in the Fall and in the winter it gets interesting.
Depending on your Location a winter day often only has 1% Solar power of a summer day.
the AC200Max has 1 15A inputs and you can easily add 6 of your panels per MPPT input (3 in series 2 in parable)
In the summer your limited to 900W but its about cloudy and rainy days when your panels making only a faction of the rated power.
So even without the D050S you can add 1.8KWp solar to Your system to get to the winter.
With the D050S you could even add 1-2 more panels ( in parallel)
With this you would have >1200W caring for many hours of the year.
How often do you run into this condition of low solar input due to cloudy weather? If its occasionally or rarely you would be better off getting a generator to top off your batteries on cloudy days than spend a ton on an upgrade that still might not produce enough. For that matter, if it happens often you may want to consider upgrading the solar and getting a small generator as a backup to increase your flexibility.
Getting a gas generator would certainly be the cheapest and easiest way to address the issue. Frankly, just running a gas generator would have also been a whole lot cheaper and easier than buying a bunch of panels and a battery system. But for reason that are neither here nor there, folks are not on board with running a gas generator. They would rather have no electricity at all (which is how the camp has been for decades) than run a gas generator. It’s a family camp, and I’m just the in-law so I have to be respectful of their wishes. I’m just trying to slowly and gently pull things from the stone age into the late 19th century in term of tech here and having to work with what people are willing to accept.
I was in a hurry with my post, so perhaps some of the things I mentioned didn’t come across the way I meant. I do know what the fridge draws now (about 1Kw per 24 hours more or less).
On the panels, I have them in series and calculated out the max Voc during super low temps (it gets really cold in Maine!) to make sure I didn’t exceed the max voltage (145V) of the 200Max input. 3 in series is as much as I can do. Sure, I could go with a 4 panel (2 series 2 parallel) set up, but I don’t think that is really going to make much difference given the 15amp limit. And I suppose I could also go with 6 (3s 2p) but that sure seems like a big waste of panels for most of the time.
My thinking is that by using the D050S I can not only increase input during cloudy days, but I can also pump in more power when it is sunny to help charge things back up if the system is low, or just max out what I can if it’s only sunny for a few hours.
Agreed that the D050S makes the most sense (or another battery). Sounds like the camp is only occupied on an occasional basis so you just need to make it through the cloudy periods, You need more input or a larger source. Either way your up against a wall with the Maine weather , Its the clouds vs. your system.
The reality is that we are pretty close to sustainable now, even on cloudy days. A week straight of full clouds… yea that would be a problem for sure with the current setup.
I’m kind of landing on the following as the plan for next season. I’m going to by two D050Ss and four additional 250W panels. I’ll run 2 in series to a D050S connected to the AC200M and then run the other two, in series, to a D050S connected to the B230. This will basically double my input, which should make even cloudy days sustainable. If I get 100w ~ 150w now and can make that 200w ~ 300w that should be enough to break even (or at least come really close) between consumption and input on those cloudy days. And perhaps more importantly, I’ll be able to go from no charge to full charge in less than 3 hours if we get a bit of sun.
