Wiring Solar Charge Controller to Battery
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- In order to wire the solar charge controller to the battery I need to make custom wires. I'm using an old set of truck jumper wires that are #1 or #2 AWG. The Victron MPPT 250/100 charge controller has 35mm screw terminals. In order to use the flexible cable I need to crimp on a "ferrule" to the wire ends. This is a thin copper tube that slips over the small strands of copper to prevent deforming.
I'm also connecting the charge controller to my DC load center. I'm using a 125 amp DC circuit breaker from Midnite Solar.
To crimp the ends I"m using a hydroponic crimping tool from Amazon.
Detailed video about the Victron 250/100 MPPT Solar Charge Controller: • Victron 250/100 Solar ...
Hydraulic Crimping Tool: amzn.to/2QdnWmx
Ferrule Ends: amzn.to/2Qi22yz
Ring Terminals: amzn.to/2PpIZgq
125 Amp DC Breaker: amzn.to/2SyOawG
Victron Charge Controller: www.altestore....
“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”
Well in this type of connection the connection is MUCH better without the crimped ends, as the cable can cover the whole connection surface. Crimped it only touches on very thin points, which leads to high resistance
as a line man years ago, we used to use number 6 bare copper for ground wire. just saying. And I love your videos. I got a set of chevy volt batteries for free and you are teaching me alot, and i thank you.
Lucky on the batteries. Chevy Volt cells are amazing.
Thanks for sharing the vid.
I've been looking into installing a Victron 250/100.
I noticed some advice in the vid that contradicts the safety instructions in the Victron Manual for Smart Solar Chargers.
In short the video says using wires without very fine strands is ok, when the manual says it will eventually result in fire.
The examples in the vid showing thick stranded wire ok to use have matching photo's in the manual which says they should not be used.
What follows is from page 5 of the Victron Manual, note the last sentence.
Use flexible multistranded copper cable for the battery and PV connections.
The maximum diameter of the individual strands is 0,4mm/0,125mm² (0.016 inch/AWG26).
A 25mm² cable, for example, should have at least 196 strands (class 5 or higher stranding according to VDE 0295, IEC 60228 and BS6360).
An AWG2 gauge cable should have at least 259/26 stranding (259 strands of AWG26).
Maximum operating temperature: ≥ 90°C.
...
In case of thicker strands the contact area will be too small and the resulting high contact resistance will cause severe overheating, eventually resulting in fire.
Link
www.victronenergy.com.au/upload/documents/Manual-SmartSolar-charge-controller-MPPT-150-70-to-150-100--250-70-to-250-100-VE.Can-EN-NL-FR-DE-ES-SE-IT.pdf
Cheers Sincerely
David
Thank you David. Your comment is excellent. I love when I'm called out, but you also help me with a link and explanation. I've moved this charge controller and replaced some wires since this video, but I have not made an update video describing my mistakes. Thanks.
The number on those dies correspond with the D mm2 of cable lugs (ring terminal) u can crimp, so 35 for a 35mm cable lug. Ferrules have a different outside diameter. Also the terminals on that Victron should have no problems with those cables. That said i am a fan of ferrules, and they are mandatory for professional application in my country.
agree
You know you're doing it right when you gotta use a saw.
Those big beefy terminals on the Victron are so nice.
Regarding your DC bond/grounding/chassis wire:
"Install a DC grounding conductor sized not less than one size smaller than the DC positive conductor and have a capacity such that the DC positive fuse has an amperage rating not greater than 135% of the current rating of this grounding wire. As a practical matter, this wire will be much larger than the AC grounding conductor. This requirement is the latest addition to the standards when it was discovered that faults in the DC side of an inverter or charger could provide sustained high currents that could start a fire from overheating the AC grounding conductor."
The residual voltage at 7m10s is from the capacitors inside your MPPT. Note that your inverter has them too so careful when you turn things off to be voltage safe!
O, that makes sense. Thanks.
You seem like you’d be a cool dude to hang out with in the shop. Nice setup though, seriously well done. Now I’m motivated to finish my 48V system
When you finish your system I'd love to see it. Even a pic to e-mail if you don't post videos. Thanks for watching.
DavidPoz I’m working on getting a video done for it, in hopes to help inspire others and that with a little research (and watching your videos) self sufficiency in solar power is very reachable. Thanks for posting informative content!
I have always used 6AWG Pure Copper for all of my Solar Installations.
I hope you find my suggestion helpful and thanks for sharing your awesome videos with us all the time.
Happy Holidays to you and your entire family brother.
Cheers
Electrical tape wrap on all your tools is good idea. Example, with your screwdriver, start the wrap, about 1 inch from the tip, and wrap towards the handle.Cheaper then insulated tools and just as effective. However, you must maintain the wrap to be effective.
O my God that's huge controller
I used #6 inside and out but only because the fastener was sized for it so I used maximum size for ground. Nice cable should take a lot of amps. Cheers now if it would stop snowing I'd be in business.
Hmmmm I believe Victron recommends just using the bare copper for their MPPT’s, based on what I’ve seen on the Victron community board.
They also recommend a finely stranded copper - typically found in marine applications.
Thank you.
Measured leakage Voltage will be stored in the capacitors of the MPPT until drained over time or resistive small load,
Nice work. Always making things look so easy and simple to do. Keep up the good work.
Trimming that larger cable to fit the smaller ferrule just turned that ferrule into a fuse and a fire hazard. It would have been better to source the proper cable size. And you used the wrong size die on that first ferrule. You can tell by the squished section that it appears you have filed down.
I used a 6 awg for my grounding wire.
whats the diffident between grounding and grounded ?
heya nice instal wel done
Good video the heavier the gauge wire the better when working with DC power.
Another neat wiring 😁😁
Once I figured out how much these solar charge controllers were seeing that you have a 250 volt 100-amp, I can only imagine the price on that
$900 USD
@@DavidPozEnergy well thank you for the feedback, and I look forward to more videos.
6Ga solid just like outside is what I used
It seems to me, if those terminals on most charge controllers are too small to accommodate a huge wire, it may not be necessary to use a wire of that size. I had purchased a 4 AWG wire, thinking bigger was better, and just the fact that shoving it in those terminals was such a bitch, I put back my 10 gauge.
wow!!!!!
I'll be curious how your victron performs. I have the small 30 amp version, it seems to go int and stay in bulk for seemingly no reason sometimes. The BMV 712 is great so far.
That's right, you have 24 volt, right?
Yea, I have a 24v system. Your setup looks really cool so far, especially the batteries.
I use victron 24v in my small 1kw system. Both the inverter and charge controller work very well for me
So nice You should use cables twice as thick - Safety
Thank you. I noticed the charge controller does not have terminals for load. Would the load be connected to a buss ( 2- one for positive, the other for negative) bar along with the battery? I am use to seeing the controller with load terminals Thank you for your help
Yes, you have it correct. Load terminals built into charge controllers are for very light loads (such as one light bulb). Victron skipped these load terminals, but did provide relay terminals. If you want to power large loads (such as an inverter) then you need to connect to the bus bars. Thanks for watching.
Thank you very much
@@DavidPozEnergy how would you keep a battery from running below 50% by connecting direct to battery? Thanks.
@@bmc9504 Victron Battery Protect
the voltage measured when shutting switch off is resudu voltage left in the charger, earthing wire here in europe for auxiliary earthing is 4mm², main earthing water and heating is 6mm², earthing bar in the electricity box need to be 16mm² where all your earthing comes to.
5th time watching this, inspiring lol.
your doing the same setup im doing,,,keep up the good work,,good inspiration for me to keep going on my setup,, :)
Thank you. Omg I have searched everywhere, yours is the closest for help. lol I got a 100/20 using a 10 gauge wire with EC8 plug going into a goal Zero generator..can you maybe tell me what size Ferrule maybe, or a rough estimate? Thanks so much.
Hi bobby brown, Thanks for your question. I've heard good things about Goal Zero generators, but I have never used one so I don't know about hooking up to it. As for the 100/20, I just looked up the data sheet: www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet-SmartSolar-charge-controller-MPPT-75-10,-75-15,-100-15,-100-20,-100-20_48V-EN.pdf
It says the terminals are 6 mm (10 AWG). So I just found a ferrule on Amazon: amzn.to/2XgfiT2 I hope that helps.
Hi buddy
I always follow your inverter review
Can you please inform me : what is the best reliable inverter out there in Market with 220 v from 3000w to 5000w it's for my eggs incubator ?
I had some suggestions ( victron inverter, or solaredge, and hybrid inverter )
I Never buy a inverter yet
Hi Sem Artur, If you are looking for a single phase 220 volt inverter, then I would go Victron. But, if you are talking about a "split-phase" then I would go Schnieder. Thanks for watching.
@@DavidPozEnergy Thank you so much !!!
I'm waiting for the review video of victron multiplus only from you for well understanding
That can't be a 2ga welding wire it's a much thicker, probably 2/0ga
nice overview. music is distracting
Thanks. Last video I got slack for the banjo music so I tried something new this time. I'll keep looking for a better track.
Believe it or not I actually like to hear your thought process... intro and out music is great but personally I like to hear the commentary the rest of the time. Music level can be overbearing. thanks !
I really appreciate the feedback, thanks.
AC/DC all the way! Sorry, electricity joke there.😉
I have a question I can't seem to find the answer to. If I buy me a 12V solar setup of around 1000 watts worth of solar panels, a 3000Watt power inverter and all the other misc cables/components but only 1 lithium battle born @ 100AMP hours would I over charge my battery? would that ruin anything? because my budget doesn't allow me to get all the batteries at once so I plan on buying them slowly I'm hoping to get at least 6 eventually. but could only buy one right now. can someone please advise me?
Hi Lone-soul. Thanks for your question. First, the Battle Born battery has a BMS built into it. (BMS=Battery Management System) This BMS should protect the battery from being over-charged. In addition, you should be using a Charge Controller in between the solar panels and battery. The Charge Controller will do several things, but one of them is prevent over charging. I'm using the Victron Charge controller in this video, but there are several good brands.
The biggest thing I see wrong with your setup is the amps. The Battle Born battery has a maximum current rating of 100 amps. battlebornbatteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/BB10012-Cut-Sheet.pdf If you connect a 3000 watt inverter, it will pull over 250 amps. 2.5 times the rating of a single battery.
To be safe don't connect a 3000 watt 12 volt inverter to any less than 3 Battle Born batteries. Other solutions would be buying a smaller inverter, or running a higher voltage system (24 volts or 48 volts).
@@DavidPozEnergy wow thanks a lot for all the info. I will follow your advice.
David If the fuse trips for the Batt and the solar panels are still plugin to the charge controller will that damage the controller with no Batt going to the controller?
I've asked that very question to Victron and they said it will not damage it so long as the PV is below the voltage of the CC. In my case 250v. I've done this by accident, turned off the battery while there was still sun on the PV. The CC is still working.
my 20/20dingo plasmatonics pwm charge controller 12 24 48 volt it won't work with my single house solar panel 180 watts why???
Hi, should you get a reading from your charge controller once you connect the solar panel, cheers.
I can open the app on my phone to see what is going on with the charge controller. Inside the app I can read the incoming volts and amps, and the outgoing volts/amps. There is also history stored. Thanks for watching.
You're not supposed to connect the solar panels until after you connect the batteries
But I had read somewhere don't put Ferrull's on
The victron manual basically says it's connectors are to work with very fine strands. So using a ferule does the exact opposite i.e. makes the wire for connection as big as can be.
I wrote the following in my comment.
I noticed some advice in the vid that contradicts the safety instructions in the Victron Manual for Smart Solar Chargers.
In short the video says using wires without very fine strands is ok, when the manual says it will eventually result in fire.
The examples in the vid showing thick stranded wire ok to use have matching photo's in the manual which says they should not be used.
What follows is from page 5 of the Victron Manual, note the last sentence.
Use flexible multistranded copper cable for the battery and PV connections.
The maximum diameter of the individual strands is 0,4mm/0,125mm² (0.016 inch/AWG26).
A 25mm² cable, for example, should have at least 196 strands (class 5 or higher stranding according to VDE 0295, IEC 60228 and BS6360).
An AWG2 gauge cable should have at least 259/26 stranding (259 strands of AWG26).
Maximum operating temperature: ≥ 90°C.
...
In case of thicker strands the contact area will be too small and the resulting high contact resistance will cause severe overheating, eventually resulting in fire.
Link
www.victronenergy.com.au/upload/documents/Manual-SmartSolar-charge-controller-MPPT-150-70-to-150-100--250-70-to-250-100-VE.Can-EN-NL-FR-DE-ES-SE-IT.pdf
Cheers Sincerely
David
The victron manual basically says it's connectors are to work with very fine strands. So using a ferule does the exact opposite i.e. makes the wire for connection as big as can be.
I wrote the following in my comment.
I noticed some advice in the vid that contradicts the safety instructions in the Victron Manual for Smart Solar Chargers.
In short the video says using wires without very fine strands is ok, when the manual says it will eventually result in fire.
The examples in the vid showing thick stranded wire ok to use have matching photo's in the manual which says they should not be used.
What follows is from page 5 of the Victron Manual, note the last sentence.
Use flexible multistranded copper cable for the battery and PV connections.
The maximum diameter of the individual strands is 0,4mm/0,125mm² (0.016 inch/AWG26).
A 25mm² cable, for example, should have at least 196 strands (class 5 or higher stranding according to VDE 0295, IEC 60228 and BS6360).
An AWG2 gauge cable should have at least 259/26 stranding (259 strands of AWG26).
Maximum operating temperature: ≥ 90°C.
...
In case of thicker strands the contact area will be too small and the resulting high contact resistance will cause severe overheating, eventually resulting in fire.
Link
www.victronenergy.com.au/upload/documents/Manual-SmartSolar-charge-controller-MPPT-150-70-to-150-100--250-70-to-250-100-VE.Can-EN-NL-FR-DE-ES-SE-IT.pdf
Cheers Sincerely
David
Hi David, I have a Growatt 3000k inverter and I have max out it's internal MPPT. it is not capable to fully charge the batteries in one day because if the bank size. Is it possible to connect a secondary MPPT(solar array) to the battery system without damaging the Growatt Internals?
Yes. You can have multiple charging sources feeding into one battery bank. Your Growatt inverter won't know the SOC (state of charge) so ignore that on the display. But it will still function the same based on voltage. I'm testing this right now and it's working fine.
@@DavidPozEnergy Great! thank you so much for your quick response. Love your videos.
Hi David Poz thanks for your Videos I would like to ask you a question if I'm to do earthing of my solar batteries and also earth my pannels can I use the same earthing system or I do different systems for each thank you Eng. Isaac Uganda
I'm sorry, but I don't know. I followed a wiring diagram from Midnite Solar. www.midnitesolar.com/
So after reading the manual on the victron charge controllers I realized that if you accidentally wire the battery cables with the polarity in the wrong direction youll blow a non serviceable fuse and you need to send the unit back for repair... anyone know the cost of the repair... I can only imagine the unit must be replaced after seeing another TH-camr having to cut one apart to access the fuse... ouch
Obviously 10 gage will work Better
Hi I have a question all solar panel is 12 volts
Nope. Solar panels can come in lots of different voltages. The panels I'm using are 38 volts each, and I series connect 4 of them to make 152 volts.
You mixing aluminum with copper?? Some one just told me that mixing those metals on connection make one of them going into dust in like a year time. I don’t know much about this stuff though.
Interesting. My system has been up about a year and my connections are still tight. I check them regularly. Thanks for watching.
I think the ferrules are tinned copper
Nice work.
I was under the impression that when you trim the wire like you did @ 6:09 it reduces the current carrying capability of the wire. Although based on your typical approach to these projects I am guessing you are using larger wires than you actually need so it will probably not be an issue for you.
Did you add heat shrink where the ferrule meets the wire jacket? Or did you omit it because it would be unnecessary in this type of application (indoor & no vibrations)?
Btw this video on crimping may interest you (particularly the visuals of good vs bad crimps)
th-cam.com/video/3qYZFxQ8Pxw/w-d-xo.html
To be clear your crimp looked good, I just thought you might find the video interesting.
Thanks. Yes, you made some correct assumptions. I was using some old wires that I had. The first one I showed (negative) fit real well and I did not have to trim. It had 2 AWG (American Wire Gauge) printed on the insulation. The second wire I made was from a different old cable.
It had no printing on the insulation as to the gauge, but was clearly larger. I'm using a 125 amp circuit breaker, and 2 gauge is the right size for 125 amps. The terminal ends I was crimping are all listed at 2 gauge. I think it is a safe way to do this when you are not reducing the wire diameter smaller than the circuit breaker size. Although I'm not an electrician so I could be wrong.
need a 6aug solid or 4 thhn
Not the propper tool for This crimping
True. I believe it should be a square crimper. That maximizes the surface area as the terminals close on it. They won't come off with the one he used, but the surface area in contact with the terminal may not be adequate.
I use 12kg but 10kg its alright
what size breaker are you using ?
From the charge controller to the battery, I'm using a 125A circuit breaker.
@@DavidPozEnergy which would you recommend ? i dont want to go cheap and cause problems nor go to expensive , new at this and on a budget
Start with the charge controller you are using. In my case, I'm using the Victron 250/100. This model can output 100 Amps continuous to the battery. Charge controllers can range from 5A to 100A generally speaking. I don't know what size charge controller you are wiring up. You need to look up the specifications on your maximum current (Amps).
Once you know the maximum current you add 20% as required by NEC (National Electric Code). In my case, I take the 100A*1.2=120A. However, circuit breakers are not sold at 120A, the next closest size is 125A. So, I bought a 125 Amp circuit breaker. I used a "Midnite Solar" brand made for DC (direct current).
Once you know the breaker size (125A in my case) then you look up the Ampacity Chart in the NEC: codes.iccsafe.org/s/ISEP2021P1/national-electrical-code-nec-solar-provisions/ISEP2021P1-NEC-Sec310.16 in order to size your conductor (wire).
I'm using copper wire. The circuit breaker I'm using is rated for 75°C (written on the breaker). I look up the chart for a conductor that can handle 125A and I see that my minimum size is 1 gauge. I used 1/0 in the video which is a little larger. It's OK to go larger for the wire size, but not smaller.
I just described the process. You must do this same process for your situation.
thank you @@DavidPozEnergy
little confusing ,but think im understanding , thanks for your help @@DavidPozEnergy
man you are talking to much maybe or mit
I didn't see you connect to a battery, title is click bait
At 4:32 I attach the negative. Later I connect the positive to the breaker.