Greetings from London, UK

[DarkRaven]

I see. Small wonder that this causes confusion.

It is up to us to be clear what we are talking about.

It is indeed, that is why you would ideally have a standard that everybody uses. That doesn't seem to be the case here. I thought about it for a moment now and I think I will not use these terms anymore unless the wording was made clear in advance in this given situation. In all other cases I will rather describe the feature set of the inverter.

 

[daromer]

Yeah thats most likely the best case because it seem to vary a bit where you live kind of. And especially now when there is new systems comming that mix it even more.

 

[tocan]

No m8.

Grid-tied = can send and take from grid.
Off-grid cannot send back to grid but they can switch the load to grid use.

Off-grid does not need grid to function meanwhile grid-tied need grid-connection to work. thats the reason behind the name

Note that this is the most common synonym for it meanwhile there have started to pop up versions that are in middle and all.

Hybrid is a grid-tied version but with battery bank and can work without grid

I was also confused about this.... so i bought a grit tie inverter... but hope i can connect also a battery at a latter point with it... but with limiter because i wish to be secured that i give nothing inside to the grit to generate energy, because this means a lot of paperwork..

my pln at home for the future is something like this ... as far i do not know for the moment what exactely is the right contactor??? and how to wire it up with the epever tracer... one part to batery ok but where to the regulator... shematics is not clear and how this works also not...

 

[daromer]

That is the GTIL series as it looks. A grid-tie inverter if you ask me in sense that it need grid to produce AC and send to it The source is some kind of DC and in this case the battery. For a contactor you have many choices. https://goo.gl/oLsgQx (Ebay)


For further discussions regarding above lets add this to a new thread if so. So we dont OT the current thread any more.

 

[Sonic01]

well... this thread exploded a bit while I was away, glad to see my confusion was justified.

seems we didn't come to a conclusion as to the correct terminology so for this instance I'm going to stick with what both daromer and MPP refer to as an off-grid inverter.

I have just finished reading through the whole manual for the PIP-2424MSE and it does exactly what I had in mind:

1. It can act in bypass mode and allows AC current to pass straight through it (this is the AC input i was referring to)
2. It has an option to charge the batteries ONLY via solar
3. when batteries are depleted, it switches to the AC input, when batteries are charged it switches back

I've also learnt the solar panel configuration I should look to use as well.

For cell balancing I've seen there are some basic 1S chain-able "dumb" balancers, so I'll probably look to use these as I don't need something complex and expensive - unless anyone has some specific recommendations.

So, I know my cell/battery configuration, I know my inverter, I know my panels, I know my balancers, and lastly how to wire and configure the lot.

I feel like I have a complete plan now, can anyone tell me if I've missed anything?

For now I've just got to keep working on my batteries, breaking them all down, cleaning and testing etc. Assuming that all goes ok I'll be able to continue with my plan, now that I've got it all fully mapped out