Thoughts on the ecoflow? I was thinking of getting the ecoflow delta pro with a 400w array.
My use case:
I have a small detached garage with good sun. My main house has power, but I am currently doing a massive renovation (its a traditional 200 year old house). The power to the main house is temporary and we are putting in water, redoing all the walls, etc. We plan to live in the detached garage while renovating the main house. When the main house is finished, the detached garage will be used as a remote work office.
The garage does not have power or any wiring, I was thinking instead of bothering with hooking it up to the main house, I would put in solar. That way:
1. We don't have to wait for the power company or electrician to hook anything and can move in immediately
2. Can avoid having to learn and deal with all the intricacies of a solar system.
This is double edged, I want to learn solar systems, but just don't necessarily have the time to dedicate to it with my main house renovation. Ecoflow cuts all that out for better or worse
3. Future office is now backed up and and has its own dedicated power, dont have to worry about outages.
Heating is all wood, so its basically only going to power some lights, computer, a few other smaller things.
So thoughts on the ecoflow system with solar as a main source for a detached garage? I have no plans to hook it up to the main house, and it gives me peace of mind having a power backup if I need it. Should I just suck it up and learn solar, its cheaper and easier to fix etc. Im pretty torn, costco has a cheap ecoflow package going this month and It would be nice having power set up at the garage literally next week.
4000 bucks for something you could build for 750 and an afternoon worth of fab and learning. Solar isn't a mystery, especially not small systems like this.
They have a package deal going on in my country where the delta pro is about 2000 usd. for 360kwh of battery and all in one inverter controller ease of use, its competitively priced. The only expensive thing is panels, and I can run third party panels. Batteries are expensive as frick here. I would have agreed with you until I looked up battery prices here (japan).
3,600wh*
you can build the same for about $1300
Rather than spend $1000 on an ecoflow with only 1kw of capacity, you could buy raw lifepo4 eve cells on alibaba and build a battery for vastly superior performance (at the cost of convience)convince.
Shipping will take 6-8 months, but it would only cost around $600 for the cells to build a 12v 280ah battery with 1c charge/discharge rate. That's a 3.3kw capacity. Then you would just need an small inverter, BMS, some cable/connectors, and an mppt for your solar panels. It will take some research and time to build, but it gives your system way more capacity and repairability. At full charge you could run an air conditioner for you garage constantly for 6 1/2+ hours .
Just don't expect to have a convient plug-and-play suitcase power station.
I recommend checking out Will's mobile-solarpower.com where he provides diagrams and part breakdowns/recommendations.
Oh I just realized youre prioritizing speed of install, oops lmao. Your only option then is really a pre-built unit like an ecoflow or jacket then. The only alternative I can think of beyond that is a small inverter generator. Not sure if the cost in fuel would outpace the cost of the ecoflow+solar though.
Or you could use an ecoflow charged with an inverter generator. Might provide more reliable power over solar since a cloudy day could kill your power. 1kw will only last a day if you're just using a laptop and maybe a few power-efficient led lights.
hmm, I am starting to lean towards just rigging a system. Better to have the knowhow and ease of fix. I can run an extension cord from the main house for the time being.
Any cheap LFP battery recommendations? I think that is the biggest cost.
Don't go cheap unless you want to do it twice. There are way too many batteries on Aliexpress and they take a long time to arrive.
Look at battery hookup (batteryhookup.com) and battery university for a good basic education on batteries.
Will Prowse is very good (but a bit annoying in my opinion). I also like Pete @ HBPowerwall but he has not posted much recently.
Another really good resource is Second Life Storage (https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php) you can ask questions and there are a lot of people who are doing similar projects who are glad to help out.
Thanks for the suggestions anons
>don't go cheap
That makes the LPO battery and package pricing on ecoflow start to look attractive...
Any thoughts on renogy? They have a big presence here.
Renogy is good. "Redodo" is also good. That's a stupid name but it's used by a lot of people
I'm the one who posted that comment. See pic for my order details. I purchased from Shenzhen Luyuan Technology Co., Ltd based on a lot of recommendations on solar forums and spoke to Wan Amy who came recommended for being very helpful and friendly. Do not shop on aliexpress imo, alibaba is much more b2b and has fewer blatant knockoffs and better customer support.
My payment went through on 06 December 2021, the order was shipped 15 Jan 2022, and the shipment arrived 11 March 2022. Using the standard freight shipment they offered. Cells arrived flawless with a full inch of foam on all sides, two to a box. They were also tested and matched pre-shipment and came with a printout for all the readings which seemed accurate on my follow up test.
I recall while researching that non-Eve cells are a toss up in quality and you also want to try for the 3.2v 280ah model if possible since the higher and lower amp capacity models aren't as common, thus haven't had the kinks worked out as well and have a higher chance of being faulty. And you don't want to have to return any cells to China lol. If one of your cells does not perform as advertised or is damaged they will likely comp you a portion of your payed price, but I'm not sure how much since I didn't have to deal with that. I actually bought 4 extra cells just in case that I'll now likely try to resell since they arrived flawless.
Cont
There are other brands but Eve is generally highly recommended since I believe they come straight from an EV manufacturing plant and aren't some bootleg shit. Ngl you will be taking a risk from ordering from China, international shipping is always sketchy but you could potentially save big bucks. These same cells are sold from United States vendors as well, but they have a significant "convience fee" markup for being based much more locally, but this may not be that big of a deal if you want a small pack. Also look into pre-built 12v batteries like battleborns Noland rack mount batteries. Both deliver less wattage per $, but eliminate a lot of hassle, nit sure how they stack up against an ecoflow type.
Seriously look at mobile-solarpower.com, Will has been doing this for ages and has lots of guides and YouTube vids giving you build pros/cons and updates on new technologies in solar.
I am a bit sketched about ordering from china because they are weighing cutting off their solar tech for export as retaliatory tariffs. That could really frick me if it happens after payment before shipping etc during that long window.
Dealing with Chinese sellers brings in several issues, but what you're talking about seems like a non-issue.
When you're seeing long shipping times of several months from most resellers, it's mostly transit time. Most decent sellers ship the product fairly quickly if its not an unusual preorder or something.
Get some quotes on what you're looking for from chinese sellers and US resellers, and you'll probably find about ~20% cost savings by ordering from china. That savings is a lot more relevant on a large order compared to just getting a few cells to make a single smallish battery.
Well find out about the export ban this week actually.
>Any cheap LFP battery recommendations?
If you want a prebuilt, go with EG4. They're $1500 for a 5kWh in either 12v, 24v, or 48v.
If you want to diy, try Docan Power out of Houston TX. Four 280Ah cells to make a 12v, 280Ah battery (~3.4kWh) will cost you just under $600. You'll also need a BMS (~40-100$) and some odds and ends like a fuseholder, maybe some wiring and terminals, etc. So probably all in at around $750.
If you don't want to use Docan, then at least do yourself a favor and consider using a USA based reseller instead of ordering from China. If the deal goes bad, it's trivially easy to use Paypal or credit card buyer protection with a USA seller, but it's a fricking mess when you're dealing with the Chinese.
That said, you can get cheaper prices by carefully selecting a chinese merchant and getting lucky on receiving an undamaged shipment.
Is there a tl;dr on trusted sellers or how to not get scammerinoed.
>picrel, cheapest seller with high rating on the site
I want to replace my lead acid rv battery with 2p4s of lifepo4 cells.
Will probably do two individual BMSs for each bank and then parallel them.
About a 3kW inverter so it doesn't pop a breaker if someone decides to microwave in the same time AC is running.
>Is there a tl;dr on trusted sellers or how to not get scammerinoed.
Basically, the tl;dr is to use sellers that you believe other people have already had good experiences with. Shenzen Luyuan and Docan are both good. You can also find some decent recommendations on diy solar forums.
If you want to do this on your own, Here's some non tl;dr tips
- Do NOT use a seller who won't offer USA-centric payment methods that give you buyer protection (like Paypal, Credit Card, etc)
- Do NOT believe anything about reviews on aliexpress. It is trivial for them to create fake shops with fake transaction histories and fake reviews
- DO NOT invest any faith whatsoever in Aliexpress buyer protection. They will rape you with their tiny asian dicks.
- Always contact the seller with a quote request and ditch them if they can't communicate effectively enough with you
- Always be certain to ask all the relevant questions before ordering. If you don't know your exact needs, then you're probably in over your head with this process.
- Always insist on prices "DDP" or delivered-duties-paid. Google it.
- Be aware of language translation oddities such as the word "new" being able to mean either 'unused' or 'recently manufactured'
- Make sure to get in writing exactly how and when they will compensate you in case you receive bad merchandise or the shipment gets lost/damaged/misrepresented.
- Be aware of common issues such as bloated cells, used cells, bogus/missing QR codes, and model discrepancies. Be aware of how these issues effect your use case and how you will handle them with the seller
- Be aware of the time limits and procedures with your payment processors if you are forced to dispute a claim.
Good info fren, thanks.
Funny enough I got rejected by ali buyer protection today on a clearly broken coffee maker. No evidence they said. CC charge back it is.
There is a yt channel diy solar with prowse. This guy shows how to build something much better at a fraction of the cost.
typo
*Battleborns OR rack mount batteries
Btw I ordered mine from overseas since I was buying $3500 in batteries and had plenty of time to spare. Def not ideal for everyone and I think Will makes some good arguments for the pre-built batteries since they have good warranties and you don't have to deal with a BMS in most cases.
Got a question for you battery people. Was looking at a eco flow 1800 so I could run a 15a table saw, corded circular saw and/or a pancake compressor on jobs without electricity. It would only be one tool at a time. Has 3000 surge watts, I think that's enough. Plus I wouldn't mind it for those power outages that last a couple hours without getting my loud/bigger gas generator.
That will be fine. It's only going to be about 45m of continuous usage
Good rule of thumb on these things is 2x the rated A on startup and half on idle.
Depends on how much you use it anon. That battery won't last you long. Batteries have frick-all capacity still, unless you get something massive.