JerryCan wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 5:53 pm

beaker wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 4:20 pmbattery of choice is the Lifepo4 chemistry...

But expensive! I'm running 4 flooded lead acid batteries that total 1/15th the cost of that for the capacity I have. I know cycle life is supposedly much lower, but it's not worth the 2 grand and extra charging precautions for Lipos. I'm also still on the same batteries since last year and capacity is still roughly 90%.

Lead acid batteries are not good for solar systems they take much longer to charge, can not take full advatage of avaliable charging wattage, if they get drawn down too far the are trashed even if they are brand new. Better batteries would be gel cells if you don't want to pay for the best you can dump alot more charging power than lead acid and they will come back if deep discharged.
Lead acid batteries will explode.Hydrogen is not toxic, but at high concentrations is a highly explosive gas. The 100% LEL concentration for hydrogen is 4.0% by volume. At this concentration, all it takes is a source of ignition to cause an explosion.

JerryCan wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 7:32 pm All true, but there isn't a hell of a lot of options here. It was either car starter lead acid batteries or deep cycle lead acid marine batteries. Everything else was 10 or 20 times more expensive and needed to come from some far away place, so I went with the deep cycles. Actually I had to order those from Vietnam, so they weren't even available locally.

There are groups who have instructions and information on building 'power walls' something like the Tesla type used for their storage. They use small batteries salvaged from laptop batteries or other sources some are very reasonable price wise though they do take more work to construct but supplies are much easier to get and ship. Here is one of the group ---> https://www.facebook.com/groups/jehusDiYPowerwalls/

Duncan wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 8:05 pm What do those phone towers use for power storage when the main supply goes off ?

Here they use generators, but I've seen some equipped with Solar panels as well. Not sure how long the batteries will last in that case.

Chamboy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:03 pm

Kammekor wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:52 am

Chamboy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:36 am "Yeah, that's a big problem here too. Maybe have one drilled....."

I don't see lowering the water table as a socially acceptable solution.

In that case, fill up the well with soil....

Call off the backhoe and the shovel brigade. Just had a heavy downpour for about thirty minutes. Short duration I know, but I'll take what the aquagods see fit to piss down.

Lucky man.... Nothing here, and the air looks like it comes straight from Beijing.