DIY Solar Grid Tie-Off grid Hybrid

 This is my Solar Grid Tie and Off Grid Hybrid solar power system using 2 system with relays to automatically switch from grid tie to off grid system. This is a low cost system since most hybrid system is really expensive, the inverter alone costs as my whole system expense. The system works as Grid Tie primarily, Solar power is pumped to the Grid Tie inverter and the grid tie convert it to AC power and injects it in your utility outlet, reducing your electricity bill, unfortunately during power outage, the Grid Tie stops and your solar power would be idle, this is due to anti-islanding protection of the grid tie inverter to prevent utility personnel fixing something near your area and getting electrocuted. So during a power outage, my system will automatically switch to the Off Grid system to power your needs and back when power normalizes. Now what is my needs, basically its just internet routers/switches, DC fan, emergency lights, USB chargers, things that could still make me comfortable during power outages, these needs is connected to an exclusive 12v utility line. Some solar hybrid is connected to your AC utility line and can power your utility line during outages, like ref and tv and everything, but that system is very very expensive and not really necessary as power outages happens rarely and just be done in a few hours. My system has a separate 12v DC line to power only crucial 12v devices. It uses components similar to Car/RV with lighter plugs so it would be easier to use car accessories with it. 

Why don't I just use an Off Grid system? well for me Off Grid is not economical if there is an accessible utility power available, its only good in the provinces with hard to no accessible electric utility provider or if it's just your Hobby. If not then its not economical. The reason is the battery technology. Battery is expensive, yes there are cheaper ones like lead acid batteries but those things would just die out after 2-3 years, leaving you in the dark while waiting for replacement, the more reliable/durable battery you buy, the more expensive it is. Your savings in Off Grid free energy would end up buying for battery replacements every couple of year or so, your panels, inverters, controllers would last years and years but not the batteries. Another downside of an off grid system is its hard to efficiently use it. Either the weather is good and the solar controller is cutting off too much power on the solar panel, or the weather is bad that it will lack power to fully charge your batteries. Unlike the Grid Tie system which just pump solar power to your Grid(reduce electric bill) what ever it can give and does not rely on problematic batteries that will leave you in the dark if one day it dies out and it will.

In an off grid system, you will use larger batteries that can supply your Needs in a day for about 12 to 14 hours supply daily, charge it and discharge it cycle everyday thus its life is reduced compared to standby batteries. On my system, you use half of the battery capacity as its only on standby and will only be used during power outages probably 6 to 8 hours usage and happens rarely. The problem with standby batteries is sometimes it gets neglected for months self discharged and dies out if it stays like that for long uncharged, that is why I place a battery voltage monitor to solve that. One of my panel is wired separately with a relay and voltage monitor cut-off, so if the battery voltage an example went too low like 12.3v that's like 70% capacity, the voltage monitor will cut off signal to one of the relay and one of the solar panels would switch automatically to the solar controller, charging the battery until a certain point, maybe set to 14.4v at full state, if the battery voltage monitor detected that, it would signal the relay and the panel connection goes back to the grid tie inverter. The voltage cut off can be set on specific voltage of your choice, you don't want to end up with an under charged battery like 50% when you need it most on a power outage.

This is the diagram of my solar hybrid system.

I have separate wires for every solar panel rather than use a combiner, I did that for experimental purposes, so I can do/change stuff without going into the roof, you don't need to do this but a least for one of the panel for charging battery backup.

 

I used a 12volts Grid Tie inverter to match my 12v solar controller/12v battery/utility line so it won't have problems interchanging by the relay due to mismatch voltage. If you have an MPPT solar controller that is capable of 24volts solar voltage and 12v battery, then having a 24v version of the grid tie inverter is better for efficiency, also configure your solar panel into a 24v system. I prefer the 24v version than the 12v in the solar voltage side. But when it comes to battery and utility line, I prefer to stick with the lower 12v, as most common devices are on 12v and its safer, you might also need a step-down buck module to reduce a 24v to 12v every time if you use a 24v utility system. Using 12v as default utility voltage may suffer from voltage loss compared to 24v. Voltage loss is when you run a long wire from the solar controller then to your room, the longer the wire is, the higher it suffers from voltage drop, like your solar controller would be like at 12.5volts, but when it reaches your room, it would be like 11.9volts. To fix this is to use thicker gauge wires, the farther your room is, the thicker gauge wire you use to reduce voltage drop, this would add expense of course, but for me its still cheaper and safer to get the thicker wires than put a step-down 24v to 12v buck converter on every end outlet, maintenance wise and safety, the wires are passive and will last for a long time than a step-down module and would consume a little watts on its circuit and led indicator whether you use it or not.

This is the battery voltage cut off monitor, it makes sure your battery backup won't be undercharged for long periods of time. You can specify the ranges of voltage for connect and disconnect, it cuts connection to the relay thus one of the solar panel connects to the solar controller and charge it, then reconnect when the battery is full, the solar panel switch back to the grid tie system after that.

This is what my Relay/Transfer switch looks like, I use an 8-pin relay so both system's positive/negative line is isolated. Its a 12v DC version. This is what controls the solar panels connection from switching going to the grid tie inverter or to the solar controller. 12v DC version is just the coil trigger, there are other variants like 24v or AC version, but I use the 12v DC version because I connected the coil to the 12v power supply. The coil is the one that automatically switch the connection, you power the coil, it connects to Line2(called NO or normally open), you remove the power of the coil, the line goes back to Line1(called NC or normally closed). So in Line2 where there is power to the coil, the solar panel is connected to the grid tie inverter, when there is power outage, the 12v power supply wont supply power to the relay coil, so the relay will switch back to Line1 where it is connected to the solar controller thus switching your system into Off grid. Typically, you use 3 relay. One for your main Solar panels 30amps, another for battery monitor charging 10amps and the last is for Load Output 20amps, the one that goes to the 12v Utility Line. Its better to use Larger Ampere rated capacity than the one you uses, like example, my 100watts solar for the battery monitor is about 5.5amps, I used a relay with 10amp capacity, this is to make sure ampere current won't bottleneck in the relay, it seems the relay wire inside it thin and maybe substandard as these are cheap relay so getting a larger ampere capacity is on the safe side, you don't want your relay to act as a fuse. It depends on your requirements on what amps you are going to use.

This is my 12v 30amp power supply, during normal days, this is the one that powers my 12v Utility Line, also this is where the relay's coil are connected. Despite my 12v Utility line is only rated at 10amps, I got a 30amps power supply to be on the safe side and room for an upgrade, I maybe planning to increase my 12v utility line into a 20amp after i replace my solar controller. Its a CCTV power supply, but as long as your usage on ampere capacity fits it, it will be ok, CCTV power supply is designed to run 24/7, with fan that automatically activates if it runs too hot. It also has a voltage adjust knob, so you can increase the voltage a little to help with the voltage loss. The power supply gets power in the grid. But it feeds on in the grid tie first during the day. When power outage occurs, everything switch to offgrid, your solar controller powering your exclusive 12v utility line and not the power supply. If you feel you want to go off grid, you can easily unplug the power supply and your system will go offgrid, of course you will need a larger battery for your needs.

This is a larger 8pin relay for the Load output, this is connected to the exclusive 12v utility line. This relay will select which is the source of power of the 12v utility line, normally the source of power is the 12v powersupply, but in an event of power outage, the coil which is also connected to the power supply loses power, thus switching it solar controller. The solar controller will now the source of power for the 12v utility line, turning your system into an off grid solar power system. Your 12v utility line will now be reliant on battery and solar power during those event. I get a higher 30A relay to be more robust, the relay also heats up, unbearable to the touch, good thing it has a metal back plate, I could attach a heatsink behind it to reduce heat. You can get heat sink in busted motherboards, videocards and power supply. Here is a video to understand how 8pin Relay works.

This is my exclusive 12v Utility Line. I use lighter plug similar to what you would see on cars. These are easier to use, safer(fused) and compatible with car accessories you can buy. Very handy for plugging DC fan, emergency lights, USB chargers. It is also more efficient to use DC devices than doing an AC to DC conversion with inverters.

Just some switches, this manually cut off connections for the relay coil, so conviniently manually you can connect the solar panel to the controller if you plan to charge something like a car battery and you need the solar panel's power to the solar controller without removing screws and wirings.

My Grid Tie inverter and 12v Power supply share an outlet before passing into this sub-meter, and is then connected to the Grid outlet. Just to monitor how many watts the Grid Tie inverter is feeding the 12v power supply and the rest giving back to the Grid outlet.

Samsung A40 replacing my A5 2017

Just bought myself the Samsung A40 for my daily use to replace my older A5 2017 model as its becoming sluggish and blurry camera shot. Like my A5, the A50 I bought it on online sellers and may have originated from other countries, it seems this kind of mid range spec phone with the size of 5.75inches height or smaller is not available in Philippine market. They were selling oversize phone that is hard to use with one hand or keep on falling if you put it in your pocket like I always do. They release A20, 30, 50, 60, 70, 80, but no A40.

Spec wise, the speed is almost the same, but with the A40 having more ram memory of 4GB instead of 3GB with the A5. Almost same size and dimension but the A40 is a little bit lighter because it uses plastic material on its side and back instead of aluminum side and glass back panel with the A5. The aluminum and glass material in the A5 is good to touch but i rarely appreciate it as I always use protective casing covering it up, I much appreciate the lighter weight of the A40. A40 Camera is expected to be better with higher pixel rate, it has dual lens regular and wide lens which is better than using software capability on a single lens. Its fingerprint reader is placed at the back and is responsive than those of the A5. A5 is waterproof though but that looses its capabilities as its gets older due to wear anyway. One thing that bugs me ever since I used Samsung S5 then A5 now A40 is that annoying major updates, yes it gives you more feature but it will slow down your phone, thus I switch to A40 from A5 in the first place. When I was using my A5 it was good, but after it recieved a major update, it became sluggish because of additional features they put on, like my sms messenger was snappy and simple, but after an update it has some search feature where you can search word by word on the entire inbox and has http link capababilities, this feature has slowed down my sms app even on opening it, and there is no settings to turn it off, also being updated, you would be unable to easily root it and remove some bloatware or custom rom like I did with my S5 very long ago. I decided not to make any major update on my A40 to maintain that smooth and fast operation at least till I replace it after a few years when the battery starts to wear even though its bugging me in the notification.

UPDATE Nov 12 2020: In the end I succumb to updating my phone into major android 10 update, aside from the update notification keeps bugging me that you can't remove, the always on charging percentage where you could see a battery bar percentage while charging got me to update finally, and after months of use, as expected regretted it. Battery drains faster, one reason maybe due to even you turn off secondary sim like I always do because I just use it for mobile internet when outside the house, I notice its not totally off and you still keep recieving sms messages. But one of the major annoyance is its camera, it was very good and snappy back then, now its slow and blur a lot, focus is abnormally inconsistent, it focus and blur and focus again, It's laggy when going to camera coming from a lock sleep state, the moment you really need to capture something is over before it snap to camera mode, really annoying, and pressing the shot button took time before it actually gets captured, everything is over before you get the picture, which do not suffer before the update. As expected I totally regretted updating and now starting to think and consider changing phone probably next year even though I just recently bought it before the pandemic and lockdown starts, but Im going for a Nokia this time due to this annoying force updates. The only thing that is stopping me from going away with a samsung phone is the AMOLED screen which I really liked. I really hate this major updates and keeps forcing you to do so by bugging you with notification now and then, why break a perfectly working phone, of course, when you want to try out something new and got bored of your phone and update it.

Yoosee IP Camera Compact models

These are compact models of ip camera, it uses yoosee software, the larger one has rj45 slot and is powered by 12volts adapter, while the smaller one is powered by 5volts micro usb port and only has wifi connection. Even though they look different it seems they have the same system and software, it has good night light, good speaker and mic which you can hear people talking near it, but thats about it, these model seems no longer updated as it does not have defense feature via software like other camera model have after some firmware update. It uses fish eye view lens, which is good for seeing larger areas but lack clarity and depth such as seeing face clearly or vehicles plate number.

Pretty unstable, one day you cant access it and needs to be restarted, bad enough if your camera is placed far from home, recording sometimes stops, you would be annoyed as why it was not recording, what if it did not record important events that suppose to be one of the purpose of this camera, you have to format the sd card before it can record again, bad bug and seems the camera is in a dead end as it no longer recieves update, the wifi connection is unstable too, good thing the larger one has manual rj45 slot which i just resorted to use it than use the unreliable wifi connection, unfortunately the smaller one does not have rj45 slot so you are stuck with it. It also suffer video distortion, sometimes it becomes green screen for a moment or jibberish. I love the yoosee ip cameras but not these models, you should avoid them.

PLDT Home Wifi vs. GLOBE at Home Wifi

After my PLDT home wifi had some (no sim)signal issue after a few months, its for warranty service and will be out for sometime so I decided to get a Globe at home wifi(B310A) to check if its better. Both uses 3G/4G mobile signal for its connection, you cant compare the signal as it is location based, signal strength will depend on where you live, so we will skip that one.

ROUTER:

The PLDT router can be mounted on a wall and is smaller compared to the Globe router other than that I dont see anymore advantages, both has a LAN port, The Globe one has 2 external antenna socket hidden on its back, but i doubt if it is working as this is a budget router, i tried buying an antenna for this router but according to most online store and comentaries this B310A model they used don't work unlike its full featured brother model B315 with 4 LAN port and USB works according to sellers. Both router does not have a battery but is powered by a 12volts 1ampere power supply adapter and the Globe router consumes a measly 3watts compared to the other running on 5watts, its not meant to be carried around but it is to be plugged inside the house 24/7. Like typical routers, both automatically turns on if you plug the power adapter, this is good after a power outages or flactuation happens, you dont need to manually turn it on like those mobile wifi gadgets. Both are in 1,999 pesos price range

One big advantage of the Globe router is its almost a full featured router with customizable DHCP server that seems to be absent in the PLDT router which is mostly just an access point and provide internet to connected devices, connected devices seems isolated and can't see each other inside the network, I used my PLDT router for my IP cameras, IPcamera are connected to the router so I can access the camera remotely away from home or even locally, and it seems impossible to connect a wifi only connection IPcamera on it as my smartphone can't seem to see the camera or even access it via locally, it need to have internet connection for me to access the camera despite Im already within local network that supposedly my smartphone just access my IPcameras locally and does not need to go out in the internet, this maybe intended so you wont end up using it a a full blown router plugging a switch and several PC on it
Unlike the Globe router which seems to not have those issue, once connected to the router, I can access the IPcamera within the network, it is evident due to fast speed streaming as compared to remote connection via internet, its single LAN port also inscribe as LAN/WAN which means you can use it as a full blown router


The PLDT router also has a very slow bootup and it has a bad issue of its mobile connection freezing up randomly after a few days it is left running 24/7, you have to manually reset or turn off/on the router so it will reconnect again properly, it will not connect again on its own if you left it like that, this is also experienced by other user on other blog commentaries, it could be fixed by a firmware update, but as of this writing there no solution to that bug.

PROMO:

The PLDT router has better promo, aside from PLDT's owns promo of large MBs data cap it offers, you can also use a wide range of SMART promo along in it, you can basically have 30days internet for as low as 300pesos, unlike the Globe router after some latest update upon this writing, a lot complained since they change some promos validity duration, like a 500 peso promo which is for 30days was limited to now just 15 days validity, and you need to spend 1,000 peso minimum to have a 30days internet.

If you ask my opinion which is better, well, I prefer the Globe router hardware only, while I like the PLDT/SMART network along its promo. You could buy brand new openline router model similar to the Globe one(Huawei B310/B315) and plug a SMART sim on it but it cost about 4,000 pesos (prices varies) in the market. Do remember though that PLDT/SMART sim that comes along with it on these home wifi cannot be bought anywhere, it comes with the modem, so goodluck if your sim died out, yes you can replace it with ordinary SMART sim and would work but you cannot avail exclusive large MBs the built-in sim offers, like the famload promo.

After a year of using it, its actually expensive to use one especially if you are a mid range data user like spending 1,000 pesos a month, better yet just get an internet line provider and enjoy unlimited internet than a measly data MBs you could get with these modems, my relatives just got themselves a line like Converge with cost them 1,000 pesos a month, and they can use it unlimited and no data capping. If you live somewhere in the province and there is no line available I guess you have no choice but to use one of these, its also good backup when your internet line provider is broken down and you needed internet for your computer as just using a lan cable for connectivity would suffice. Its decent enough to play pc online games with it, online gaming does not eat up too much MBs anyway not unless its asking for a major update. And you can place it in a good signal spot for your devices so you dont need to go outside or by the window to play mobile games and mobile data eats up a lot of battery especially indoors, imagine your smartphone talking to a cell site outside and kilometers far away, and your home wifi modem is doing that for you.

DC Uninterrupted Power Supply XH-M232

This is the XH-M232, a 12volts DC Uninterrupted Power Supply(UPS), i've been looking for this kind of device to power my router, so it will still supply internet during black outs, unfortunately this is the only or few model that does direct DC power supply available in the market, yes you can use the typical UPS for computers but its inefficient as it goes into AC DC AC DC conversion just to power your DC routers which mostly run on 12v, and its an expensive option too aside from the limited size the battery storage you can use. The XH-M232 gives you the choice on what powersupply to use or size of the battery that suits your needs, I used mine on my router which is about 12v 2amps real world data, used its supplied powesupply rated at 12v 3amp, a battery of 12v 10ah. The idea is the router will use battery power during power failure, and the powersupply charging the battery and powering the router. During a power failure, the router draw power from the battery and once power is restored, powersupply will power the router and automatically charge the battery until its full.

The downside of this device is its slow to switch from powersupply to battery vice versa as my router gets restarted during the process, thus its more proper to call it a automatic transfer switch, or battery backup power than the term "Uninterrupted" power supply, still its better to have working router during blackouts than nothing at all, though it could work with no problem with devices that do not restart like an aerator for an aquarium, lights or fans.

Low-cost Volt Amp Meter

under const

Generic low-cost Solar Controller

This is the SEMPER generic blue PWM Solar Controller kw1210 10ampere, one of the cheapest solar controller you can get, it pretty much looks like other solar controller out there, except this has a flimsy button and plastic body/panel and there is no heat sink in the back unlike others, just a metal back plate that gets really hot during its peak voltage.

I just stick an old heat sink in the back and heat dissipates properly, I used to remove and keep heat sinks and fan of defective video card and motherboard before I dispose them for this purposes.

It's surprising its circuit is simple, it does not have much bells and whistle inside unlike the other solar controller I got. But don't make it fool you, this controller just works and is consistent. Its a good entry level controller, for those who wants to enter and play with solar power, better get these cheap controller, it's better to play actual real world data than just reading on those papers.

It also has a LCD(no backlight) control console which you can see the system/battery voltage and other like adjusting float charge voltage, discharge stop/start. You can also select lead acid battery type, such as sealed, gel and flooded. Obviously its not as efficient as more expensive controller like MPPT but this controller just works.

You can watch a video here how it behaves if you are interested.