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Forum Index : Solar : It's about time I have lights in my home.

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CraziestOzzy

Senior Member

Joined: 11/07/2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 150
Posted: 02:09am 02 Oct 2025
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  Godoh said  The point Aaron made about GTI inverters is not to use them on grid.
We use them to supplement our battery inverters and also to use the MPPT controllers built into them.
pete


Cheers and thanks for clearing that up.
Those GTI's are indeed cheap secondhand.
Have been looking myself an yeah, your right - virtually all I have looked at require higher DC voltages than my 24v system.

About 20 odd years ago when I was in Townsville, a bloke from this forum gave me his old broken inverter...huge toroid transformer and the electronics were top quality.
It was designed to run on nominal voltage of 24v. I got flooded out and lost everything, so bound to be another out there :)
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http://www.instructables.com/member/OzzyRoo/
 
CraziestOzzy

Senior Member

Joined: 11/07/2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 150
Posted: 02:22am 02 Oct 2025
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  Godoh said  With your underground cable run, theoretically if your trench is not 500 mm deep then you need a continuous concrete pour over the conduit. It would probably be fine to put your concrete slabs down and fill in the gaps with concrete, just make sure to put underground tape over the slabs.
Pete


Thanks and good idea. Think you just swayed my mind back towards a continuos slab. I had designed the system in the start with that in mind...why I have four 32mm underground conduits ready to go to allow for future expansion.
But then I thought I have these 2x2 foot 10cm slabs lying around and to use them.
My old man's a sparkie...he said the same thing - don't forget to put the marker tape down and infill with sand before capping with cement!
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CraziestOzzy

Senior Member

Joined: 11/07/2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 150
Posted: 02:32am 02 Oct 2025
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  KeepIS said  Keep in mind that the standards can, and will continue to change over time, always to the  disadvantage of the Home, Mobile-home and property owners etc, as the corporations continue to make laws to "protect us" without any public consultation or notification.

I admire your resolve to find a workable solution, considering the changes that were needed to your dwelling and the circumstances we find ourselves in.

I found a different completely off-grid DIY solution, with full backup and multiple redundancy.

Nothing surprises me these days  


True, I'm taking heaps of photos of progress, going as far as showing depth of holes dug for posts.
Once everything ready to go, get a legit sparkie to sign it off even though I don't need one as it keeps the missus happy and the insurance company. Basically a permanent and dated record.

With the Standards set against the DIY end user, I do note that was has not changed is that when a new Standard comes in existing systems are allowed to exist as long as you can replace "like for like".

Going to have a sticky at your previous posts, but what was your solution to off grid with multiple redundancy?
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KeepIS

Guru

Joined: 13/10/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 1911
Posted: 03:58am 02 Oct 2025
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  CraziestOzzy said   Going to have a sticky at your previous posts, but what was your solution to off grid with multiple redundancy?


The solution evolved over a few years from a small 12V system to keep a Fridge and Freezer running for just a few days, to a Powerful DIY Inverter [designed by forum member "wiseguy" with many members, especially "Poida" all contributing to the final Single or Dual power Inverter design].

This runs the entire Home and woodworking workshop completely off grid with no concern for power usage or how many appliances are running at once, all electric including 3.6kW Hot water system, a couple of fridge freezers, Stove, Oven, Air-conditioners, mains pressure water pumps etc, plus huge workshop machinery with startup loads of over 25KW surge, it can easily handle over 13kW of load for long periods, day and night.

The posts are a bit of a convoluted read as I tend to go off on tangents, my excuse is I'm getting old

Redundancy is 8 x 60A Solar regulators parallel switched, four Low voltage configuration high power panels per Regulator, separately switched parallel banks of high power LiFePO4 batteries, an Inverter built to allow a power module swap in under 10 minutes, fully running and tested spare modules and lastly, a spare smaller Inverter. The system is a nominal 48Vdc system.
NANO Inverter: Full download - Only Hex Ver 8.1Ks
 
CraziestOzzy

Senior Member

Joined: 11/07/2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 150
Posted: 05:10am 02 Oct 2025
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  KeepIS said  

...runs the entire Home and woodworking workshop completely off grid with no concern for power usage ...it can easily handle over 13kW of load for long periods, day and night.


Crikies, makes my creation look like a AAA battery  
Looked at a few of your posts, good reading that satisfied the monster in me.
Big thumbs-up from me.

...looking at your circuit builds, made me think of my crazy days of tinkering with a  TL494 chip to create a variable power supply with enough grunt to skin a cat.
My program skills are limited to BASIC, old school - but will see a need for its use once I refine my system with extra unnecessary toys.
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Revlac

Guru

Joined: 31/12/2016
Location: Australia
Posts: 1186
Posted: 09:31am 03 Oct 2025
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  Quote  Of course, you can say "stuff you" I am going to do what I want on my land...but when it comes to selling your home, their may be some issues there...which again is why I am keeping inline as best I can with the Standards.

When you build a solar system or anything on your house or land, you build it for yourself, don't build it for some potential buyer, if or when you have to sell the place, the buyer (new owner) will just throw it all out and do there own thing........we nearly all do this, we make the house etc our own.
Depending on the location and circumstances they may just demolish the place and build a new house the way they want these days.
Cheers Aaron
Off The Grid
 
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