Mini solar with AC backup & monitoring

Attaching the Inverter directly to the battery, It's up to the Inverter to decide when generating 220V ac and when not.

My Green Cell 500W 12V pure sinewave decides to generate power when the battery voltage reaches around 12V and stops when the voltage goes below 10.5V. 

These two parameters are fixed, while I wanted some more flexibility and extending the range to 13.5V,

So I'm designing a voltage comparator, which you'll see soon in the Details section.

Bye Bye!

After adding a second solar panel 😎 (170W, just like the first), I observed that when connected in parallel, the total power generated, as measured by the EPEVER 1210AN, was approximately 130W. This was the same as the power generated by a single panel under similar lighting conditions.

Initially, I ruled out a malfunctioning panel and turned my attention to the MPPT battery charger, the EPEVER 1210AN. To my surprise, I discovered that its maximum power input from the panels for battery charging was limited to 130W 😂😂😂.

To address this limitation, I purchased and installed a larger model, the EPEVER 3210AN, which can handle a maximum power of 390W 😀. I'm eagerly awaiting tomorrow morning (if not raining ⛈) to see the results!

As I explained in this chapter in the project details, I've decided to experiment:

• Home Assistant dashboard instead of ThingSpeak
• ESPHome fimware and configuration instead of my ESP32 custom software

The funny thing is that the hardware remains exactly the same.

In a sunny day, at noon my single solar panel can supply no more than 110W and 20-30W if cloudy.

The appliances I connected (2 PCs, 1 32" monitor, 1 network switch, 1 LED lamp, two mobile phone chargers) need between 50 (1 PC in stand-by ad the monitor off) and 120 W.

Therefore, even during the sunlight (120 > 110) the solar panel cannot charge the battery 🙁.

So I decided to buy another solar panel to get 220W when sunny and 40-60W when cloudy. I'll let you know!

Bye