r/SolarDIY

Hi folks!

I'm currently planning on putting a victron ess battery setup in my shed. Due to the low pricing of pv panels (and 48v mppt direct on the battery) i'm thinking of placing 4 extra panels (east/west) on top of this 5x3m shed. Because, why not? :)

The problem? The roof (flat) is quite light and I dont trust putting concrete blocks on top of it. Now I'm thinking of placing a few aluminium construction profiles from wall to wall, so i can rest the weight directly on the wall studs.

Anyone done this? Any suggestion what system to use? i would love to see your solution! :-)

I hear from some solar enthusiasts that we should only charge our Lithium batteries to 80% because charging them to 100% reduces capacity or something. Can anyone clarify this for me?

I see a lot of DIY setups evolve over time - bigger batteries, different inverter choices, more panels, or better load management.

After living with your system for a while, what would you change first if you were starting from scratch?

Battery size, inverter, panel count, wiring, or something else entirely?

Virginia resident here, planning for the balcony solar law that goes into effect 1/1/2027. Will allow 1200W 120V solar.

I understand a safety concern with balcony solar is that if the 120V microinverter is not installed on a dedicated circuit, then there is a risk of overloading the circuit wiring without tripping the panel breaker. For instance, you could have a receptacle on a 20 amp circuit drawing 25 amps, with the solar providing 10 amps, the circuit breaker would only see 15 amps and not trip.

In my situation I have a perfectly located outdoor outlet under a covered porch to plug in my 120V microinverter. However, that outlet shares a 20 amp circuit with 4 other porch outlets and the porch lighting.

I could run a new dedicated 120V 20amp circuit for the solar install, but that would require inside sheetrock removal on the basement ceiling and wall and added cost (finished basement, panel is on the opposite side of the house).

So I was wondering... is there any code-compliant option to install an inline 20amp breaker in the circuit between the solar outlet and the other outlets to ensure that wiring never carries more than the rated 20 amps?

Thanks!

TLDR: The 12kPV and wall mount batteries seem to be solid, but EG4 technical support and software development team have been awful to work with.

The purpose of this post is primarily to give individuals who haven’t yet purchased an EG4 product, or individuals who haven’t yet had to deal with EG4 technical support, a heads up to what lies in wait with the EG4 technical support department. If a side affect is that someone with some level of influence at EG4 sees this and can improve things, fantastic.

My journey with EG4 began in the Spring of 2025. I purchased a 12kPV, two of their wall mount batteries, and all the other things for an off-grid setup. By the end of the summer I had everything working flawlessly, which to give credit where credit is due, is fantastic that they made a product that someone with no prior solar experience could implement.

The setup consisted of the 12kPV being setup in Off-Grid mode with grid sell back disabled, fast zero export enabled, grid sell back power set to 0kw, but grid connected. The battery discharge on-grid cut off was set to something like 30%, and the off-grid cut off was set to 23%. The working mode setting was set to self consumption mode 24/7. This configuration did exactly what I wanted, which was to power my house off solar and battery unless the batteries got down to 30%, at which point it would seamlessly switch over to grid power. If it did reach the on-grid cut off overnight, the next morning it would continue to power the loads using grid while charging the batteries to above the cut off threshold using solar. Once the solar had sufficiently charged the batteries, the loads would seamlessly switch back to using solar and batteries. At no point did any solar power ever get directed to the grid under this setup.

Fast forward to the beginning of January and I opted to install the latest firmware update available for the 12kPV. That firmware update was EAAB-2525, which had been released on 9/28/25, 97 days prior to me installing it. I installed the update at night, and initially everything with the 12kPV seemed fine. The next morning however I noticed that not only were my loads being powered by the grid (which was fine), but my batteries weren’t being charged by the available solar and instead the solar was assisting the grid to power the loads, as well as back-feeding power to the utility. I confirmed all the settings were still correctly set, and I even did a reset and reconfigured all the settings. Nothing fixed the issue.

I attempted to contact EG4 technical support on January 4^(th,), initially using their contact us form, then daily by phone. I continued attempting to get in touch with someone from EG4 technical support each business day until January 10^(th) when I found reference to a general support email address that I reached out to. I then also reached out to a customer outreach email address I located on January 12^(th).

Within an hour or two of emailing the customer outreach email address I received a phone call from EG4, however it was nearing the end of the day and I was told they’d look into it more the next day. The individual stated that they were instructed by their manger to at least give me a call, which indicated to me that my email to the customer outreach email address yielded results. Again, that was on January 12^(th).

It’s now April 6^(th). I’ve been bounced around several different individuals with EG4 (some trying to assist me at the same time as others) and I’ve been told different things by different individuals. One individual stated I was experiencing a known issue and provided a super detailed email response explaining things. Another, and the most recent individual who has I guess taken over my ticket seems to be operating under the assumption that there’s a hardware failure and claims that they cannot reproduce the issue in their lab. It’s been essentially 3 solid months of getting absolutely nowhere, with no resolution in sight.

In my opinion this is 100% a software related bug. The 12kPV operated perfectly fine until a software update was applied, at which point it began malfunctioning. The latest individual from EG4 has also confirmed that the various relays within the unit are responding properly and the settings are all properly configured, which further confirms to me it’s a software related bug. Despite this, I guess they’re holding firm that this isn’t a software bug and have decided that just leaving me in limbo, back-feeding into the grid despite the configuration of the 12kPV being set not to, is ok.

I personally find this experience I’ve had with their technical support team to be awful. They seemed to only respond to my issue initially after I contacted their customer outreach individual. I actually had to follow up with the customer outreach individual at one point because their technical support team ghosted me for 3 weeks, and again after doing so I immediately heard back from tech support. Their communication both internally at EG4 and with myself has also been awful. Numerous times I was either under the impression that I was to expect a phone call at a certain time, or it was firmly established I’d receive a phone call at a certain time and I would not hear from them at all.

So I guess in conclusion, buyer somewhat beware? This entire experience has certainly resulted in me questioning if I bought into the right company, and if I ever am in a position to buy additional equipment I’ll certainly have to question whether I’ll buy from EG4 or look elsewhere. Again, the hardware seems solid, but the software side of the house seems sketchy and based on this experience I’m not exactly feeling warm and fuzzy that if I did have a hardware issue that I’d get taken care of. I completely acknowledge that another company could have the same issues, however I can say with absolute certainty that EG4 has 100% dropped the ball with this issue for me and doesn’t have a level of customer support that I’d recommend my friends and family to.

I’ve hopefully got a Bluetti AC300 and B300 arriving soon…

I’ve had a look at things and come up with the following solar panel configuration - see picture.

I see it’s a good idea to add FUSES to the panels connected in parallel… each panel has a Short Circuit Current of 10.72 A so I presume I’ll need 8 for 2 arrays of 4 panels in parrallel plus 2 more for the combined arrays entering DC1 and DC2 … ?

AI (???) is suggesting I use 20A fuse for each panel in parallel (8 in total) and then get a 60A DC Circuit Breaker for each of the combined arrays.

Does this look ok ?

I am thinking about doing about an 18 panel install on my house, but I need to see some examples of how the wiring is done with the panels, maybe optimizers, to the string inverters (maybe a SMA Sunny Boy 7.7). I've seen a couple of good videos for microinverter installs, but need to see some example installs with string inverters, so if there are some good videos you know I'd appreciate it!

I have a Sol-ark 12k that I want to use near Ironwood, MI. It gets super cold up there in the winter. My place is only accessible three-seasons given snow like this year of over 17 ft. So I wanted to simply shut down the invert/batteries/and eventual solar array in late fall. I would like to use EG4 batteries. But the large hanging units are likely to be pulled and transported to modestly warmer storage. Anyone familiar with any EG4 battery and rack options what I could pull and store the batteries until spring?

Many states are passing “balcony solar” or “plug-in” solar laws. Basically you can feed back ~1200watts without any permits by just plugging into a dedicated circuit in your home. Typically this uses a grid tied microinverter with rapid shut down in case the grid goes down. They also limit the AC output to under 1200 watts.

If I already have portable solar panels and I have a battery/portable power staation with AC output is there a device that can go between the battery and the wall outlet that can provide the same rapid shut down if the grid goes down and also limit the output to the maximum 1200 watts? I already have an inverter inside the power station and so I dont really need the expense of that if possible.

Hi my husband and I want to build a 900 square foot home. We will be heating and cooking with a wood stove. But appliances like a fridge, washer& dryer , and maybe a window air conditioner in the summer are my concerns. We've also thought about going the route of an eco tankless water heater , but whose to say. From what I've seen one solar panel can be expected to generate 30-ish amps a day. How much does a capable inverter help to boost power. And is this too much to ask of a DIY smaller scale solar system? We're pretty flexible people but having a few outlets , and appliances is our preference.

So I have 2 of these micro-inverters, each connected to two 435W panels. The Streams are connected via an AC isolator to a dedicated house circuit going to a bi-directional RCD.

The two panels can produce 870W, potentially a little bit more under ideal conditions. But currently the micro-inverters are limited to 800W. I've heard that physically these are 1200W - how can I unlock them to the full 1200W, to avoid the small amount of clipping. No reason to loose energy.

I've heard that in Utah these are sold as 1200W, but in the current Android EcoFlow app there is no option to change the region to Utah. I'm in UK, I can change the region to Spain, Germany and a few others.

I am looking at connecting x2 24V 200Ah LiFEPO4 batteries to my RVs system using a SUMRY Solar Inverter Charger, 3600W DC 24V to AC 110V and a Victron Energy Orion 24/12-Volt 70 amp DC-DC Converter.

I have not purchased any materials but had AI create this diagram.

I wanted to double check that everything here makes sense and I won't run into any issues. Would love to hear any input or advice from others.

Thanks!

https://preview.redd.it/wnmhty3mantg1.png?width=2816&format=png&auto=webp&s=9039d356238d868ffeb079a81d3a649ca44f74d3

I have a dual battery setup in my truck, the starting battery is isolated from the deep cycle aux battery.

I do not want to hard mount any solar panels to it as we only go camping a few times per year, but i would like to charge (maintain) the aux battery when we're at a campsite and be able to store away the panels when we get up to move locations.

I am keeping the entire system 12v, and my only major accessory is a fridge freezer and possibly some led strip lights. the aux battery in my truck is an optima yellowtop AGM d75/25 rated for 48ah. Our current power demand is about 3ah but it could occasionally spike to 5ah depending on outside temperatures, device charging etc.

I currently have a dedicated panel in the truck wired with a breaker, relay box, fuses, switches etc. This controls the fridge, lighting and device charging. So I would prefer to stay away from a solar generator / battery station as I dont want to reconfigure everything. Keeping the current setup to the aux battery is a priority.

from my very basic understanding I just need a panel-> mppt -> direct to battery? Could anyone suggest a complete plug & play setup too. That would be a huge quality of life bonus for us.