Has anyone used the solar panels from Bright Saver's current 180W kit (or its two-panel 360W kit) to charge a portable power station directly through its DC solar input, leaving the included Hoymiles microinverter out of the setup?

Kit: https://www.brightsaver.org/balcony-solar-kits

Bright Saver's own article says some members disconnect the panels from the microinverter and connect them to a portable power station for backup: https://www.brightsaver.org/post/does-adding-a-battery-to-plug-in-solar-pay-for-itself

I'm considering a roughly 1kWh power station, potentially a BLUETTI Elite 100 V2 (specified solar input 12-60V, 20A max). The goal is to power appliances directly from the station.

Could someone share the exact panel make/model or a photo of its nameplate showing Voc, Vmp, Isc and Imp, plus the DC connector type? Which power station and cable have you successfully used with these particular panels? Any compatibility issues with the two-panel setup?

Thanks!

Hi, I recently made a post but it got auto removed by Reddit due to their filter.

Would it be possible for me to connect these panels, either in parallel or series?

I would be connecting them to a Jackery 600 power station. It has a max Voc of 60 and 200W maximum input.

Can I use these panels together? Especially the ones with relatively similar voltages?

I'm new and dont know too much about how to connect these, and what needs to be similar ideally. I will try to keep my panels the same, but I'm waiting for sales.

Please advise, thank you!

I have a remote cabin, off grid, 314 AH battery, I have starlink to view numbers, but no heat (leave gas off when not in cabin). I am wondering if it's safe to turn off my eg4 during the winter? There will be a period of time without sun and low temps. I am thinking it would be safer to shut down than it to be run down with no sun.

Just using my camping folding solar panels... tossed them on the roof. 400watt and 200watt SOKIOVOLA folders.

Pretty funny and easy enough.

Hey all,

I've been thinking about doing a backup/ off grid setup for my home for a while now. With the bill more than doubling compared to a couple of years ago I'm ready to start building this thing. I will DIY as much of it as I can, I am in MA if anyone knows of any deals or incentives that we might get here.

Looking at my usage chart can anyone explain what I should be looking for as far as battery capacity and panel setup?

Thanks in advance ;)

Hello all, I recently bought a battery and 2 solar panels to power my work laptop. I wanted to have a backup power supply and see what issues I would run into before going bigger.

After putting everything together it worked! I was able to charge my backup battery and power my work station. After using it for a while I noticed that the wattage from the solar panels wasn't meeting my expectations.

I noticed that at peak solar generation that I was only getting 180W. That is under half of the total Wattage. I thought maybe one of my panels was damaged or broken, so I threw a thick blanket over each of them to see which one is causing issues. After doing this to both they reduced the output to about 90 Watts.

Let me know if I am mistaken or if you have any suggestions. Thank you.

Here is my set up:

2 solar panels - HQST 200W (attached photo)

Parallel connectors

40ft of XT60i extension

Anker Solix S2000

I live around the 42 latitude btw

Hi everyone,

I'm developing an iOS app called Luneris, designed to bring solar, battery storage and household energy monitoring from different manufacturers into one application.
We've already integrated several manufacturers, including Tesla, Enphase, Sigenergy, Anker and EcoFlow.
I'm currently working on adding EG4 support using the existing EG4 monitoring cloud interface, and I'm looking for a few EG4 owners willing to help test the integration.
Ideally, I'm looking for people with:

- FlexBOSS21 / FlexBOSS18
- 18kPV / 12kPV
- 6000XP
- GridBOSS
- EG4 battery systems

The goal is to verify that Luneris correctly discovers your equipment and displays Solar, Battery, Grid, Home consumption and historical energy data.

What's involved?
You would receive access to the Luneris iOS beta through TestFlight and, once the EG4 integration is ready for controlled testing, connect your own monitoring account.
I'd ask you to compare a few readings against the EG4 monitoring app and report anything that doesn't look right.
The integration is intended to be read-only. Luneris won't change inverter settings or control your equipment.

A few important details:
Luneris is an independent project and isn't affiliated with EG4.
The integration uses an unofficial interface and is still under development.
You would never need to share your EG4 password with me personally.
Participation is entirely voluntary, and you can stop testing whenever you like.
If you're interested, please reply with your EG4 equipment and whether you're using iOS.

Thanks!

Previous post : https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarDIY/s/8yukCw2NQP

I have using my solar system that was imported from China through Alibaba and alhumdolialh it has been more than two months I am using it flawlessly. I bought 15 kWh battery lipo4 battery and 11 kW hybrid inverter it costed me around 6 lakhs 30k-40k.if u buy the same equipment from Pakistan it will gonna cost u around 12 lakh or more. I suggest everybody to go for importing if u need any guidance I will guide you and If anybody want to avail this importing service from me with minimal charges id be happy to help

I must have a professional do this in order for me to obtain a permit and be able to pass inspection even though if I did this there won't be any water in the conduit box after a night of rain...some of the sh!t I will have to fix after this is all done...and he isn't even the worse of them...

I am building our log home (started 2025), totally offgrid and decided against what everyone said to do a 14 inch heat store under my slab. It goes ground, then 2 inch foam, then 14 inches of sand with pex tubing, then 5 inches of slab with pex tubing. I could have added more sand, but my buddy with the excavator was at it early in the morning and had that a ton of sand already back filled before I got there and stopped him. At this point, I wish I had more.

I got plumbing in about a month ago and have been using my 50 gallon HPWH to start pumping heat into the sand. On sunny days I am using about 40kw of electric (5kw running with pump and element).

It started taking about 5 minutes to drain my tank from from 130 deg to 90 degrees.
but after a few weeks, the water coming out of the sand is almost 80 degrees! I just got windows in last week, and it's cold outside now. But I was really impressed because we were able to paint the house yesterday and it is comfortable inside.

So far I think I am happy with my decision. Any thoughts?

Hi everyone,
I’ve noticed my inverter making a sound while the battery is discharging and supplying power to the house. I’m trying to understand whether this is a normal operating noise or something that needs checking.
Can inverters make an audible hum or buzzing sound during discharge? Would the amount of power being drawn by the house affect how loud it gets, and could it be the cooling fan?
For anyone with a solar and battery setup, how noticeable is your inverter’s noise while discharging? What would distinguish normal operating sounds from a fault?
I’d appreciate any advice on what to look for, what information would help identify the cause, and whether this is something I should raise with the installer
. This is a fox ess inverter

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to get into supplying solar installation consumables to installers and EPCs. There are a lot of manufacturers and suppliers of these products in my state(A state in India), so sourcing options are plentiful. I’m starting with just three products:

• Mid clamps and end clamps
• MC4 connectors
• Solar DC cable

I want to run this with zero inventory. The idea is to take the customer’s requirement (specs, quantity, delivery location), quote them, and have the manufacturer or distributor dispatch directly, so I handle sourcing, pricing and coordination but never hold stock.

I’d love advice from anyone with experience in this space:

1. Is no-stock realistic? Will installers buy from someone who doesn’t keep material on hand, or do they expect same-day availability?
2. Sourcing: with so many suppliers around, how do I pick reliable manufacturers who will do direct dispatch and give fair trade pricing?
3. Quality and compliance: for MC4 connectors and DC cable especially, what certifications or specs should I insist on (TUV, BIS, IEC, etc.)? How do I avoid duplicate or low-grade products?
4. Margins: what margins are realistic on these three items? Which one is best to start with?
5. Customers: who should I target first: local installers, EPC contractors, or rooftop solar companies? How do you win the first few orders?
6. Payments and risk: how do you handle advance payments, credit terms and returns when the goods ship from someone else’s warehouse?
7. Mistakes to avoid: anything you wish you’d known when starting out?

Won't say where I'm at because I don't want the discussion to involve regulation. I'm somewhere that can't be backed to grid and I wouldn't want to anyways

My question is, if I pick up one of those off grid power stations like ecoflow 2 max delta w/ solar panels.

At a base level I guess I'd take my office and just plug everything directly into it, this should run this stuff off solar/backup just fine.

But, is there a way that I can connect this to a subsection of my house using the wall plus without effecting the grid? I know transfer switches exist, is it possible (something everyday electricians can do) to connect say a single breaker to a transfer switch so I can connect that circuit to the battery backup? Would make life a lot easier.

Sorry for dumb question, I'm struggling to wrap my head around all the solar stuff so wanted to start with something more simple like balcony/off-grid solar.

I should expand that if it's possible, what would I need to buy for an electrician to make this happen? I'd need to ensure I could afford everything before involving a professional electrician .

Just saw this on a YouTube video about a Hawaiian airbnb with a flat roof. I need something like this for my emergency temporary setup on my lawn during outages.

Looks kind of crazy for a permanent roof install. But this woman paid an install team 20K to do it.

Hi, I've got a south facing fence that gets uninterrupted sun. This is in the UK. The other side of the fence is a car park area but it's quiet and for a small number of houses with designated spots and none of the spots come near my fence. So it's potentially quite a good spot for solar.

I don't think I'd be comfortable having panels that reach the ground. My current fence is 6 foot and not sturdy. It's 4 foot of fence panel and 2 foot of trellis. What I'd like to do is take the trellis off the top and have some 100W or 200W panels sloped back from the top of the remaining fence. I'm only thinking of something around plug-in solar scale. I could possibly replace the fence with 2 or 3 foot panels if that makes a better size. Solar panels wouldn't be attached to the fence but sit behind it. I am restricted from using wood for the structure otherwise that would be my choice and be quite easy. I'm thinking of making a bench like structure to be level with the top of the fence and then use an off the shelf aluminium tilting mount on top of that.

The questions are what would people use once wood is ruled out? I was looking at composite fence posts that are 70mm square. Anything metal seems to get too expensive quite quickly.

Or if there is a reasonably priced existing mount that would be even better. But mounts I've seen seem to have the leading edge quite low to the ground.

Thanks for any inspiration.

Plug panel in and it doesn't acknowledge this panel.

It will acknowledge the Anker 100w array panels.

This panel should be within the Anker 767's solar-input voltage range. The 767 accepts 11–60 V, and at 32–60 V it can accept up to 20 A, with a 1,000 W maximum solar input. Panel puts out appropriate Voltage per Specs. I have 2 identical powerbanks and both won't recognize the panel.

Anker SOLIX F2000 (PowerHouse 767)

Specs:

Voltage range: 11–60V

Best operating range: 32–60V

Max solar input: 1000W

Max current: 20A (above 32V)

Panel

Silfab SIL-530 XM series bifacial panel

Specs:

Vmp: ~41.05 V

Voc: ~47.79 V

Imp: ~14.08 A

Isc: ~14.96 A

Rated power: 530 W

Not sure what to do next, I heard that updating software has helped. That is my next step.

Has anyone encountered this issue?

Thank you in advance.

I'm hoping the PC app is just messing up the scaling of the info

Let me know what you think.

This is my diy system for my off grid diy log home I am building.

Ill clean up the wires later 😀

Just wondering could i technically run the DC solar during the day for highest efficiency. Then hook the AC side to a Bluetti elite 400 that’s plugged into my wall but also has designated solar ran to it ? Does the EG4 hybrid have a regular IEC power chord I could plug directly into the Bluetti ?

Lipo4 battery 12v, 250A, 1920Ah

Love this stuff.

It is easy to forget the settings after making a few changes to a solar setup. Keeping a record of the battery type charging limits and low voltage cutoff settings can make it easier to figure out what changed if something does not work as expected.

Since settings vary between batteries and controllers I would not assume the same values work for every system. Do you keep a written record of your settings. Just rely on the controller’s saved configuration?

I already have a PG&E-approved 400A service/panel installed. My existing Tesla Gateway 3 is connected to one 200A section, along with my solar and Tesla Powerwall battery.

My primary goal is solar self-consumption: when my solar produces more power than the loads on the existing 200A panel need, I want loads on the second 200A panel to consume that surplus rather than export it to PG&E under NEM 3.0. And such that Tesla Powerwall 3 also backs up the second 200 amp pnale.

1. Can the second 200A subpanel be connected so its loads consume available solar generated by my existing system?
2. Will the existing Gateway 3 correctly meter and manage the power flows with both panels?
3. Does the second panel need to be downstream of the Gateway, separately metered with Tesla-compatible CTs, or connected using another Tesla-approved topology?
4. Will the second panel's loads be powered by solar when available, while the grid supplies any remaining demand?
5. Would those loads also be backed up by the Powerwall during an outage?
6. Will the proposed design preserve proper Tesla monitoring, battery operation, export control, and compliance with the approved PG&E interconnection?

any metered diagrams?

So I currently have a situation where I'm willing to do a DIY, but it seems very difficult (im new to solar and electric). I'm wondering if its actually worth my time, and how much I would actually save compared to buying a power station? For example a 2048 watt hour power station from a big brand might be $1000 or so. Could I make a better setup for $800? Please advise. Thanks!

Hi, I'm new to solar, and i bought a jackery v2 640wh power station recently.

Is there any way for me to add external batteries to this device to increase the total watt hour capacity?

If so, please share. Thanks!