Those look like 3x 8kw sunsynk/deye inverters. No way it would be fine with 1 160A fuse. If the installer did use just 1 fuse then chances are the cables were not correctly specked.
I don’t understand why people focus so much on making installs look nice rather than on safety. In that photo it looks like both AC and DC (battery and PV) cables are in the trunking between the inverter and batteries.
I’ve got a lot of batteries and only 2 5kw inverters. I used 95mm battery cable from the battery bank to the bus bar which is about 5m away. From busbar to each inverter I have fuses with 35mm cable and 125A fuses.
Garages. What is stored in a garage?
Vehicles?
Fuel tanks/fumes … lawnmower spare fuel?
Paint, wood?
All that we store inside there for projects, outside the house, cause it is dangerous inside?
Yeah, I don’t want to add more risks to an already potentially combustible area to be quite honest. Fireproof door or not.
Now, let’s get back to the safety of Lifepo4 batts inside the house.
Lifepo4, the smoke, it is apparently toxic. How to stop that?
Do NOT have a short ever.
Use a BMS always.
Think of what you could do If the Lifepo4 bank does start smoking for whatever other reason.
I have used Lithium batteries for MANY years, pretty much from as soon as they were relesed for commercial use. I flew electric model airplanes and have profound respect for the amount of energy stored in those batteries. I had a model burn to ash after a crash ruptured the LiPo (Lithium Polymer - totally different chemistry). The battery burnt with a nearly invisible blue flame over a meter high, scary.
Correct. Winston adds Yttrium. I don’t know if BlueNova still uses these cells. I know Victron’s SmartLithium batteries no longer uses these cells. Winston cells are expensive.
Also correct. Most EVs use NMC for the higher energy density. BMW, VW, etc use NMC. The GWM Ora Cat uses LFP though.
Should we be worried about videos that show batteries misbehaving if you take a sledgehammer or a power drill to them?
There are plenty of things in a house that will behave dangerously if you apply a blow torch or a buzz saw or a jackhammer. Does that mean they are unsafe?
Safety codes cannot be absolute, and things are not safe/unsafe in a binary way. The codes that we have are based on what is foreseeable when reasonable people are doing reasonable things.
I think the point is that we do NOT have to be worried about these things, because even when we DO take a sledgehammer or a drill to them, or short-circuit them, they don’t blow up. That means that under normal use, they are safe enough, as you rightly point out.
I think there is a legitimate reason to worry about NMC in the house. In the garage (where I park my NMC-based EV), yeah that would be a little different, but I think for inside the house, you want LFP.
I think people are legitimately worried about this. This topic (cargo ship catching fire) is on the lips of EV-averse individuals. Although, and that is why this is topical to the damage in this test: It is suspected that the car that might have started the fire, was damaged in the loading process. Which makes sense, because these cars are designed in a way that the battery is completely disconnected while the car is turned off.
True. With the importing of the 280ah Lifepo4 cells, we learned that it is a challenge.
Packaging, low charge … and the poles must never touch anything EVER … goes back to packaging.
The problem in EV’s is not that the battery is disconnected, it is the fact that the cells are still connected inside the battery, and as in that vid, maybe, could have, possibly, a vehicle got damaged, which damaged the battery casing, which could have shorted the connected cells.
Same issue for dropping solar batteries, hence their rather strong metal casings.
Maybe they should send the batts on a separate ship and have them quickly mounted at the destination.
And that could lead to faster battery replacements, like when one day one can quickly swap a battery on a long trip, pull in, the battery is dropped, a new one installed, in minutes, and off you go. Batt stays put and gets recharged there for the next swap out. I see it is being discussed already.
That makes loading a bit more difficult. We’re veering a bit off-topic, but we can always merge this with the other thread if it becomes unwieldy.
The cars are loaded under their own power. They are driven onto the boat. Shipping them without batteries literally breaks that whole logistical process.
I even have a story about this. Toyota. A particular nut that had to be torqued to a certain spec. Engineer on the line said: Are you sure? Torquing it that hard completely squashes the rubber. Yeah, that is what the spec says. A few days/weeks later, with a whole shipped loaded with a few hundred new bakkies… ahem… you were right… better fix that. They had to send mechanics to go fix it ON THE VESSEL, and they had to pay the cost of the lost time/business of the shipping company.
Loading a ship is a tense operation. I have not experienced vehicle loading, but I was present once while citrus was being loaded. You have never, in your life, seen a bunch of forklift drivers drive that fast (all of them electric, by the way).
I’ve watched them load Merc’s in East London - use specially trained drivers and the chaps know their trade - WELL. 2 vehicles per minute. Plus tying down etc. And they are often wrapped so visibility is very limited.
“The facility has 2 800 parking bays and the proposed extension would increase it to a 7 000 parking bay facility, said Taylor.”
My mate upgraded his solar system 3 years ago, last week he noticed an plasticy smell in the room where his batteries and inverter were installed (in a cupboard) in a bedroom. On closer examination a 6mm wire carrying DC from the solar panels into a 30 amp fuse holder somehow became “loose” and the heat generated due to the poor connection caused the plastic of the fuse holder to melt. None of the earth leakage of other protective measures were activated. The installation was fine until last week. He callled the installer, who found the fault, replaced the fuse holders and checked and tightened all the other connections. Special sleeves were crimped around the wire where connected to the new fuse holders.
The bottom line, it is worth will making sure, (at least once a year), that all electrical connections remain properly fastened especially with significant current moving through the wires. If you have one of those cameras with a heat sensor check if there is any abnormal heat due to poor connections.
The good news is that those fuse holders and breakers are always made of materials that don’t participate in combustion. They’ll burn, if something next to them is burning, but they will self-extinguish. Which means as bad as this looks, it was probably not a fire hazard.
