Lux ac battery controller

EVandPV

I'm no spark but I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be an earth cable just trailing loose from the Lux.
Each Pylontech battery comes with an earth cable. Our Pylontechs all have the earth cable fitted with the other end connected to the one above. The top one is connected to the Lux.
Having said that, you see plenty pictures online with no earthing fitted so you may be ok without it although your right to question the earth cable hanging from the Lux.

Good luck with your claim against the company who sold you the Lux, they sound like a right bunch of chancers !

newbuilder

The uhome manual says that earthing is not necessary if wired in parallel (UK way). Not sure about Pylontech

Stuart787

Read through this thread with interest today, as I'm looking at getting battery storage soon and I'm considering getting the Lux AC controller possibly with Pylontech batteries.

We use a lot of electricity since we have no gas in our house.  Heating and hot water is via an air source heat pump (installed as it was built, before we bought the house).  We have an EV, currently only charge it with a 3-pin plug but will be installing a chargepoint in due course too.  We don't have solar yet, and were planning to install that along with battery storage, but I'm now considering battery storage before solar to split the cost a bit.

Since our usage is high (stupid-high in the winter especially) I'm most inclined to get two Lux controllers to increase the max input / output load to 7.2kW rather than the 3.6kW we'd get with just one.  As for amount of storage, we may start small-ish and increase over time.  We're on Octopus Go, so plan to charge as much as possible in the 4hrs, so if budget will allow (I'm probably dreaming here!) up to 28kWh of batteries split over the 2 controllers.

So...

I've been given a rough installed quote by Mike at BigGreenBeard for a Double Lux Squirrel Pod along with various battery capacity options.  I understand they could also do just supply, for me to get my friendly sparky to install, but I haven't asked for a confirmed cost for supply only yet.  Just been trying to get my head around the best route forward.

We're happy with Octopus Go just now, but I like the idea of Agile integration in case prices come down and we switch to Agile sometime in the future.  This Squirrel Pod looks expensive if I've broken down their rough costs accurately; is the general consensus that the Squirrel one is the same as previous models?  Should I just ask for a cost for the 'normal' Lux controller, and work out Agile integration myself at a later date if it becomes necessary?

Am I right in thinking BigGreenBeard is the same company / part of the same group of companies mentioned many times on here?  It certainly seems to have the same key people involved as with Infinity Innovations.  Has their support recently been good?  Specifically for those of you who have had them supply only, without install?  Just thinking if I buy the Lux controllers from them and potentially batteries from elsewhere, could I reasonably expect them to provide support as I add batteries with the initial install, and more potentially later?

Finally, I had previously looked at the GivEnergy inverter and batteries; has anyone had any experience of those in comparison with a Lux / Pylontech system?

Sorry for all the questions, but I've gained a lot of knowledge from you helpful folks already. 

Solarchaser

Earthing on DC... I mean I don't see the point really. 
I've ditched the earth's on my pylontechs.

The squirrel pods seems rather expensive for what is an integrated tracker.

Yes jake and Michael runs the same company with several names and are gener6great guys full of information,  then after you have bought the stuff, somewhat harder to get a hold of.

I usually just deal with lux directly by email.

You can definitely just buy inverters from them, as that's what I did, after initially buying a different inverter and batteries. 

I charge on solar in the brightest months and octopus go faster in the dull months.

As a pure electric user, id really advise you do solar first, and batteries later.
I definitely save more money through solar than through batteries.

If you get a solar diverter then you can heat your hot water tank from the solar too, saving money there as well.

Stuart787

Solarchaser said:

As a pure electric user, id really advise you do solar first, and batteries later.
I definitely save more money through solar than through batteries.

If you get a solar diverter then you can heat your hot water tank from the solar too, saving money there as well.

Yeah, I've been going back and forth with this.  The challenge is that we need far more energy when the sun goes down!  So storage seems like a no-brainer to me.  We definitely want to get solar, but the way energy prices are going I think batteries first might make more sense in order to offset as much of our usage as possible onto the cheap off-peak rate.

ianatkin

When you are doing your sums to work out whether off peak shifting using batteries will work for you, a word of advice based on my experience is to allow for the considerable losses in the charge/discharge process.
I have the UHome batteries (functionally similar to the Pylontechs) and I seem to lose 20-25% on the round trip. My off peak rate is 5.5p/kWh but where I'm using it to charge the batteries for use during the day I'm effectively paying about 5.5x1.25 = 6.9p/kWh consumed by the house, if that makes sense. 

Stuart787

It does make sense, yes.  Thank you.  I'll factor that into my calculations.

philologus

Thank you for all the information.

Stuart787:  I searched around for a good price for batteries etc and found this site useful:-

https://www.itstechnologies.shop/

 If you can DIY or have a friend who can it is the best place I found for prices.

Stuart787

Out of interest, has anyone had any experience of the Pylon 3.5kWh batteries as opposed to the seemingly more common 2.4kWh units?  Are the 3.5s newer?  Better value?  

EVandPV

Stuart787 said:

Out of interest, has anyone had any experience of the Pylon 3.5kWh batteries as opposed to the seemingly more common 2.4kWh units?  Are the 3.5s newer?  Better value?  

@mickyduck55 has them.
They're not newer, been around as long as the 2.4kwh ones but seem to work just as well.