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What I Learned From My Winter Vacation... (24k mini-split performance during a winter storm)! πŸ€”

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dfwtinker
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(@dfwtinker)
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I looked at a LOT of forums & videos before I purchased my EG4 24k mini-split.  However, nowhere could I find a discussion on real life impact on my battery consumption and recharge times.  Here I am going to try and just layout what happened and let the individual user determine what it means.   I know what it means to me and my infrastructure and my future plans.

 

Setup:

100% off-grid.   20 x 375W solar panels in two strings, connected to an EG4 6000xp supporting a single 14.4KW EG4 indoor battery.  The primary daytime loads are the well pump that pulls 1500-1700W and just added; the EG4 24k mini-split.  The primary overnight load includes the mini-split and tree irrigation @ 1000W.  You can see the complete setup here.  north-central-texas-setup-just-about-to-turn-a-year-old   

 

Lets start with a chart from the day BEFORE installation. January 14.   A clear sky day in North Texas.  100% SOC at 1700 hrs on the 13th.  Overnight the battery had worked its way down to roughly 92%.  No watering.

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Followed by the day of installation. 

Installation completed around 1600 hrs and power to mini split was turned on.  Consumption went to 1250W while it started cooling things down.  After about an hour, consumption settled down to around 700W.  As can be noted in the chart the draw on the battery was immediate and intense!

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Of course this continued into the next morning as temps continued to slowly drop as the winter storm moved closer.  The 700-800W consumption continued until the cutoff of 15% of SOC was reached around 0630 hrs.  Recovery/Recharge began within an hour of the sun actually being above the horizon 0900 hrs.

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For the next 3 days the thermostat did not rise!   However the Mini-split maintained its settings (except when the battery died).   I actually spent an entire workday  inside because I had some wiring I needed to finish before the storm AND I had to do my day job to boot.  Dangit!

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Saturday, I went out and put some insulation in place to try and help myself.   The wind was blowing into the front door so spent the day with the door closed and room comfy warm.

That night the storm showed up!  At least the COLD front edge of it anyway.  Consumption continued rise as the temps dropped as you would expect.  It accelerated from 700-800W at 1700 hrs to 1600-1800w around midnight when temps hit 29 degrees.  Shortly after midnight the battery gave it up for the night.

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Recovery was quick on the 19th, but the temps were relentless.  The battery was being hammered for 1400-1800W from around 1700 hrs.  Around 2100 hrs the consumption was between 1600-2000W CONSTANTLY.  Outside temp was about 21 degrees F.  Battery gave it up at 0030 hours on the 20th.

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This is Yesterdays metrics beginning after system recovery (SOC < 20).   As you can see, even though the average high for the day was around 43F; the drastic drop after sunset tells me that if I intend to run this mini-split 24x7  I will certainly need to purchase at one more battery and probably two to be safe and allow for expanding irrigation.

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All of these are numbers from the depths of winter but I expect the same sort of behavior with regards to the air conditioning side during our ruthless T

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exas summers.   I will do this again near the Summar Solstice-ish (june 20th)  and add the finding to this page.

I hope someone finds this useful.

 

 

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