Saturday, April 12, 2014

Working on an Enphase version of my DIY ESS

I first wanted to keep this secret, but oh well, why not share this too;
I am - secretly - working on an Enphase wvvrsion of my DIY ESS, and the idea started maybe a year ago already, and last summer when the latest Enphase m250 came out, I really started looking for Enphase micro inverters, then stopped for financial reasons ...

But I am back with this idea and tried to get 2 m250 inverters from a big solar online store in the US, and ended up with 2 m215 - the previous generation - ; It was a packing error, and I got a partial refund, instead of shipping them back, so in the ned they were pretty cheap

Enphase m250 are not available yet in Europe yet, because of standards or regulatory reasons (?) but it should come here too, since the m215 did

So, after several weeks of waiting, shipping, wondering if I should return them, I decided to keep them and started really trying to use them last week end only


And since I am testing AESC / LEAF Battery Modules,  why not use them as a power source ?




I ordered 10 male and 10 female MC4 solar connectors, and here I am trying to figure out the polarities for the DC input of the Enphase m215 micro inverter


This piece leftover from my roof solar instal shows that this is really the positive lead, my contractor had it crimped with a red cable



Also I got this European version of the Enphase trunk cable, with 2 AC inlets (2 inverters, 2 inlets)


and I am planning on testing a first inverter on my AESC / LEAF Batteries, already in test and behaving perfectly here






Then I made 2.5mm2 testing cables, hooked them up to the SUN250 grid tie inverter that I am using with these AESC modules


I don't know if this will carry 10A of current, but we'll see, I don't want try crimp or solder my MC4 pins at this point





Here I am working on connecting the end of the trunk cable to AC, using a simple AC plug




Now, at the very end, when I tried to connect the AC m250 plug into the trunk cable inlet, I just couldn't  ...I tried several times and it was abnormally hard, and I eventually found out that these 2 connectors can not be connected into each other ! and there must be reason for this because there are inner small cams preventing this ....



Remember I have American micro inverters and European Trunk Cable ... So I had to stop right there, and went back on the web to try and see why and if this happened to others, but I haven't seen anybody with the same problem; I will order a European version of the m215 and compare the connector, I am sure it will be fine this time, but I still want to try and hook the US version to the European one, because this i just generating AC power with a voltage varying - adapting to the grid's constantly actually - from 205 to 250V
At this point, I just think only their pins are different, and Earth and Neutral are always the same ones, so the two others should give

240V between pin 3 and Neutral (pin 4)


240V between pin 1 and pin 3

and for 3 phase AC, these inverters are always hooked up the same way, on wiring diagrams I can see:

For French version, pin 1 feeding alternatively all 3 phases with Neutral on pin 4



For US version, pin 1 and pin 3 providing power to 2 phases alternatively ...

With all this information I should be able to make this US version works on French AC, probably using pin 1 and pin 3 on phase and neutral ... but we'll see this later .... Or maybe I will simply get European version of the Enphase m215 



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