Cheese, Red Wine, Bread & Wattson

Last night, during diner, a little mix of France & England here ...

Copper Lugs found in Boat Store in Boulogne - New Lugs & More Crimping

Sometimes, you do not need to go very far to find what you need; This saturday moring, I went to a first boat equipment store in Boulogne, found some nice BlueSea bus bars (made of copper) but no lugs ...

In the afternoon, I tried another boat equipment store, next to La Seine, with boats for sale, and it was a huge store ! I eventually found what I was looking for: some copper lugs for 25mm² and 35mm² cables, and also 25mm², 35mm² and 50mm² copper cables by the meter 

For a start, I got two packs of 4 lugs, 25mm² with 8mm hole and 35mm² with 8mm hole too for 1 EUR and 1.5 each, which is not bad ... I can always come back anytime ...

So on sunday, I got rid of these huge aluminum cables and replaced them by shorter twin 16mm² cables, crimped togeter in one lug

Negative cable screwed onto the Battery Bank terminal

and onto the Grid Tie Inverter negative terminal

Same for positive cable

screwed on the Tyco Kilovac contactor

and on the Grid Tie Inverters

Grid Tie Inverters stack (the ESS is ON)

Et voilà !

Low Net Power used while ESS is ON

Taken this morning during breakfast, while ESS was on ... Very small Net Usage (= Usage - ESS Generation)

A day with the ESS & Wattson Anywhere

This morning I decided to show a typical day using my Energy Storage System, ESS, along with the - beta version - of Wattson Anywhere

So it starts just after I get up and start my BESPSS by switching it to Inverter Mode; The batteries have been charging all night long, during off peak hours, they are now fully charged.

After this, shower, breakfast, and during these I can see Wattson (I have one downstairs in my bedroom and another one upstairs in the dining room) and also see the usage & generation graph on my iPad using the Wattson Anywhere portal - still in beta version -

Wait until the end of the video to see me refresh the Power graph on the iPad and zoom in during the generation period




These temporary used Lead AGM Batteries do not hold much energy, but they are still usefull to continue testing my BESPSS while waiting to get some CALB CA180FI ...

After brushing my teeth, I switch the ESS back into Charge Mode for the day

After my Vectrix ride to work, I light up a cirgarette and take my iPhone out of my pocket to check mails; This is what the Wattson Anywhere portal shows
In case you are wondering, the big 2kW+ usage at night until a bit more than 2AM is the water heater, starting automatically at 10:30PM when the rate is lower - night rate is half the price of day rate here -


After a coffee and saying hi to my colleagues, I start working, and soon I check the graph again, on my office Vista plastic HP PC - :-( - with a Chrome browser

After an hour or so

Let's zoom in a little bit on the last two hours

Karotz, facing Wattson, sends me an email with a picture taken few seconds before; I can then see instant Power Usage - before Wattson Profesional and now Wattson Anywhere, this was the only way I could see my home usage -

Let's refresh my PC Wattson Anywhere graph

Now, I am soon taking a lunch break, I check the portal again and zoom in again to see the overall morning graph

After our lunch and a little coffe, here is the situation


Let's see the Energy used & generated so far: Note the Green Generated Energy this morning, which brought down almost by half the Energy Purchased from EDF, my utility company


Karotz just sent me another photo: I see some light at home ...


and the power usage has gone up, which means the heat pump is working harder to get to the desired temperature (we always lower to 16°C when out and put it back to 19°C when at home)


Back home, I switch the LiFePO4 ESS to Inverter Mode


The effect on Wattson Anywhere graph

10 minutes later

Zooming in the 2nd generation period of the day

At the end of the day, this is what it looks like on the online portal


and this is the Energy grpah for the whole day


That's it for today !

ESS + Wattson Anywhere = Real Time Follow up of Generated Power at Home

Now with Wattson Anywhere I can keep track of my ESS Generation Anytime & Anywhere on Any device ! For me, this is really cool ...

My LiFePO4 BESPSS = Battery Energy Storage & Power Supply System stores 4kWh of energy and pushes it back into my home grid adjusting its output automatically, thanks to Wattson color codes, to keep the usage (purchased from my utility company EDF) as low as possible

Later on, this will be much improved when my solar panels are connected to my home grid: I will then store free solar energy during the day, and feed it back to my home appliances as soon as the sun is down or when the overall home power usage is high

To seethis Real Time Graph, go to my Public Wattson Anywhere Page



Back in october, when I still had these Mottcells cells (see picture above) on my BESPSS, the generation was pretty close to the usage (see graph below)

Zoom on the two generation periods of this day: Notice how the generation follows closely the usage

The same day, but the Energy graph, showing the amount of "green" energy generated

These are two iPad screenshots taken yesterday, while having breakfast, with my (Lead AGM) BESPSS switched ON

Every 5 minutes, I get an updated graph

The following screenshots show two full days with 2 BESPSS production periods in december and in january; Note that the Wattson Anywhere portal beta release has changed in between

ESS - Crimping Sunday with New 50mm2 Cables & Lugs

Last friday, I went to the supermarket (Leclerc) next to my office after lunch and found cheap gasoline car startup battery cables; I got this set of 2 3.5m 50mm2 cables for 17.50 EUR only :-)

I also found a professional store nearby where I  could buy all sizes (almost) of copper lugs

I then dismounted the clamps to access the very end of the cable

and was able to remove the already crimped terminal

there was a hole in it already, a 6mm one, so I redrilled it to 8mm to fit my screw terminals

After that I decided to try my Christmas gift, the hydraulic crimping tool, on a doubled 16mm2 cable with a 25mm2 lug

It was very easy to use, a kid could use it, because it does not require a lot of strength ! very smooth ...

It is a bit crooked but the next ones will be fine, I just need to carefully allign the two crimping blocks

Double cable screwed in place between the battery bank positive terminal and the Tyco Kilovac contactor 

Then, I worked on the new cables and tryed to use the existing terminals by cutting their perpendicular sides ... Surprise ! Once broken, I realized the metal was not solid copper, but copper platted aluminum ! Now that's why it was cheaper ( BTW, Aluminum's conductivity = 60% of Copper conductivity )

In the end the remaining part was to hard to remove and the result was not flat at all, so I decided to cut the cable and crimp a new lug; Same thing here, the cable is made of copper platted aluminum ...

But the cable would not fit in 25mm2 lug ! The cable says 25mm2 on the insulation though...
Same problem with 35mm2 lug... I think it is 50mm2 and now I get it: they write 25mm2 because it is equivalent to 25mm2 of copper ... but to achieve this conductivity they need twice the section => 50mm2

I ended up removing what would not fit in a 35mm2 lug 

Detailed crimping process below:

I then had to cut the residual wires on the surroundings and installed it onto the grid tie inverters stack

and the other terminal of the contactor

I left the whole 3.5m of new cable length to test its conductivity with high amperage

After cutting, crimping and installing the negative battery to grid tie inverter stack cable (also 3.5m)

and then testing with full 1200W, more or less 50A-60A ... Well the doubled cable got lukewarm, and the two 3.5m new cables got lukewarm too, but less; I will have to cut them shorter I guess, and use 50mm2 lugs on both ends, but anyways it is much better than before where the simple 16mm2 copper cables were getting pretty warm to really hot !