On single day gigs we should be able to run all day just from the batts and recharge from hard power on a renewables contract once finished.

To start with we'll only have one solar bank and one battery bank but will put in all the connections to expand as funds allow. Batts, Inverter and MPPT will be linked with the CAN bus so they can talk to each other.

Breaker sizes are a rough guess and only placed as makes sense to me but if anything is amiss please let me know. I can only afford to do this once!

You don't seem to have a centralised system for controlling everything together (solar, generator, batteries, inverter) to control/limit currents and properly charge the batteries. This system (with a generator) is very similar to off-grid or boat systems, which I've been looking at a lot recently because I'm getting an electric narrowboat built.

For batteries you might be better off with as many BYD Premium LVL 15.4 as you need, these are better quality than Pylontech, have a 10 year guarantee, each one can provide 250A (so you only need 1), and you can easily parallel as many as you want. The most popular kit for connecting everything up (including generator) and providing mains is Victron, maybe a Multiplus II 48/10000 plus MPPT controller and Cerbo GX/Touch 50. Much more common and better supported than Studer.

Try these guys, they sell everything you'll need and actually started out as a provider of solar powered kit for festivals...

https://www.bimblesolar.com/" rel="nofollow - https://www.bimblesolar.com/

Cool, what Pylontechs are you getting? the 3.5ks or 2.4ks? It looks like there are none in the country and I need this for a gig in July so I might go down the BYD route...

Quite a steep learning curve this and I've throughly thrown myself in at the deep end!

Standard....

This is a great setup. I have Studer XTH 8000's in our electric barge, they are a cut above Victron imo.

Worth noting that you don't need to stick to 48Vnom with the Xtender, they are OK up to 68V input. I just built a 1200Ah 17S 60p battery for the barge, ~75kWh at 69.4V fully charged. Absolutely loving the lithium, replaced 930AH 48V FLA and it is night and day. For some reason the rotation is wonky on the image, but pics below...

Went to Coventry to pick up what I thought were Pylontech US3000 and they were sent the wrong type so I got the newer C version for the price of the older one! 13.5 kwh of batteries... wow...

Only 1kw of solar so far, MPPT can take 3kw so I'll get some more panels when I can, maxed out my spends pretty swiftly, fingers crossed I can get it all going by the 24th!

I picked up the spacer brackets that fit between them but it looks like they aren't for when you rack mount, are you planning on putting a 1u space between them in the rack? I'd rather not but can't find any info as to whether they need space for cooling...

I would have done it a little different if I'd realised how inflexible 70mm cable is. tbh i should have known, it just didn't occur... 

I've still got to wire in the lines from the panel mount MC4 connectors to the fuses and then we're good to go. I've got three 330w panels so far and hopefully should be able to pick up another 6 once its earning money. I'm really pleased with how plug and play the Studer has been. On the surface, its VERY complicated but with it linked to the Studer MPPT, the RCC control, the CAN BUS convertor and the battery it all just seems to talk happily amongst itself. 

The batteries came 50% charged so I set that up and you can easily limit the input current so it can take into account different inputs from a single 13a plug (i limited that at 8A and it got warm!) to a small genny or a full 32/1. 

I had it charging at 8A as I said and put two 650w lights on the other end and it dropped the charge current automatically and diverted power where it was needed. I assume this will work the other way if we're using a 5KVA genny and need a bit more every now and then, this will come from the batteries. This means we can spec smaller gennies and run them more efficiently or if solar is enough just charge from that.

I have eve energy home automation switches with power metering on them that I'll put one on the stack to monitor power draw during live acts and the dj sets and I'll have another for the all the backline so I can see what that draws separately. The idea is to build up a database of average consumptions for a variety of scenarios and spec to that  rather than just peak draw.

I'm interested in the capability without the generator and assuming poor solar performance. 

Good luck with the gig.

I'm also trying to set it up on the assumption that there will be no sunshine and that anything gained from the panels is a bonus as its just not reliable enough. Regarding charging overnight, I have 13.5kwh  of battery, if they were discharged to 90-95% I'd say you'd probably need a 32/1 installed at home to get a guarantee that they'd be back up to spec (if you're leaving site at midnight and returning at 9 am thats not long by the time you got home and plugged it in)

However, the other part of this system is about better generator loading. We all spec max power from generators and for good reason but then we run them at really low load most of the time especially overnight so they run REALLY inefficiently. If you chuck the battery bank on one of these sets thats just powering the overnight cabins you'll be making good use of an engine burning through diesel for not much reason. Also, if you take it home, you'd batter have a pure renewables contract!

The inverter + 4 x Pylontech US3000C batteries powering:

4 x Turner A500 - 8 x Tham 15

2 x Turner B502 - 4 x Custom 15 mid

2 x Turner B302 - 4 x 2" RCF comps

2 x Outline Tnine - Mons (current limited)

1 x  K10 - Mons (current limited)

Bass and a few guitar amps

DJ kit

FOH desk

Highest I saw the output meter going was just above 2kva but the level all on, no signal was about 1kva.

We ran the system from 12 noon until 8 pm and were still at 33% left when we finished the gig.

I've only got 3 x 330w panels so far and hope to get 6 more. The day was pretty overcast but they were on average putting about 200-250w into the system although when the sun did come through it hit 900+ watts. The system has an SD card on it and logs the use so when I get it out of the van I'll look through that and check the peaks. That goes for the inverter as well so I can do a post mortem on power use.

I've got a load of old and unuseable Slick truss so I reckon I'll build some kind of frame that I can easily rotate as the sun moves.

Some folks having a great old time! It was a struggle to convince people that it could and would go ahead but given the last year and a half we've had I'm not surprised we had over 400 folks dancing to some of Manchesters best bands and rinsed out the jungle at the end!

It was the first time I've had the whole system out as a full unit and it performed really well and I'm more than happy with the battery system. It does need a trailer of its own as even with the lithium batts, its pretty heavy and the idea of packing 9 panels in the back of a van full of rig is just a bad idea....

monkeypuzzle wrote: 4 x Turner A500 - 8 x Tham 15 2 x Turner B502 - 4 x Custom 15 mid 2 x Turner B302 - 4 x 2" RCF comps

mmm, vintage Turners, lovely things!

And then this Sunday I finally got the rig out in the fields near my house. only two stacks this time but with my new Soundgear amps and a CA6 I picked up. All I can say is... Wow! Ran for 6 hours and the state of charge had dropped to 77%. We weren't slamming it and it was only half the rig but that's such a change to the Turners. I love them very much but for the price of the Soundgear amps, the sound quality is fine and they're working out really efficient. The Turners are a mains only thing from now on...

I can really recommend this kind of set up. No noisy generator to lug about and refill. The initial investment is relatively high but if you're doing quite a few gigs its well worth it and given that it can deliver up to 20 kva on peaks it will handle a good sized system on it with a well specced battery bank...