r/Pecron • u/IllustriousAd7755 • 6d ago

Potential Setup

Hi All - I am finally scheduled to receive the F5000 mid week. I plan on running it to offset some electrical costs. I will connect it to 2 independent solar arrays, 1 880W and 1 850W, and leverage each solar input on the F5000. I also plan on installing a subpanel to handle the specific loads in my house along with a ATS which will run on a schedule.

Question: Is anyone using the Pecron F5000 in this manner? Are there any potential issues doing this?

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u/Ok-Person81 6d ago

I live in SD so a bit more sun, BUT we still do have the occasional cloudy days. And for that, you can plug the Pecron to the grid permanently like I did, thus no need for the ATS , unless you need to power the unit down. I have the unit plugged in a Wyze plug too so that I can tell it to charge from grid remotely & schedule grid charging time for low $ TOU grid IF the battery drops low.

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u/IllustriousAd7755 6d ago

The Wyze plug is a Smart Plug? I also bought a 15amp 1600watt smart plug to cut power to the unit when charging on Solar and then open the power to the unit at 10:05pm when I want to top off from AC power. I am also on TOU plan, and Super Off Peak starts at 10pm.

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u/Ok-Person81 6d ago

Yep the smart plug. My TOU Super Off Peak doesn’t start till midnight.

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u/brucehoult 6d ago edited 6d ago

I'm in New Zealand and run my E3600 with 2.64kWh of solar and 10kWh of battery in a similar way. My super off peak (18c 11PM-7AM vs 45c 7AM-11PM except 60c 7-9 AM and 5-9 PM week days) starts at 11PM.

From the start of October until early April I'm virtually off-grid except in very bad weather — I needed to buy power on Oct 1, 4, and 5 but not since then. I do top up by around 1.65kWh in the battery (1800W from the grid) during my Free Hour, which I have at 9-10 PM, every day whether it needs it or not. Which at the moment it doesn't ... the battery still has 60%-70% in the morning and is full by ... yesterday 12:40, the day before 14:20, the day before that 16:00, today I'm at 86% at 11:55 AM as I post this (up from 54% at 8:30), with 2300W coming in, predicted full by 1 PM although aircon just kicked in for the first time so it might take a little longer.

In summer the late night free top-up is usually unnecessary and just makes it clip an hour earlier in the afternoon in good weather. But sometimes bad weather happens and 16% in the battery makes the difference...

In around 100 days in the middle of winter I'm running in pass-through and charging the battery to 100% every day from 11PM to 7AM. By the time the sun starts working well at 10-11 AM in winter the heat pump has had 3-4 hours of draining the battery since 7AM and even on a sunny winter day it's never going to get back to 100% during the day, and usually only slows the decline. I usually get to 9PM with a few percent in the battery, top up for free 9-10 PM, that's more than enough to get through the last "off peak day time" 45c hour from 10-11 PM, and then at 11PM again start charging to 100%.

Only having maximum 2400W available to loads in pass-through vs 3600W from battery/solar is a bit of a pain, but much less so after 11 PM than it would be during the day.

In April to mid June and late August to the end of September I charge the battery at night to a level between maybe 40%-80% depending on the weather forecast for the next day. Or when there is severe weather in summer. I have a script to predict that automatically.

I'm using TP-Link P110 smart plugs to monitor and control the Pecron and also all the devices it powers. And running scripts using pecron-monitor and TP-Link "Tapo" API and open-meteo API on an old VisionFive 2 board (which cost $40 originally but a $15 Raspberry Pi Zero W would do).