I got two of these units. I was suppose to be building my new house for this now but can get lumber. I’m glad I got these when I could as they are no longer made.
Franklin Brown I had to buy the rights to this one (which is likely one of the last ever made) from an Aussie who charged me a “Cheeky little markup for market pricing.” All’s fair in love and discontinued, yet desirable, products.
I also have 2 of these, and the sbms120s, I'm glad I saw this, i plan on using a combination of the dmppt450-sbms120 and a sbms0 and the dssr 20 to heat my home...
The MPPT was designed to both redirect power to a 24V battery and use the rest of the energy for heating and the max power point voltage is set for winter when you will want heating and panels are cold. Because of that high max power point settings 29.5 to 32V range and the fact that your hot panels will have much lower max power point reduces the amount of usable power. The reason max power point for heating is selected higher is one that will be the case for those panels in winter and second it will not interfere with battery charging that will be below that voltage. Same test in a colder day will provide a completely different result. I was not thinking someone will want to heat massive amounts of water in a hot summer day (I did not designed for that :) ). I could allow user settable max power point limits is just that I did not had much time for the firmware and since this is no longer a current product and there was almost no interest it will probaly not have any future updates or support as I need to spend all my effort on the SBMS0 and DSSR20. Quite a bit of the functionality of the DMPPT450 is not available on SBMS0 + DSSR20 as in dual PV array for SBMS0 where you can install a 3x larger PV array than what battery can handle and charge the battery much easier in cloudy day's plus the diversion future on the new DSSR20 allows using all excess energy for heating is just not having the max power point for heating of the DMPPT450. Using diodes or solar PV panels (same thing) for heating seems to be a better option now to get max power point so is what I will be using when I extend my own system. I did not wanted to use my name in the brand so I chose something similar that has the same roots as my name in Romanian history. There are some details in Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacians
This is why I'm so supportive of your products and want others to experience them. You're always ready to provide feedback and constructive criticism which is much needed. Thanks so much for that! I'm absolutely fascinated with your concept of using solar panels as radiant heaters, and I'll be trying this out over the winter. I'm sure many others would love to see some more of your own tests and experiments. After reading the wiki page about the Dacians, I still can't figure out how you pronounce it. Would you say "Day-see-an" or "Day-she-an" or maybe "Dah-she-an"? And then Electrodacus? What is your pronunciation on that?
@@NoelBarlau Not that important how someone pronounces my name. It is not a very common name even in Romania :) The best audio pronunciation I found is here forvo.com/word/dacian_ciolo%C8%99/ it is a short audio recording of a romanian name and surname and the name is Dacian pushing the blue triangle will show how name is pronounced in Romanian but the english pronunciation is Day-shn Same thing with electrodacus but not important how someone will pronounce that either :) Da-cus
@@electrodacus Wow, that's different than I expected. Dah-chee-yon. Thanks for clearing this up. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I know how it is to have your name continually mispronounced. I pronounce my name Noel as it rhymes with Joel, and my last name Barlau sounds just like the more normal spelling Barlow. But it is confusing, and I answer to pretty much anything. Your name should be pronounced as close to how it sounds to you in your own head.
@@estqwerty You are one of the very few interested in something like this and it is not economical for me. I had this available for over two years on two kickstarters and sold directly on my website and total demand was barely around 50pcs over that period. The price I set was based on at least 250pcs so it was not a profitable device for me not to mention is fairly complex so the months of work designing the hardware and software will have never been paid off. I knew this could happen from the time I started so I did all this work as a hobby. You should check the new SBMS0 and the DSSR20 with diversion + DEXT16 user manual on my website as some of the DMPPT450 functionality is implemented there.
It was my fault. I didn't understand the physics behind the huge hit the panels would take in the extreme heat. I'll be redoing the test and posting results when it finally gets cold-ish here in ATL. If you'd like to do your own testing of it for your channel, I'd be glad to lend it to you. Just let me know.
@@NoelBarlau Hi Noel, Yes, actually. That would be fantastic. I'd love to test it. I also have a 55 gallon drum with different sized heater elements in it, but just 3. Not as large as your setup. But I'll buy however many are needed. Thank you. Are you on Facebook? I'll send you a private message for address.
@@DavidPozEnergy I had to quit Facebook back in about 2014, as it became far too politicized for me. You can email me at noelbarlau@gmail.com at your convenience.
Capacitors aren't bad, it is the people that use them. They design to use the minimum they can get away with operating at excessive ripple currents that cause heating and eventual failure. It is quite easy to get 20 years out of even consumer rated capacitors. It is unfortunate that there are so few products available to do PV heating and poorly designed ones like techluck are destined to have capacitor failure. In heating, higher voltage is your friend. Multiple heaters is the way to go even with a MPPT PWM control system from a capacitor bank. I designed for someone a six element system. Only one element of the six was PWM limiting the variable element to only about 600W. Easy to handle with long life from a capacitor bank. Pulsing 3.5KW from a capacitor bank is just not a good design choice. Good that you are explaining Dacian's concept. I don't think it is understood by most. I like that he has an interesting concept. It is just not practical to put into many situations.
opera Sorry for the late response, I’m intermittent at best at checking on new comments... Thanks for your insights, I always enjoy your takes on solar water heating.
I got two of these units. I was suppose to be building my new house for this now but can get lumber. I’m glad I got these when I could as they are no longer made.
Franklin Brown I had to buy the rights to this one (which is likely one of the last ever made) from an Aussie who charged me a “Cheeky little markup for market pricing.” All’s fair in love and discontinued, yet desirable, products.
I also have 2 of these, and the sbms120s, I'm glad I saw this, i plan on using a combination of the dmppt450-sbms120 and a sbms0 and the dssr 20 to heat my home...
Are you interested in selling 1 of those DMPPT450.
The MPPT was designed to both redirect power to a 24V battery and use the rest of the energy for heating and the max power point voltage is set for winter when you will want heating and panels are cold. Because of that high max power point settings 29.5 to 32V range and the fact that your hot panels will have much lower max power point reduces the amount of usable power.
The reason max power point for heating is selected higher is one that will be the case for those panels in winter and second it will not interfere with battery charging that will be below that voltage.
Same test in a colder day will provide a completely different result. I was not thinking someone will want to heat massive amounts of water in a hot summer day (I did not designed for that :) ).
I could allow user settable max power point limits is just that I did not had much time for the firmware and since this is no longer a current product and there was almost no interest it will probaly not have any future updates or support as I need to spend all my effort on the SBMS0 and DSSR20.
Quite a bit of the functionality of the DMPPT450 is not available on SBMS0 + DSSR20 as in dual PV array for SBMS0 where you can install a 3x larger PV array than what battery can handle and charge the battery much easier in cloudy day's plus the diversion future on the new DSSR20 allows using all excess energy for heating is just not having the max power point for heating of the DMPPT450.
Using diodes or solar PV panels (same thing) for heating seems to be a better option now to get max power point so is what I will be using when I extend my own system.
I did not wanted to use my name in the brand so I chose something similar that has the same roots as my name in Romanian history. There are some details in Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacians
This is why I'm so supportive of your products and want others to experience them. You're always ready to provide feedback and constructive criticism which is much needed. Thanks so much for that! I'm absolutely fascinated with your concept of using solar panels as radiant heaters, and I'll be trying this out over the winter. I'm sure many others would love to see some more of your own tests and experiments. After reading the wiki page about the Dacians, I still can't figure out how you pronounce it. Would you say "Day-see-an" or "Day-she-an" or maybe "Dah-she-an"? And then Electrodacus? What is your pronunciation on that?
@@NoelBarlau Not that important how someone pronounces my name. It is not a very common name even in Romania :)
The best audio pronunciation I found is here forvo.com/word/dacian_ciolo%C8%99/ it is a short audio recording of a romanian name and surname and the name is Dacian pushing the blue triangle will show how name is pronounced in Romanian but the english pronunciation is Day-shn
Same thing with electrodacus but not important how someone will pronounce that either :) Da-cus
@@electrodacus Wow, that's different than I expected. Dah-chee-yon. Thanks for clearing this up. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I know how it is to have your name continually mispronounced. I pronounce my name Noel as it rhymes with Joel, and my last name Barlau sounds just like the more normal spelling Barlow. But it is confusing, and I answer to pretty much anything. Your name should be pronounced as close to how it sounds to you in your own head.
do not stop this product, please . there is interest. i just find out about it. how to build the controller board?
@@estqwerty You are one of the very few interested in something like this and it is not economical for me. I had this available for over two years on two kickstarters and sold directly on my website and total demand was barely around 50pcs over that period. The price I set was based on at least 250pcs so it was not a profitable device for me not to mention is fairly complex so the months of work designing the hardware and software will have never been paid off.
I knew this could happen from the time I started so I did all this work as a hobby.
You should check the new SBMS0 and the DSSR20 with diversion + DEXT16 user manual on my website as some of the DMPPT450 functionality is implemented there.
Thanks for the video. I enjoyed it. I'd love to do more testing on this unit. It's a shame it didn't work out in the hot weather.
It was my fault. I didn't understand the physics behind the huge hit the panels would take in the extreme heat. I'll be redoing the test and posting results when it finally gets cold-ish here in ATL. If you'd like to do your own testing of it for your channel, I'd be glad to lend it to you. Just let me know.
@@NoelBarlau Hi Noel, Yes, actually. That would be fantastic. I'd love to test it. I also have a 55 gallon drum with different sized heater elements in it, but just 3. Not as large as your setup. But I'll buy however many are needed. Thank you. Are you on Facebook? I'll send you a private message for address.
@@DavidPozEnergy I had to quit Facebook back in about 2014, as it became far too politicized for me. You can email me at noelbarlau@gmail.com at your convenience.
Capacitors aren't bad, it is the people that use them. They design to use the minimum they can get away with operating at excessive ripple currents that cause heating and eventual failure. It is quite easy to get 20 years out of even consumer rated capacitors. It is unfortunate that there are so few products available to do PV heating and poorly designed ones like techluck are destined to have capacitor failure. In heating, higher voltage is your friend. Multiple heaters is the way to go even with a MPPT PWM control system from a capacitor bank. I designed for someone a six element system. Only one element of the six was PWM limiting the variable element to only about 600W. Easy to handle with long life from a capacitor bank. Pulsing 3.5KW from a capacitor bank is just not a good design choice.
Good that you are explaining Dacian's concept. I don't think it is understood by most. I like that he has an interesting concept. It is just not practical to put into many situations.
opera Sorry for the late response, I’m intermittent at best at checking on new comments... Thanks for your insights, I always enjoy your takes on solar water heating.