Off-Grid Solar Made SIMPLE: Easy Container Power System STEP-BY-STEP

hi I'm Jonathan I'm Ashley and we are tiny shiny home today we're going to get a little bit nerdy and take a detailed walk through of the planning and installation of our 3 kwatt 5 KW 120 volt off-grid solar system that powers a rehabed shipping [Music] container you may be asking how did we get here our family of six spent many years traveling full-time in our renovated vintage Airstream before finding some offgrid property in Arizona to settle on our Dream here is to build a self- sustainable off-grid Homestead from the ground up using solar power water catchment and natural building techniques to create an oasis in the desert now this isn't our first rodeo we have a similar install video of our much larger more complicated DIY solar system it had 10 KW of solar 28 KW hours of lithium battery storage and 5,000 watts of 120 volt AC power we'll be referring to this project often as it informed a lot of the decisions we made for this solar system so when it came time to create power for our daughter's goat Barn container we took all the lessons we learned from that much larger system to design a smaller cheaper safer and more streamlined solar system today we're focused on the planning building and installation process that we went through to build this system what it can do and how much it cost here are the highlevel specs 3,000 WS of solar panels six in series 2 in parallel 5 KW hours of lithium iron phosphate s so rack batteries at 48 volt a 3000 W inverter single phase at 120 volt surges to 6,000 ws and this is all controlled with a victron GX device for remote monitoring this should power a 40ft shipping container with lights fans fridge water pump and a mini split air conditioner as with any good solar system first you need to know what you're building it for True this power system was part of a much larger project here on the homestead rehabbing a shipping container into our daughter's dream goat [Music] Barn it included a fully renovated insulated and framed interior modular kitting stalls bulk feed stores large shade awning roof rainwater catchment secure field fence paddocks and a closed climate controlled sanitary milking room most of our power planning was for the milking room it housed a mini split for heating and cooling a fridge for keeping milk cold and a small water pump for washing dishes and keeping the goats hydrated not to mention all the lights fans cameras and other small draw items throughout based on our experience with that larger DIY system this is how we decided to size the smaller Streamlight system Sy 3,000 WS of solar power by connecting 250 W panels in series of six we could create high voltage arrays that charged well even in Cloudy conditions and maximized the available space on the awning roof we ended up with 12 panels total for this project 5 KW hour rack battery Bank planning ahead for maintenance and modularity in our larger upcoming house system we decided we wanted to experiment with something different to start we're trying a 5 KW s so rack battery to see how solid the bmss is how it communicates with our victron gear and whether it's actually a better option than building our own bank more on this later 3000 wat 120 volt AC inverter we didn't need a lot of power but we did want to focus on quality we settled on a 3,000 watt Quattro inverter charger from victron and that decision to go with victron also tied into our charge controllers BMS the ability to monitor the system remotely and manage all Power Systems on the property from one app speaking of why are we a victron homestead well look we know there are a lot of cheap all-in-one units out there but we think modularity and redundancy are important that stable well-designed software is critical and that a small team of people who really care about this stuff is the people we should be supporting victron has a wide range of options that are rock solid take large loads like a champ and can be monitored and controlled from anywhere in the world with internet connectivity and just so you know we've never talked to victron we're not sponsored by them we've just done our own research and they're the ones we' decided to go with right now we have seven individual victron systems running on our Homestead we really have seven we really do they range from large size house systems to small 12volt pump houses and remote fence Chargers that can notify us of failing batteries low temperatures and I can monitor all of them on my phone without walking 5 acres to go get to them which is really nice so yeah we're all in on victron and we've been really happy with their performance over the years the modularity of a victron system means that we need a solar charge controller an inverter a shunt and a GX device that becomes the brain of the system when connecting them all together including the battery they can intelligently communicate adjust charging and protections and relay all that back to the vrm or the victron remote monitoring portal a few important items first the entire contents of this video are also available in article form on our website at the link below so if you would prefer to read through this copy settings follow links to products make sure you go check that out second we always create highr res PDF wiring diagrams for purchase as companions to the article and video don't worry you don't need to actually buy anything to learn how to build this system we're going to take you through step by step in very nerdy detail but if you just want to say thanks or if you want those high-res diagrams to study later you can purchase them at the link here third here's a very quick explanation of how we're going to connect all of these elements [Music] together first you have your solar power wires coming in from what solar panels positive goes through a breaker and then the negative and positive come to the PV side of the charge controller out of that we have a positive battery line that runs through a single pole toggle switch and then down into top of the t-class fuse also we run the positive line from the inverter into the top of that t-class fuse the negatives from both the charge controller and the inverter go down to the negative side of the battery the other side of the tlass fuse we connect that directly to the battery we ran our AC power out of the inverter up into the box to energize it and then we have another AC out that goes to the outside of the container where we can plug a generator in and charge the batteries uh and emergency situation and then all of the grounds are connected it's kind of hard to see to the chassis of this back here got a four gauge wire that goes out we have an AC SPD for lightning strikes a DC SPD connected to the charge controller for lightning strikes and we have data cables coming from the battery from the inverter and from the charge controller that all come into the servo GX and then that goes to the display so that we can see the battery information the inverter information solar charging information disclaimer I'm not an electrician nor do I play one on YouTube all information here is solely for entertainment purposes and all electrical work should be performed by qualified individuals according to local electric codes cool cool so now that you know the basics of the system let's start building it guys this is where it gets really nerdy so I'm going to dip out and let you talk with jnan [Music] first up is our solar panels and if you've been watching us a while you know that we love Santan solar here's a secret solar panels and Commercial installs get replaced often usually way before they need to be so Santan buys them tests them and resells them back to folks like you and me at a fraction of the cost of the new ones they still have plenty of life left in them and the cost savings can be so great that even if they need to be replaced a little earlier you're still getting a great deal so panels really don't need to be fancy we grabbed a pallet of 30 250 W snail Trail panels for $11,000 so $33 each we ended up using the extra ones to expand our big solar system to 10,000 Watts you can see that video here but in case you were wondering snail trails are just visual blemishes they don't actually affect the output of the panel our original DIY solar project included a huge expensive ground Mount because we didn't have any buildings or roofs to put the panels on we used Iron Ridge to design and C calculate this amount and we've been really happy with their products with this project we added this shade awning roof off the south side of the container it was over engineered because we knew we'd be using it to catch rain water and put solar on based on the 40ft X 10t dimensions of the awning we settled on this horizontal configuration cramming 12 panels up there for a total of 3,000 watts and we did go back to Iron Ridge to design and build the roof mount system as well we occasionally get hurricane force winds during monsoon season so being able to input all that data was valuable for making sure that these panels stayed secure during Crazy weather events since we were installing on a simple metal roof R panel we needed to find a way to mount the Iron Ridge racking gear to the roof the S5 solar foot turned out to be the best way to do this it's just a machined piece of metal with four screw holes and an 8 mm stud and hex nut these were installed roughly every 4 ft and then you bolt down iron rid's slotted eloot attach the main XR rail to that and then use the UFOs or Universal fit object to hold the panels in place a few important notes on the first and last panel of the vertical array you have to attach stopper sleeves to the UFOs this provides a solid flat surface for the panels to sit against set your first panel on the UFO with the stopper sleeves and then slide two more in the track so they touch the other side of the panel Slide the next panel onto those UFOs and repeat future Jonathan here as I'm getting ready to publish this video and double checking things it turns out Iron Ridge has changed some stuff they don't sell the stopper sleeve anymore now they sell something called the end fastening object so before you had to take a UFO snap a stopper sleeve on and that stopper sleeve had to be the exact height of your solar panel frame so you had to like measure as like a whole thing now they have this new thing that replaces all of that this in fasting object and it adjusts to the height of your frame on the fly so it makes things a little bit easier so now you know you also need to tighten down the UFOs to the correct torque too much and you could break the panel not enough and it might fly away in the Windstorm speaking of torque there are several parts of this process that require exact torquing specs I recommend getting both foot-pound and inch pound torque wrenches as well as a deep socket set this really was a pretty simple install the hardest part was getting the solar feet spaced and lined up properly on the roof and trying to get them to hit as many Rafters as possible [Music] with the panels installed we turned our attention to the wiring now like we mentioned our plan was to group six panels in series to get high voltage arrays this meant that the panels would produce more power earlier and later in the day or in Cloudy conditions here's how the math worked out each 250 W solar panel at 37 Vols and 8 amps connected 6 in series would produce an array with 1500 watts 230 volt and 8 amps then connecting both arrays in parallel created a 3,000 watt 230 volt 16 amp solar panel system as far as the wiring goes when connecting in series you take the positive of the first panel and connect it to the negative of the second panel then the positive of the second panel to the negative of the third panel and so on down the line if you started with the Positive then your last panel will use the positive wire to your combiner box and the first panel where there's an empty negative will need to be extended to the combiner box that meant buying our own mc4 connectors and about 100 ft of PV wire for this project we mounted a heavy duty combin box on the outside of the container and connected the positive and the negative of the first array to the first input and the positive and negative of the second array to the second input this paralleled the two arrays together to that full 3,000 Watts 230 volts and 16 amp system out of the combiner box we ran eight gauge wire inside the goat Barn to the main system both the iron rid rack and the combiner Box need to be grounded but we'll come back to that later now this is where I have to say warning we're going to start wiring all these major components up here's a few things to keep in mind while connecting to your system make sure everything is off the breakers in the combiner Box all the toggle switches the battery do your best to run all the positives together and all the negatives together so that you're completing the circuit at the last step and always cover your battery post so you don't short anything with an accidental tool drop make your connections and we'll go through the boot up process at the end [Music] so from the combiner box that 8 gauge wire is going to run into the positive and negative PV inputs on the victron smart solar 250 volt 85 amp charge controller this charge controller was specifically size for R array and you can buy all different sizes depending on your needs the positive line should run through a 20 amp circuit breaker first though this adds additional protection should the breakers in the biner box fail and a way to shut off solar power inside the barn if we need to work on the system while we're here go ahead and install a DC midnight solar lightning SPD into the positive and negative PV connections as well the ground from the SPD in the charger chassis will go to a single Earth ground which we'll explain later then the battery positive connection uses two gauge welding wire with crimped ring lugs that flows through a 100 amp single pole toggle these are the things we dread every time the single pole toggle switches they don't seem to come with like a facing that fits them I don't know why blue se you need to get it together we had to buy one of your other facings Dremel it out and then drill a bunch of holes in the back of this thing just so we could get a ratchet in there and like very carefully put things it's ridiculous this ax has even more protection for the batteries in the system as the power that comes out of the charge controller is actually greater than the power that's coming in from the panels because mppt is cool like that coming out of the toggle the battery positive wire will continue to the system side of the t-class fuse holder and we'll cover the t-class more in the battery section the battery negative connection also uses two gauge welding wire and it will connect to the negative side of the battery also don't forget to run a ve direct cable to the serbo GX for communication [Music] next up is the inverter from the system side of the t-class fees holder run a two a welding cable cut to size with crimp lugs to the battery positive on the Quattro and for reference we're going to run another two a cable from the battery side of the t-class fuse to the battery itself but we'll cover that in the next section we also need to run the battery negative directly to the negative post on the battery on the AC side run your hot neutral and ground out of the AC out1 into your main brake box where you'll connect your AC loads this should be either 8 gauge or six gauge depending on the length of the run if you want to put in a generator backup run a hot neutral and ground from AC in1 to the plug these should also be eight gauge or six gauge depending on how big your generator input will be while you're here we also recommend installing a midnight solar AC lightning SPD one leg will go to the hot on the AC in one and the other will go to the hot on the AC out one the 3000 watt version of the Quattro is is different than my 5000 watt there's no designated Earth ground lug all of the grounds seem to be bonded to the chassis so anywhere you have an AC connection use the ground provided there and for everything else run it to the chassis ground lug on the bottom so the SPD ground should connect there along with that charge controller ground and Main Earth ground wire to the outside and again we'll cover grounding more in a bit finally run a ve bus or ethernet cable from the Quattro to the Sero GX hey we're almost there let's connect the battery [Music] in our big system we bought individual cells directly from China and piec together the battery Bank ourselves using copper bus bars a custom metal frame and a bespoke BMS and this saved us a ton of money especially For A system that size but for the goat Barn we really didn't need that much storage and it was almost cost prohibitive to do it that way while I'm glad we went through the process of building our own battery Bank we are thinking long term about maintenance and modularity in our upcoming hyper Adobe roundhouse system rack batteries are quickly becoming a mature Market here in 2025 and there are a lot to choose from the most popular are probably the eg4 in the S so I know some people personally that have had issue with their eg4 so for this system we're going to try out the S so 48v 5 KW rack battery s so's have a pretty good reput reputation for talking directly to victron equipment via the BMS can buus being user serviceable I.E you can open them yourself and replace components and they're sturdy and well built also since the housing has a BMS and circuit breaker switch built in it means we can drastically simplify our system it even acts as a shunt to report state of charge voltage and more back to the servo GX so yeah long explanation but back to wiring it up we've already connected a lot of things to the batteries so let's recap from the battery positive out of the charge controller we ran that two gauge wire to the system side of the t-class fuse from the battery negative of the solar charge controller we ran a two gauge wire to the negative post of the battery then we ran a two o cable from the inverter battery positive to the system side of the t-class fuse and a two o wire from the inverter battery negative to the negative post of the battery now the next step is to run a two a welding wire and crimped ring lugs from the other side of that t-class fuse holder to the actual positive post of the battery the idea behind a t-class fuse is that during an unwanted surge event it will blow break the connection and protect your equipment and it should be placed as close to the batteries as possible believe it or not there's only one more wire for the battery you need a special BMS can type a cable to connect from the can port on the S so battery to the BMS can on the Sero GX one last benefit of the rack battery is that in a system this small it can act as a shun reporting the voltage and state of charge back to the vron system without needing to buy an additional smart shun [Music] nice and finally the Sero GX this is the brain of the system it's what everything connects to we've already run most of these wires but I'm going to double back just to make sure you know where they're all coming from we connected our solar charge controller via a ve cable then we connected the inverter via a ve bus cable and finally we connected our battery to the BMS can with a special BMS can type a cable we do still need to power it so run the positive wire to the system side of the t-class fuse and the negative side to the negative post of the battery and finally we are connecting a GX touch 50 display which plugs into the HDMI and USB power port on the serbo [Music] okay why did I leave grounding to last because I've already been bitten once by indirect lightning strikes and poor desert soil conductivity it was an expensive lesson grounding and offgrid system in the desert is complicated but here's what I've learned since then first all of your ground should be connected together if possible so for this system that means the combiner Box each individual iron rack array the solar charge controller chassis the DC SPD ground the Quattro AC out1 the Quattro AC in1 the Quattro chassis the AC SPD ground and since the shipping container building was metal and lifted on blocks it needed to be grounded as well second desert sand and a single 8T ground rod just won't cut it for this install we poured an uer ground a 20t x 4 in x 4 in block of concrete encasing a 20t 4 gauge bare copper wire with 8ft ground rods connected on both ends the block of concrete acts as a better grounding circuit than our native soil all of that gear inside runs to the Quattro chassis lug and then a four gauge wire runs to the container and then to the uer ground all gear outside has its own four gauge bare copper wire running to the uer as well the goal here with these midnight solar spds is that should a lightning strike occur they'll blow and shunt the excess voltage through the ground into the uer and not damage our gear inside if you have more questions about the lightning spds and what went wrong with our original system make sure to watch this video and a quick note for those of you wondering about neutral ground bonding the Quattro actually bonds the neutral and the ground internally on the AC out by default you can turn the ground relay switch off via software and bond it in your panel if you want which is usually more recommended also the ACN does not Bond the neutral and ground internally just so you know [Music] okay we have run all of our wires are you ready to boot this thing up if you haven't already install that t-class fuse into its holder and cover it with the plastic cover next turn on the 100 amp single pole toggle going from the solar charge controller to the battery this will ensure that when that charge controller boots up it knows what the battery voltage is and it will set its settings appropriately do not turn on the breakers in your solar combiner box or that 20 amp breaker inside yet next we need to start that s so battery for a system this small we can use the built-in automatic pre-charge turn on the DC breaker located on the front of the battery then press the rst button with a small item like a pin this will immediately Engage The pre-charge Circuit of that battery which will charge any capacitors in the system the internal BMS will do its checks you'll hear a small clunk power will be turned on from the battery and things will start booting up note that the Sero GX firmware will need to be updated to 3.0.5 in order for the S so battery to communicate properly so the next step is to connect the servo to the internet and do that firmware update once it reboots you should see all your devices listed when you go to the device list page including the battery using the touchcreen or remote console on your phone if you don't have a touch screen make a few settings changes in settings system setup dvcc turn the main on limit charge current on maximum charge current on maximum charge current 90 amps in settings system setup battery monitor choose ply on Tech on canbus and in settings system setup battery measurements choose the pon Tech battery s so also recommends setting fallback charging settings both in the inverter and the charge controller just in case the connection via that VMS can is lost you'll do this via the victron Connect app on your smartphone and connecting to each viice individually via Bluetooth while you're here you probably need to do firmware updates on each individual victron device so go ahead and do that as well s so recommends the charge current for normal use up to 63 amps per battery charge current for fast charge up to 95 amps per battery absorption voltage of 57.6 volts absorption time of 15 minutes a float voltage of 55.2 volts a charging Target of 100% SS c and a low voltage shutdown of 48 volts at this point you should be seeing that battery voltage and state of charge on the home screen provided it's got a decent charge let's go ahead and turn on the inverter and test your 120 volt power the screen should change to inverting and the midnight SPD should turn one of its blue lights on test that your breaker panel has been energized with 120 volts turn on some circuits test some things and see how it goes add a light yes turn the light switch on how cool is that it's really cool yeah now we don't have a lot of battery but if you need to use it you can okay did you test all the light switches I have not not two you should let's do it that one's nice yeah that's going to be nice checking all the things charging now let's turn that solar power on go outside to the combiner box and flip the breaker inputs on the ones that you're using then go inside and turn on that 20 amp breaker you'll see both lights turn on on the midnight SPD and the charge controller will slowly ramp up until the full amount of Power is coming in now you're charging your battery finally if you installed a generator input use an MK3 to USB cable to connect your computer to the Quattro and change the input current limit appropriately our Harbor Freight 3500 generator runs at about 20 amps comfortably so turn it on and plug it in note that you may need to change your input setting on the servo I.E set ac1 to be generator so that it shows the right name and amount on the homepage turn on your generator and watch that quattra turn into a charger using that power to fill your batteries the second light from that AC midnight solar SPD should turn on as well if you've sized the system right you shouldn't need to use this very often but it's a nice backup to have now that the system is running you just have to connect it to the internet once it's connected go to vm. victron energy.com create an an account and create a new install using the ID from the Sero it really is that easy then you can use the website or apps on your phone or computer to monitor the system from anywhere in the [Music] world what's next let's set a few Expectations first of all your battery cells will need time to balance I've installed a few different systems and this usually takes about two full weeks you're going to get high voltage battery alarms sent from the BMS to the Sero it's really annoying but give it some time and it will eventually stop the nice thing about aack batteries that the BMS is built in the settings are already set and you shouldn't need to go in and mess with anything you just you got to give it that little bit of extra time we've been using this system for almost a year produces about 6 kwatt hours per day most of that coming from the mini split air conditioner the battery drops to 30 to 50% overnight and that huge solar array on that shade Dawning roof fills it back up very quickly in the morning it's handled in unseasonably hot summer fall like a champ and has kept it nice and warm in the winter too even better looking to the feature if we decide that the 5 kwatt hours is not enough storage it is very easy to add a second battery Bank to the system [Music] hey you're back I am you want to talk about how much this thing cost yes as long as we can do it really fast because it's really cold and I don't like being cold okay guys we're going to read off all these numbers and tell you in excruciating detail exactly how much the system cost are you ready ready okay future Jonathan is back quick note if you want to buy any of this stuff for your own system we do have links in that article on our website a lot of them are affiliate links you don't have to use those if you want but it'll at least let you know exactly what you're looking for second if you're buying victron stuff we really recommend buying from a local authorized dealer don't buy your victron stuff from Amazon like we did the first time because if you have an issue they're probably not going to help you so our local dealer is Northern Arizona wind and Sun that's where all our links go to but please feel free to find your local dealer when you're buying that high-end gear first up is the battery and yes we will be referring to our phone because it's a lot of numbers uh the S so rack battery cost $1,575 75 the inverter Communication cable was $10 yep the t-class fuse housing was 47 and the fuse itself was 39 two o cables with 38 in terminals was $51 the black ones and then we had to buy red ones and they were $73 for the same thing that doesn't make any sense Amazon what's up with you we just spray p no we also needed additional 516 copper lugs and that was $14.91 so the total for the battery was $1,810 65 okay on to the next solar charge controller yep vtron smart solar 250 volt 85 amp $54 69 yep then we needed two gauge red and black cable bought them together this time for $67 copper lugs 38 inch $134 in Copper lugs $13 and 516 copper lugs $13 and all of those worked with the two gauge wire well okay we also needed a DC circuit breaker that was $10 a c-s series single pool 100 amp4 in terminal $30 then we needed an enclosure for $42 a v direct cable for $13.60 and that dcsd for $100. 34 which brings us to a grand total of $866 3 okay on to the inverter the inverter is very simple the victon Quattro 3K 48 volt was $1,576 56 ac300 SPD $1.34 30 amp generator power Inlet box was $31.44 and we needed some six gauge AC wire black white and green because hot neutral and ground 15 ft of it for $90 that gives us a grand total of $1,873 then the Sero GX it cost $266 40 the touchscreen display $22.35 and we used a wall bracket to mount it in our specific situation for $15.30 which is a total of $484 5 all right onto the solar panels the solar panels we said before were not very expensive nope hand $360 for 12 of them and then uh we needed a 100 ft of PV wire $22.35 mc4 connectors $14 and that combiner box was $82 for a grand total of $658 35 that's not much for solar panels not too bad but we still got to Rack them up here we go solar panel racking from Iron Ridge do I have to name all these weird nerd things can we just all these things okay the xr1000 rail we needed eight of them 204 in versions $766 The bonded splice to connect them together was $29.96 we needed 28 UFO modules for $868 eight stopper sleeves for $416 and don't forget if you're buying the efos instead of the stopper sleeves you would buy eight less UFOs but then eight efos which are more expensive those are more like 30 bucks two grounding lugs for $11.30 an Iron Ridge slotted Lot 36 of them for $954,000 $656 incaps for $12.19 and we needed 36 of those solar feet for $189 that means all of our racking system was $1,260 43 yep now let's talk about grounding we needed 100 ft of 4 gauge bare copper wire to connect all these things together that was expensive $215 then we needed two ground rods that was $87 we needed ground rod clamps which is $980 and then because we built that uffer we had to buy concrete so for us it was eight bags of 60 lb concrete for $22.40 so our grounding section is $434 120 okay it's finally time to tell you how much this thing costs how much do you think it was $ 7,264 195 that was real close to $ 7,261 64 that was pretty close I was I'm impressed that was really good so that's total for like everything I mean to pour your own uffer ground rack the whole system up like full full cost now the one thing we didn't cover was tools you might need a few tools let's talk about that I recommend a heat gun for $21.10 a crimp connector assortment pack for $18.95 some adhesive and heat shrink black and red big ones and small ones $997 12249 if you're crimping your own lugs onto welding wire I recommend getting a hydraulic crimper I used a hammer one for a while not super great you can get them cheap uh it's only $24 no it's $54.99 and then you will need a crimping tool for the smaller insulated connectors $23.99 some wire strippers $8.99 and you might need some fish tape if you're running long runs under underground we didn't actually do that for this system but you can get a nice one for $179 so estimate that your total tools is going to be around around $300 3 to 400 dep yeah you probably have a lot of this and it's fine but just so you know you don't want to like get halfway into this and be like dang it I forgot a tool and then your whole project is like on hold well bab we got real nerdy yeah you did we did it um I'm proud of us and I hope that this exhaustive breakdown tells you exactly how to go and design and build your own system so don't forget you can go to our website you can read this whole article follow the links to buy every single piece of the system if you want it if you want to get that wiring diagram you can buy that it's just a way of saying thank you and I mean listen we're doing a bunch of stuff here on the homestead permaculture rainwater catchment Solar Power Systems obviously we hope that you'll stick around and see what we're up to next thanks for watching we will see you [Music] [Applause] [Music] soon w [Applause] [Music] [Applause] got to love the you want say all right baby you can't use me all right cuz you're all I ever need got a love one