SL3500 Portable Application
I go back and forth between 4 and 5 stars, and really wish I could give a 4.5 star rating because I feel that would be the most accurate. I bought the SL3500 with one expansion battery (7.5kwh total capacity) for portable applications and immediately tested it in a very harsh environment by bringing it to the black rock desert for Burning Man. Here are my thoughts so far:
1. Ordering was simple, but it was not plain how to order all of the parts that I needed. For example, I could not figure out how to order the expansion piece for the cart to hold the 3rd (and eventual 4th) battery. Customer service sent me a link and I was able to get what I needed, but I do wish it was a little more obvious on the website for easy ordering.
2. It is not apparent that the power station does not come with an AC input cord. This has to be ordered separately and resulted in a delay setting up the station because, again, this is not obvious when ordering. The same is true for PV input cables, though that makes a bit more sense.
3. The cart is quite sturdy and holds the system nicely! The wheels are about worthless for anything but smooth, bare surfaces though. I plan to modify the cart by removing the wheels and strapping it to a heavy-duty dolly instead. In the future, it would be great to see an upgraded wheel kit available for outdoor applications.
4. The system performs very well! I was able to keep a portable fridge/freezer and dual-inverter 8k btu air conditioner going in the desert heat (under shade) with no issues, which enabled me to only run my generator in the cooler hours of the morning and evening to top off the batteries. Also ran a friend's RV for a bit via the 30-amp RV plug and a microwave intermittently throughout the day with no problems. At night, it also powered several strings of LED lights. My wife's styling tools (hair dryer, straightener, etc) worked perfectly as well.
5. I didn't plan on using solar this year (upgrade planned for next spring), but a friend had two spare 250w panels so we hooked them up in series to test functionality. Input was recognized immediately and fed into the batteries with no issues, and after that I had to use the generator even less! Next year I plan to have 1200w of solar and hopefully not use generator power at all!
6. Going back a bit, setup was not incredibly intuitive for someone like me who has not previously dabbled in solar or battery systems. For instance, at first trying to charge in the house kept causing my breaker to trip. It took some time to realize that by default it is set to charge on AC input with a max of 40 amps. Once I reset this to a max of 20, no more issues, but it just wasn't obvious that this was needed or how to do so.
7. I don't love that the wifi monitoring dongle does not allow local connection. I will be using this in remote areas without wifi a lot and now have no monitoring option other than the display screen on the unit, which is not incredibly specific when it comes to state of charge and some other parameters. I am hoping this system is compatible with other aftermarket monitoring systems, which I will be looking into soon.
8. It's a small detail, but I wish there was a mounting plate somewhere on the cart for the battery breaker switch. It's inconvenient having it just hanging off the side, especially when packing and transporting the system for portable applications. I'll be looking into ways to secure this better.
So yeah, overall a great system! Way more bang for the buck than other all in one solutions out there, and the ability to expand storage while still having one unit to move around is awesome! There are some small changes/upgrades that would be nice to see in the future, and a few things about ordering and setup that could be made more apparent, especially for novice users like me.
Looking forward to getting more into the configuration and building out the system even further!
