My Offgrid House & My Programable Solar BMS for any type of Lithium battery.

[inetdog]

Thanks for the warning. I was not aware of this so I will have posted a link probably. I will make sure not to do that.

It is one of those items of Netiquette that varies from forum to forum.
If somebody else posted the link for reference that would not be considered advertising by you, but since Solar Panel Talk is very concerned about links being thrown in both to attract clicks from Forum visitors and to improve the Page Rank value in search engines we Moderators are very sensitive about that.
I think (hope) that Solar Panel Talk is considered a positive source of rank for imbedded links.

We also discourage putting email addresses and phone numbers in posts rather than profiles just to protect posters from contact harvesters for spammers.

Perhaps we can add that kind of detail to our guidelines (as if anybody reads them.)

[pleppik]

There must be a way I will not be legally liable.

ROTFL! Oh wait, that was serious.

If you sell a dangerous product, you will be legally liable for any harm it causes. I don't know if your product is dangerous, but your strategy for avoiding legal liability should be to design the product to be safe against any use a reasonable buyer might put it to. "Reasonable buyer" might be different from product to product (for example, the buyer of an industrial welding robot probably has a different level of experience than the buyer of a Roomba).

Given what appears to be how you intend to design and sell this, your best bet (from a legal liability perspective) might be to sell it as a kit. That way (a) you can presume a fair amount of technical expertise on the part of the buyer, and (b) if it does blow up, you can reasonably claim it was assembled wrong.

[electrodacus]

ROTFL! Oh wait, that was serious.

If you sell a dangerous product, you will be legally liable for any harm it causes. I don't know if your product is dangerous, but your strategy for avoiding legal liability should be to design the product to be safe against any use a reasonable buyer might put it to. "Reasonable buyer" might be different from product to product (for example, the buyer of an industrial welding robot probably has a different level of experience than the buyer of a Roomba).

Given what appears to be how you intend to design and sell this, your best bet (from a legal liability perspective) might be to sell it as a kit. That way (a) you can presume a fair amount of technical expertise on the part of the buyer, and (b) if it does blow up, you can reasonably claim it was assembled wrong.

This was taken out of context. (also English is not my first language so maybe it should be formulated in a different way)
It seems anything can be dangerous even a plastic bag (those warning are still funny to me). Of course I will do my best to make a safe product but like I mentioned before nothing in 100% safe and this product can be used in one million wrong ways.
This is a hobby I can not pay for certifications and product insurance so I need to find a category where I can give this product to those few people that know what they are downing.
So this Solar BMS is a development platform not a product that can be used as it is. Is just for educational purposes.
It will be Open Source hardware and software so people or companies can build a real product based on this development platform.
There will also be a KIT available for those that can solder this small components. An assembled version is also present.

There are totally different rules in Europe for developing and selling low volume items. I was not aware of the rules here and probably still not.
I just investigate the options that I have for my particular case.

[Sunking]

Don't feed the Trolls.

[Naptown]

What do you think about this disclaimer added to the Kickstarter page will it be enough?
Maybe I will even print a sticker and apply this to each individual product.


Important Disclaimer:

I will not assume any responsibility for injuries lose of life or property do to proper or improper use of this product.
The product is intended for educational purposes only there will be a series of videos on my youtube channel describing in details the functionality of the hardware and software used and both will be open sourced so you can do your own modifications.

Sorry but you cannot contract your way out of liability

[electrodacus]

Thanks all for the input. This was a very productive discussion for me.

I'm new on this forum. How can I get in touch with one of the moderators?
I need to have this thread deleted see the reasons below.


I opened this tread to advertise my product and to get feedback from forum members. After this discussions here and others I decided to change the product completely and even the target audience.
It started as a solar charge controller for DIY people. Since that is not possible anymore sorry for those that probably had an interest this tread will be confusing for those that want the different product.
This new product is a development board with both open source hardware and software used for educational purposes only.
This will be available as as assembled KIT or unassembled (just the components) and will also include video tutorials on microcontroller programing in this case ARM cortex M0 and hardware design including PCB design using KiCad.

Not sure how much interest will be on this new product on this forum but if it is I can start a new tread about this Kit
Anyway I will like to delete this tread as to not create confusion about my new product.

[Mike90250]

perhaps you can sell it as an educational "kit" that will need more (locally sourced) parts to make it into a useable product ? Saves the shipping, include restrictions as to small batteries only, and a list of more robust parts to enhance it.

[electrodacus]

perhaps you can sell it as an educational "kit" that will need more (locally sourced) parts to make it into a useable product ? Saves the shipping, include restrictions as to small batteries only, and a list of more robust parts to enhance it.

It will be a kit but not include batteries do to shipping restrictions. Also my recommendation for educational purposes is to use supercapacitors that is also what I use during development since they charge and discharge much faster and you can more easily test your parameters.
The device is composed of 3 separate PCB's one is the front panel that contains the capacitive buttons the other is the main PCB in the middle that contains all the low power components and logic and the third PCB is on an aluminium substrate where all the power components are located as MOSFET's and current shunt resistors not that hard to modify especially since is open source and all files are available for free use.

But I can open a new thread probably tomorrow about this dev kit. Now is late and after a few sleepless night I may be able to sleep

[Sunking]

I opened this tread to advertise my product

You came to the wrong place to get free advertisement. Russ, Mike, Rich nuke the guy and the thread.

[SunEagle]

Too bad this thread went the way it did. I actually was pleased to watch his video on the house he built. Looks like a lot of energy efficient design went into it. I must say the OP has talent.

[electrodacus]

You came to the wrong place to get free advertisement. Russ, Mike, Rich nuke the guy and the thread.

I was just being honest. I could not have been mention this but I think it was quite obvious from the first post.
And it was not just advertising, that was one part of it. It was also to get feedback from potential clients and people that had experience with solar chargers. How else will you get feedback?
And as I already mentioned the feedback was extremely useful. I will have done a big mistake without this feedback.

[electrodacus]

Too bad this thread went the way it did. I actually was pleased to watch his video on the house he built. Looks like a lot of energy efficient design went into it. I must say the OP has talent.

Thanks. What do you mean exactly with "went the way it did". Are you referring to the product that will not longer be available?
Yes energy efficiency is an important priority for me when I design electronics or anything else.
Not sure I mentioned but this Solar BMS (dev board now) is using just 25mW (no matter the battery voltage) of power probably by far the smallest self power consumption even compared to very basic Lead Acid controllers.

[SunEagle]

Thanks. What do you mean exactly with "went the way it did". Are you referring to the product that will not longer be available?
Yes energy efficiency is an important priority for me when I design electronics or anything else.
Not sure I mentioned but this Solar BMS (dev board now) is using just 25mW (no matter the battery voltage) of power probably by far the smallest self power consumption even compared to very basic Lead Acid controllers.

I was referring to of the possibility of the thread being shut down or deleted.

I think that is too bad because of what I felt was a good discussion concerning your BMS technology and your experience in energy saving solutions.

[russ]

The discussion stays open - the market for these things is not a big one is it? No overt ads will be tolerated and anyone reading so far won't be willing to pay much I don't think.

[electrodacus]

I was referring to of the possibility of the thread being shut down or deleted.

I think that is too bad because of what I felt was a good discussion concerning your BMS technology and your experience in energy saving solutions.

Thanks, Unfortunately I will probably not be able to post here about the dev board since there is not much interest and continuing this will be confusing for those interested in the dev board.

The discussion stays open - the market for these things is not a big one is it? No overt ads will be tolerated and anyone reading so far won't be willing to pay much I don't think.

I hope you understand that this product that we started discussing here is no longer available and will never be.
The reason I want to remove this tread has to do with the fact that people may get confused about the development board and think it will be this product. That as discussed in here may be dangerous.

I needed to search the overt word in a dictionary and I'm sorry that I broke the rules of this forum.
If you say that there is not much interest here for a BMS development board that is understandable and I will not open any tread on this forum about that.
I think honesty is not really appreciated. That is maybe why so much people are sceptical about everyone else.

That is my last post in this tread. Please consider deleting this tread for the reasons stated above.