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New to the forum
Toxxyc posted a topic in Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself,
Good morning, everyone. I'm new here, and I'm hoping to mine a bit of the knowledge on here.
My story is simple. I currently stay in a small town in a house with a small backup solar setup. I bought the house with 2 x 450W panels, a Mecer 2.4kW inverter and 2 x 12V100AH gel batteries installed. I hated the setup from the start as it's installed in the living room and the inverter isn't particularly quiet, but alas, I needed the backup in case of loadshedding (I work from home).
Eventually the gel batteries couldn't keep up with Stage 6 and so on load shedding, not getting enough time to charge to float between uses, and they gave up the ghost. I DIY-replaced the two gel batteries with a Sunmagic 25.6V 150AH LiFePO4 battery. The new lithium battery allowed the inverter to actually use it for what it was made for, and I set it to use the absolute minimum power from the battery, and charge via solar. It's been working well-ish.
Anyway, time passed and we viewed a smallholding outside of town, put in a bit of a lowball offer (based on the work the place needs) and it got accepted. So now we're moving. However, the transformer costs on the smallholding is simply outrageous, so I'm going to take the place off grid. It's not a big place and we don't use a lot of electricity (we work smart, using around 20kW a day, max 30kW a day when it's really cold and we run some heaters around the place. Stovetop is gas, everything is LED and energy efficient, but the geyser is still electric. We're not going to change that right now, it's a future thing.
So, what I want to do is simply not register the Eskom pole to my name when I buy the place, and they'll then cut the house off. I then want to install a solar system that'll run the house. The house has plenty of roof space (around 450 square meters), the DB is in the garage (so I can put everything in there, under roof, outside the house), and we're good to go.
However, the finances are a worry. I need to finance the whole shebang as all cash we have is going into security on the smallholding. So I searched around and found Solar.co.za and I'm wondering if they're legit, how it works, etc. They have a rent-to-own system that's essentially financing the whole thing on their side, but I can't find much about them online, except for mixed reviews on HelloPeter.
So, here I am. Can anyone recommend me a rent-to-own solar company that'll do what I need at around R3k per month? From the solar.co.za guys I can get 16 x 455W panels, 2 x 5kW LuxPower inverters, and 3 x HinaESS 5.14kW batteries for ~R2,900 per month. That's perfectly in my budget, and if I install a generator I have alongside that, I should be fine even on rainy days, right?
I hope to learn a lot, and expect a TON of questions from me!-
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- 33 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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Feeding back to grid- challenges
Alex Stewart posted a topic in Solar Power,
Hi all, I have an 8kw Sunsynk inverter and started feeding back to the grid a week ago. Exciting times! However, the grid at times is being fed from my batteries which I don't want. Does anyone know how to adjust the inverter settings to prevent this? I would like the first priority of the pv generation to cover our load requirements, then charge batteries, then feed the grid but not from batteries even if they are fully charged. Any ideas?-
- 9 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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Going To Begin My DIY Solar Build :)
SunDayFunDay posted a topic in Beat Load Shedding ,
Lets Start Here
Due to unreliability of Eskom and faults in my area I have decided to go the solar route.
This is not a solo effort I'm a noob this thread will serve its purpose and place as a tutorial for whoever would like to know how and what needs to be done under the careful watch of forum members into building a solar system from scratch as a noob please note your input is valuable and will be much appreciated, I will include cost and sizing and all small detail where I can provide it.
Hopefully you can learn and make your own small system
These are the main components below however there minute details such as capacity of Dc Breakers, SPDs, the correct AC Breakers from the main board to the AC Disconnect, Roof Mount and Accessories, wiring, placement of panels and testing and balancing of system, there is 10 critical components which depends on your budget
(Sizing and Full Specs will be done once I get an idea)
Equipment
Solar Inverter
Battery
Solar Panels
Materials:
DC Combiner Box (Breaker and SPDs/Fuses)
AC Disconnect Box (Breakers)
Battery Fuse
Earth Spike
Earth-Neutral Bond
Wiring
Roof Mount
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- 7 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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A much better way of connecting Home Assistant to your DEYE/Sunsynk inverter
Sc00bs posted a topic in Home Automation,
Hi Guys
Just wanted to share my latest video on installation and connecting your inverter to Home Assistant using the new RS485 shield and ESP32C board.
Makes life much easier to set the thing up, no soldering and you only need to connect the power up inside the inverter to a 12V power supply and the RS485 cables so dead easy.
You can get the board and an ESP32 from https://smarthomeintegrations.co.za/ for R400 and get delivery in a day or so.
Slipx06 (Paul) has also included some cool new YAML code to calculate Daily energy production and consumption in the ESP32 and send that info to HA as well.
Let me know what you guys think of the video please
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- 151 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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Solis South Africa Roadshow 2024
Natasha Tshabalala posted a topic in Solis,
Attention, Installers! Gear up for the electrifying Solis South Africa Roadshow 2024!
Whether you're a seasoned Solis supporter or a newcomer intrigued by our offerings, this roadshow promises an immersive experience like no other. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your installation game and stay ahead of the curve.
Venues:
4 June- Soli Deo Gloria, Northriding, Randburg
11 June – The Capital Hotel, Zimbali, KwaZulu Natal
13 June- Hotel Verde, Cape Town
25 June- The Boardwalk Hotel and Convention Centre, Port Elizabeth
RSVP now by clicking on the link to fill out the form, and we'll be in touch to confirm your participation. See you in a city near you!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0074EJdy3OyTAL6adQ8qRe9HBTekln0TQp7Kcy5mqxXHz_w/viewform-
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- 5 replies
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Energy-Jason, -
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They are labelled as two different models. The one is a "Plus" model with the lower MPPT voltage and lower max PV power
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I can confirm that the SPS circuits are pretty much the same in the Must units as the axpert family. Some of the capacity values are slighlty different but very close. You are looking topright hand side of the main board at the capacitors ranging from 10uF 160V - 1000uF 16V. I find it's worth changing them all out for good quality ones. -
I very much hope so, I don't think we had full day without couple of hours of power yet. But it depends on rockets and stuff falling on electrical grid hardware, so no guarantees whatsoever That's not lead acid, that's LiFePO with BMS attached. Actually, two of them parallel I use around 8-15 KWh a day, but I still have a lot of solar energy available. This is why the grid consumption is pretty low. It will surely change during colder winter times Some sever PSUs are current limited, not just protected, some are not. And not everyone specifies. There are Aliexpress "chargers" that are basically server PSU with some PCB with a pot that should limit current to whatever I want. They look kinda dodgy, to be honest, but cheap as chips. Batteries can eat up 200A without complaining (theoretically, I can provide only 100A from the inverter), I can't afford this big of a PSU and it will be just scary Plan is to get ~50A ~60V current limited PSU or add a current limiting capability to one without so it doesn't turn off or die the second I attach it to batteries -
69.70 does implement the QDOP command, so that three or more settings can work in SoC% instead of voltage: back to utility battery voltage, back to battery voltage, battery low cut-off voltage, and possibly more. It has to have a suitably recent display firmware for this to work. -
See your other post; I need to know your existing main (U1) firmware versions.
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Between 60.95 and 60.89. It's slightly different; if the hardware identifies as the lower power model, the rating is 4.2 kW instead of the standard 4.0 kW. There may be other changes that I've not located, to justify the change of major version number (60 to 68).
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Is there any other way to use the extra 1500W like via the generator output -
Regs are generally about broader principles rather then individual examples, there's so many ways it would be unsafe to install fuses and holders that you couldn't list them all individually in one book. The regs state that you must follow manufacturers instructions so your answer may lay in the documentation that came with the fuse holders. I would say there will be regs in the sans10142 book that also exclude this as a possible mounting location as well although I don't have a copy with me so I can't quote them off hand. -
Hello i am considering upgrading my entire installation and this means selling my 2x 4kVa batteries. They are in their 6th year of a 10 year warranty. is there a market for second hand batteries? -
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@Calvin if i connect in 2s then will i be able to utilise all 20 of my pannels so basicly conecting 5 x 2s on each inverter. Will the wats not be the next problem? inverter max PV wats 4000☹️
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Yes the signal is broadcast over two communication wires to ensure signal integrity is maintained, these wires are twisted together and are referred to as CAN High and CAN Low. -
@Sc00bs was having a good look at the settings and nothing stands out to be incorrect. And based on your last post you might be correct, CT Coils might still be an issue. -
@Chunks Switched the settings from "Zero Export - Limit to load only" to " Limited to Home" and it is working perfectly now so I am assuming that the CT Coils are still on the incorrect phases.
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