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Savings
moolmanj posted a topic in Beat Load Shedding ,
Good day
I would like some advice from people who managed to install a system greater than what you are using with sufficient battery storage as well. Basically if you switch of eskom for a day you are still running.
Have you saved or reduced your Account and by how much taking into consideration clouds,rains etc.
thanks-
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- 44 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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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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- 41 replies
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Energy-Jason, -
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Feeding back to grid- challenges
Alex Stewart posted a topic in Inverters,
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?-
- 16 replies
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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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- 8 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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- 167 replies
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By WannabeSolarSparky · Posted
Still need to learn how the coding on esphome works, currently the fan rpm's are a bit wonky, but that may also be my "great soldering skills" with the resistor on the speed sensor of the fan 🤣 At least I have figured out how to setup the automation to adjust the fan speeds based on the temperature readings -
By WannabeSolarSparky · Posted
So this is evolving quite quickly into my new favorite tool for managing everything Remember to like and subscribe on the video if you want to see all the weird gadgety/coding things I get up to when I am bored. Shout out to @kellerza @Sc00bs and everyone else contributing to make all these things work nicely with my gadgets and solar stuff. -
What is the password? and Thank You -
By Stefan Cornelissen · Posted
Sorry for the necro, Has anyone seen theses batteries being sold online for decent price? Trying to help some one get 2 extra's for their setup -
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Item: Orange Pi 3 LTS Age: 2 years? Not exactly sure Price: R750 Payment Method Accepted: EFT, Cash Warranty: Nope Packaging: Nope Condition: Like New Location: Western Cape. Fish Hoek Reason: Not in use Shipping: Willing to ship if payment recieved Collection: in Fish Hoek Link: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1132852215139696 The device is currently running Armbian with Home Assistant and Cockpit for remote monitoring. I used it for my Home Assistant server with Sonoff switches, worked great. Originally got it to run the Solar Power app. Orange Pi 3 LTS uses the Allwinner H6 SoC, and has 2GB LPDDR3 SDRAM, 8GB EMMC Flash. It can run Android 9,Ubuntu,Debian. Orange Pi 3 LTS offers a range of different ports, including HDMI output, 26pin headers, Gbps Ethernet port,1*USB 3.0, 2* USB2.0，etc. It is powered through Type-C. http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/details/orange-pi-3-LTS.html Images: http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-pi-3-LTS.html -
So the board is going into Nice tomorrow, i spoke to them and they will test it for me. Will post back here for the SEO in case anyone else has issues.
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By Skipbidipop · Posted
I have finally connected the charger.. I have compressed it by feel with hand.. and I'm done with compressing.. as many say it is not worth the effort.. If I ever build another battery I will just compress by feel again I returned the big torque wrench and bought a smaller one, for bicycles.. still not low enough torque range.. this one is 2-20Nm +-4%.. but at least I can torque down the terminals and busbars now 😁 I connected all cells in parallel with household installation wire.. solid core, I think 2.5mm.. no wires are touching each other.. and the charger poles are on the opposite sides as you suggested And from the start it was about 3A only.. my shitty TEMU voltage source came with very bad wires.. there is around 0.12V on each wire.. so the actual voltage applied to the battery is only around 3.3V.. it will go up as current gets lower.. I hope this will be OK.. I don't think I can damage the battery this way.. I don't want to increase the voltage on the charger to compensate for drop in wires __ edit: I realize now how stupidly long it would take to charge the battery at 10W.. I'm thinking 20 days or so.. I'm in search for better wires right now __ 2nd edit: new wires.. charging at 8A now -
Because it is not. Just try it: Get the batteries to this state of being almost full Wait for the BV to show 52,6V Connect the multimeter to the DC terminals of the inverter and measure the voltage. You will not see 53,5V there. Can you handle this? -
AFAIK, in case of Pylontech US, the BMS declares 100% SOC once all the cells are at 3,48V or over and the voltage difference between lowest and highest cell is less than 30mV. Below these values, BMS will appear to stuck at roughly 90% and there will be a small jump to 99 a 100 finaly. Reason is that it's very hard to calculate SOC based on integrating Amps at these stages. Writing this just from my memory, the exact numbers can be extracted using CLI. If you continue charging, the current will be accepted by the battery but the reporeted SOC will be still just 100% (well, sometimes GUI can glitch to 101% but that is an error). This is "balloon full" state for the Pylontech. Anything above is the margin before the "balloon popped".
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By madness_za · Posted
When in doubt, Temu. It's a dust filter, what's the worst that could happen? -
The BMS instructs the voltage the inverter charges at. The BMS only controls charging current by instructing the inverter of the max current for the combined pack. It does not restrict the current internally other than 'off' or 'on'. -
By Mauritius B · Posted
Some comment on the quote. Technically speaking, in order to produce a current flow it is necessary to create a potential difference between 2 points. If the inverter is creating a voltage of 53,5volt (as you mentioned, it is the charging voltage target) and the battery voltage is around 52v, there will be a current flow from the inverter to the battery due to the difference in potential (voltage) between them. I refer again to the picture where battery modules are resting at 52,6v and no charging current is present. Control modes CC and CV are not relevant for the case as they only define the charging mode that is applied, Constant current or constant voltage. When constant current is applied, the voltage on the battery will rise until it equals charger voltage and the current ceases and in constant voltage mode, the current will be decreasing to cero when charger voltage and battery voltage are the same (no potential difference). In any case, if there is a voltage difference, there is current. How can we explain that batteries on the picture have a voltage of 52,6v, the inverter is producing 53,5v but the charging current is only 0,265amp? According to ohms law, 0.9v (53.5 - 52.6) over a resistance of a few milliohms (typical internal resistance of a battery) should produce dozens of amps. There is something else that is limiting the current across the battery. Based on all the above, it seems that inverter is not always charging at 53.5v because BMS is instructing to do so, or BMS can effectively control charging current. -
Does anyone know what the max buffer size is you can set for an ESP32 device? I'm having a problem with the data streaming in it looks like. I have 4 batteries and battery 3 and 4 give consistent data but 1 and 2 will drop out a lot. I suspect it has to do with the buffer setting or something but need some advise as I'm a bit in the dark to what the max is. captive_portal: # Enable Bluetooth Proxy Components esp32_ble_tracker: scan_parameters: interval: 320ms window: 120ms duration: 60s active: true # Battery RS232 UART Setup uart: id: bat_uart baud_rate: 9600 tx_pin: GPIO17 rx_pin: GPIO16 stream_server: uart_id: bat_uart port: 5000 buffer_size: 4096 binary_sensor: - platform: stream_server connected: name: Connected output: - platform: gpio pin: GPIO2 id: blue_led light: - platform: binary name: "Blue LED" output: blue_led The error in the logs letting me to believe this is related to the buffer size is this: (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:134.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/134.0): Client unable to keep up with pending messages. Reached 4096 pending messages. The system's load is too high or an integration is misbehaving; Last message was: b'{"type":"event","event":{"event_type":"state_changed","data":{"entity_id":"sensor.generic_lithium_pack_188_cell_25_voltage","old_state":{"entity_id":"sensor.generic_lithium_pack_188_cell_25_voltage","state":"unknown","attributes":{"unit_of_measurement":"mV","friendly_name":"Generic Lithium Pack 188 Cell 25 Voltage"},"last_changed":"2025-01-14T16:49:08.141897+00:00","last_reported":"2025-01-14T16:49:08.141897+00:00","last_updated":"2025-01-14T16:49:08.141897+00:00","context":{"id":"01JHJVG31D55FWPCF1REJ4Y44W","parent_id":null,"user_id":null}},"new_state":{"entity_id":"sensor.generic_lithium_pack_188_cell_25_voltage","state":"unavailable","attributes":{"unit_of_measurement":"mV","friendly_name":"Generic Lithium Pack 188 Cell 25 Voltage"},"last_changed":"2025-01-14T18:15:22.234455+00:00","last_reported":"2025-01-14T18:15:22.234455+00:00","last_updated":"2025-01-14T18:15:22.234455+00:00","context":{"id":"01JHK0DZVTJCM9P5TCYW6Z7XXM","parent_id":null,"user_id":null}}},"origin":"LOCAL","time_fired":"2025-01-14T18:15:22.234455+00:00","context":{"id":"01JHK0DZVTJCM9P5TCYW6Z7XXM","parent_id":null,"user_id":null}},"id":49}' Can I bump it to 8192 or is 4096 the limit? -
Will the BMS will be doing the first two checks here, so it sending a 100% SOC to the inverter means that it has detected one of the two conditions that you mention. Just a question. Another little piece of information I can file away.
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