Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself

Anyone in the Letsitele area near Tzaneen ? Vervet Monkey Foundation need help fixing their solar system which isn't charging the batteries. Need someone who knows their stuff to go and sort it out.

Hey everyone. I'm new to this forum but I've already learnt a lot! I find myself in a very precarious situation. We've had a solar installation for almost a year now, but have not been able to switch it on. The main cause of this is using a fraudulent installer/company that I won't get into now as that is not the reason for this post. Like I mentioned, our system is set up. We have 12 panels on the roof. A LuxPower SNA 5000 WPV inverter and Soltaro Lithium battery. Everything is connected. In fact the earlier mentioned installer even switched the system on to test that it's working. Now why have we not been able to make use of it you might ask? A few…

Hi, my wife and I are looking at a battery and inverter. We use about 380kwh every 32 days. We boil our water for bathing on the wood stove as well as most of our cooking. We therefore hardly use the geyser. As we live in the very cool oudtshoorn an aircon is a must and 3 fridges, TV, WiFi and 3 fans and some lights. We were looking at a shoto 5,12kw 48 v battery and a luxpower 5kw eco hybrid inverter. Will this do for our needs Any advice would be appreciated

Hi everybody My name is Jacques and I am from Witbank. Have been reading a lot on this forum and decided to join. I am also interested to start with a solar system at my house. Looking at a Sunsynk 5Kva, Greenrich battery and some panels.

Hello everyone, I'm checking in from a small town in North West that struggles a lot with not just load shedding, but also water shedding. Instrumentation tech by trade. Hoping to install my Sunsynk 8kW soon as well as sinking that borehole. Will self install and ask some questions to the more knowledgeable people here. Thanks

Hello all, Looking at installing a basic system to see me over when Eskom has a lie down - basically a 5kw inverter and one 5kw battery at this stage. Panels will come later in the year. I've been quoted for Deye and SunSynk inverters and Volta and Hubble batteries. Victron has not been offered (for whatever reasons). Are the brands above all good to use, or avoid? Thanks for helping this newbie. 🙂

I currently live in a small complex - 16 units of duplexes (two buildings of eight units each). Our complex was built in 2006, so rightly or wrongly, we only have a single feed from the municipality that's split inside the complex. This has prevented us from getting individual prepaid meters, but is actually in our favor regarding the split connection fee and possibly my question I have below. We pay a fixed fee per unit of electricity, irrespective of what time of day it was used. I'm hopefully going to have enough saved up by April to purchase a proper solar kit - most likely a 5kva Sunsynk with 6 panels and a 5kw lithium battery. The way I understand it - and I ap…

Hi all So I come from an IT/Tech background, but never dabbled in Electronics/Electrical goodies. During the December holiday period, we (my dad and I) came to the realisation that these Ellies/Mecer trolleys are useless with Lead Acid batteries after a couple of months. For our two households, it would not necessarily make sense (based on our own situations and evaluations - might not be the same for all) to install big systems (R60k+), and we ended up doing some research (hence the "some reading") to get to a comfortable cost vs. benefit solution. And this is what we came up with: 3KW 24V inverter 2 X 200ah LifePO4 batteries Of course all the tr…

Hi everyone. My wife and I, weirdos who live like we will soon be back to the 40's, need your advice please. We hit a rough spot by trusting someone either our money, consequently we are on a tight budget. We want to start with a battery send inverter . We think that ee can charge the battery with a charger but don't know how this works. We got a look at s quote that a local guy gave to someone in town. This seems to be what we are looking for. Luxpower inverter 5kw eco hybrid off grid Shoto battery lithium ion 5,1kw48v 100ah Our electricity usage is generally around 380 kwh for 32 days. We don't use the geyser as we boil our bath water on the…

Hi all can someone please help me out I am looking for a BMS cable to go with my inverter and N energy lithium lifepro4 battery. Any help will be appreciated?

good night, I have a pylontech US3000C battery in red led alarm always on and continuous beep. does anyone know how to do a reset? or software to fix errors? Anticipated thanks

Just got lux power solar with 16 panels and 2batteries . I am getting plenty of solar power to charge battery but also going to export when the battery isn’t full. Is this right? Also the BMS limit charge is 30 A surely it should be 80 a I’ve been told it’s because the batteries are cold, they are in the garage Help

I’m in Pretoria, and have a registered company. Which companies can I approach to register and get preferred pricing for resale and possibly as installer. Any company in Pretoria and Johannesburg will do. Regards

Hi, I'm new here, and new to Solar and excited to learn more. I've just had a 8kva Deye inverter supported by 2 Hubble batteries installed and find that the batteries do very little at night to support the load. Out of the 700w evening load, the batteries are only providing 1-10w, the rest is pulled from the grid. I was under the impression that the batteries would carry the load at night and the system will only looks to the grid once the batteries reach around 40% charge. Is this a faulty installation or a setting (I've looked at setting and couldn't identify anything specific to this issue) any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks Ed…

Good morning everyone Firstly apologies for the long post. I am finally setting the wheels in motion to install solar and battery backup in the next 2 months. As you can understand the level of power outages are getting too much now. I am sitting without electricity for half of my work day today (8H00 to 12H30). We got a quote from The Power Forum Store for the gear which consists of x6 460w JA Solar Panels, 5kw Sunsynk, 5kw Hubble and the accessories needed for the installation for R99k. On average we use 750kwh per month which includes running a pool and wellpoint pump, 1 electric geyser (will be switched to gas in the future), electric stove (going gas in f…

Hi all! I'm new to this forum but have been posting over on mybroadband trying to get my head around the transition. I have two 218Ah batteries and a small inverter (Mecer 2400) that is not designed to be part of a solar installation. So far I'm happy with my system, but in about 6 months when I have the money I plan to install panels and upgrade the inverter. The aim is to meet my basic power needs from my panels when possible, and keep the batteries topped up for use at night. With two of us working from home we need about 500W for a laptop and second screen, desktop computer, router and ONT and LED lights in several rooms. The geyser is on solar heating, and…

Hi everyone, Just browsing the forum has been very insightful. It's great to see so many like minded individuals. I want to start the journey to being off grid - because *eskom* - but first I need to get my house hooked up for the loadshedding horror. I just purchased a close-to-new RCT Axpert 8kva inverter with 2 x Leoch 100Ah LFeLi and the Centurion Solar SMH pi management system. The goal within 6 months is to get solar panels as well. I reside in the Bedfordview area and wanted to know if there are any good installers around that would be able to first help with the installation and then guide me on this journey. Looking forward to o…

Hi everyone, this Forum was recommended to me and I joined this morning. I have been browsing here for a day or so and found lots of valuable info on the Forum. I live in a small village on the KZN South Coast and many residents here are considering various solar options. I will most likely be asking many questions as my solar knowledge is almost zero. Residents here are mainly retired oldies and we could really use good advice regarding solar energy.

Hi All, I've wanted to post many times but I don't think I have - so firstly thanks for a great forum, I love reading about how passionate you guys are! Just as an intro - I'm an IT guy with electronics as a hobby. I don't mind tinkering as a rule I'm off the grid, I have about 5k of panels, Axpert 5kVa inverter (stock standard, not flashed). Started with LA 4 years ago but then about 9 months ago installed a Revov 10.2kWh pack with ICC. My home is automated using DIY stuff - Domoticz & sonoffs (on Tasmota) basically. Siri is integrated so even my wife loves it! I don't mind sharing any experience, ask any time. Now my issue - my Revov pack…

Hello I want to buy a backup system, which I later will connect to solar pannels. My question is what inverter and what battery should i get. At this stage I need to choose between the following: 1. Luxpower Inverter Hybrid (5kW) and a 5.12 kWh Dyness battery 2. Deye 5kW 48V hybrid inverter and a Pylontech UP5000 4.8kW Lithuim ion Battery (PT-UP5000) 3. Deye 5kw 48 hybrid inverter and a hubble 5am battery. 4. Or maybe something else (Budget between R50 000 and R70 000). Can someone please explain to me the difference between a luxpower inverter and Deye inverter. Thanks

Hi Cannot afford a complete system at this stage , so initial aim is to just get away from load shedding for now We Use about 8-12 units a day in summer/ autumn / spring and about 15-25 in winter . We have a solar geyser and gas hob already . My thinking is start with inverter and battery first with pv at a later stage . With the main aim to avoid load shedding Also should we start with a hybrid or off grid inverter ? Thanks

Hello everyone. I hope all are doing well in spite of the current conditions we are finding ourselves in. Thank you very much for this great forum. It really is great to have a support community like this where knowledge can be shared and questions can be answered. A bit about myself I am a 35 year old workaholic, staying alone in a 3 bedroom house. On average my electricity use is about 6kw/h during summer and 10kw/h during winter. I am at work from 6am in the morning and most of the time only arrive back home at 6pm. My electricity usage is as follows: - I have a full gas stove and oven and use the minimal amount of electricity for food prep.…

Hi everyone. Newly registered member but have been browsing the forum for a while now, learning from you all (thank you). I need a little bit of advice on wiring please. I looked through the topics but could not find something simplistic that explains specifically what to do about grounding, avoiding grounding loops and keeping partial loads (stove, geysers) direct on utility (also did not want to hijack someones thread). Illustrated below is what I intend on doing but want to check up on a few things first, 1. Do I have the wiring correct? 2. What about the cabinet grounding, with the battery grounded to the cabinet but the inverter gr…

Hi. I am looking to start with my solar setup. I am considering a 5kVa Mecer inverter but I had a comment about it not being a good inverter for solar panels? Anyone have some advice?

Hi PowerForum, I’ve been scouring everywhere for information and always go down some rabbit hole where I think things work perfectly but I’m never quite sure. Could I get some advice or just reassurance my setup is ok? Please bear with me as this might get lengthy. I’ll try to simplify my post as much as possible though I don't think there's support for [spoiler] tags. My setup is as follows: The Inverters: I have 3x 5kw Kodak (Axpert?) inverters wired in parallel as per manual, each with their own set of panels. Inverter on the left with 6/6 400w canadian solar panels Inverter in the middle with 6/6 400w canadian solar panels Inverter on the right with…