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Been a long time coming with numerous different designs and options having been investigated and finally had enough of load shedding and ‘tripping’ power stations (not to mention the loss to fires). First things first, thanks to this forum and those behind the scenes for some extraordinary information, guidance and confirmation on many unknown aspects, following which I thought it only fit to share the outcome on the showcase. Planned to accommodate a 3-Phase environment, with average daily use of up to 55.67kWh, with numerous obstacles, such as 3DB’s in the house, the main enclosure located in the scullery and wanting/having to install the solar solution in the garage (based on size). This required some planning on getting the Grid to the garage and the Load to the scullery. 3 Geysers in the house, already managed by Geyserwise Max units, thus could add their own solar plants, however opted to just use the timers and temp control for now and try and centralise everything to one generation source and avoid having to manage multiple plants. DIY install, thus will progress as time permits and as the accessories are gathered, down to the ferrules. Solution: 1 x 12kW SunSynk, 4 x Hubble AM2, Hubble Cloudlink, 18 x JA460 PV – 3 strings(6), 3-string DC Combiner, JM Keto-1 240A isolator.

Personal opinion, with loadshedding being what it is these days, one should not be looking at lead-acid batteries, but lithium versions as drop-in replacements. That should allow deeper discharge and greater cycling life than any lead-acid battery. Not going to comment on the brands.

For SunSynk give @Leshen a shout.

Yes, if he is looking for Solar only and no battery, then Deye/SunSynk is not the right choice. But often when people start looking, initially they don't even know what they are looking for...

It's a micro inverter. It lives on the roof below the panels - the "handle" is the mount. It is also grid-tied, so you can't really use it while camping. It is definitely a 1200W grid-tied micro inverter that takes 4 panels.

Blue Nova states clearly it's a drop in replacement for LA. The charge rates are basically the same as for LA and it has a over and under voltage cut-out. https://bluenova.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BN13V-8-104Wh.pdf

I replaced my alarm battery and 2 x centurion swing gates, that's 4 motors running off 2 batteries with the blue nova BN13V-8-104Wh's. This was before i had solar. The gates are running of the complex electricity and we have not had a single issue since installation a year ago. They just keep on working, have yet to see one running flat. They are cheaper than replacing with LA every 2 years or so.

Final install complete and was just in time for the latest bout of load-shedding. With this implementation, almost impossible to identify whether load-shedding's active. Minor adjustments in play as one finds the sweat spots, based on PV performance and ensuring optimal PV utilisation. Seen a number of posts which also agree to prioritise load and let battery charge over the day, thus ensures optimal usage of PV and not letting generation power go to waste. Obviously those with smaller battery stores will need to alter this during load shedding, but this lot only trickles down about 6-8% during a 2hr load-shedding period. Still having some minor issues with regards to ATS activation (posted question in this regard), otherwise this combination of equipment definitely seems to be an optimal matchup and definitely capable of delivering the anticipated load. Will also be working on some solutions to control geysers further during repetitive load-shedding (stage 4+). PS. Some chainsaw action still required on the western trees.

Don't make the same mistake I did when buying your smart devices that you want to run on your own network away from the cloud. Make 100% sure that the devices you buy can be flashed with your own firmware or tasmotised BNETA devices which are being pushed all over SA at all the major retailers are NOT flashable, they are now using the new tuya proprietry chips which cannot be flashed with your own firmware or tasmotised. Ask your retailer if the devices you are interested in are using TUYA chips and if they are, walk away These companies want to force you onto their cloud systems so that they can sell your usage data to big tech and who knows else. If TUYA provide the devices for free then sure, collect the data if the user is comfortable with that. But TUYA are not getting my data for free to sell on to whoever. For now stick with sonoff They are friendly to the diy community and actually make it easier for you to re-flash their devices to get off the cloud If you know other brands that are tasmota friendly in SA then please drop them here. Tasmota website does have a list of supported devices but not all those devices work since some have upgraded to the new tuya chips. And many on those lists are not available in SA anymore Stay Away From TUYA devices, they are bad news!! BE CAREFULL OF ANY COMPANY THAT WANTS YOU TO USE THEIR CLOUD SYSTEMS.

Before.. I tried after the el but it tripped as soon as grid supply was restored ..

Great to hear of the inspiration Derek, looking really good so far. Mine was also mainly solo and thus takes time, but the detail and staged approach, pays off in the end. Enjoy!

The more & more people are looking for a Solar Solution, the more & more as desperate times have approached. Have to Spot on agree with @PowerUserso many people don't know what they are looking for. I have been asked why I don't rate the Sunsynk or market it. Without a "this one is better than that one argument."Lately, in the Quellerina area in Jozi having been without electricity for 4 days. In the Honeydew area where I live experiencing cable theft & sub station vandalism & blackouts for at least 48hrs. This all adds up to the sharpest tool required in the shed. The Voltronics/ Kadak/ RCT whichever type of flavour of modern Axpert type you favour will have produced you hot water for that geyser. Without a battery, you would have kept the fridges cold & not chucked food away. We are shifting to a place where the grid can't be called reliable anymore. We need a viable Quality solution no matter your pocket & as many options as possible. Even had a client that was claiming on a Pylontech warranty & was without a battery for up to 3 weeks. On ever single one of those days he had blending between Grid/ PV. Was absolute magic. But the facts are that these inverters are not equal. The just appeal to different segments of the market.

So far everything seems to work fine. Ran on backup for up to 6 hour slots now with about 500W office load and so far no need to shut down (was never able to do this on the gel batteries). Difficult to gauge DOD as my inverter does not indicate this accurately for Lithium batteries.

The reference guide is correct until battery is totally discharge. Thus their 9hrs for a 100Ah is right. Yes these times will be up to the point that the inverter cuts out. Consumers demand long run time and it is up to us to know only to discharge to 50%. Around 12V for a single battery. It is just like lithium that we must find out if a battery is rated 0.5C or 1C.

AFAIK the only problem one might get is if the higher capacity lithium is discharged for more than a LS session (like power failed to come on) it might charge at a higher rate than what the normal charger was designed for. This could lead to a blown fuse as some power supplies have a 200mA fuse on the AC supply side. It might also lead to higher temps of the voltage regulator heat sink on transformer based PSU's.

This is straight from my sunsynk sslb1 battery product manual. Excuse the bad picture. I’ve got 3 lithium batteries still waiting to be installed yet I sit here taking photos by candlelight mine are 0.5C , max continuous discharge 50amps

Yes, I run a pair of them myself on my home-made LFP battery. These don't have the hardware or firmware to talk to the BMS of the battery. You use Battery Type = USE and set about 5 settings manually. Search this forum for my chicken scratching table of values for Pylontech batteries. Some LFP batteries are 16S, if so, multiply the voltages by 16/15. For other lithium chemistries, follow the manufacturer's recommendations. Edit: these old models have the advantage of having patched firmware available. There are LFP and non-LFP flavours for the various types of lithium batteries. These patched firmwares fix the notorious premature float bugs, add KettleKomp™, and more. See this AEVA mega-topic.

Nope, 0.5C. See for yourself:

Please explain why they cannot charge lithium?

We are in Cosmo City, between the old Lion Park and Como Mall. Not so dodgy, but then again I dont stick around after dark too often.

With leadacid you should aim to not use more than 25% of the amps if you intend for the batteries to last a long time, and even then the actual loads you put on them should ideally be within the 0.2c range. Those figure they give on their brochure is actually quite misleading for unsuspecting consumers. You can run those sorts of loads but the battery gonna get fried in months not years.

@zsde I have tested and it seems one battery is bad, as it registered 10.8 V. Thus it seems the battery centre test isnt reliable. Thanks.

I monitor the grid frequency - so if this goes below a certain number then i switch off certain non-essentials. I am doing this in Home Assistant though

Thanks @TimCam, left enough space for the parallel unit, however so far looking as if the single unit is handling the house. Load shedding has been a breeze, incl. the latest Stage6. Geysers (and trees) are the biggest pain and struggling with those geysers (already on Geyserwise) feeding off the second DB board upstairs, as currently still unable to provide a second three phase feed to that DB and hence cannot split essential / non-essential on that board. (3xDB boards in house). Main board has split, where other geyser, stove and oven are left as non essential. Currently building solution (Sonoff) to switch off geysers upstairs during both power failure/load shedding, which will be triggered using relay on the ATS output. My relay has two N/O connections, use one for PE/N bond and other as trigger for Geyser shutdown. Originally was looking at some threads which used Eskom' input to control geysers and other during load shedding, however one also runs the risk of normal grid failure and would have to cater for those instances too.

Hot temperatures will cause oxidation on contacts, which will increase resistance and cause even more heat. This will burn down. Get a qualified electrician to fix this install asap and that can issue a COC. I am shocked to see that someone would install battery fuses of 125A on 6mm wire

I don't think you can mix AC and DC in a box like that - much less the conductors overlapping like that. 6mm² wire will act as a fuse long before the 125A fuse.

I think those inverters are low voltage machines, working with a voltage range of 60V to 145V MAX on the DC side. I suggest you get a local installer to have a look and repair the install before something catches fire. 6mm2 wired through a 125A fuse is a no go.

Great post to ensure the tech in each inverter is actually working. Too expensive to work with trail and error around synching.

Visia 16amp Power monitoring Plug/socket tasmotized success Another one to add to the list that works if you are into this sort of thing. I bought one from takealot yesterday to test tasmotizing it. Works great.

I have been using it for the past 1.5 years and to be honest i would buy another one as this one is performing extremely well, im not a hard core enthusiast or anything when it comes to these things and run like capacity tests and all that however from what i can tell you for my needs and what im using it for it has been working proper, also another reason i would recommend it, the price is not so far off from a GEL 100Ah with more then double the lifespan and you can actually use up to 98% +- of its capacity with out doing damage to the cells and you have BMS protection, 1 other pro, it being a lifepo4 battery i can actually use it indoors in my home office and don't have to worry about any health risks compared to LAB's, another thing i found useful was the Mains switch on the battery its self plus volt/capacity meter which you wont find on a normal battery Point to take home for the price and what it offers i don't see why you should not consider it, however at the time of this reply i see they dont offer it any more, i see Duda has it but haven't bought from them before Current Setup- Battery is the exact same one you listed bought from the same company running off a 2500W 12v pure sinewave UPS inverter connected to the Grid, UPS has solar inputs as well but only using the grid to charge up the battery, think of it as a very big PC UPS. Load currently running on it. 2x 24" Full HD LCD monitors 1x Laptop with no laptop Battery so drawing power from the UPS 1x ONT 1xRouter 2x 8 port Switchers Expected run time: +-10Hours Regards

Personal opinion. Layman's 2c, consider at own risk. I'd go the route of NOT investing in the battery yet, but maximising the amount of panels you can get. Problem is, if you have basically just the inverter and the battery, that's not saving you any money, you save money when you start to generate power. The idea to get a 2.4kWh Pylontech will probably leave you frustrated, because that battery by itself can only deliver 1.2kW of power. A few lights, maybe the fridges, but soon after that it ends and your 5kW inverter will feel like it's driving Miss Daisy. Personal take, get as close to 5kW of panels as you can with the 5kW Sunsynk inverter. The 5kW solar will not eliminate all your usage, but mostly eliminate the consumption that you are paying for at the highest level of the inclining block tariffs, so the effective returns are highest, and investing more will yield diminishing returns. Use the savings after a while to finance some bigger batteries. Other than that, some basics like geyser timers and geyser blankets may help, as may a pool cover and reviewing the amount of filtration your pool needs. Twice daily turnover with a pool cover could possibly be enough.

Entered Commissioning and Testing Phase - #Respect for those who work with 16mm cable on a daily basis.

The short answer is its not feasible and COCT makes it as unappealing as possible. I think someone did the math a while ago and it was something like a minimum of 20kw PV array you would require to make it feasible. Ontop of that you need to be a net consumer meaning a customer must over a period of a year import (purchase) more energy than he/she exports (puts back into the municipal electrical grid) .

Hi Louis. This is not correct. The 8kw and 5kw limitation is purely a DC to AC limitation. The passthrough function is AC to AC so on the essential side, when the grid is available, the 5kw can peak at 8kw and the 8kw can peak at 12kw. Definitely will not overload as the balance is drawn from the grid.

......and they gave me a COC for this installation. They also used ferrules wrapped in insulation tape to connect up the panels, rather than the correct connectors. When I questioned that they told me it s far more reliable method than the connectors which leak and fail?