Rdelete

You need Eskom and you will have cold water at night time load Shedding, or use up battery to heat water at 2am.
You will never have cold water and never be reliant on Eskom. The 48kg are huge, even 19kg lasts long, Have spare like I do and  when one is empty I change to the other and have at three months to fill the spare.

I have a funny case, my one string seems to always measure 0.4 amps irrespective of it being night with no sunlight. This is on the 5kw sunsynk MPPT 1.
This of course means that PV 1 is always showing higher amps than PV2
Anyone else experience something like this:
What could be the reason?

Is a single string all connected in series?  I presume it is in my case.  Below is an image of panels.  PV1 is the row above and PV2 the row below.
You can see the shading is very little.  Reluctant to move panels or chimney to address shading before investigating other possible causes for the following reasons.
1) Today PV2 took a dip between 12:30 and 13:00 and then shot back up when the shading from the chimney was solid on the panel.
2) Although it follows a pattern it does not happen at exactly the same times each day.
3) The output for the string dips by 50% while the shading is only on one panel.
4) Last year and the year before I never had this issue but the shading was exactly the same.
 
Someone told me that panels are not designed for shading and might be damaged.  Could this be the case?
What other reasons could there be for current drop?
- damaged panel?
- loose connections? (already checked the incoming protection panel)
 

I swapped the EL around last night, and frustratingly, the problem persisted. I then measured the different circuits using a milli-amp meter to determine if there was any major current leak (I initially thought it may be the leakage current from the surge arrestors that was causing the problem) - there was minimal leakage current; certainly not enough to trip the earth leakage.
After a fair amount of testing and confusion, I decided to ring out the neutral circuit to check for any continuity issues that may be cause a ground loop or similar - turns out this was the problem. There is a bare earth cable in my DB, and it was making contact with part of the neutral bar, in an obscure position behind some other wires. As soon as I moved this earth cable, the loop was broken and I could reset the earth leakage - very frustrating, but glad I found it!

I can certainly comment on the Inverter  Sunsynk / Deye etc. Brilliant choice. We have ours working with a basic install about 10 days now. I setup the solarman app and its telling me I am 95 percent utilizing my own generated power. I have a  smaller UPS Essential  load like you, House plugs, But that said its Dishwasher (day use on PV only, not battery at night). fridge washing machine. But the amazing part is how it back feeds into the non essential using PV and Battery. geyser, pool - Borehole pump in the day from solar after a full battery.  The nighttime I am still learning. I have the BLSB (Bulls) battery.

I think I am starting to see some light here. The battery in my energiser works in pulses. It is not running flat out all the time. So the charger doesn't have to match the maximium output of the battery, it just has to do enough to keep the battery more or less charged over a period of time. So the fence probably couldn't run effectively on just the mains, because the charge circuitry is not designed to cope with the peak demand on the battery, it matches the average demand,

In which case that cell that @Vassenmentioned might be a good long term investment. It costs more, sure, but will last a lot longer and will be less likely to fail every 2 years or so just as I am sitting down to watch Strictly Come Dancing on something of similar importance.

I built my home made battery charger to help my people that work at my house. I gave them each a 7AH battery and a china mall R35 LED light. I also gave them a LPG gas single cooker with bottle.Bring back the battery and I give you a charged one. I bought a number of these batteries and solar charge them. The cost was around R240 and R35. Its changed their life. No more paraffin.Good light for at least a week or two. Now imagine Eskom had a few of these power points. You bring me a 7AH and I give you a charged one for say R5.00. And I charge it with solar. You will change the life of 10 Million people, Instead they squandered Billions on cars, houses, overseas holidays etc etc. R275 to change a persons life??? 

Here is what the Chinese say I can do with their 4000watt Inverter :
 

Love this choice .....  Best choice I think

Hi Ryan. 

No problem. The serial number is found on the sticker at the side of the Sunsynk as well as on the screen and Solarman app. 
 
I request the updates directly with Sunsynk engineering. 

I built my home made battery charger to help my people that work at my house. I gave them each a 7AH battery and a china mall R35 LED light. I also gave them a LPG gas single cooker with bottle.Bring back the battery and I give you a charged one. I bought a number of these batteries and solar charge them. The cost was around R240 and R35. Its changed their life. No more paraffin.Good light for at least a week or two. Now imagine Eskom had a few of these power points. You bring me a 7AH and I give you a charged one for say R5.00. And I charge it with solar. You will change the life of 10 Million people, Instead they squandered Billions on cars, houses, overseas holidays etc etc. R275 to change a persons life??? 

Thanks Buyeye
I have decided for now to go with the 20l Gas Heater to have an alternative heating source for long outages. We are currently experiencing lots of long outages due to faults at Houtkoppen sub. 
I am going to change the elements on my 2 remaining geysers down to 3kw and will connect that to the next phase of my PV Array + inverter/battery set up.

You need Eskom and you will have cold water at night time load Shedding, or use up battery to heat water at 2am.
You will never have cold water and never be reliant on Eskom. The 48kg are huge, even 19kg lasts long, Have spare like I do and  when one is empty I change to the other and have at three months to fill the spare.

I built my home made battery charger to help my people that work at my house. I gave them each a 7AH battery and a china mall R35 LED light. I also gave them a LPG gas single cooker with bottle.Bring back the battery and I give you a charged one. I bought a number of these batteries and solar charge them. The cost was around R240 and R35. Its changed their life. No more paraffin.Good light for at least a week or two. Now imagine Eskom had a few of these power points. You bring me a 7AH and I give you a charged one for say R5.00. And I charge it with solar. You will change the life of 10 Million people, Instead they squandered Billions on cars, houses, overseas holidays etc etc. R275 to change a persons life??? 

Hi Ryan,
I am 100% on your page. My geyser is covered by insurance but I am considering using the pay out to convert to gas. I also have 4kw of installed PV cells with a 5kw Deye inverter.
Option 1 - Replace geyser and convert to Solar
Replace Geyser with a 200l Kwikot geyser (covered by insurance). Replace 4kw element with a 2kw electric or PTC element. Install a GeyserWise or GeyserWorx system to "smart" control the geyser and switch seamlessly between DC and AC as required to maintain temperature. I understand that this wont get me completely off the grid but it will allow me to maximise the investment of my PV installation. Costs Geyserwise = approximately R10k - lets say R11.5k with installation. GeyserWorx = R9.3k with installation (add in a another R2k for a AC/DC element - still confirming with GeyserWorx whether this is required.) Ongoing electricity usage will only be determined once installed and measured over a period of time. Option 2 - Remove geyser completely and put in a Gas Geyser
Remove burst geyser and install a 20L forced fan gas geyser Utilise the R6k pay out from the insurance comp to contribute towards costs of gas system. Complete decoupling from Eskom. Costs Approximately R18k - R20k installed with a decent Paloma or Bosch geyser. Therefore all in about 12k taking the insurance payout into consideration. Cost of Gas to change a 48kg bottle every 2 to 3 months (R1350). Conclusion
In my situation the installed cost works out to pretty much the same for both options with the gas heater slightly more expensive. The swinger will be the ongoing cost of gas vs the electricity utilisation I suppose.
Not a clear winner in my opinion except it you want to off the grid completely.
 
 

How to check a solar panel with a multi-meter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh6hzMb69gY 
 

I would not be discourage from using any 2 KW, however the Geysewise has some positives on the PTC element. Either way dont be discouraged using a smaller KW element. I agree with Vassen. it will take longer to heat ,use less power but longer.

@Deez the PV system has a dual element 900w DC and 1500w / 900w recommended for 150l and 2000w AC /900w DC for the 200l. The 900w heats the water via DC (PV) to a special MPPT controller to the PTC element. Yes it heats it. Even at 900w(200l). The day would start at 55C, then the morning people shower/ bath 26C - 30C. At the time I use the water 55C around midday, I am old school and shower quick, now at about 44C, come 3pm to 5pm back at 55C again.  I also have the 150L , works even better as its smaller at 900w naturally. This is winter

Just for interest and for any others that may be wanting to extend their CT coil cable...
As part of checking the CT itself this evening I went back into the ceiling to check the cable there too as my CT is about 17m from the inverter.
I had originally installed some CAT6 LAN cable for the extension but thought it wasn't working so bought some 0.5mm flex/panel wire and twisted some black and white together for the extension and installed that, which also gave no reading, until I switched on the grid feed to the inverter.
This evening as a test I reconnected the CAT6 LAN cable, using one twisted pair, and also got CT readings so the CAT6 LAN cable does indeed work...

yay, success...
to all those that said, or even thought, the CT was incorrectly installed you were correct😳
I finally got a chance after work this evening to get into the main DB, what I call my dirty DB with "dirty" power from the council for the non-essential loads.
When I removed the DB cover and reached for the CT it basically popped open with me barely touching it. I opened it fully and removed it form the live wire then put it back and this time made sure it clipped closed correctly, which was a challenge keeping the fingers away from the neutral bar, then double check it by tugging a little.
When I went back to the inverter it was looking a whole lot better.
The first pic below is with PV basically done for the day and I set the timers to only use the batteries later, so expecting the CT to be reading close enough to the load value, which it was.
The second pics are then after setting the timer to use the batteries and the reading are good again.
Thank you to all for all the help and apologies for the trouble and confusion...
 

firmware update done, thank you @Leshenit is now running MCU:3162
After it came back online after the update the CT still shows the low value (around 58W) even though the load was around 950W.
I switched on my bench grinder again, on the non-essential load side, and managed to snap these two pics of the flow screen which shows the CT reading increase, although not really enough, but also shows the feed to the house and the battery providing power. When I turned off the bench grinder it wall went back to "my normal"...
I have made the changes suggested by @Nexuss, I'll watch the PV and charge tomorrow.
 

I went out and purchased two 200Watt panels today to reduce the charging time of my battery-bank to 5 hours.(R4000)
 
 

RyanG
I read through all of the comments on that webpage and found that there are differing opinions from most of them, but thank for once again bringing this very important topic to light.
I have done that and hope the batteries do not destroy themselves.

I have the BLSB, The deal was 29k for a 6.2kw, but in hindsight the Hubble gets installed by Leshen, and with this will be the @leshen support, and he has a 10 out of 10 rating. On the BLSB I was on my own, was dropped off on the paving, it did not even come with a manual, and calling the support number was very disappointing, but its a great battery, just, you are on you own.There was going to be a charge for installation, cables, fuses etc, on top of the battery purchase. Since then I have been given a copy of the install. Its got the cable sizes and some sunsynk setting, however no mention of much else. Like I want to know the best install location. Vertically or Horizontal, Is there a cabinet available, Is there rails? How many are supported in a single location and probably more questions i dont know yet. Whats the support if there are problems??

This is what having a battery looks like. this was around 830pm. My self usage on this Sunsynk after setting up solarman and monitoring three days so far - 95 percent self usage. In other words my usage from city power is 5 percent when either battery or PV are not able to support the installation. Thats allowing the Sunsynk to use essential and non essential load. My essential is low as per my diagram. Fridge, deep freeze , house plugs, lights etc. non essential has the high power Amps. Geyser, pool pump, borehole, oven, garrage.