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Item: 6x artsolar 310Wp panels Age: 6 years Price: R6500 Payment Method Accepted: cash, eft Condition: Good Location: Gordons bay Reason: Selling house Shipping: no, collection only

Are you still looking to sell this?

Does this one have a communication card or is it without the communication card?

Yeah thats what I'm getting at with the extra heat storage capacity being useful, if you store 300L at high temperature (generated during the day with solar) than drawing e.g. 1 or 2 showers from that after sunset will still leave you with lots of hot water at decent temperature and no need to start heating from the grid before the next morning. While with only 200L you might not have enough and might need to start heating from the grid after usage. A larger capacity (within reason) is therefore quite desirable and compliments any kind of solar water heating (IMO at least). Geyser 1 (inlet) will be set to a very high thermostat setting and will be powered only by PV, geyser 2 (outlet) will be set to a much lower temperature and will be powered only by the grid (but should barely ever operate) - this element serves only to ensure that the outlet water never drops below an acceptable temperature while the element in geyser 1 should do the bulk of the work. The only thing that remains for me to decide is what system to put on geyser 1. I'm currently still having an internal argument myself over whether to go with an elon 100, a solarhotty a geyser robot or a 48v dc element.

Just as a follow up to this, now that I actually pulled the trigger on something. I did finally track down an option, Tecron will actually "custom" make a geyser with two element positions (one at bottom of tank, one at middle of tank) if you ask them. It ends up at R9500 for a 200L geyser with two elements, this is a bit pricey but I guess there are (depending on your opinion) some added benefits to copper, not having to keep changing the anode etc. Another nice things is the tecrons take a standard "1 1/4 inch screw" type element, which many low voltage DC elements are available for on ebay/amazon etc. - so if you want to go with a 48v heating system this opens up a bunch of options. They were unable to do this for me before October though, due to material shortages (covid) so I ended up just getting 2x 150L geysers, which cost me R3000 per geyser, plus R1200 for the four vacuum breakers and the pressure valve, and R550 for 2x drip trays. R7735 in total... So in the end you have ~R10000 for a 200L copper geyser with 2x elements/thermostats, that conveniently can fit a wide range of imported elements. Or R7735 for 300L (150Lx2) regular steel geysers with 2x elements, but that can't take imported elements - it does look like conversion plates to take imported elements can be had for around R400 though, so throw one of those in and its R8000. Plus I guess some additional labour for someone to install two geysers instead of one, not sure how much extra that is though, my builder isn't passing any costs onto me there... Or around R6500 for a single 200l geyser with a single element, which is what was specced for my house on the plans. The two are close enough that both are decent options I think, there might be reasons to consider the tecron, I do like the idea of copper, and not maintaining anodes, and theoretically longer life... However the extra 100L of storage is nice I think if the PV is going to be doing most of the heating, larger capacity means more heat can be stored for later, so probably in the end 2x 150L seems to be the way to go - not sure if its a volume/popularity thing or what but the pricing on 150L geysers vs other sizes is just very hard to beat.

I was never able to track down an off the shelf part for this, so I'm pretty sure whats in the photo there is a custom made part. The best option for two elements seems to be to just add an additional pre-feed geyser or similar

Does anyone know of anywhere selling DC rated geyser elements in the country, other than the geyserwise ones? The only other place I can find is elexco (no stock) Yes I realise that regular AC elements can be used with DC current as well, but the output of these is reduce quite a bit by lower DC system voltages, especially as we are a 240V country with our elements designed for 240v. So specifically wondering if any 48V or lower elements are available.

Managed to locate at least one local place that has these now: https://www.lumaxenergy.co.za/product/lm-cgw-2/ https://www.lumaxenergy.co.za/product/lm-sgw/

I find this a tricky one. What I like about pylontech is that they are clearly a solid product, they're generally known to be good with quite widespread usage, with independent tests in which they do very well and outperform a lot (most) of the other lithium batteries tested. I'm very happy with the one I have now and strongly considering to just expand with them, they're a solid product. I feel like I can buy a system that will use them right now, punch the numbers into my ROI formula to see what ROI will be like over 10 years and expect them to actually last 10 years, and that if they don't there's a reasonable chance (assuming I install them decently) that they will be replace under warranty and/or that the company will still even exist to do so. A 20% discount on the other hand is nothing to sniff at and if I could get the same thing for 20% less its definitely at the very least tempting. Dyness on the other feel like a harder to quantify risk. Yes there are the rumours that the people running it were previously at Pylontech, but even if that were true what exactly does that mean? Are they the people who made pylontech a success or did they leave because they were problematic or pushing Pylontech to be lower quality for cheaper parts and higher profit? How would I know? How much is this connection really worth in reality? The BMS is apparently the same, maybe that's true. What about the cells though? Are the cells the same quality or are they maybe sourcing lower quality cells? Do they even have the same quantity of cells? I see the Dyness 2.4 apparently weighs 22kg while the pylon 2.4 apparently weighs 24kg - could the difference in weight be that the pylon 2.4 actually has more cells and reserves some extra capacity to help them last longer (never reaches as low a state of charge) which in effect means the Dyness won't last as long? Which then brings me to question, if Dyness batteries start dying 6 or 7 years in will they be around to honour the warranty, or are they going to vanish. Do Pylontech maybe cost more because they reserve some money for warranty replacements, while Dyness are just yet another battery company (in a long line of battery companies) that are going to vanish from the face of the earth before anyone needs to claim? So in short, is Dyness cheaper because they have a more efficient manufacturing process and thinner margins, or are they cheaper because they are selling you less and/or have a less sustainable? I wish I knew that answer to that, I have no idea only questions. And so it becomes a matter of, take the "safer" but more expensive batteries and have a longer ROI, but be more likely to actually ROI for sure. Or take the cheaper batteries and have the possibility of a faster ROI, but run the risk of having no ROI at all if the batteries go poof a few years in... Still thinking about it myself, but I tend to be conservative on these things, for now I favour pylontech, I really like that theres detailed independent testing data as that is something I can really trust to some degree, though I hope someone comes up with more detailed and certain information on the dyness.

There are solutions to ensure anodizing doesn't cause a problem and that all panels/mounting have a conductive connection, however they don't seem to be very popular or readily available in the country for whatever reason. Or maybe its just a case of people not being aware that it is an issue or that there is a solution? http://www.we-llc.com/products/weeb-washer

Busy shopping around for panels, ideally looking for 310Wp upward (400Wp panels would be nice). Best price I'm seeing currently is in the R4.80/Wp excl.VAT region - was wondering if anyone had run into any really good prices recently

Yes CBI, purchased through cronlec but likely most electrical places can organise them

No experience on these specific panels but I've had other artsolar panels since 2015 and can't find any fault with them

Not at all, 2 seperate elements (quite common overseas; seemingly incredibly rare here): 'Dual' elements on a single 'boss' (some small market availability here in various shapes/forms):