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Gnome

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Everything posted by Gnome

  1. Yeah but the point is, you can't bond the neutrals together. Else they wouldn't bother saying it needs to be split.
  2. ^^ is probably why having cabtyre that is complaint isn't so easy.
  3. There is a bit more to that section My reading of that seems to indicate that if you use the open wiring configuration, it must be fixed (assuming the height, location, fire resistance, etc. requirement are met). So these wires running around like a rats nest does seem to be a no-no.
  4. I would say it is pretty clear neutral must be black and is not allowed to be a phase/live conductor.
  5. Out of curiosity, have you considered doing RO filtering of your water?
  6. Sigh. You are one of those guys huh. At no point did I "correct" someone. I pointed it out as a likely problem. But you must be right, I must be wrong Must be about right and wrong, not hey you are spending a lot of money make sure you get what you think you are getting. https://www.solar-shop.co.za/warranties/HubbleAM2Warranty.pdf https://batterydistributors.co.za/hubble-battery-warranty/ Yet another, pretty much all their documents say the same thing.
  7. It is very common, that is why I googled their terms and conditions. Since I buy a lot of electronics, I've run across this before, many times. Nearly no manufacturers will honour a warranty on transfer of ownership. Debating around the wording is one thing but I would for sure clarify with Hubble and PowerStore before assuming there is a warranty. I realise the OP is not trying to be dishonest as he altered his listing. But when buying second hand it is always important to verify the terms and conditions ahead of time to save yourself some heartache. There is no law that requires a warranty to be transferrable, as far as I'm aware.
  8. https://www.fullcirclesolar.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Hubble-Lithium-X-100-Warranty.pdf
  9. You should only consider pairing different batteries if the chemistry and number of series strings are the same (and ofc. the BMS supports parallel batteries). But pairing Hubble with Pylon would be a disaster IMO since they don't even use the same chemistry.
  10. Does seem like neutral must always be black, at the very least. So blue wire neutral is a no-no. I'm also surprised that Cabtyre is allowed for home wiring. My impression was it is not. Since my GF works in the engineering industry I have all the latest regs (full SANS library access), but I'm not going to bother reading them again (the latest revision is from 2020), so I'll just take people's word for it.
  11. Maybe not the answer you are looking for, but highly recommend you get the real thing and not the clone. Axpert inverters are already made to a really low price. I don't even want to imagine how cheaply made the clones are.
  12. I would say earth spike is a must. My problem with that statement is a number of earthing systems don't have a dedicated PE and all single phase installations break the line and neutral (as do some 3p installations). And if you become disconnected from the supply (circuit breaker or otherwise), that means your earth in your house is floating with respect to the actual earth. Which is a huge lighting risk. Typically you would notice it, but since a solar install allows you to run disconnected from your supply, I would definitely say it is a no-no, as you could run without an earth and never notice. Furthermore I'm going to say the electrician saying that a Zinc roof *should* be bonded is a cop out, because he should have verified that. Its all good and well claiming things should have been done, but you need to verify it was done that way (and that the wire is sufficient thickness). Overall I would definitely install a dedicated earth wire for anything that goes on a roof. Overall electrical installs should be all about safety in case the worst situation happens. Relying on the electrical supplier to provide your earth isn't in the spirit of that when you are running your own power generation.
  13. The fact that a electrician can sign off a roof space as "enclosed" is crazy. It is already risky working in roof spaces. Making it more risky with wires running like that should not be legal. When I was younger I'd been in a number of roof spaces with wires running everywhere (alarm mind you). And I had to do gymnastics to avoid the wires and probably damaged some stepping on them. Doing the same for actual electrical wire, yeah no thanks. (especially IMO a young man's game, I'm not that skinny and flexible anymore)
  14. Pretty sure only twin and earth and Surfix are allowed to be installed without a conduit. Since this is general purpose house wire, I don't think it complies.
  15. Nice. Technically RS-485 is also just a serial bus, so IIRC you can use RS-232 port for it. Ofc, the raspberry pi uses 3.3v logic level so you'll need MAX3232 in which case I guess you may as well get a MAX3485 instead. Not sure how much that hat cost but these chips are cheap super cheap
  16. Aah, they aren't using a neutral line at all, I forgot about that.
  17. There are plenty of threads about completely illegal and dangerous installs on a local electrical contractors forum. From what I gathered, quite a few folks there have reported illegal installs by repeat offenders but it seems no action is ever taken. I have no idea what power an estate agent would have but legal action is expensive. Legal action on a house would exceed the monetary you can take to a normal court, so you are talking about high court fees. My friend was in situation like that were the amount was around R1m (estate claim by a 3rd party). Even though the person had no prospect of success, in the end the case dragged on for years and the legal fees were nearing R500k when it was cheaper to settle because the other attorney was really good at just delaying and increasing costs. My take on that is, it isn't trivial to sue for things related to such high value items as property. In the end it is just cheaper to have it fixed than pay an attorney, court costs, etc. Not to say I don't fully agree with you. The lack of accountability in the SA electrical industry is an absolute disgrace. Also why I put little to no stock in the "skills" of electricians (most are absolute garbage and have no understanding of the theory or even what they are doing. Lots are just 9am-5pm-ers and this is just their day jobs). Their industry doesn't enforce standards and unfair as it may seem, it is their industry and they have an obligation to make it better.
  18. Let's say I have my doubts because the newer and higher kA rated CBi circuit breakers also use bi-metal strips. I suspect there are reliability, consistency or tolerance issues with it. Also the SA forum for electricity doesn't speak very highly of CBi (quality wise). I wouldn't be surprised if that model was created during apartheid and manufactured that way as a cost saving measure or they couldn't even get the parts for the bi-metal strip (SA being isolated). All manufacturers of circuit breakers use the magnetic disconnect for surge disconnect so adding a damper is a relatively small extra cost, were it superior. Overall I like Schneider Electric the most. They even offer 10kA + overload + RCD in a single DIN package. Pretty demanding specifications for such a tiny package. Yep I also thought might be one of the reasons, but the reality is that roof spaces require derating which wouldn't match the wiring anyway. (I have yet to see a modern install where they install > 2.5mm in roof spaces, yet the still use 20A breakers ). But yeah for sure isn't helping the situation in hot climates.
  19. Yeah CBi call it "Hydraulic-Magnetic". More info here: https://cbi-lowvoltage.co.za/content/hydraulic-magnetic-principles Whether or not their claims are true is the question, since if it were truly thermally independent I don't get why other companies wouldn't use it. There must be a drawback that makes other manufacturers use both approaches. +their newer ranges always use the bi-metal + hydraulic so I think this is some SA company magic snake oil BS that they save money on.
  20. The voltage and current determine the loss in the cable. For DC the voltage is equivalent to roughly the RMS AC voltage. Not only is the rectified voltage going to be lower than the AC peak to peak voltage but the current draw will be roughly 3 times what the 3 phase current would be. There are good reasons why AC is used for transmission lines (other than being easy to convert). And yes I'm aware of HVDC but those benefits aren't relevant for a small scale installation using (uncontrolled) rectified AC.
  21. A single chip full bridge looks like this So how does that factor into your diagram? My point before was, if you connect AC1 to 1 of the phases and AC2 to another phase you have an output voltage of roughly (phase voltage x2 / 1.14). In OPs case ~84 volts (instead of ~48v). The phases are typically separated by 120°. If you connect AC1 to 1 of the phases and then parallel another phase to one of the legs you have a phase to phase short (at 84 volts potential). There isn't any way to connect it without discrete diodes that I can see.
  22. Indeed, but since a full bridge rectifier has 2 legs at the AC side and 2 legs at the rectified side (single chips and not discrete diodes). How would you connect 3 phases to 2 full bridge rectifiers?
  23. I haven't had issues buying parts from Banggood. On eBay you can get fakes but what is more likely with a fake is they scratch off the markings. If it still has the markings on it, there is a point where "faking" it and it working intersect so that it is more expensive to fake it. For parts that are unbranded, you aren't very likely to get a fake, it isn't worth it. The stuff that does get faked are usually high volume parts and rarely discrete components like this one. That said, go ahead and buy from RS (I've bought plenty from both RS and Banggood, never had an issue with parts from either) Each phase must be on its own full bridge. If you connect more than one on a full bridge you will have a phase to phase short. My question was more related to how the dynamo responds to that VS. a 3 phase rectifier that is typically only half bridge per phase.
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