TimCam

Deye and SunSynk are both excellent pieces of hardware, differentiated by branding and firmware. I personally enjoy the SunSynk firmware, but that is personal taste.
The failure rate has been quotes at 0.4% for SunSynk, but with a large installed base this reflects as "more" failures than other brands.
I have had my SunSynk 8.8 kW machine for a number of years now, and have never had it fail unexpectedly.
Once it did shut-down, but the reason was expected, and no damage to the inverter or household appliances.
What happened is there was a municipal Neutral failure which caused over 300V between Live and Earth, I have SPD's on AC incoming and Essential Load after the inverter.
The SPD on Essential Load fired and shorted to Earth, which caused the inverter to shut-down.
Walking into the power room and smelling that acrid electrical burnt smell sends shivers down the spine. 😕
Once the fault was diagnosed, municipal power was disconnected, the damaged SPD replaced, the inverter booted up with no problem and ran on batteries for the night.
One tough "sun of a gun", so I am happy with my machine. Also I have passed through well over 10 kW.

Hi
Recently after having a power failure with being rainy and overcast the previous day, I woke up to find my house without power despite having an 8Kw Sunsynk inverter with 500ah batteries.  It was 5:30 am so I took my torch and investigated only to find I had completely depleted my batteries.
I had recently coupled my geyser to the grid from gas as I had added more PV panels and had ample power (9000w) to use. I also have to power a borehole pump and aux pump from the JoJo tank.
I have a 6Kw petrol generator coupled to the inverter which can be switched to the grid or aux (gen) input without an auto-start. I proceeded to start the generator and switched the generator to the grid input, only to find that this did not work. I was very annoyed and then switched over to the aux (gen) input to find that this also did not work.
I thought I had it all sorted when I installed my system and bragged about my installation, however to my regret, I got a wake-up call.
After checking the generator voltage indicator, I saw it did not show any voltage. I was convinced that this was a generator fault and did not try to put the generator in the bypass mode. I proceeded to switch all the large loads off (borehole pump, switch the geyser to gas, and only use the gas hob). After taking my grandchildren to school the sun was up and my PV panels did power the house to my relief and not to get an earful from my wife.
After getting help (4 guys) to remove the generator (100kg) from its bricked housing I started my fault-finding. To my surprise, only the mechanical voltmeter was broken.
 What now as it was not the generator?
I took the time to clean the generator and put it back in place with help. I did all the switchovers again only to find it still did not work.
Just to mention that I have spent more than 40 years working with electronics and instrumentation.
One of the most important things I have learned over the years is to go back to read and follow the instructions. 
This is what I did. I also followed up with videos from Sunsynk and this was the result.
1.       The biggest problem was the frequency which was 54.6 hz.  I had to adjust the frequency on the generator under load as close to 50hz as possible. This can be done by adjusting the screw on the linkage arm of the carburetor which will correct the speed and frequency.
2.       The frequency band on the inverter also needed to be adjusted for a larger band to accommodate the frequent load changes of the generator.
3.       There are other settings as well that affect the inverter if the generator is grid-coupled or aux-coupled. It also matters if you use timed settings as this will override the start and stop charging settings of the battery. The grid-tied generator to the inverter is much less forgiving to frequency change.
4.       The charging of the batteries from the generator needs to be set lower on a grid-tied generator.  if you set it too high there will be no power for the household load. The best Installation is to have a generator twice the power of the inverter so that it can charge the batteries without affecting the load. This is always not possible so be sure you have adjusted the settings for the size of the generator.
5.       If you have an electrician do the installation, make sure that he has done all the checks and has tested it before it is signed off. It will always be up to the owner to read the instructions so you can be sure the electrician has done all the tests and correct settings or else when the generator is needed it might fail and you might need to pay again to have it set correctly.
6.       Finally, the earthing of the generator.
A.      If it is coupled in the grid mode, the neutral has to be coupled to the earth as there is no link to neutral for a series earth leakage (RCD) to work if the mains neutral is decoupled.
B.      When the generator is coupled to the aux (gen) input the inverter should already have an earth bond relay installed to protect the system with the earth leakage (RCD) in series when the neutral is decoupled from the mains in the inverter during a power failure. I use an automotive 12vdc relay which can handle 30a.
In a complete circuit, there must only be one earth-neutral bond.
I see many installers fitting a permanent bond between earth and neutral on the inverter. This is illegal as now there are two earth-neural bonds when the mains power is present. (one in the inverter and one in the DB. Box).
I find it pure laziness that an electrician cannot use a relay to couple the neutral to earth even if the inverter does not provide a signal or voltage output as he can use the 220vac mains power input to the inverter as the signal to connect the bond.
NB: THE earth-neural bond must be the bond of the neutral on the output of the inverter to earth and not the neutral input from the Mains Power input.
 
The earth-neutral bond done on the Mains input is only done when the Mains Power is disconnected (live and neutral) and a Generator is used as the Mains Power input.
All is now good and working as it should.
I hope this will help someone who wants to couple a generator to an inverter and avoid the same problems and frustrations I have gone through.

Yes, my insurance covers the damage. I did the install in 2023 and it was running clockwork till the heavens decided otherwise. PITA to remove the batteries and inverter for repairs but I took the inverter out today - will take it to Sunsynk in the morning. It seems the comms are not working. I will report back. I am learning a lot through this exercise.

I agree with you 100% and that is what I am going to do.

90mV can easily happen while the battery is charging or discharging. Having current in and out makes the delta quite a bit higher.

Thanks all.
I managed to get it fixed by starting from 00:00:00 in slot 1.

So I am and have been totally off grid for 3 Years already that includes all services electricity water sewage garbage etc.
Current system
7.3KW PV East West configuration JA Solar all Black panels.
2 x Solis S6 6KW advanced inverters
7 x Hubble AM-2 Batteries
1 x 2KW Odin Wind turbine.
My Summer off grid production and consumption hovers around 25 to 30 KWH per day
I run 6 Fridges and freezers air fryer microwave oven LED flood lights most are on 24 Hours per day 3 small hydroponics systems CCTV system with 8 cameras laptops wifi equipment laser printer (not useds a lot) Aircon always on in the day in summer and 1 hour at night 3 electric fans always on in the summer 1.8KW Borehole Pump once a day for 30 Minutes 350 Watt pressure pump for Irrigation runs 20 Minutes twice a day 2KW Geyser element always on Element kicks in 6 times over a 24 hour cycle for 10 minutes and 45 Minutes after a Shower I use a electric 1.2 KW lawn mower to mow around 3000 squares of grass once or twice a week I can use my Angle Grinder Welder electric drills skill saw etc almost any time of day.
I have a 3KVA petrol generator and in the 3 years that i have been off grid I have only run the generator for about 18 hours
Cooking is mostly done on the Gas Oven Stove. We cookc everyday no takeaways here.
In winter time my consumption goes down a little to 18 to 20 KWH using the aircon a lot less use gas heaters and a fire for heat in the winter.
Adding a Donkey to my system for this coming winter with a piggy back geyser with an 2KW element however the donkey will provide most of the hot water in winter I have tons of decent Black wattle firewood so reducing my need for electric elements will have a small 15 watt solar geyser hot water pump to circulate the hot water between the geysers.
The water tank that feeds the main house with water is on a 5 Meter Stand so I don't need pressure pumps to provide pressure on my taps in and around the house.
I have a water filtration system for drinking water etc.
All our toilet waste goes to a bio digester and we have a grey water system that feeds shower water and dishwashing water into my garden.
The reason for the large battery bank is as follows.
If you want to have off grid power when using solar only you will need a battery bank equal to your normal 24 hour consumption however this does not cater for overcast and rainy days.
Hence the reason I have 35 KWH Storage got this before I got the turbine installed.
Because my consumption goes down in winter and my production from the PV in winter is lower the storage is perfect and I never run out of power however if we do have rainy overcast days in winter I would switch the Geyser off to reduce night time consumption and only run it when we need it the Donkey will eliminate this need this coming winter.
Because I have the turbine it will help a lot with Winter energy production because my Windy season starts and maintains through winter so my turbine will produce anything between 15 and 25 KWH per day
During that time and would make my battery storage and solar power almost obsolete.
However in Summer time I rely very much on solar production because the wind power production in summer per day would only be about 1 to 2KW per day.
The short and long is if you go solar alone and want to be completely off grid I would say your battery storage needs to be about 150% of the Power Consumption for a 24 Hour cycle that is if you do not want to run a petrol generator for emergency power needs.
You can reduce your nightly consumption by adapting your heavy consumption times to when you have solar power available.
Certain things you cannot get away from is your 24 hour loads or base loads and you need to cater for those in battery capacity or alternative power generation.
My Base loads in winter is a lot lower because the fridges and freezers have lower ambient temperatures so I turn them all down in the winter reduces base load significantly.
I don't need the aircon or fans to run all the time and that reduces the base loads at night quite a bit 3 electric fans can run at about 250 watt.
Other factors to consider is redundancy for potential failure that is why I have 2 x 6KW inverters if one fails I still have power and all of my appliances can still work with a little management.
I hope this gives you some context each person will have varied loads and base loads however it is important to plan you system and size it correctly to suit your specific requirement.

The HV inverters normally have 2x battery connections, each connection can only accommodate 50A and the Voltage according to number of batteries. Depending on battery type, you can duel feed to both connections, therefor having 100A, if a battery parallel port check box is ticked on the inverter.
Notice the duel output and convenient stacking of these batteries. Also can easily handle the 50A+50A current draw if needed.
https://bslbatt.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ESS-GRID-HV-PACK-231118.pdf

Haha, not spending more than I need to - I'm on a smallholding with two dwellings and a three-phase borehole pump (and other pumps) so I need more kW (and kWh) than average. I just did some rough calcs and based on online prices, I can do a single inverter 30kW 3ph high-voltage setup with 20kWh of battery (4x5kWh @ 50V in series to give 200V to the inverter that needs 160V min) for about only 10% more cost than my original 2 x 12kW 3ph low-voltage solution (all Deye products). So HV is very much an option. Still learning though so may have missed something. My installer is looking at the details and I will report back.

Thank you! I’ve ended up going with a 8.5KVa Steko with ATS as they have been on special and for the number of times a year I actually plan on using it the R13k sounded ok…. I don’t plan on using the ATS at this point either. Not the quietest I suspect but that’s ok. Arriving tomorrow and my electrician sorting out tomorrow evening. I’ll feed back on my experiences…😁

Measure DC voltage and current at each inverter under load and compare. A significant drop at Inverter 1 suggests a bad connection or higher resistance on the DC cabling. This happens with low pv generation and no utility backup pointing to battery issue on inverter 1.

The controller comes with a dumpload that activates automatically in that scenario but I am sure one can send the energy to an element or something or activate the pump with a relay automatically if there is wind power available we are looking at a couple of options to automate this.

Wow! That’s amazing!

@madness_za Congratulations!!! Well done!
Thank you so much to Sonoff Africa For this Fantastic giveaway. @Sonoff Africa
Well done all! @madness_za you welcome to send @Sonoff Africa your delivery details!
Lucky number 7!
Sincerely
Jason

Hello Everyone
Just some feedback on how the system has been running.
So the frequency shifting function is working well on the Solis Hybrids however I have run into some issues with it as follows.
You have very little control over when the systems starts frequency shifting we have set the max frequency to 54HZ then the systems starts shifting frequency at 80% DOD if we set it to the lower end of the scale the frequency shifting starts at 60% DOD.
The problem this presents is that the excess wind energy is not available for the system to be used for loads and as soon as it starts slowly forces the turbine to generate less and less energy until it stops the turbine completely.
I am currently busy with SOLIS inverters South Africa to look at additional functionality on the frequency shifting function settings that can allow us to manually set when frequency starts based on battery SOC
We would also prefer if we could still make the wind energy available for loads instead of stopping the turbine.
Other functions we would like SOLIS to integrate is MPPT Power Curve settings on the MPPT that has a wind turbine connected to it this will also improve potential power production via the MPPT we have found the Solar MPPT algorithm limits efficiency when integrating with that method.
Currently I am testing the grid tied wind turbine inverter directly on the backup port of the system and have found that this method is the most efficient and it allows the turbine to generate power in the lightest breeze my concern however is when the battery is full and there is not sufficient load to consume the energy may cause the battery BMS to go into fault because the energy would inevitably go to the battery.
Especially in off grid mode when grid is attached you can send the excess power back to grid etc.
The other option is to utilize something like home assistant or Hubble Cloudlink to manage the production of the wind turbine.
The wind turbine inverter supports MODBUS and RS485 Comms and can receive instructions to stop or start the turbine.
This would allow turbine integration onto the backup port of almost any inverter using the grid tied wind turbine inverter with its perfect power curve.
Where you can start the turbine if the battery is empty or below 100% or where the load on the system is high enough to utilize the wind energy.
There are many potential scenarios and options then available to control the turbine and utilize the energy more efficiently.
I have access to all the modbus protocols for the wind turbine inverters and controllers and all of them support remote stop start signal via modbus.
Other methods could be to use ac contactors to connect and disconnect the ac side of the wind turbine inverter.
I am investigating these options further and will get back to everyone on the feasibility of these options.

Update: It turns out the wifi card was broken. Sunsynk sent me a new card which I installed and I am back online again. Much less of a hassle than sending the whole inverter to them.

Did i win  😉

If the only inconvenience is to your eyeballs, I suggest you don't look.
 

Hey Guys 
Sadly I don't have videos or pictures of us raising the 12 meter tower we just did not have enough hands its a very critical part of the process and one does not want to drop an expensive turbine on the ground. 
I will post more pictures of the controllers etc.
Currently i have the wind turbine coupled to a wind turbine grid tied inverter ac coupled to the back up port of my 2 x Solis S6 6KW advanced inverters and the turbine is constantly pushing a little power into the system I still have two trees to trim down. 
My windy season starts just before winter so then the turbine will have nice constant 30 to 40 KPH Winds 
Peak production that i have so far from the machine was 1.7 KW on the DC controller and 900 Watt on the WInd turbine inverter. 
I also still have to install the HYE 1KW at a later stage and we are also looking at testing a more advanced Grid tied Wind turbine inverter. 
later this week I will move the current Grid tied wind turbine inverter to the generator port of the Solis Hybrid setup and do some tests with that configuration and the week after I will recieve my Solis 4.6 Grid tied inverter Supplied by Solis South Africa thanks James Frank.
With the solis grid tied we will then use the 360VDC DC Controller and couple to the solis 4.6 MPPT and Ac couple to the Solis hybrids.
I also have the Solis 5KW Off Grid inverter that I will be testing the 360VDC DC Controller on its MPPT the inverter will have a 5KW Humless battery I am just waiting on some components to finalize the commissioning of that little system which I will also integrate onto my hybrid system. 

Agreed, I have one on my main DB and it works a charm

Hi All!
I have decided to select active forum members into an excel sheet. Google Random number selector will select the winner.
I feel it is much better to reward active members than some one that has not logged in since 2013.
Lets see tomorrow who the random number gen selects tomorrow! Damn that water valve goodie is really cool! 😆
Awesome.
Jason

Replace the panel if you can find a spare, the time cost and effort of repairing the panel is not worth it.
You will get shorts to earth when water gets in like @abd7 said, which will cause all types of chaos for the inverter.

There is some information that is not show I used standard 6mm2 PV Cable connected to the output on the Turbine Generator there are 3 phases we joined each cable with a 6mm ferrule and insulated this with heat shrink and silicone insulation tape to ensure a waterproof insulation. It is crucial for this connection to remain dry and very secure we also used some cable ties to tie the cable to the cable hook inside the pole. 
The cable hook carries the weight of the cable. 
The three cables run down the pipe underground in LDP pipe into the house up to the point where it attaches to the controller for experimentation purposes I have a 3 phase changeover Switch to change the output from te turbine to two different controllers. 
This makes things a lot easier when running experiments. 
One controller is a 360 VDC output the other one is a grid tied wind turbine controller that outputs 230VAC @ 50HZ

Aha! That's interesting. Somewhere in my province. 😎

Yes but i guess cloud charting is the part I'm mostly looking for, at least to start with anyway but that one is maybe on ewelinks supported webview list, the one I brought is not.