Vince MacMahon

Two years is already half way to getting a good RoI! This is very encouraging. Thanks for sharing.
 
when people always show up in Porsches only (Lithium’s) , peeps driving corollas tend to shy away! Well if your Corolla does the job and is reliable, why not create a song and dance about it! 

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. 😅 

Well Done looks great. I have a similar system but am having trouble understanding how the DC DB Board is connected. Could you please share an image of your wiring in the DB Board or Connector Box?

Herewith my installation (purely UPS). 
 
Today, I wanted to separate DC and AC trucking. So, not fully complete yet. 
 
comments for improvements welcome!
5kw Sunsynk 
US3000 Pylontech (hoping to get a bigger battery or add more batteries at a later stage). 
 
 
 

Herewith my installation (purely UPS). 
 
Today, I wanted to separate DC and AC trucking. So, not fully complete yet. 
 
comments for improvements welcome!
5kw Sunsynk 
US3000 Pylontech (hoping to get a bigger battery or add more batteries at a later stage). 
 
 
 

Looks pro man!
Jay

Herewith my installation (purely UPS). 
 
Today, I wanted to separate DC and AC trucking. So, not fully complete yet. 
 
comments for improvements welcome!
5kw Sunsynk 
US3000 Pylontech (hoping to get a bigger battery or add more batteries at a later stage). 
 
 
 

Herewith my installation (purely UPS). 
 
Today, I wanted to separate DC and AC trucking. So, not fully complete yet. 
 
comments for improvements welcome!
5kw Sunsynk 
US3000 Pylontech (hoping to get a bigger battery or add more batteries at a later stage). 
 
 
 

My apologies, I was busy at the time, I didn't have the capacity to respond in full.
Axpert inverters typically work well if all you want is a UPS, keeping essential loads going during a power failure or load-shedding utility. That said, there are losses in efficiency with any inverter, charging batteries from AC (AC -->DC conversion), storing the DC charge (standing losses), and then converting it all back from DC to usable AC again. These efficiency losses means that It becomes expensive to just keep the lights on.
So you add some solar panels, thinking that it would be great to offset some of these losses using sun power. And it is, solar panels charge the batteries, and but when they are charged, they just sit there in the sun. So you decide that you want to use them directly to service loads, and they can, but the problem with most axperts is that they either use 100% Eskom power, or 100% battery power or 100% solar power, there's no in-between. This means that if you have a 5K Axpert inverter with panels capable  generating say 2500W DC, and your load is 2000W, all is good, the inverter will convert and use solar power to power loads. The problem is when a cloud happens along, and solar generation drops to 1500W. The axpert-type inverter will switch 100% from solar to grid, and if not grid, 100% to battery. This is true for most axpert-type inverters, although I have heard of some that can do limited "blending" of sources. The Sunsynk, by contrast, will blend any source depending on how it is set up. In the above scenario, it will still use the 1500W from the panels, but supplement it with 500W of power from the grid, battery, aux, genny or wind turbine. So it is far more efficient.
Another difference is that it is a true bi-directional hybrid inverter ( Sunsynk uses the term "Super Hybrid Parity Inverter"). The Grid and Aux input is bi directional in the sense that it operates as both an input and an output. So it can draw current from the grid or aux, and it can send current back to the grid / aux. It can also limit the load of the current flowing in either direction too, to a pre-determined wattage. This significant because, due to budgetary contraints, most homeowners cannot afford to put in a 20kW inverter, and so they split their db into essential and non-essential loads. Essential loads are usually quite light, and allow homeowners to reduce the size of the inverter to say 5kW. The non-essential loads are usually big current hogs (like water heating and pumping), and they are placed before the inverter, on the grid side, effectively being served directly by the grid before grid power even reaches the inverter. This also means that they are down when the grid power goes, but hot water is quite stable and doesn't change its temperature in four hours, and the pool won't go green immediately if there isn't any pump working, so this kind of works well from a functionality perspective. The problem with this is that it does not result in much efficiency gains or electricity savings, because the biggest current hogs are also the ones that are still serviced by the grid (when it is there). So homeowners either have to buy a bigger axpert type inverter, or get a smaller hot water installation, or change the element to a smaller one, or get a soft starter for the pool pump, and/or shift the load to the essentials side. The Sunsynk hybrid can safely export power to the grid side though, using a Current Transformer or CT coil to measure directional load (when the grid is up).
So if you have a 4000W hot water heater element, it can still be on the grid or non-essentials side, but the Sunsynk can pump 4000W of excess solar to it. The CT coil measures the power and the inverter will reduce power when too much power is detected going to the grid. Even better, if the Sunsynk inverter only has 2000W of excess solar, the element will receive the other 200W from the grid. So it is efficient. The same with the Aux port, it is bi-directional, so it can be configured to take a genny input, or act as an output or "Smart Load" as Sunsynk calls it, and you can dump excess solar power towards it.
Here is a video which explains it:
Also important is battery support, the Sunsynk manual lists over 3 pages of batteries that it supports, most with CAN or RS485 communications.
Another difference is the wide range of capacities that it supports. In addition to the ability for it to parallel (up to 16 inverters), it comes in 3.6K, 5.5k, 8.8K, and a whopping 16K for single phase installs, and there are 12 and 50K 3phase units available. Not even Victron makes such a wide range of self-contained units, their biggest is 5K.
Pricing is a little more expensive than axpert-types, but it is nowhere near the pricing of Victron, which is a whole lot more.
This probably covers the most pertinent differences between the majority of Axpert and Sunsynk Hybrid inverters, but it is certainly not all, and other forumites are welcome to supplement it with their favourite ones. There are many others, from its easy to use interface, to the warranty and support in South Africa, that are equally important. It's simply in a different league.
Please note that I am not affiliated to Sunsynk in any way, I am just an enthusiastic owner who discovered this brilliant piece of kit under two years ago. 
                 
   
 

Thanks,  the core reason I purchased the HA02 was to ensure equal charge across the batteries, I was annoyed to find 4 different voltages per battery in each of the battery banks. now, they are all equal, if you monitor for a longer period, goes up and down with 00.01. keeping in mind that the inverter flat charge is already set per the battery spec. the issue is not overcharging but the individual batteries were been charged at different rates (despite the inverter float charge values). 
What I pick up a lot here is we also talk across purposes when referring to lead acid batteries, I think in future would be best to state which specific chemistry the lead acid battery is (e.g. AGM, Gel or flooded). I would also never want to own flooded batteries because of the additional maintenance (top ups, etc.). 
Life expectancy is also generally different (AGM vs Gel Batteries - Which battery type is better? (canbat.com))
 
 
 

Honestly with lithium batteries being as cheap as they are I wouldn't even think about going with Gel batteries unless it's for DC application like a gate or outdoor sensor-lighting or a water feature or something like that.
The thing with Gel batteries is that even if they last years, the capacity drops a lot. So your 200Ah (which as I explain below, you will never get) batteries turn to 100Ah batteries rather quickly.
Beyond that, Gel batteries have a substantial voltage drop especially when they are running a bit low so even though you might have x kWh left in your batteries, enough to power your lights and tv and fridge or whatever for the night, as soon as a water pump or something load heavy get switched on it will drop the voltage and trip your low voltage protection. In other words, the lower your batteries are, the lower your load has to be, so you can never make use of the capacity that's on the box. Lithium doesn't do that. Voltage drop is very low.
Another thing is charging. The only time you are making full use of your panels is during bulk charge stage. After that, it uses less and less of what you are producing to charge the battery. Time becomes more important than panel power.
Package inserts for Gel batteries will tell you that in order to properly charge the batteries, they're supposed to be charged at absorb voltage until the current drops to less than 10mA/Ah, after which they should be switched to float voltage for no less than 24 hours. Even a full day of sun in summer can't do that, it's simply not possible with solar.
Lithium batteries can absorb power much quicker and more efficiently and do not need a float charge at all. They simply stop charging completely once they are full, so if you only have a few hours of sunshine it's no problem.
 
In summary, lithium batteries are far more suited to solar application than LA or Gel batteries, and over their lifespan you will actually be saving money while avoiding the hassles and headaches associated with traditional battery system maintenance and use.

Makes sense why little interest on AGM or Gel batteries.
not all lead acid batteries need maintenance, the above mentioned are sealed, no need top up.
whilst lithium is super impressive, there is still a case for sealed lead acid batteries if only using backup power for load shedding etc. if going off grid, yes, makes sense to go all the way. 
I think one might just be surprised that there are still a lot of peeps on Gel Batteries still.