Scorp007

You need to say what panels and how many as well as 1 or 2 strings in parallel to get the right answer. At the face of it using 450+W panels in up to 2 strings the 6mm should be OK if the current is less than 30-32A.

Volt drop is linier to the current passing. No problem with 0.1 to 0.3. I would be more concerned about the cable size for the 350Ah unless you are using a fuse/MCB or current is limited by another devise to around 125/160A?

Thanks for the info. Yes the drop in temp is normal. The water temp in the whole geyser would be the same after heating with a heat pump. With the element it would measure around the element. This is also the reason why a element system would heat and switch off and after say 20min the geyser switches on again for a few minutes without hot water used. There can be up to 8 deg difference between the bottom and top layer of water. That is what I found with my "geyser" in the caravan where I have a thermometer stuck at the bottom of my big Jim fitted with an old whistle kettle element. I use a setting for shower of about 42 deg on the thermostat. I have found my geyser can have a drop in temp during the night as low as 5 deg if no hot water is used

Did you perhaps check what the temp was on the heat pump controller when you switched on the heat pump? I suppose one could guess the guest geyser was around the 26 deg mark?

Here I can talk about how you use solar as well as going the totally opposite way you stating. Doing a grid tied without battery system you can get your money back in under 2.5yrs or like in my case 3 yrs. This gives you a return of 33% now and it goes up every year. You will be hard pressed to find a better investment. Solar is all about what kind of system and what load profile you have. The piece of mind of no load shedding is no longer the only consideration. The question is can Solar save you money? YES YES YES.

I would pay the extra for a 5 kW Deye or for lower budget the 6 kW Luxpower SN6000. There are many other brands and options. I am very impressed with the features of the Deye after my life with a Axpert that treated me very well.

1 strip is enough for each series strip but I would rather use 2 strips. Each series strip then connected to a busbar to make up the pos and neg terminals.

You should not connect an inverter's neutral to the grid's neutral because it creates dangerous "ground loops," causes "nuisance tripping" of safety devices (like RCDs/Earth Leakages), violates electrical codes (by converting TN-S to TN-C systems), and introduces phantom voltages (like 60V) onto the ground wire, making the system unsafe and potentially damaging equipment. The neutral-ground bond should only happen at the main service panel, not at the inverter, allowing the inverter to act as a floating source when off-grid and correctly sense faults. Key Dangers & Problems: Ground Loops & False Trips: Bonding neutrals at both the inverter and the main panel creates multiple paths for current, causing earth leakage (RCD) breakers to trip unnecessarily and creating dangerous potential differences. Violation of Standards: It effectively turns a safe TN-S system (separate Neutral & Earth) into a TN-C system (combined), which is illegal in many places and invalidates Certificates of Compliance (CoCs). Phantom Voltages: Unbonded inverters can have "ghost" voltages (e.g., 60V) between neutral and ground; bonding them connects these real voltages to your earth, making the ground wire live and dangerous. Harmonic Distortion: A solid neutral connection interferes with the inverter's ability to detect grid issues, as harmonics can flow through it. Equipment Damage: Some inverters are not designed for this and can burn up or malfunction when the neutral and ground are bonded incorrectly, notes a Scribd article. Correct Practice: Bond at the Main Panel: The neutral-ground bond (N-G bond) belongs only at your main distribution board, where the grid's neutral and earth are bonded to the main earth spike. Inverter as Floating Source: When off-grid, the inverter acts as a "floating" source, similar to a generator. It should only bond its output neutral to an earth spike (or the house earth via a relay) when it detects it's truly isolated from the grid, as per its design. Use Transfer Switches: Use an automatic transfer switch (ATS) that moves the neutral alongside the live feed to switch between grid and inverter power, maintaining the correct bonding point at the main panel.

Just go and Google SSR-60W soft starter. This has an adjustable power start level and time duration of the starting cycle. A bit expensive but it will pull down your surge current. A member shared the link of Roland on YouTube. If interested I can look for the link and post it here. I do belief there are far cheaper options.

Yes not even using a clamp meter would show you the peak current used. They all use measuring at x times per second. Expensive clamp meter tend to sample more times per second. Just like some inverter Apps as standard sample once per 5min unless one changes it. Each measurement uses data that must be transmitted and time stamped and stored. Storage costs money. Recently I saw banks sending out one SMS for a number of transactions. POS can be in real time. Dt orders once a day.

My mower is now running 35yrs and I only had to change the switch and a few blades. Wheels still running on the original bearings. Also old tech I guess😀 What I do find strange is that it would trip some 20A MCBs but not the old Heinemann type yet it does not trip on a 55A load limit set on the inverter. When running it uses less than 700W for the 1800W motor.

I have a high regard based on reviews of members and installers.Freedom Won, Revov, may I add Hubble as a user. Shoto and a lot of others. Spend some time on the youtube of Will Prowse and see what he supports. https://www.youtube.com/@WillProwse www.diysolarforum.com Also youtube.com off grid garage

It can be over 20A but it will be just a very short period. Have you checked that the lawn mover does not have grass etc or binding bearing that it trips your inverter. Each time I read your head ache I just wonder why it's tripping unless you have other high loads on. My Deye is set to only discharge at 55A yet even after the 2 bad days before Sat my helper mowed the lawn with grid off and my battery only on 21% SOC and never had it tripping my inverter. Yes I have a 1.8 kW which might be lower than yours. May be I have a kind angel 😀

+1 for @TaliaB He is back in SA but not sure if on leave already.

With custom settings we normally meant using voltage as the the setting and then we don't use the comms cables and you choose Batt voltage and not lithium or %. I hope you come right with a claim but normally they will find at times the maximum voltage was exceeded as the Pylon does not prevent high short term voltages during charging. Many a member has found that out when claiming. Pylon must provide you with the proof of over voltage. That as well as discharging too high a current but as you indicated your setting was low for 8 batteries. All the best during this sad time with a lot of money at stake. Also the fact that you installed it yourself makes it more difficult.

So yesterday and 18 Oct turned out to be my worst days for generation this summer. Both days only 2 kWh yield. It hurts to use 9 kWh of grid power as in yesterday.

This is always a common problem with a 2nd owner dongle. Normally the previous owner must log in and delete the unit from his/her profile. Hope they still have their password. If this fails I have contacted the manufacturer and they insisted on proof of buying the unit with name/surname of the the previous owner. You have tried it but I will still try again. Without the deleting option I have no idea how you will get it in a way to register it on your own profile while already on a system.

I know you would like to use the Astude (newer tech) but I still like the 3 probe type of which I built a few over 40 yrs ago to supply a village of 22 houses with water. Yes it is old style but it worked very reliable. I used a spacer 10cm above the upper probe to prevent them touching each other. Due to the high resistance of water the probes can be quite a distance away from the controller.

2.9 kW and it suits me well. After 14h45 1.3 kW being string 2 is in shade as they are on the south side next to my house flat on a car port. Today was the worst day for PV in a long time. Only generated 2 kWh. Very happy with my Grid use. For Nov while people feel it was a bad month I only used 18 kWh from grid. Not worth it to try and reduce it. Oct grid was 14, Sep 10 and Aug 3.

JUst an input from my side. With batteries deeply discharged I only managed to get them recharged to about 50% on Thursday with a yield of 5.8 kWh to (Friday) recharged only to 70% and a yield of 8.9 kWh. So we had more sun on Friday but comparing yields between Centurion and the East Rand with a fellow member Thursday was much kinder on the East Rand to us in Centurion.

Giter batteries rack mounted have their batteries on their sides. I don't think this is a consideration. It would be interesting to know if I am dreaming😀

Thanks for the info. I have 2 x brick inverters at 12V 750 and 1500W that also run at 8 an 10W under no load. My Axpert 3kVA used to draw 25W under no load. Still much higher than 10W. I can remember how another member actively disputed this low 25W. Thanks @TaliaB for the detail readings. My Deye 5 kW is 95% of the time off grid and it draws 76 to 81W with grid off. What impressed me the most of this inverter is if I switch grid on for the 04h-6h30 period to keep at my set battery level it just draws enough for this puppose and most mornings it will only be 100-200Wh. Some other inverters will charge up to specific level and use a lot more grid before going back to battery mode.

This seems more in line with most inverters. The 10W seems too low for me. Having said this I have worked on 12V 1kW inverters that draw about 15W.

Based on the reply that both batteries are 16 cells I would be happy to use the BN in parallel and just disable the comms and use voltage control. The negative of not having a very accurate SOC is a minor measured against the increased capacity gain and no further cost to you.

Allow me to share my real figues but I lost most of my figures for last year but also my operating of PV changed after getting prepaid in Sep 2024. I will thus provide for 2023 vs 2025 for generation and power consumed for 2025 2023 Oct 224 Nov 234 Dec 272 2025 Oct 314 consumed 283 Nov 269 consumed 256 Dec 68 YTD consumed 62 YTD If one looks at my figures the generation can be much higher as on sunshine days as my batteries are charged @ around 12h45. With few clouds it can be around 14h30 and some days like today I only got to 85% due to normal afternoon showers with lots of cloud from 12h30 and no sun and rainy weather from about 14h30. Also my generation can be quite a bit higher if I had more load connected during the day. This would mean this year PV is a lot better than in 2023. These figures thus seem to be the opposite and some other members in Gauteng. @Denns