Scorp007

It's an interesting watch.

From my experience thus far with the S5, with a family of 4, average drying cycle takes about 30-60mins. It expels no heat into the room as he mentioned. For the current week, we have used 4.26kWh drying clothes.
Then, there are the additional moisture/humidity and temprature sensors to make sure things do not get damaged, or a cycle doesn't run longer than needed.

Whilst one thing is true for a certain model, it might not be for another.

In your case you will use Mptt 1 and Mppt 2 so no the inverter will use all pv input power from both Scc's and convert it to ac output. The 60 A charge limit is one of the factors that is limiting your pv generation. I agree with @GreenFields at least 120A as you have 20kwh(416ah) battery capacity charging at 0.3C = 416 x 0.3=125A that is totally a safe zone for your lifep04 battery pack. Each battery will receive ~31A charging current.

Hi @Dry_Reef You are putting panel strings of unequal length in parallel to each other. Don't do that, keep the parallel strings of the same length. Also, your terminology is a bit non-standard, so what you're doing is a bit unclear. In any case, rather do the following: ...

For MPPT1: - Use the old 12x330w panels in a configuration of 6s2p, that means create two strings, each of 6 panels in length, put those two strings in parallel to each other, and then feed that combined set of strings to the 1st PV input. Point all these panels in one direction on the roof, eg. all North or all East, etc.
For MPPT2: - Use the 8 new panels in a single series string, and connect all 8 panels in series into your 2nd PV input. Do NOT put any of these panels in parallel to each other. Point all these panels in one direction.

For PV1 you can expect an open circuit Voltage of 6x47.0Voc, which equals 286,2Voc, but while it is operating, you're more likely to see 6 x 37.5Vmp, which equals 225Vmp and then up to 2 x 8.89A current at full power, or up to around 17.5A current.
For PV2 (edit: previously read PV1; Typo.) you can expect an open circuit Voltage of 8x47.7V, which equals 381.6V , but while it is operating you'd see 8x39.44 Vmp, which equals 315.5V, and then up to 15.21A current.

This is your best configuration. I understand you're trying to chase an optimum Voltage, but the setup here will also work fine, all within normal range, and without clipping of any current, and without any over-Voltage.
It's okay to increase the charge rate of the battery bank. Check the battery spec sheet for the ideal recommendation, but instead of 60A you can typically set the inverter to charge 120A at least, and still be treating your batteries well, considering you've got 4x5kWh batteries.

I hope this makes sense. If there's any doubt, please double-check it with someone like @TaliaB

Thanks for pointing it out but then again it's 2.5 kWh vs 3.6 kWh. On a R/kWh quite a bit higher.
Also 24V vs 48V.

<Powerforum-store competitor reference snipped by mods>

The market will decide. These are outdated and the latest new offering of the 3.6kwh high voltage capable battery is selling at R11 000.
Price?

Deye which is identical to Sunsynk and out of the same factory with far better support.
Solis 6kw for the best support as they provide a replacement unit and ship your inverter back to China for repairs.
Just look at what sellers that have been in the Solar sector for say 5yrs selling.
Then there are the rebranded Deye/Sunsynk under many names.

Thanks for the input, I found the problem.
The system date and time on the inverter was wrong, for some reason it was reading as 9th August 2023 21h47. Don’t know how long it’s been off sync but probably explain why my electricity bill for the last few months made no sense.
Have synced it and immediately started pulling from battery and will monitor to see if it doesn’t default back

I would start by doing the settings on the inverter. If it fails to improve I would switch off the grid and PV and check if the inverter reports a lowering SOC to ensure the comms is working from the battery.
Also if might help is you post a pic of the system settings as on the inverter screen.
Then give us feedback.

Yes you still want to use the battery balancer to keep both your batteries at about the same voltage level.

I will manually charge all 5 cells separately to 4.2v, to balance the pack, and chances are good that the battery pack still have alot of life left in it, I would use it a couple of times and see how many charge cycles it does before the capacity becomes unusable again, if the pack goes horribly out of balance again within +-30 cycles, then will I add a balancer.
If it goes out of balance within the first or second charge/discharge cycle after manually balancing, then im afraid the balancer will be of little benefit if any. new cells is the only way forward then.
I have recovered plenty of cells that had a voltage of 2.4 volts, below 2v I chuck it in the trash, I dont even attempt to revive or capacity test.
I assumed that 2.4v is the standard low voltage cut off for majority of bms'e (actually in this case is just a battery protection board) because I also found a lot of battery packs (powertool and laptop) that the packs was dead, and inside it was one string or cell at 2.4v and the rest at 3.xx volts

The DL2.5 is cheaper @ Powerforum-store https://powerforum-store.co.za/collections/batteries/products/dyness-dl2-5-2-56kwh-lithium-battery

Some of those higher capacity batteries have non-standard discharge curves. From those that I have looked at, all the extra capacity was below the voltage cutoff for the BMSs I could get, so it would have been a complete waste of money to opt for them.

Also try to put n load on the Generator before connecting. The generator needs to ramp up it revs to keep the voltage and frequency stable.

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

Over the weekend Solar
Over the weekend https://solarwarehousesa.com/ showed some Jinko that would have been a close match looking at the current which is perhaps where you want to try to find panels even if they are not 405-410W but they are no longer listed. I think they had 27.

Failure rate could also include all those that have problems due to wrong settings. We just have to see how many questions are asked where CT that is well spelled out is connected the wrong way round. Documentation is sometimes to be blamed.

Failure rate could also include all those that have problems due to wrong settings. We just have to see how many questions are asked where CT that is well spelled out is connected the wrong way round. Documentation is sometimes to be blamed.

One thing about the heat pump is you can run it on the backed up side of the inverter as the draw is relatively low.

Hello Everyone so I have come up with a harebrained Idea!
To start there are some challenges when coupling a DC wind turbine controller to an MPPT on a string or hybrid inverter actually any MPPT that has a Solar algorytm.
When the turbine is running at low power production and the MPPT on the Inverter senses the voltage rise within acceptable voltage range the MPPT tries to track the voltage and tries to extract the maximum current at that voltage and power point.
The result is because the MPPT tries to draw max current at said voltage as an example 150v at which the turbine can only supply a set amount of current lets say 1.5 amps the MPPT tries to extract 11 Amps instead this causes the turbine to stall and the whole process starts over again.
I have done a lot of research to overcome this problem.
The obvious solution is make the MPPT Programmable with a set power curve instructing the MPPT to only draw a specific current at a specific voltage because the turbine output via the DC controller is linear in the sense the RPM Voltage and Amps are always directly linked across the rev range of the turbine generator up to argument 360 RMP 360 Volt 2000 Watt.
So here comes the IDEA!
So what if I can put resistors rated at the current draw of the MPPT say 11 amp draw assuming that's the max draw of the MPPT and I use an Arduino with 2 current sensors and and the resistors in parallel with the MPPT current sensor on the DC controller and a current sensor on the inverter MPPT.
this kind of Idea
SSR + Arduino: Sense turbine current (e.g., 0.56A at 0.2 kW), MPPT demand (e.g., 11A). If demand > output, activate SSR to divert ~10.44A to resistors.
In theory this will sense when the MPPT demand exceeds the available current from the turbine..... in theory
We can extend the idea further and program the power curve of the turbine into the Arduino to only allow the correct amps at a specific voltage that matches the power curve data thereby preventing them MPPT from drawing more current than what the turbine can supply at set voltage point argument sake a 20 point power curve from low to nominal RPM this may even eliminate the need for current sensors however we can still use the current sensors for fine tuning and to improve accuracy.
We can even take things further and add an Anemometer into the system obviously this fill inflate the cost but for experimental purposes this can give us another accurate data stream to monitor the turbine performance based on the voltage current theoretical RPM and Wind speed.
The Arduino can also communicate via modbus the turbine controller coms via modbus with RS485 with stop start functions so this can further enhance the accuracy of the power conversion and energy transfer into the MPPT optimising the system even further even the possibility then to integrate with an energy management system like Home assistant this is where the anemometer and the stop start functions come into play.
Some additional thought on this would be appreciated I already have theoretical code parts list and assembly method working on the wiring diagram and layout of the components!

I always get a lot of questions from people about a lot of factors around our turbines and why we use the technology and the designs we use my intention is to clear up some misconceptions when it comes to turbine technology hoping this would give you some more clarity on the subject.
So here goes Common questions.
Question: Why don't just use more blades?
There are many reasons why a 3 Blade horizontal axis turbine works better than any other design.
Diameter determines KW output potential.
To simplify it for better understanding its like an engine a diesel engine produces a lot of torque but low KW output where a petrol engine produces a lot of KW output but not as much torque for the same capacity.
When an engine drives a generator the torque does not factor in so much as the KW production of the engine meaning if you are driving a generator the KW output of the Engine will determine how much power the Generator will produce.
This same idea applies to wind turbine generators.
Amount of turbine blades determine torque output potential and smoothness of power delivery more blades higher torque smoother power delivery lower RPM less blade rigidity
More blades means more eddy vortices created by the leading blade this reduces efficiency and potential RPM also increases cost especially in a variable pitch scenario more moving parts required.
To mitigate the eddy vortices that cause inefficiency on wind turbine blades you will note that all large scale MW class turbines have 3 blades because that is the best balance between even power delivery and reduced eddy vortices created by the leading blade.
Blade design is also very important and there is a gold standard for the blade shape and ratio they call this the blade chord any major variations on this will cause unnecessary turbulence that will reduce the blades ability to transfer energy.
Other factors of the blades that are very important is flexibility if the blade is not rigid enough it will deform out of its ideal shape and cause the blade to become less efficient so the more rigid the blade can be the better it is to transfer energy.
Blade weight also plays an important part the heavier the blade the higher the torsional and gyroscopic forces are going to be at the blade tips.
This will affect how easily the wind turbine can change wind direction and what the loads on the bearings would be when wind direction changes occur.
These loads would not only be on the generator bearing but also on the neck bearings that allows the turbine to change direction 360 degrees.
Then we have the ever prominent Betz Law this law prevents any wind turbine to be more efficient than 59.3 % Efficiency and they rate the turbines with a Cp Value this just tells us how efficient the turbine is.
Our turbines Cp Ratings vary from 0.4 to 0.45 this is very close to the high end of the scale reasons why they can reach this is direct drive less frictional losses weight.
The most efficient turbines in the market at the moment are the very Large 3 bladed Vestas machines with Cp values from 0.45 to 0.47 which is very impressive for such large machines that use gearboxes in thier generator drive systems.
Question: Why don't you do vertical axis wind turbines they are so much more aesthetically pleasing.
Efficiency and cost and size reliability are some of the reasons.
Maximum efficiency you can achieve with a fixed bladed variable axis turbine is and this is claimed by very high end brands in the market at high average wind speed outputs between Cp 0.4 and 0.45 however realistically Cp 0.4
Products that can achieve this
Ryse Energy N-55 Claims a Cp of 0.4 to 0.45 Cost per KW installed Estimated at R95 000.00 on the lower end and up to R122 550.00
IceWind Freya Claims (Cp 0.40–0.45) Estimated cost per KW as low as R170 430.00 up to R227 430.00 side note these machines are small staring at 600 watt
Bergey 10 kW Claims Cp 0.40–0.43 Cost per KW installed Estimated at R95 000.00
All of these machines are rated at 12 Meters Per second and above.
People are under the misconception that these small twirly whirly so called 500 watt vertical axis turbines can generate any kind of meaningful power should consider the following.
Wind speed 99% of these machines require wind speeds above 12 Meter per second to produce their rated power. 43.2 KPH!
Their blades are fixed cannot pitch or yaw meaning if the wind does blow at 90 KPH or 25 MS they cannot slow themselves down and unless they are premium brands like those listed above they will self destruct!
Most of the cheap machines in the market have a Cp ~0.36–0.40 much lower than the Horizontal axis turbines.
Most of them also do not have decent integration technology with modern lithium and inverter solutions generally they are all designed for lead acid battery applications.
Our Own experience shows that it is not financially viable and the cost to keep these types of machines especially the cheap ones does not make it viable besides their low power production at low wind speeds.
We prefer tried tested and trusted technology that requires minimum maintenance and the lowest risk with the highest output potential.
Question: Have you ever considered Archimedes Screw turbines?
There is a lot of advertising claiming that the Archimedes wind turbines are the best thing since sliced cheese.
So here is a couple of facts about these types of turbines that people may not know.
Best Achieved Cp of 0.26 clearly the lowest efficiency of all the designs sofar. There are a lot of Higher Cp Claims but none has been tested with the highest claim of Cp 0.43
Largest versions max out at 1.5 KW
Requires very High wind speeds from 10 to 15 MS in some cases so not practical in the SA market where our winds range from 4MS to 10MS
Cost Per KW still on the high side of around R57000.00 excluding mounting and installation you can easily add 40% for those factors.
Here are some other factors to consider
Wind shifts >30° off-axis drop power output sharply—e.g., a 2016 study showed a 20–30% efficiency loss (Cp falls from 0.43 to ~0.30–0.33) when misaligned >45° before yaw corrects. Response time is ~5–10 seconds (X posts, Dutch installers), slower than active yaw HAWTs (e.g., Bergey, 2–3 seconds).
Data: Manufacturer claims “adapts to changing winds,” but no yaw speed spec—real-world urban tests (e.g., 2022 Rotterdam rooftop) report 10–15% annual energy loss in gusty conditions vs. steady wind.
Issue: At 1.5 meters, the rotor’s small inertia and light frame (often aluminum/plastic) make it twitchy—rapid shifts can overshoot or oscillate, misaligning blades.
Impact: A 2020 Wind Engineering paper noted small HAWTs like AWM lose 5–10% efficiency in variable winds (e.g., 5–15 m/s shifts) due to yaw lag, worse than larger HAWTs (e.g., Bergey 10 kW, 7-meter rotor, stabler).
Issue: The helical design aims to smooth airflow and reduce noise, but turbulence—common in urban settings (rooftops, trees)—disrupts lift across the uneven blade surface. Fixed pitch can’t adjust to sudden gusts.

Hello everyone just another update on the Wind Turbines and new things happening.
So its D Day for SOLIS to provide me with the new firmware release that will fix a lot of problems on the SOLIS hybrid inverters.
I attended the SOLAR Expo at Nasrec last week had some very good meetings with the guys at SOLIS also SolaX and Givenergy.
All three these manufacturers are looking at providing us with the facility to have programmable Power Curve settings on their inverter MPPT's
This will allow for much more feasible MPPT integration of the Wind turbines all of them will look at 32 Point power curve functions and the one manufacturer will be looking at providing us with a micro inverter for the different model turbines to do AC coupling integration with full pre programed power curves for selected turbines.
We also has meetings with Distributors and may have some nice surprises lined up for the future however at this point I will remain tight lipped.
We are also seriously looking at expanding our wind turbine range and have a special range of turbines built suited for very low average wind speeds.
These turbines will all be rated at 6 to 8 meters per second depending on the model.
The problem with building wind turbines for low wind speeds are numerous.
Low wind power production need large Blade Diameter the larger the blade diameter the lower the wind speed becomes for the same potential power production.
As an example our 1 KW turbine produces 1KW at 8 meter per second however for the turbine to produce 1KW at 6 meter per second two things need to be adapted.
Blade diameter needs to be scaled up from 4 meter to 4.8 meter this will allow then for a potential to produce 1KW at 6 Meter per second.
The second change that would have to be made is the generator. The generator will be turning at a lower RPM but with increased torque thanks to the larger blade diameter so the generator will need to be adapted to produce 1KW at lower RPM yet in the same required voltage range.
These two changes will have a few positive effects.
The obvious one 1KW production at 6 meter per second wind.
Reducing the RPM requirement for the generator will increase the power band of the generator and provide it with a much flatter power curve meaning the turbine will generate more power at a low wind speed of 4 meter per second than it would have in the original configuration when it was rated at 1KW 8 meter per second. The power differential will be significant.
The wider power band and flatter power curve would also mean the turbine would be able to start producing at a much lower wind speed.
There will also be a reduction in wear and tear because of the lower RPM ratings extending the potential lifespan of the wear and tear components.
The down side of these changes are Higher costs due to larger blades and a lower RPM generator.
The price difference would not be so high and justifies the massive improvement in power production at low wind speeds.
The other down side would be the increased size in blade diameter and weight of the generator.
However my belief is that this is the products we need to make wind power more feasible and will increase the viable installation locations because high wind speeds would not be so much of a requirement.
We will retain the variable pitch tech to ensure safe operation and longevity.
With all this said we will look at developing options for the 1 2 5 and 10 KW models
As an example if we do the 10KW model that currently requires a 11.5 Meter per second wind for 10KW with a blade diameter of 7.8 meters at a rotor speed of 200 RPM.
The resulting machine would have a 13.4 Meter Blade with a rotor speed of 81 RPM to Generate 10KW at 8 meter per second this is quite a substantial size change and this would directly affect the cost.

Failure rate could also include all those that have problems due to wrong settings. We just have to see how many questions are asked where CT that is well spelled out is connected the wrong way round. Documentation is sometimes to be blamed.

The Hubble AM 2 is about 16k at voltex.
Coild be wrong but OP batteries should go for about 7k-10k depending which one and considering usage, risk etc
Market will decide either way.