Chris_S

23 hours ago, fstofberg said:

@Chris_S that is what I'm seeing on my inverters, I upgraded to the latest firmware, but it never goes above 19.5A per MPPT, I have 2 of the 8KW units the old unit showed 22A per MPPT and the new one shows 26A per MPPT but they both stop at 19.5A.

As @TimCam suggested my next step is going to be the 16KW as I don't have space to mount both 8KW units next to each other.

On older FW mine would clip at 21A but there was a big problem. If there were intermittent fast moving clouds and the current very quickly hit the 21A it would sometimes cause a DC over current error and the inverter would shutdown and restart. 

Since upgrading the FW and it clips at 19.5A I do not have that problem anymore. 

Yes mine clips on my parallel string at 19.6A

The strange thing is that the latest 8kW manual says it will clip at 26A.

I asked sunsynk about this and they never came back to me. It's either only for the latest 8kW inverters or it's a typo

More panels and another battery far cheaper and better than wind. 

3 hours ago, Jan Tukker said:

Is Sunsynk app offline, issues with the server?

 

Yes it looks like it. Inverter dongle also not connected and inverter time wrong 

I like this. Very nice indeed. 

4 hours ago, JacquesStrydom said:

I am now pretty much battery limited and might import 4-6kwh during the night and early morning.  Running stove and oven as non-essentials.  Current have 3 x 5.12kwh Shoto batteries with DOD set at 22%.  How much more can I squeeze out there without killing them prematurely?

You can go down to 10% or get another battery

First check for DC voltage at PV2 breaker. If there is none then you have a problem with connections or a faulty panel. This is really a qualified persons job. Best to find another installer. 

19 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

Gas ain't exactly getting cheaper... if you're in an area that has more sunshine than cloudy days (not the Cape coastal areas) and you have more space for more solar, I'd suggest go that route, as well as solar HWC, possibly, here in the green Kalahari, even now the 12 evacuated HWC without any other heating still produces water that will burn you at this stage of the year/season.

Also try and do some measurements/graphs on what all your power is being used up by. My mom with my better half, down against the Tygerberg Hill in Bellville at the moment, use on average 10kWh/day, no solar, unfortunately, but HWC only gets turned on, when a shower or bath is on the schedule etc. I can't believe the low consumption, but HA with a PZEM-004T connected to a ESP-01S and reporting via WiFi every 5 seconds or so, is indicating that they are using less than half of my usage and I have no HWC that is heated with electricity here... but then again, no grid connection here either...

Usage for today...

and usage for this month so far...

I know someone who thought they would save money going gas hot water. Gas costs him R1000 a month. 

Gas geyser same price as evacuated tube solar geyser that I have had for 12 years. Only have to use electricity in winter and really cloudy days to heat it a little or I just leave the element breaker off. 

The new solar geysers are so efficient. Mine is outside on the roof and in winter it's still warm enough to shower the next morning. 

3 hours ago, Bobster. said:

I was told, by a contractor, that COJ have this policy too. But I hear lots of stories about people who are going undisturbed by the City, and I hear lots of stories about people getting the feed to their house cut or their meter removed without any negotiation or warning. So IDK. I buy a tiny amount every 2 or 3 months just to ward off the bogey man of disconnection.

That's crazy. Surely they can't just disconnect you. 

On 2024/05/14 at 2:28 PM, Antonio de Sa said:

I can clearly see a gradual drop in my system PV generation. I definitely need at least 4 more panels.

 

You must be inland. Down at the coast it's halved already

33 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

What if as the OP mentioned little sun and your load is higher than PV can provide and you have ticked USING GRID to keep the battery between 30 to 45% during the 24hrs time settings? 

Still doesn't explain why the PV will drop when connecting to the grid. PV should always be at it's max when battery can be charged. 

4 minutes ago, Carl Anthony said:

WOW, living the dream!

Weird that they haven't come out...usually if no purchases in 3 months then they disconnect...or so I've heard.

It is strange. When I use rain water tanks for a couple months they often come and check the water meter but never for electricity. 

Last time I purchased units was 14 months ago. I bought 330 units. I still have 150 units left. Since I installed more panels in October last year I have not used any grid. We have never had a visit from inspectors. Maybe because they can see the panels from the street. 

On 2024/05/15 at 4:18 PM, Giel said:

I did untick the grid charge from 9h00 to 17h00, but had to put it back today as the sun was not that great in Cape Town area and there was more load due to house cleaning activities, doing washing, tumble drier, ironing, etc.

Will try again once extra panels are installed.

If there is no load shedding then it is a waste to charge batteries from the grid. There are losses from the AC-DC DC-AC conversion and you will be wasting money. You can set SOC to 20% and use as much PV as you can on cloudy days. Grid will only be used once SOC is 20%.

This is the efficient way to do it without load shedding. When load shedding returns then adjust settings again. 

Grid charge ticked shouldn't make the PV drop as the inverter will prioritise using PV over grid. 

There's a problem with older FW on these bms's. When left off for too long the settings revert to LTO

You need better tilt brackets. Those look like the lizard tilt brackets. They are too small and that overhang will cause micro cracks in the panels. 

I mounted 4 panels on my ibr garage roof. I made 6mm steel plates for the top of the ibr that were the attachment points for the tilt brackets. 

I used stainless steel threaded rod right through the main roof beams and large washers. I added extra supports to the beams with screws not nails. We once had winds with gusts up to 180kph. Everything survived. 

On 2024/04/22 at 4:17 PM, Cidi Rome said:

Hello.

Thanks everyone for trying to help.

Someone on other forum pointed me to the solution of my issue:

Despite not having anything connected to the GEN port, I had to set the option
AC Couple On Load Side set to Enable
in the GEN menu.

I didn't think to change anything there because I don't have anything connected to the GEN port.

Hope this information is useful for someone else.

Note: as I said, the micro-inverters are APS and Goodwe and they have no communication to the Deye inverter.

Cheers.

This option is only available if you are allowed to feedback to the grid. Because there is no way to turn off the micro inverters. 

For those that can't feedback you must use the aux port. 

For completely off grid the Deye will increase the AC frequency to throttle the micro inverters

Looking at his links he used 150 cell panels

https://off-grid-garage.com/solar-panels-and-connectors/

https://youtu.be/gXYFA-ss8CA?si=np3hpcSvIxwstiTx

12 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

Thanks for the information. Specs on the Deye Web attached. 

 

I've seen that spec sheet before and I wasnt sure if it would work. 

Considering a 144 panel is half cut 72 cell panels I guess it still works. 

18 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Is the limitation of only to be used on 60 and 72 cell panels for the Deye version not a problem. My be I am biased towards the Solis string inverters vs micro inverters. The Solis 2.5kW  needs the same start voltage of 60V but only 1 tracker. From the 3kW one can get a 2 x MPPT inverter. 

Off grid garage is using the Deye micro inverter on 600W 144 panels. 

On 2024/04/03 at 7:11 AM, Stefan Cornelissen said:

I need to put up 2 of them. So far I found

:https://electromannsa.co.za/shop-the-latest-affordable-gadgets-online/wifi-2000w-solar-micro-inverter/

R 9000.00 Most expensive so far but I can trust the shop atleast also DEYE brand

https://www.takealot.com/2000w-micro-inverter-single-phase/PLID91176748

R6138.00

 

https://www.aptsaonline.co.za/products/deye-2000w-microinverter-single-phase-4-mppt

R 4,680.00

 

No clue if I can trust them and the cheapest so far.

 

Anything else you guys can recommend?

 

I've been looking at these also for a while. 

APT are selling on takealot so buying direct is probably cheaper. I just wonder about warranty issue. 

I asked herholdts about these last year and they said they would get them in the future. Maybe send them an email. 

On 2024/03/15 at 4:11 AM, Chris_S said:

8kw sunsynk updated. 

SW Ver.：M 6.0.2.6 / S 1.7.2.4 / C E.4.3.8

Initially update was done 30 minutes after submitting the ticket but only the CE was updated. 

After many painful hours of my ticket getting ignored and support chat not being able to update the M and S they sent the request to "advanced support" 

Finally at 3am power went off for 5 minutes and upgrade of M was done. 

This is my first ever upgrade. Only doing it because the latest sunsynk 8kw manual says the mppt's are 26A +26A. 

Inverter definitely runs cooler on this update. Before I would get temps going in the 60C, now barely goes above 50C on both AC and DC and it's not as if the fans are running more. If anything they run a little less. 

So your prepaid meter went down by 11 units per day even with a grid failure? 

Only way I see this happening is if power was pushed back through the meter somehow. I would test this with the mains breaker off for a day. Preferably the breaker in the street if there is one.