Pax

Placed an order 1 1/2 weeks ago. No response save for a confirmation of order. No communication since. No response to e-mai and upon eventually speaking to a person, she took details and promised to call back in 5 minutes. Day and a half later still nothing. Today there is no answer at any telephone number. Are they a scam?

Current setup is a 3KW (Kodak) inverter, 2.8kw (Pylon) battery with 6x 340w pv panels in place (1 year old) It runs all essentials save for the fridge. We want to upgrade this to also run the fridge LG double door (1 year old - latest tech- seems to require under 300w in stable state) and microwave (1000w unit). The inverter runs at best at 30% capacity currently with the coffee machine in the home office on, else, at under 15%. I have ordered another battery already. The first question is whether to expand the solar array or replace the panels with 540w ones. What would be more economical? Secondly to how much capacity should we expand the panels? I live on the West Coast. My roof/panels face north-east. House was built in 2016 with all available power saving devices available, (gas water heater for kitchen and gas stove, solar geyser for showers, led lights, etc) save for solar. Power consumption from the grid was always around R450 per month. It has now fallen with solar to around R200 per month. Just 2 people in the house. Any advice shall be appreciated.

@isetech, yes, I do that. I have the CoC too. I most often work on referrals, but have learnt to check everyone's work afterwards. Too few people take pride in what they do nowadays and aim for acceptable in stead of excellence. Many do not even reach an acceptable standard and just bungle the job, just to level where it just about works to some extent. I do fortunately know basics of many things as my dad believed that if someone else can do something, he too can, and also taught us 2 boys everything. We used to fix anything and everything as children. Invaluable lessons!

I have learnt to check everything after a 'professional' have done his work. Most bungle their 'work' in my experience. I have to rectify their work in most cases, but not having the 'papers' makes for me to have to pay for idiots to do 'work'. I need to end up doing it myself to get it right. Have just again gone trough it with my solar installation.

I now have the same Growatt-Pylontech setup. Mine is set on SBU in menu setting 1 and fully charges the battery and maintains charge. Something else must be wrong. Mine is under menu setting 14 set to CSO having 4 PV panels but SNU may serve you better. If you need to charge solely from grid as priority, it seems under menu setting 14 CUE will serve you better. CAVEAT, I am no expert, but having had much trouble with the battery I fist had and after experiencing no after sales support thereon, I learnt a lot on this and other forums. maybe an expert can chip in? I will follow here.

OK, been asked to check settings. I have checked and noted in the manual, which is easier than taking 21 screen pictures on the unit, so here goes: Growatt Settings .pdf

Installer recommended the battery. I was in fact told by some the best battery would be Pylontech. The installer said Hubble is better and he had experienced problems with Pylontech. Still, should the battery not perform better? What would be my best solution? Have a different battery installed or a different inverter, or should it in fact work as is?

I did try to get help from Hubble. Response was extremely slow and not helpful. Complaining about the substandard service brought the wrath of the national sales coordinator who shreiked like a soprano in an opera when she called me to enquire 'what my problem is' and kept interrupting and talking over me when I answer questions, who then told staff not to respond to my enquiries (per mail to me, and no-one did respond further save for a salesman) because she did not like that I responded equally aggressively. I have also been told that as I did not buy from them, but through an installer, they are not interested in helping me. Explaining that the installer would not help, and I have nowhere else to turn to, did not help to change their stance, so for now at least until I deal through the National Consumer Commission therewith, or the company sees this as a maverick employee damaging the corporate image and addresses this, I am asking here for help as my installer has all but disappeared. At his stage it seems that if you do not buy from Hubble directly, they give one the cold shoulder and is not interested, which means that they by implication also will not honour any warranty. In fact, as said, there was one salesman who defied the soprano and at least gave me the name of an installer in CT whom I must ask for help. Hubble clearly would not help, at least not out of their free will - the NCC will have to force them it seems. I shall deal with the full version and names of staff I dealt with and the installer I used in another post as public service so people out there do not fall in the same trap and get treated in this fashion. For now, every single input, save for referring me to the installer and manufacturer, shall be helpful.

I have a dedicated PV system consisting of 4x 435W panels, Growatt SPF3000TL (24V) and a Hubble AM4 (2.75KWh) battery to isolate (from the grid) and feed my rather sensitive audio and video equipment. It is set up to feed in sequence Solar- Battery- Utility. I started off with the system as is but using 2 x 100Ah deep cycle batteries in series (for 24V) before ‘upgrading’ to Li in late October. Batteries were then usually the source powering TV and audio from dark to maximum 22h00, when all would be on standby only. By morning, the Deep Cycle batteries were still OK, but with the Li, by 06h00 to 07h00, the system reverts to utility power as the battery has gone dead and the sun (located in Langebaan) is not sufficient yet. It seems to be getting worse over time too, with the system reverting to utility earlier and earlier despite having longer sunshine in the evenings. My panels face NNW and battery is fully charged around 13h00, and gets several more hours’ sun. Voltages on the inverter is (I checked) exactly as per the manual page 5: Low 23V; Float, 28V and Bulk 29V. The installer said that it is not necessary to connect the communication cable as voltages can be set on the inverter. Now, as the Deep cycle batteries were set up to be drained to a max of 50%, while the Li one is supposed to be drained to 80%; my understanding is that the Li battery should outlast the Deep cycle ones by a rather large margin, yet is not so. I have been told contradicting stories that the inverter cannot be set to Li battery and percentages set if the comms cable is not used, and also that it does not support (cannot) control the battery as it does not even have the hardware therefore. Is it defaulting to 50%? If so, why did the deep cycle’s 50% prove to be more than the Li battery’s 50%? The installer maintains that the inverter settings must be changed, and his contention is that the sequence should be Utility – solar- battery, but that defeats the purpose of the setup to isolate my equipment as utility is simply bypassing the inverter. My contention is the Li battery is defective/does not have the purported capacity. Please advise? There are more tails to the story of what transpired after I put the above out there elsewhere, but suffice to say for now, I'd appreciate inputs/opinions.

Hoping to learn more by actually participating and asking things rather than just lurking. New to the field though, and with a limited system consisting 4 x PV panels, 3Kw inverter and 2,75Kw Li battery. Will be posting my questions in (hopefully) appropriate sections. Located in Langebaan, on the beautiful West Coast.