GerhardPret

We’ve had 2 geyser converted to geyserwise about 15 months ago. Sep 2022.
works perfectly well. My geysers are heated by solar pv power in the day. The app is not mind blowing (Tuyu compatible) but it does its thing.
I would have liked the 4x6hour blocks to be more flexible, but we’ve learned ro live with it. Use battery to heat at 6am if needed, because the sun will recharge from 8am onwards.
however, if you don’t have good batteries, you would have like to pick the hours of the day, and not the quarters to heat.
that is a fundamental flaw, but its a software decision. So, the developers can fix it if they wanted too.

Not sure I would recommend switching off fridges/freezes due to possible food issues.
When the device comes on, it will need to run for a while to get the temperature back to the thermostat setting, negating some of the savings.

Below is the electricity consumption for my 300L vertical fridge and 300L vertical freezer - they overfull.
I would save 0.41kWh (MAX)

When you adjust the price to allow for the free 3 years comprehensive insurance and tracker as well as the 14 days of car hire per year the price is approximately R1,05m. That blows all the other comparable cars out of the water. 
We mainly drive freeway to and from Durban and we are getting a range of 330km. We average around 22kWh/100km.
The picture below shows the car having driven 248.8km at an average of 21.1kWh/100km and has 31% remaining in the battery.
 

After 90000km in our BMW i3 Rex that we bought during November 2016, earlier this year we sold it and took delivery in April of a Volvo XC40 Twin Recharge that we had ordered 10 months before. Currently have driven 10000km already and are really chuffed with it. 
 

Dear all. 
Firstly I would like to wish you all a safe and happy holiday break. I appreciate every single member and their contribution to making this a great, peaceful and happy platform to enrich each other with knowledge and advise. This was the goal when I started in 2013 with myself as 1 member.
As the aviation industry is a very uncertain career I started the powerforum store about 2 years ago. I don't and will never request any member of this forum to be obligated to purchase from the store. There are many other commercial suppliers that offer just as great service.
Since the beginning in 2013 , every member that has joined has been checked and manually been clicked on to be accepted to the community. There are so many spam individuals out there that want access to post unsavory topics. 
Some of these individuals sometimes get through as they have a perfectly looking Gmail email addresses and locations.
I have tried many different types of automatic spam filters but none are as good as checking with the human eye.
Okay to the point 🤣 : if any members notice a scam or spam member posting I ask you to make use of the report button. Please see the attached image. I require two members to report the post to be automatically hidden for moderation.
The members who have reported the post are also logged. So don't go reporting and hiding a freindly debate. ;D !
This will help me greatly as I constantly have my phone in my pocket checking for scammers to protect our community.
I would like to say thank you again for making this community great and also we nearly at 20 000 members!
Have a safe and restful holiday break.
Thank you all.
Sincerely
Jason Back
 
 

HI Jason,
Even as more of a lurker who is very new to this the forum is greatly appreciated.

This the most helpful and best run forum I have ever been a part of. Thanks so much

Your forum is most valuable and has distinguished itself from others. The amount of toxic response is unusually limited but there must be a deterministic reason for it, and we thank you you and others for setting up a good culture here.  I have jumped into the deep end on solar, and with the help from human  resources here, i  am gratefull. 

Hi Jason,

Many thanks for providing this forum for the benefit of all of us, I'm more than happy to kjeep an eye out for spammers and report as needed.

Compliments of the season to you, your family and all forum members (spammers excepted)

J

The batteries you combined probably have the newer generation BMS and as such new range of firmware versions.
Our one has the latest firmware version for the older 123SmartBMS (http://123smartbms.se)with which it came in 2018.
To upgrade to the newer BMS will cost around R7000 which I am not interested in.

Probably a good idea to get Blue Nova guys to confirm, or even upgrade battery’s firmware to the latest.

I recently combined a BN52V-77-4K with a BNV52V-230-12K and had to get their firmware on v4.1 (from 3.6) 
(makes me wonder about the "old software version (v5.13)" ) 
 

What a good day of solar production. 

Mounted the third inverter last night and started with the wiring. 

 
Wil be adding a separate earthing wire for the cases tonight.

 
Started with the battery wiring as well. Couldn't find red cable so blue will have to do. Each inverter and solar controller battery wiring is 25mm. I will be running either a  single 75mm or 2 x 50mm cables from the busbars to the KETO disconnect. 

Finished making all the DC cables. I simply could not get the 75mm cable to fit in the top busbar enclosure so I resorted to 2 x 50mm. I have a severe disliking in working with anything over 6mm! 🤣


Finally complete!

 

The solar side is no where near completion but I wanted to get the inverter and batteries online so I can give the middle finger to loadshedding. 
Connected all the inverters together with the cable I made, fired up the laptop and connected the MK3 interface to the VE.BUS port of the left inverter which will be the master, the other 2 will be slaves. The VE.Bus Quick Configure tool makes it very easy to setup a parallel or 3 phase system. They all have to be of the same type and firmware version. I had to update my master to the latest firmware and it was good to go.

 
Did some basic config using VEConfig and BAM, we are online on VRM! Looking at these load figures I seriously need to pull my finger out and get the solar panels up and running. I'm keeping City Power afloat all by my self! 

 

Completed the assembly of the Renusol TS+ components and installed/wired the panels on Saturday/night. Will post a photo of the solar panels on the mounting hardware.
Updated the firmware of the Smartsolar 450/100 and we were good to go.

 
I ran out of sprag over the weekend so I still need to tidy up the cabling to the MPPT and the batteries. I also need to redo the DC cabling from the Inverters to the busbar as they are not all the same length and the inverter with the shortest cable is working the hardest.

 
Here are the stats for today. Overall I'm very happy with the outcome.