Johandup

Jaco, just ask around. The people who do your town water reticulation should be able to help. Have it tested for minerals as well as contamination. Should be about R1000 for both. Iron problems raise its ugly head much later. Even if it is inside the parameter I recommend hat you put a filter in place. My gas geyser bombed out because of this. And a 1 micron filter system is a must. There is a place in Modderfontein close to Sandton where the prices are very reasonable. How deep is your borehole? Lots of info in the forum on this topic.

Is there any reason why you don’t change to a gas geyser setup? I run two bathrooms off one and am very happy with its performance. My paloma system can cope with 600l an evening when the kids come to visit. So nice not hear grumbling anymore. And two little blonde swambos are not pleasant when they are unhappy 😊 I would not want to make my system more complex than it is already.

Same for the infini. When Heinz did the setup parameters that was the figure decided on. I had no inside knowledge. When I charge it like this (after 4 days no power) I know not to use other power eaters 🙂 I would appreciate feedback from lead acid battery users on how long their systems take to charge using a gennie (and what amps they use). The pylontechs charge pretty quickly.

I have a 4kw infinisolar plus hybrid that is connected to the municipal power. It kan supply additional power as it is a hybrid. It has run at 120% load happily driving th pumps from the municipal side. I also have a 2.2kw borehole pump that I can run via the inverter. The starting amps for the Franklin borehole pump is 35 amps which settles to running 14 amps. I normally take the inverter out when I fill up my 2x5kl tanks. I prefer the bypass mode as it shows a load of 98% with the Franklin running. If there is load shedding I’ll start the generator to drive the borehole pump to fill the empty tanks. I have never started the borehole pump from the batteries alone. I use a seperate pump (from the tanks) for my garden irrigation. I don’t want to subject my inverter and batteries to unnessary high loads unless there is no other way out.

Just bear in mind that your charging amps must be less than the gennie output. My charging setup is for 49 amps. With my 6kW generator this leaves no amps for additional work. What is nice is the generator doing 100% reloading batteries - high efficiency at a price. Lol

Bit more complicated than this. The capital required to expand the mines was stopped in 2015 by Molefe. Main reason why Anglo sold All their power station mines.

Loadshedding leads to water shortages. And this really annoys people across the spectrum. When the water taps dry up attitudes change. I laugh at the whole scenario. Just wait until the the coal supply stops.

Pylontech supplied the cable with the batteries when I got mine. Their connections are propriety. First time I came across it.

Hi Bev, I would have thought that such a quote should have read: “supply and install”. Did he not state anywhere what the capabilities of such a system should be? Were any modifications done to your distribution board in your house? Was any written undertaking given to you when he removed your property. I think he is close to crossing the line of being accused of theft. Consider installing software for monitoring your system (if possible of course). Where you are now the system cannot be monitored at all - or am I wrong? Regards, Johan

Of use will be if you are willing to post (in a pdf format) the original quote from your supplier. Only then will the experts be able to evaluate all the details. Sorry to hear about your predicament.

Happened to me. I lost 15 years of photos on a fancy Synergy 4 hdd server. Copy everything to a 2 hdd docking station and clone the hdd. Once bitten twice shy.... Oh, and the expensive Lacy also lost everything. Google Photos is my new best friend :-)

Ssd’s are magic speedwise but note that stats on their reliability is not available. And the models are forever evolving. Don’t mistake, for example, Apple machine ssd’s as they are not the stuff you can put into an ordinary laptop. That said, I’ve put a hybrid Samsung into my wife’s Hp laptop and it worked for years. It reduced the coffe making bootup time to seconds. Its now doing duty as a backup. Toshiba has the reputation fo making the best hdd. I’ve lost more hdds with the resultant loss in valuable info so make backups every day (to at least two disks). And never backup to a raid configuration! Also ensure that your hdd formats can be read reliably by data recovery programs. Apple is becoming (in)famous for playing around with this. My Lacie photo backup hdd died recently (because of Apple??) and I replaced the Samsung hdd inside it with a Toshiba. No problems. I f I have a business laptop I would replace the hdd, as a safety precaution, every two years.

I am sure a 3 phase system is more complex than a single phase one. A simple 5ma leak can kill a human. You really need to get the experts in.

Which I still have - now next to the inverter side main isolator.

Read about this topic on forumsa. A lot was posted which you can read up. Testing for earths etc requires expensive equipment. I assume you don’t know if your earth spikes are right and connected correctly. Don’t assume the rcb is faulty. When it trips it is doing its job. It will always do this when the live and neutral volts differ. I had faulty Schneider / AcDc rcbs and will not buy them again. You must invest in surge suppressors to safeguard your system. Rather get a recommended electrician to do the testing. My setup has a rcb next to the mains isolator and another one after the isolator feeding the inverter with 230v. But my db is also split into a high and low (from the inverter) amps sides. i found that a rcb after the inverter gave me nuisance trips and I removed it. The one with the lowest ma (measured) will always trip first. The quality of the rcbs vary a lot. You can buy a plug tester (from livecopper) to test the ma at which plugs will trip. But it is a rough test. Of interest is that many people find that a rcb will trip when the inverter switch from mains to batteries. It happens to my system. So it also matters how your system is set up.

Label printers much cheaper and convenient. And more versatile...

We are too poor to afford this.

Be very afraid of desperate people. And I am referring to the current guvament in all their different forms (disguises). They will do EVERYTHING in (legal or not untill they are challenged right up to the highest court) to retain control of purse strings. They are desperate for every cent (and we know why). There is already a public resistance to transfer money from our pockets to theirs. It is public knowledge. We hold the power, at least till the exchange rate hits new highs. Much of what is asked for is totally not relevant for running the country. I would insist that my municipal representative start voting against proposals like this. There is this perception in our country that political representatives do not work for us. Its time to prove them wrong.... Etolls is a good example of public power.

I wonder how reverse feed of serious power into substations (including switchgear and transformers) will affect the installed equipment. Especially if they are old. In theory (for me) the resupply back to the reticulation systems will work if you only supply your neighbourhood. I would love to hear the electrical engineers point of view on this. The mine I worked on (retired now) spent millions on a mW solar installation and never saw a cent return for all their investment (apart from being classified as a capital expenditure). It was supposed to save them money by supplying the closest plant. But the monthly Eskom bill did not come down. And they had an army of engineering personnel to oversee this. Oh, and there were quite a lot of teething problems - did not go down well with management (even though we were friends).

Plenty of info on Google. Reclaim from discarded laptop batteries.

When reading / following all of this I come to realise that solar batteries are an art - as opposed to science. I’ve written a post before of how we managed battery loaders in a colliery. And much of what we learned is forgotten today. For example, when charging is taking place and when the battery is hot, it is not available for use. And in our case it was normally 16 hours out of 24 hours not available as that was the time taken up for maintenance, charging and watering and cooling down. The above I cannot help but notice is nowhere mentioned in the posts. But it is applicable to all trojans and similiar batteries with acid levels to be maintained. So some batteries are not available 24/7 for discharge. And the charging time from their prescribed dod is not quantified in hours. I find that my pylontech batteries charge quickly from the municipal supply, but I have not timed it yet. And I trust the bms to manage it perfectly (lol). And all of this happen without me spending my valuable (retired) time on it. I would find a fact sheet (in excel format?) on batteries to be of great help in assisting making a better choice on batteries. I am quite sure that all the battery facts can be captured this way, calculations on kwhrs and costs can be done as well as charging cycles, before the knowledge is forgotten. Surely one of the members can compile such a sheet. And if everybody contributes it will become very valuable. Sorry for the rambling - but I’ve been laying awake for a loong time now.

Pylontech comes with its own cables.

Makes me think of all the cars (on 12V b.t.w.) that catch fire. People underestimate the power of direct current. DC wiring is anytime as trickey as AC.

My system is set up as a backup system without solar panels. The inverter is in use all the time but is basically wired to supply pure sine-wave power to my low amp side, that includes the normal appliances i.e. tv, computers, fridges, alarm, lights, borehole pumps etc. As it is a hybrid inverter I can leave it alone to do all the switching on auto. The generator can also supply 230V to it to charge the batteries. The batteries are only utilised when there is no municipal power for whatever reason. I would also disconnect the main supply when there is a big elctrical storm.

I did not mention that the only wires between the infinisolar and the pylontechs are the battery wires. So there are no clever communication wires present to involce the inverter. The bms system decides what it needs as far as charging and switching off go and then makes it happen. But I only charge when the municipal 230V supply is available. At float it will charge 1 or 2 amps, when charging it goes to 49 amps and at some some volts it decreases the charging to 23 amps. So my wish for an autonomous system has come true - I totally ignore everything and it switches on and off by itself. There is no way that I will pay R4000 for software and a special cable just to monitor what is happening with the system. Few software work with Apple computers - the inverter software also not. What is the point of not letting the pylontech bms looking after the batteries? Surely the supplier knows best.