Corneel

That is why I went with 2x 5kW instead of 1x 8kW - to get more flexibility on the strings. The price increment for that was not that significant (when looking at the costs for the whole system)

Hi there, 
Corneel here, this is my second post but here is my first installation.
I am a mining engineer doing mining finance at a bank - no formal electrical training apart from 1 semester at varsity 25 years ago...  And a one-day solar overview course a few years ago. 
I only got my installation's CoC this morning so I did not want to post my installation in case I made a mess! At least I have not seen any smoke yet! 😂
The main DB is around the corner in the garage. I do woodwork there and I did not want to put the Inverter and battery in such a dusty environment, hence the installation in the passageway. 
Comments are welcome! 

 

This is just 3 of the 5 panels, the other two are on other sections of the roof. 
 
When money allows, I will add another string of 2.7 kW and another battery.  (We use about 30 kWh a day so the current system is a bit small). Even with the second string and battery I will still not be able to generate 100% of own consumption.  And my roof is too small for more panels so we will stick with that final size. 

Hi All,
Have been reading and browsing forum for a while 
decided to say Hi we have a 3phase system running victron to help reduce eskom costs
our system is as follows:
3x5Easy,30/295,10kwRevov
1x EasySolar 48/5000/70 MPPT 150/100
2x MultiPlus 48/5000/70
1x BlueSolar Charger MPPT 150/70
30x Canadian Solar 295W (CS3K-295P) - Total 8,850 W
Color Control GX
3-Phase Energy Meter ET340
BMV-700
𝘙𝘌𝘝𝘖𝘝: R9 2nd LiFe
ES2-8
2 x 200 Ah 2nd LiFe (lithium iron phosphate) batteries
Built-In battery monitoring system
Tian Power BMS

Yes, I do. 
The Deye look slightly different, but same concept. 

"Zero export to CT" - This means zero export to the municipality. I had this wrong the first day and exported 3 kWh to the grid - oops! Now the municipal meter is showing an error message. Still waiting to hear from the municipality... 
But when there is more demand than from essentials and battery, it is used by the non-essentials. 
The next section decides to charge the battery first, or to first support the load. But I the found that the battery is full at c 10:00,and if there is a lull in demand across both essential an non-essential, production is clipped. So I put it to "Load first", now the battery is only full around 11:00. Then the pool pump (with heat pump) kicks in and all available production goes to that. 
By 16:00 the pool pump swith off, and very little else is running in the house and thus some production is clipped again. 
 
So it is this screen that I am still playing around with:

The 80% in the middle of the day now allows a bit of the battery to be used to supplement the pool pump demand, and then the battery gets charged again after 16:00. (I previously had this at 95% and I could see this small change did make a difference) 
 
The "Grid Charge" setting is to ensure the battery has some juice in case of an early morning Load Shedding.  In essence I am using my battery to assist Eskom a bit during the peak demand (16:00 to 21:00) and then use the grid during the early morning hours to recharge back to 60%. 
 
This is what today's production looked like:

Black circles is probably the geyser's heat pump. 
The purple line is the pool pump (+heat pump) demand. 
The yellow circle is when we had load shedding - as you can see, production was used to charge the battery back to 100% but were clipped for the remainder of the load shedding. 
 
And this was the result:
 

Hubble support is down right SOE(Telkom) level. Absolutely horrible  

If you really want to add a generator I would look at something that can be remotely started, seeing that the inverter can be setup up to do the starting when a certain level of state of charge is reached. Silent and Diesel would be a plus point. The size can be limited by the charging current of the inverter so that can be managed.

Generator is less important... Yes 10kva would be nice but remember the gennie is really only for emergencies when the sun does not shine and batteries are depleted.  Power is less of an issue so even a 5kva would be more than fine imho.. Water warming etc will be more of a driving factor. Thus a solar geyser or gas setup is probably more important to get right 

From what I have noticed with mine, it did not come with the CT or a meter that goes on the incoming line from the grid to prevent export to the grid. I can not find a place to connect one even if I try to source the CT else where. It has a setting which can be enabled to export to the grid which I have not tested but I do not see how you would control or monitor the amount of power that will be exported to grid without having the meter or the CT connected to the grid side, feeding information back to the inverter. With the LXP model, it is different, it comes with both a meter and a CT and works more or les like your Sunsynk. In short, there is the capability to export to the grid but I do not see how you will be able to control how much you supply or push back. The only way to see how it works it will be to try or test 😂

I have 5 panels all facing North on just 1 string ( getting c 240 volts). Max was 16.1 kWh on the best day, average probably 12 to 14.
I am still playing around with the "Time of Use" settings to see how to maximise production & self use. I still often get clipped when the battery is full and the demand is lower than production. 

Great explanation for the Deye users! I wish they made this easier to understand with a simple English menu option. However, the lost in translation from Mandarin to English is clearly evident. It's always good to note that Mandarin is a very complex language & engineers really struggle to bridge the link between themselves imagine trying to keep the Marketing & sales ppl happy at the same time. 
We will get there hopefully not too far in the future 😂😂

Yes, I do. 
The Deye look slightly different, but same concept. 

"Zero export to CT" - This means zero export to the municipality. I had this wrong the first day and exported 3 kWh to the grid - oops! Now the municipal meter is showing an error message. Still waiting to hear from the municipality... 
But when there is more demand than from essentials and battery, it is used by the non-essentials. 
The next section decides to charge the battery first, or to first support the load. But I the found that the battery is full at c 10:00,and if there is a lull in demand across both essential an non-essential, production is clipped. So I put it to "Load first", now the battery is only full around 11:00. Then the pool pump (with heat pump) kicks in and all available production goes to that. 
By 16:00 the pool pump swith off, and very little else is running in the house and thus some production is clipped again. 
 
So it is this screen that I am still playing around with:

The 80% in the middle of the day now allows a bit of the battery to be used to supplement the pool pump demand, and then the battery gets charged again after 16:00. (I previously had this at 95% and I could see this small change did make a difference) 
 
The "Grid Charge" setting is to ensure the battery has some juice in case of an early morning Load Shedding.  In essence I am using my battery to assist Eskom a bit during the peak demand (16:00 to 21:00) and then use the grid during the early morning hours to recharge back to 60%. 
 
This is what today's production looked like:

Black circles is probably the geyser's heat pump. 
The purple line is the pool pump (+heat pump) demand. 
The yellow circle is when we had load shedding - as you can see, production was used to charge the battery back to 100% but were clipped for the remainder of the load shedding. 
 
And this was the result:
 

Hi there, 
Corneel here, this is my second post but here is my first installation.
I am a mining engineer doing mining finance at a bank - no formal electrical training apart from 1 semester at varsity 25 years ago...  And a one-day solar overview course a few years ago. 
I only got my installation's CoC this morning so I did not want to post my installation in case I made a mess! At least I have not seen any smoke yet! 😂
The main DB is around the corner in the garage. I do woodwork there and I did not want to put the Inverter and battery in such a dusty environment, hence the installation in the passageway. 
Comments are welcome! 

 

This is just 3 of the 5 panels, the other two are on other sections of the roof. 
 
When money allows, I will add another string of 2.7 kW and another battery.  (We use about 30 kWh a day so the current system is a bit small). Even with the second string and battery I will still not be able to generate 100% of own consumption.  And my roof is too small for more panels so we will stick with that final size. 

Yes, I do. 
The Deye look slightly different, but same concept. 

"Zero export to CT" - This means zero export to the municipality. I had this wrong the first day and exported 3 kWh to the grid - oops! Now the municipal meter is showing an error message. Still waiting to hear from the municipality... 
But when there is more demand than from essentials and battery, it is used by the non-essentials. 
The next section decides to charge the battery first, or to first support the load. But I the found that the battery is full at c 10:00,and if there is a lull in demand across both essential an non-essential, production is clipped. So I put it to "Load first", now the battery is only full around 11:00. Then the pool pump (with heat pump) kicks in and all available production goes to that. 
By 16:00 the pool pump swith off, and very little else is running in the house and thus some production is clipped again. 
 
So it is this screen that I am still playing around with:

The 80% in the middle of the day now allows a bit of the battery to be used to supplement the pool pump demand, and then the battery gets charged again after 16:00. (I previously had this at 95% and I could see this small change did make a difference) 
 
The "Grid Charge" setting is to ensure the battery has some juice in case of an early morning Load Shedding.  In essence I am using my battery to assist Eskom a bit during the peak demand (16:00 to 21:00) and then use the grid during the early morning hours to recharge back to 60%. 
 
This is what today's production looked like:

Black circles is probably the geyser's heat pump. 
The purple line is the pool pump (+heat pump) demand. 
The yellow circle is when we had load shedding - as you can see, production was used to charge the battery back to 100% but were clipped for the remainder of the load shedding. 
 
And this was the result:
 

It's here where the magic happens between non essentials & essentials. This menu screen controls the function. This page is page 2 of the system mode page. 
ZERO EXPORT: as the name implies if ticked no power will leave your home to your outside meter & go to Eskom. 
SOLAR EXPORT: again as the name implies if you want to export PV power to Eskom then tick this.
LIMIT TO LOAD ONLY: 
Here is where the magic happens! The load they are referencing is the backup or essential load. So if you tick this to "limit to the load only" means you will ONLY SUPPLY THE LOAD ( ESSENTIALS)
However, when unticked this will send power to the Non- Essentials that is not on the Backup load. It will send PV & or battery depending on your Page 1 settings in terms of SoC. 
Remember this function only works when the Grid is present. Because it's Grid tieing technology. When the Grid is gone ie. Loadshedding the Islanding mode or in Voltronics terms backup mode is in operation & so you cannot Grid tie anymore. Therefore this functionality is lost. 

Then this is great time to send the PV to the geyser, stove or pool on the none essential side. 
Do you know how to do this yet? Otherwise I can post a very simple explanation. The Guys at Sunsynk need to really simplify this because it's made up to be rocket science & it's not. Its a single menu to tick or untick. Still a way to go to make this menu more western in my opinion. Maybe they will load an update to get this done. I'll post it anyways & the logic in which I understand it. 

Welcome @Corneelhopefully it's not your last installation. This machine will earn it's keep. Nice job!!!

Hi there, 
Corneel here, this is my second post but here is my first installation.
I am a mining engineer doing mining finance at a bank - no formal electrical training apart from 1 semester at varsity 25 years ago...  And a one-day solar overview course a few years ago. 
I only got my installation's CoC this morning so I did not want to post my installation in case I made a mess! At least I have not seen any smoke yet! 😂
The main DB is around the corner in the garage. I do woodwork there and I did not want to put the Inverter and battery in such a dusty environment, hence the installation in the passageway. 
Comments are welcome! 

 

This is just 3 of the 5 panels, the other two are on other sections of the roof. 
 
When money allows, I will add another string of 2.7 kW and another battery.  (We use about 30 kWh a day so the current system is a bit small). Even with the second string and battery I will still not be able to generate 100% of own consumption.  And my roof is too small for more panels so we will stick with that final size. 

Hi there, 
Corneel here, this is my second post but here is my first installation.
I am a mining engineer doing mining finance at a bank - no formal electrical training apart from 1 semester at varsity 25 years ago...  And a one-day solar overview course a few years ago. 
I only got my installation's CoC this morning so I did not want to post my installation in case I made a mess! At least I have not seen any smoke yet! 😂
The main DB is around the corner in the garage. I do woodwork there and I did not want to put the Inverter and battery in such a dusty environment, hence the installation in the passageway. 
Comments are welcome! 

 

This is just 3 of the 5 panels, the other two are on other sections of the roof. 
 
When money allows, I will add another string of 2.7 kW and another battery.  (We use about 30 kWh a day so the current system is a bit small). Even with the second string and battery I will still not be able to generate 100% of own consumption.  And my roof is too small for more panels so we will stick with that final size. 

This

one thing to be sure is the battery Discharge Amps, I have a 3kw cold room that trips the DC side of the 12kw Sunsynk inverter every time the compressor starts up. I believe its a limitation in the battery I have, it is MAX 200A. I am hoping a second battery with bigger fuse and cables will get me over this issue..... 
BTW I have been told you cant get VFD or soft start for smaller cold room compressors as they are sealed. 

VFD usually converts to DC and then generates 3 phase SPWM with IGBTs switching in the 6-16kHz range (typically).
Soft starters usually use Triacs (or Triacs made with 2 discrete SCRs each, depending on power level). This means the switching is done at 50Hz, with the peak currents still very high for an inverter.
You also have a much wider range of control with a VSD, which allows you to more easily tune it within the limits of the inverter.
Thinking about that a bit, the 3 phase Sunsynk would probably be better; matched to 3 phase VSDs.

https://cfptechnologies.co.za/product/veichi-ac10/
CFP have the Veichi VSD's 
 

Soft starters typically chop the supply voltage to limit startup current. This will negatively impact the inverter electronics that try to create a perfect sine wave. Depending on the quality of the VFD (filters), harmonics may still be an issue. I would suggest measuring total harmonic distortion continiously.