Jaza1

I had to replace my 60 year old dB's so I had the sparky split out lights and essential plugs circuits into separate mini - dbs and I had him power these 2 dbs from 3 pin plugs (basically an extension cable) Then he installed 2 power outlets right by the mains db (on their own breakers), the lights and plugs mini dbs plug into these sockets. Then I have 2 more sockets coming from my inverters/ups so I can elect to feed the lights and plugs from the ups/inverter or from the mains. Still got to have everything neatened up and lets see if they give me a coc Its an old house so there were lots of other issues which we are sorting through.

How's it going with this topic? I have developed some software for the Esp32 to manage my cheap generic hybrid inverter , would be interested in getting it to work on your board. Do you have the max232 on board to convert the rs232 signals to TTL because wiring up the external max232 is a pain! I also need i2c headers with power for a small oled display I connect which shows the device ip address and some basic inverter info.

I bought one of these cheap hybrid inverters from China mall and plugged it into some lithium batteries I had salvaged from a robot. Bought 3 solar panels. Works nicely as a ups for lights and a few plugs, and gives a prolonged output for those days when there are extended power cuts and the sun is shining (seems to be more and more of those days lately). But it doesn't feed back into the grid, so if batteries are charged and there is no load, the panels are idling. this is like the inverter I bought : https://protonsolardistributors.co.za/product/3kva-24v-with-50a-pwm-built-in/

I bought one of those "cheap" generic hybrid inverters (about R7000 for a 3kva.) advertised as "German technology" It really works well as a ups during load shedding, and for very long power cuts, the 1000w of panels i connected extend the batteries nicely during the day. I assumed it was pumping excess solar power back into the grid, but it wasnt. the word "hybrid" doesn't necessarily mean you can turn your meter back with unused solar power, it didn't say "grid tied" . Basically, you use your generated solar power or lose it. There is a setting to change the inverter to solar priority, so if possible, it will run the connected load from solar, but if the connected load is anywhere near what the panels are producing, it will fall back to mains power meaning your panels are idling until load shedding kicks in. There is another setting you have to change to tell the inverter to use solar power to recharge the batteries, otherwise it will only use mains. So you can tweak the system to use more solar power, but its more of a top up for long load sheds.