Emma

I'm getting an error 10 on my Replus Renesola invertor. Cannot find a manual to download. Any idea what the error code is?

We found the answer. It was error code 5 = a short. Residue built up on the positive of the terminal, ate through the metal connector and in to a cable! All cleaned and repaired and system is back up and running with batteries on full. Thanks for all the input

Our fridge, which is less than six months old, this afternoon all of a sudden tripped our solar system which is a 3kva inverter. We have a Renesola system and the display shows fault. When we plug the fridge directly in to Eskom it does not trip. Any ideas why this could be happening?

It's no mistake. My boyfriend likens himself and his dog to looking like and behaving like a bear. I am in a "bear in training"! I don't wear shoes so instead of Barefoot Princess I decided to go for Bearfoot Princess

I found a Samsung 9kg top loader. It doesn't have much info available in terms of power usage which is probably because it doesn't heat the water. It uses 160 litres of water per wash though! The best front loader that I found was a Bosch 5.5kg. It uses 0.797 kw per cycle and 41 litres of water and that is based on a 60 degree wash. I would prefer to wash my clothes in a 30 degree wash. We are on solar but could plug the generator in if need be. Water is also a concern as we only have rain water. I thought about maybe filling jugs of hot water from the gas geyser and putting them in the front loader as it fills. Any further thoughts on best way forward?

Thanks everyone foe all of your advice so far. I'll start investigating top loaders.

So I've been living at tiny house for a few months now and all is going well. The 3HP blender (although it doesn't get used often) works well. The iron - not so great. Even though it's only 1200w it can only be used for a really quick iron of something. Turn it on, iron a dress or two and pop outside quickly to see what the dog is barking at whilst noticing that it's cloudy and then all of a sudden the system starts bleeping consistently, panic breaks loose in my brain and I quickly unplug everything and start doing something cross between sun salutations and a deranged form of dance wiggling my arms around willing the sun come back out and praying that my boyfriend won't notice how low the batteries are when he gets home!!! I promised not to use the iron again (but I now know how to plug the generator in to top up the batteries!!!). So now I want a washing machine. Apparently top loaders use more water than front loaders. A twin tub is not an option as the space I have is too small. The larger the machine capacity the better the energy rating it would seem, however, I only need to do a 5kg or so load once or twice a week. We can figure out how to do a hot and cold fill if necessary although we cannot regulate the hot fill. The hot water we have is via a little gas burner which we light up when we need it. We shower with it and it's generally okay - cold for a few seconds then boiling hot and then hot. I'm wondering whether it would be better just to have a cold fill and allow the machine to heat itself up. I may want to do the odd 60 degree wash but mostly I'd use 30 degree washes. I believe you need heat for a better clean. I also know that quick washes use more electricity than say a 60 minute wash. Any advice on what type of machine to get or to things to consider? Is it essential to get an A+++ model if it means it is a bigger and more expensive machine? Obviously it will need to be run on sunny days or whilst the generator is running.

Okay so the blender came to stay and I've done two tests already. First one was with a combination of wet and dry (powder) ingredients which we went through all of the settings - low, medium, high and pulse. It worked perfectly. We watched the wattage used and it was below 600 watts. When pulsing there looked to be a warning sign on the inverter display but all good. Second test was a smoothie with whole spinach chard leaves, large chunks of pineapple and apple and little liquid (which means it has to work harder). Used low and medium settings and also timed setting which goes from low to medium to high. Had to run the blender for longer. Wattage was under 1000. Both tests done in the day time. Next test is with dry ingredients such as dates and almonds - will keep you posted. Off to do some gardening barefoot princess style

Okay so the blender came to stay and I've done two tests already. First one was with a combination of wet and dry (powder) ingredients which we went through all of the settings - low, medium, high and pulse. It worked perfectly. We watched the wattage used and it was below 600 watts. When pulsing there looked to be a warning sign on the inverter display but all good. Second test was a smoothie with whole spinach chard leaves, large chunks of pineapple and apple and little liquid (which means it has to work harder). Used low and medium settings and also timed setting which goes from low to medium to high. Had to run the blender for longer. Wattage was under 1000. Both tests done in the day time. Next test is with dry ingredients such as dates and almonds - will keep you posted. Off to do some gardening barefoot princess style

Okay so the blender came to stay and I've done two tests already. First one was with a combination of wet and dry (powder) ingredients which we went through all of the settings - low, medium, high and pulse. It worked perfectly. We watched the wattage used and it was below 600 watts. When pulsing there looked to be a warning sign on the inverter display but all good. Second test was a smoothie with whole spinach chard leaves, large chunks of pineapple and apple and little liquid (which means it has to work harder). Used low and medium settings and also timed setting which goes from low to medium to high. Had to run the blender for longer. Wattage was under 1000. Both tests done in the day time. Next test is with dry ingredients such as dates and almonds - will keep you posted. Off to do some gardening barefoot princess style

Wow! Thanks for all the help. I'm more a Bearfoot Princess (hippie in training) than a SWAMBO The house we live in is 7m long x 2.4m wide x 3.5m high and is on wheels. It has two solar systems. The first being a 90 watt panel and a single 12 volt battery which runs the 12 volt water pump and low wattage LED lights. The second system is 3 x 180 watt panels, 4 Trojan 6 volt batteries and a Renesola 3kva 24v inverter with a built in PWM. We use gas to heat water and cook. All we use the solar for is a fridge, two laptops, two phones and a baby blender. The question is can the big 3HP blender cone to stay?

Am looking at moving in with my boyfriend who has a 3kva inverter but I have a 3HP blender! Does anyone work on solar and use a blender? I'm trying to work out whether we need to go to the expense of upgrading to a 5kva inverter or downgrade my blender but if so, what to?