drlizau

I have managed to get my system under ICC control again with some magic from a GUI SQLite database browser. History is absent, but not of any concern to me right now. Upgrade is coming but not this month!

Overnight my software monitoring and controlling the Axpert inverter failed and won't restart, giving me a a variety of error messages. After spending half a day on the problem (I'm no software expert) I have determined that the current Solar.db is the problem, assuming it has become corrupted. If I rename that ICC makes a new file "Solar.db" but it has zero bytes, and no database tables. So I can't save anything to the nonexistent database. If someone can give me linux cli instructions to make a new Solar.db and copy in the settings table and the error code table I can copy and paste very successfully. Or if someone can make me a blank one I could use that and reenter my settings from the old database. Opening the database in a GUI to look at the last entries in the tables did not show me anything which looked odd so I didn't try editing that database.

This morning we put the load back on the Axpert inverter and ran a load up to 900W for about 10 minutes. No concerns. The gel cells did not drop their voltage under load and each of the 12 individual cells was within range on testing. During the test period the freezer motor started up successfully. Next job will be to inspect the inside of the inverter for signs of deterioration before making a decision on replacement or not. Forum members have suggested some brands of inverters to look at, so I'll research those while waiting for the OM to decide to check the internals of the inverter

We don't need a schematic. The Axpert MPPT is old, not the mark 2 which can handle 80A incoming. Right now I can't find a reference for the old one, but we needed an 85A capable solar controller. So we have a Victron 150 85. So when looking for a new inverter, I don't need one with charging abilities.

The inverter is not used in charging mode, because it doesn't handle the amount of incoming power. It's a Victron system charging the batteries.

There might be time tomorrow to do some checks. As the inverter wouldn't run the air fryer before at 1200W, I wouldn't expect it to run the kettle drawing 1800W. and yea, it is a magic inverter, does more than the supply authority does

A bank of lead acid gel cels, now 5 years old, and they have been run very conservatively, only down to 80% charge, using a quality battery monitor. Attached is the one year graph from Cacti.

This has been switching to the mains at less than max current draw - maybe 1200W sent it into overload when I checked. We assumed that it was old and tired, because its been working all day almost every day for nearly 7 years. Today it decided in the middle of a dull rainy afternoon to have a major complaint about the work health and safety conditions and just shut down about 1600hrs. There was a single green light flashing on the box, and no response to any of the buttons. Starting a fault finding procedure the load was independently switched to the mains, then the battery supply disconnected from the inverter. This jarred the recalcitrant inverter back to life and it started to complain about a fault. Reconnecting the batteries it appears to be OK but it has been left out of service rather than retest late on Sunday afternoon. Questions Is it worth trying to keep this inverter going? Should I just buy another inverter? I was pricing a suitable Victron for a replacement, are there other suggestions?

I have my actual problem under control by a different approach. For four hours at the height of the winter sun the Axpert runs on the grid, so there is is enough power in the batteries to last through the night. This is easily programmable.

Our battery banks are not paralleled because they are of different sizes and different ages.

We would like to be able to charge the batteries from the grid for a couple of hours each day over winter. Really it's excess production from a grid tie system that we want to use to make sure the batteries are charged and last all night. Using ICC software I want to automatically change the charge source from "Solar only" to "Utility" according to time. I haven't been able to work this out, can it be done through the software as it is, or do I program a hack where I have two ICC installs and config files and make my alterations with crontab entries? The main battery charging is done with a Victron controller so that would continue to operate.

The battery banks have different capacities, so joining them together is not a good idea either. They are used every night.

Not a manual changeover switch but an automated system. Start on one battery bank, for a brief period it needs to have both banks in circuit, and then switch out the first bank. Or do you have any better ideas?

We've moved house and are rebuilding our off-grid system at the new place. We own two banks of 12 * 2V lead acid gel cells and would like to switch seamlessly between them. They have different capacities. We want one set charged, then charging switched to the other, and at night one set used, according to SOC, then switch to the other. Has anyone already done this and can share their insights? Can this be done with off the shelf equipment or do we need to build computer control eg with an Arduino? We were using a Plasmatronics PL40 for SOC but don't intend to reuse this in the new setup. Which battery monitor is suggested. I'm looking at those from Victron.

We've had two wind turbines, and the first lasted about 8 years before being worn out. The purchase price was $AU500 for 300W. It was our first experiment in power generation. When it didn't work any more we realised that the wind input into the batteries was often a help in winter. Living on a very flat part of planet earth we have wind every day, but not every night. So I got a new Chinese 500W wind turbine off the popular auction site, cost about $AU450. It was so poorly built that the shaft was offcentre and after a while the bearings jammed shut. The seller's English became very poor at this point, and we had to go for the site's refund offer. The seller did not want the faulty item back so it headed off to a friend's lathe and was reconstructed. Total cost for this wind turbine was then one carton of beer. At this price the return on investment is excellent! If I buy another one it will be a vertical axis one, considering the noise effects and the low wind speed we usually have. None were economical buys at the time I was buying wind turbines.