Don

You can plug in any of the cluster invertes into the Pi, master or slave, it does not matter, it reads the info. Changing between master and slave also has no impact.

@Chris Hobson, I see you now get AC/DC Hybrid Air Conditioners. You probably first need to build on another room at your house to get roof space to fit the panels for the aircon.

That is a good price @Chris-R. Conventional or inverter type?

Damn @Chris Hobson, I thought we could get away with 1 and a half cows. Seems it is still 2 cows. I really hope you get enough rain the rest of the year.

I have taken the plunge and "upgraded" my firmware to version 72.70. As there is no manual available to guide us as to what the new available setting actually mean, I have just left them at the default values for now. At least nothing tripped or blew up when I restarted the inverters.

No, the evaporator is on the inside, where cooling comes from. The condenser sits on the outside where you get rid of the heat. That only happens when you have insufficient gas in the system.

Chris, what is the cost of that size aircon, about 2 cows?

Plonkster yes, after I posted, I searched a few prices on aircons. When the inverter type aircons came out, they were like 50-60% more expensive than the conventional ones. I see that gap has now shrunk considerably. I think as with any new thing, with time and increased volumes, prices do come down.

Chris, you wanted advice and you got a lot of advice and are probably more confused now than ever, haha. I would say for your application you could get away with 12 000 btu, but I would recommend a 18 000 btu unit. The 12 000 btu uses less power, but as mentioned before, if it is undersized, it will run a long time to bring down the temperature. The 18 000 btu uses more power, but will get there a lot faster. The disadvantage of conventional aircons are either on or off and when they are on, they run flat out. As an example, it is the same as putting your geyser on a timer, switching it on for 15 minutes and then switching it off for 15 minutes. Looking at your load graph, you will see this sudden jump in load and the 15 minutes later you see the sudden drop in load. The inverter type aircons will initially start off at about the same level, but as it cools down the room will start to cut back as superdiy explained. You will therefore have the gradual drop in load. Once it has reached the set temperature it will start controlling the temperature and should keep it their with relative low power consumption, until one of the kids runs into the room and don't close the door with hot air rushing into the room. So yes, inverter type aircons use less power, but they comes at a cost. They are probably between 25-40% more expensive than conventional aircons, depending on the make. You can also have a look at the COP. (Coefficient of Performance). The higher the the number the better. All that means is that if the aircon has a COP of say 3.6, it means that for every 1 kW of input power, you get 3.6 kW of cooling. Therefore, if you have to make a decision between 2 aircons and the one has a COP of 3 and the other a COP of 4, go for the one with a COP of 4. What brand? I don't think you get one that stands out above the rest. Hitachi, LG, Carrier, Samsung, Daiken, all good brands and make good quality air conditioners. I have a conventional Logic 18 000 btu I got on special at Game. Half the price of the Samsung, runs like a bomb. I think aircons are very much the same as inverters or cars, you buy what you can afford.They still get the job done, some just last longer than others.

Thanks Manie. I thought about it for a while and think that should actually be the easiest way to do it. Monitor the inverter temperatures individually and activate the fan once they reach a certain temperature, then switch the fan off once they reach an acceptable temperature again. That can be done with the Pi gpoi pinout and relays. I am just not sure which temperature sensors to use for the installation. I see there are a few temperature sensors available.

Yes, I agree. You have a load that either comes from grid, pv, batteries or a combination of those. You throw solar watts in there, it gets confusing.

Hi Manie, I only realised now that I never replied and gave feedback. Sorry for only replying now. Yes, it is fixed. Thank you very much. The grid watts no longer goes up when the PV watts increases. It is logging as it should. The Solar Watts graph still confuses me at times when I switch to Grid and there is PV watts coming off the panels, charging my batteries, but no Solar Watts. But I also understand that when running in parallel, you get one set of outputs and if I have different battery charging priority settings on my inverters, it becomes confusing. I even confuse myself, haha. Thank you Manie for fixing it the same day.

Hi Manie, I am aware that to query a single inverter for the "Inverter Temperature" and display it in ICC is not a problem. As far as I know, with Axperts in parallel, it is possible to retrieve the first inverter's temperature, but not the second inverter's temperature. As a result, when running Axperts in parallel, no temperature is displayed on ICC, or rather displayed as 0 degrees. I would assume that if the inverters are installed in close proximity, the temperature of the two inverters would be pretty much the same. My inverters are installed in a cupboard with an extractor fan which I run manually. I still need to put it on a timer or something. At this stage I switch on the fan when I feel it gets a bit hot in the cupboard or when I am charging the batteries. I sit in my study and VNC to ICC running on my Pi and not always aware of how hot it is in there and I have no clue at what temperatures the inverters are running. I therefore request that you consider displaying the temperature of the first inverter on ICC. At least then I would have an idea at what temperatures the inverters are running at. I am aware that if something goes wrong with the second inverter, you will not pick it up on ICC, as it is only displaying the first inverter's temperature. But currently you will not even pick up if something goes wrong with the first inverter. I am not sure how other ICC users running inverters in parallel feel about it, but I would rather see the first inverter's temperature, than a temperature of 0 degrees .

Thank you very much for sending me the correct screen settings Manie. I changed the settings in the config.txt file. Now I can see all the figures without some going off the screen.

I have 2 inverters. The values are clocking, I just can't see them. I think I misunderstood you when you said they were not visible and now you can see them. I thought you changed some value to make to application smaller so you could actually see all the values, especially those at the bottom.

It is nice to know everything is sorted out. I still have this problem. I have tried to fix it once or twice in the past, but never got it right. Maybe you can point me in the right direction how to get it fixed.

The easiest way is to use VNC. It is already comes installed as standard on the PI. Click on the"Red Raspberry/Start Button". Then "Preferences", "Raspberry Pi Configuration", "Interfaces" and ensure that VNC is "Enabled". Install VNC viewer on you PC or Laptop. Open VNC on your PC, select "File" and then "New Connection". VNC Server: add your Pi IP address here. Name: add a name here, MyPi or whatever you want to name the connection and click "Ok". Double click on the new connection you just created. Username: pi and Password: raspberry (Unless you have changed it) Put a tick mark in remember my password and connect. It works like a charm.

Hi Sidewider, glad to see you are up and running again. Out of curiosity I would like to see what happens when you plug in the new SD card and power supply into the old PI. If the old PI boots up and you still suspect high CPU temperatures, open the terminal and run the following command: vcgencmd measure_temp

Here are the recommended power supply recommendations: PI Recommended 5 Volts DC Power Supply Amps Raspberry Pi Model A Raspberry Pi Model B+ Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Raspberry Pi 3 Model B 700mA 1.8A 1.8A 2.5A Yes, I am sure they can run with lower amp rating power supplies, depending on how many peripherals are connected to the Pi, but that can sometimes result in strange problems such as rebooting or not booting up every time. If system stability and performance are needed, then I would definitely stick with the basic requirements.

No, 500 mA is definitely not enough to power the PI. The PI3 requires a minimum 2.5A charger. How did it run for the last 2 months? If you don't have a proper PI3 power supply, get one. Here is a 3A power supply for R128.

I am not so sure. They are tough little machines. It usually is one of 2 things. Power supply or SD card. Since yours have been working for 2 months, you can probably rule out power supply. Let them test it before you buy a new one. You might be surprised, they insert one of their SD cards and it boots up, haha. While you are at the PI shop, get a heat sink and a PI fan.

The number of times the green light flashes, actually tells you what is wrong with the unit. 3 flashes: start.elf not found 4 flashes: start.elf not launched 7 flashes: kernel.img not found 8 flashes: SDRAM not recognised. You need newer bootcode.bin/start.elf firmware. I am not to sure how up to date the list with the number of flashes are. I would suggest you count the number of green flashes and google it.

This is the one I got from Micro Robotics for my PI.

Lol, good one that. The spec sheet looks identical to that of the Axpert not to mention the little blue screen. I will take 2 of the 5kVa units at that price.

Yes, you can have the one array setup to charge your batteries as it's first priority, whether you are in Grid or Solar mode, and the other in some other mode.