Clint

In December 2020, I unfortunately fell victim to a lightning surge from the grid. Various items in my house was impacted. Thankfully my Axpert inverters(x2) survived with no issues, although the Raspberry Pi that runs ICC was effected, Pi booted but USB and network ports dead. My Pylontech bank(5 x US2000 Plus) was impacted as well. The communication ports(console, RS485, CAN etc) was impacted on all 5 Pylontech modules. Fortunately they were still charging and discharging normally but i could not get any info from them. I sent them back to the supplier to get a full report. The report stated that the CMU boards in all 5 modules had to be replaced and Pylontech warranty does not cover surges, so I had to claim from insurance. Got all approvals and all boards were replaced. I commissioned the entire bank after the repairs was done. After a few days I was noticing that 2 modules cell voltages was going over 3.65v during charge and these units were throwing High Voltage and Over voltage errors in the logs. When this happens, it stopped accepting any current and waits for those effected cells voltages to drop below 3.5v before accepting a charge again. This happened over a few days and the SOH counts were increasing for these 2 modules. I decided to pull them out of the bank and to my surprise they were swollen! I was actually was shocked(no pun) when I saw this. I returned those 2 modules back to the supplier and there new report concluded that the cells are damaged from the surge and irrepairable. Their recommendation was to replace those 2 modules, which i did with a US3000C and a US2000. 
I collected the damaged modules and in the spirit of science, being inquisitive and sharing knowledge I decided to salvage some parts before disposing the cells. I took the following pics:
Bottom cover off, we can see 3 x 16v battery packs(notice them being swollen), connected in series. Power Management Unit(PMU) board on the bottom left and Communication Management Unit(CMU) on the bottom right. 

 
PMU Top: 

 
PMU Bottom, notice all the MOSFETS here.... this side of the board is attached to a heatsink situated on the front right top side of an installed module: 



 
CMU Top:


 
CMU Bottom:


 
LED Strip:

 
Internal power cable size 8AWG - 10mm2:


 
Battery Packs:





 
If you counted, there are 10 pouches per pack. A total of 30 pouches in a single US2000 Plus module, equates to 1.6v per pouch. BatteryView software shows 15 cells, so i am guessing that 2 pouches make up a cell of 3.2v.
Enjoy the pics. 

Got inspired by these posts so I got an Arduino with a CT clamp switching a solid state rely. This enables my me to run my house supply with a single 5kw Growatt inverter. The CT clamp measure my house supply continuously and when the load increases above 1000W it will switch the Geyser (4KW) off. This circuit is only active during peak solar hours.
It still need to be optimized a bit but works good so far.

Hi guys,
It's a well-known fact, that a water heater / geyser is an appliance with a very high monthly energy consumption.
Example: geyser is 36% of the weekly energy consumption here:

Based on the above, I have two simple questions:
Do you use some device that is able to divert excess PV energy into a geyser's heating element? I found that there's a lot of such smart devices commercially available, for example "Solar iBoost". What kind of diverting device are you using for off-grid installations? The commercial solutions quite often need a CT clamp on the grid and are operating by measuring the grid feed-in, which is not available for the off-grid systems, of course. Thanks beforehand!
Youda

This does not apply for pure off grid systems as far as i know.

"Generators are exempt from licensing and registration with NERSA, if it
is utilised as a back-up source of electricity, during power interruptions.
that is not grid tied (no point of connection to the grid), irrespective of size.

https://dailyinvestor.com/energy/87514/eskom-collapse-2/

There is some information that is not show I used standard 6mm2 PV Cable connected to the output on the Turbine Generator there are 3 phases we joined each cable with a 6mm ferrule and insulated this with heat shrink and silicone insulation tape to ensure a waterproof insulation. It is crucial for this connection to remain dry and very secure we also used some cable ties to tie the cable to the cable hook inside the pole. 
The cable hook carries the weight of the cable. 
The three cables run down the pipe underground in LDP pipe into the house up to the point where it attaches to the controller for experimentation purposes I have a 3 phase changeover Switch to change the output from te turbine to two different controllers. 
This makes things a lot easier when running experiments. 
One controller is a 360 VDC output the other one is a grid tied wind turbine controller that outputs 230VAC @ 50HZ

Hi 
A question
What is the SOURCE OF THE WATER?
To filter the water taste it would help to know the source to see what minerals are in the water.
eg: If it is from a well or borehole it might be disolved iron which needs a different filter.

Hi to everyone, 
What can cause to burnt this panels up to this level. Of course not mine but pasted from Facebook group. 

Hey all,
 
Anyone else had any impacts with the lightning earlier this evening in Jhb?
I’m on the West Rand, felt like we took the hit directly it was that loud!
It seems like my Master SS 5kVa fell victim.
As well as Unifi stack, a TV, surround sound bar…man this is just BS!
There’s surge protection on the Main DB, yet the EL nor the Main breaker did not trip? 
I get to the inverters, the Master is non responsive, Slave appears to be functioning…decided to shut them both down. Give it a few mins and turn everything on again.
Master switches on all the indicator lights light up…then all go off and stay off. It defaults to the menu screen. The ESC button non responsive, the little I can navigate the menu…all settings are out of wack. Time mode, the inverter doesn’t even show its a parallel connected to the slave. Guess its toast then? Something like this covered under its warranty? It was installed in May 2023. Do I reach out to my installer or SS directly?
For now we are back on Grid power at least.

Wholesale prices for LFP cells in China have dropped by more than 50% since 1 Jan 2023 (currently below $50/kWh).
We are seeing some of that reflecting in local battery prices, but due to the long supply chain it is only happening slowly.  Certainly a lot more to come, so if you can, wait.
It is a bad particularly time to be shopping for 2nd hand batteries - most sellers have not caught on to the fact that battery prices have come down and as a result are asking for prices based on what they had paid.

What price range do you have in mind?

There are some real good prices on new ones if one compares prices from last year or before.

https://www.solarwaysuppliers.co.za/product/felicty-solar-ess-5-12kwh-lux-e-battery-emp/

https://electromannsa.co.za/shop-the-latest-affordable-gadgets-online/svolt-5-09kwh-48v-106ah-lithium-battery/

https://nova-craft.co.za/product/svolt-51-2v-106ah-54kwh-lithium-ion-battery-wall-mount/

This is how I see the problem around siphon from the hot water side. If the water supply point is not interrupted then no hot water should siphon to cold water taps or bathroom that use cold water. The full cold supply pressure should go to the cold taps/cistern that needs water.
In my case I was aware or my system siphoning. Cured it with a non return valve. Even without the non return no large temp drop during the night and it was only a problem if one had to work on a cold water pipe. 
AFAIK with new geysers there are 2 hot outlets. One for hot water take off and a 2nd one for heat pumps and solar geysers. 
If the outlet to taps should have a non return fitted more than 1m away from the geyser if the supply of water is not balanced via a pressure controller. 
The 2nd hot outlet should never have the non return as water does flow in both directions. 
Air breaks fitted as per the various manuals from manufacturers. 
 
 

I'm not so sure. The test button will only indicate if you exceed the threshold it would trip. If it doesn't trip yes then it indicates it is outside of spec. It still does not indicate if it perhaps trips at a level lower than the common 30mA.
For a correct value one needs to test as per the reply from @TaliaBTaliaB earlier. 

I can just assume it is meant as in series. Like a main E/L on a DB that is then wired to a sub E/L. 

Earth leakage breakers almost never go faulty. I'd guess that out of every couple of hundred earth leakage tripping faults one might be cause by a faulty earth leakage breaker. If there's a fault the earth leakage breaker will reset if the power to it is off then trip if the power is put back on, this is normal.
Earth leakage breakers are sensitive to faults on circuits they supply even if the circuit breaker for that circuit is switched off. This is because the earth leakage is monitoring both the live and the neutral wires and the circuit breaker only disconnects the live and the neutral remains connected.
If this is a new installation or if there have been changes to the installation recently then it's possibly a wiring fault within the installation.
If the fault started out of the blue then it's more likely an appliance that's faulty in which case unplug all appliances completely from all sockets and see if the fault goes away.
Some other things you can check are outside lights or connection boxes that might have leaked water or suffered an insect infestation. Check the geyser for water leaks or condensation where the wiring connects into it. Check for any signs of damp on the ceiling inside, maybe an internal light got wet.

Gut feeling, if the solar industry is currently in a slump, and prices are low, would be to consider installing the inverter and solar panels anyway, but leave the batteries for later. If it is possible or sensible to export to the grid, then more so.
You don't know a year from now if Eskom gets its way with a 40% tariff increase, if there's not going to be a new demand spike and a hike in panel and inverter prices.

Do you have a ripple switch that allows the municipality/Eskom to control the geyser? 
If so, the timer must be between the ripple switch and the geyser. 
I'm thinking of a home where I had a timer installed to control the geyser. Then the geyser wouldn't turn on. 
Eventually the electrician figured out what had happened. The timer was before the ripple switch. An 'off' signal had been sent whilst the timer was on and had reached the ripple switch which turned off as it was supposed to. But the timer was off when the 'on' pulse was sent, and that pulse did not reach the ripple switch, which stayed off.
When the timer turned on again, the ripple switch was off, so no power to the geyser. 
We first tested the idea by overriding the timer. The ripple switch came on during that day. 
We then moved the timer so that it was between the ripple switch and the geyser. The problem of the geyser never turning on went away, but this was still not ideal as it was impossible to predict when the City would send pulses to the ripple switch.
Another possibility is that your timer switch is rated for a lower current than the geyser draws. In this case it is probably terminally damaged. Three options (all of which will require a new timer) 
1) get a timer that can handle the load
2) downgrade the geyser element (draws less current, but you will have to run it for longer) 
3) have the timer control a relay which can handle the current the geyser draws. 

There are other reasons to consider solar :
1) Cable theft
2) Old infrastructure failing.
3) eskom increases of 12% per annum out pacing inflation.
and so on.
 
If you have the space and budget and it your consumption fits into a reasonable costed solar solution, I think its worthwhile moving in the solar direction for the following reasons:
1) lock in the cost of power.
2) Reduces your consumption from eskom at higher rates every year. So effectively any costs you would have had for eskom power can now be allocated to your solar system.
3) cable theft and eskom failures, load shedding   are not as much of a problem, you can typically get thru them, and recharge the following day?
4: Electric Vehicle charging if thats something you are considering?
 
Overall I think most folks who implemented solar will never go back and would rather try and move as far off grid as possible over time.
However it does cost, and if you have limited space like in an apartment or simplex unit or live in a complex, or residential estate, there maybe space and aesthetics issues consider as well, which may limit the effectiveness of implementing solar.
 
 

Two questions:
After an electric conversion, do they still leak oil? Get some pics from your friend fi he doesn't mind and share!

You can get all your answers from Freedom Won. They have done such conversions but for game drives some years ago. They also did one on a Fiat 500.
They are based in Krugersdorp IIRC. 
The problem with range and solar is that you don't have enough space to make a dent in your range. You could be using over 500Wh per km at slowish speed. So you need 1 hr in good sun to replace the power used for 1km with a 500W panel. 

This!
Even for a qualified sparkie it can take many hours to get to the bottom of the issue.
.....but the homeowner can't understand why you charged him for more than 1 hour labour😢

Guys, I can thoroughly recommend Stephen. He was incredibly professional, and he resolved my issue and got me up and running within an hour. 

Yes it can. The voltage drop is right on the limit at 5.02% if the power factor is not worse than 0.8.
The cable can draw a lot more current than the 2 pumps. 

Welcome Neville,

The Inverter you can get here on the Power Forum store
https://powerforum-store.co.za/collections/inverters/products/solis-s6-pro-6kw-advanced-hybrid-inverter

the battery you can get at Electromann sa
https://electromannsa.co.za/shop-the-latest-affordable-gadgets-online/svolt-51-2v-5-43kwh-106ah-wall-mount-s-type-lithium-battery-reliable-and-efficient-power-source/

UPDATE: brackets have found a new home.
Hi all,
 
I have two Pylontech brackets (for stacking batteries with space in between) that I no longer need since I have a wall-mounted case now. 
 
Free to pick up in Parkhurst.