PJJ

Yes, sent you a pm.

Hello guys. I am looking for some Pylontech US2000/US3000 units (preferably C) Kind Regards PJ

If you plan on using a generator the Quattro is superior. As Keith from Sunsync has explained in some videos the Input side of the Sunsync is on a common bus, meaning any AC input limit is applied to both the GEN and GRID input. You can however limit the battery charging current while on the GEN input on the Sunsync, but that's just a band aid. With the Quattro you can say : Grid (AC1) input current limit : 60A Gen (AC2) input current limit : 25A It will then automatically throttle the charger up and down if it's on Gen to stay in the 25A input current limit. whilst giving you the full charging power once it switches back to grid.

The MPPT will derate itself if it gets too hot, throw everything you can at it :)

I think so too. At R167K its about the price of 5 x US3000's and a 8000VA Victron Quattro. The Quattro obviously has a bigger inverter (6.5KW) and another big benefit I think is that second AC Input. And then there is just the chemistry differences, NMC cells will have a lower cycle life compared to Lifepo4. So with those things considered, I will still go blue

You can't go on a road trip without your keys

My AntBMS is on the way, once I have it and my pack built I will give you some feedback.

Your first concern should be your inverter capacity is vastly larger than what the recommended discharge rate is for 3 x US3000's 1.8KW x 3 = 5.4KW

Having 0 knowledge on the inner workings of the Sunsync inverter I can only speculate that the inverter probably has a "On-grid" and "Off-grid / backup" mode. And in "On-grid" mode battery Charge current, SOC and SOH values are perhaps ignored by the inverter thinking : "the grid can easily charge the battery and loads can be fed with grid AC" so the zero DC charge current limit is seen as a moot point by the inverter. But in "Off-grid / backup" the system will probably disconnect the battery because you are saying : I allow 0 DC current and the battery is 0% SOC Or I could be totally wrong. You need to find yourself a Sunsync Plonky

First congrats on the work you have done thus far! I was just wondering if your inverter was to use SOH in its control loop in some way, would setting SOH to 0% not indicate to your inverter that the pack has 0% of its capacity left and then also change the behavior of the charger?

I have had my eye on getting a secondhand i3 once I can get a 120Ah version for a decent price (That even us commoners can afford) But combined with the recent drop in fuel prices I can't even in my wildest dreams justify the expense. My Up is already extremely fuel efficient, my monthly fuel bill is now about R800 and on that R800 I get 50% back from my discovery fuel rewards. I think my cost per KM for fuel is now about 70c and after the 50% cashback its 35c per KM If I assume the i3 is as efficient as the BMW website says and it uses 13.1kWh / 100 KM I would use about 1200KM / 100KM = 12 x 13.1kWh = 157kWh If I assume this entire 157kWh would be added to my most expensive bloc of my prepaid bill (It probably won't since I can manage it and have a little solar as well but lets assume for a moment) this would cost me R2.5 p/kWh. So that's : 157 kWh x R2.5 = R392 worth of electricity. Which is 32c per KM. Even if I could finance the car at say 10% with a capital cost of R300K the monthly interest alone would be R2465. So I am not even lying to myself, the i3 belongs in my "Wants" column not in the "Needs"

Yeah it all fun and games while its still a newsletter. But once official documents start looking suspect it gets interesting, like when I got my US Visitor VISA I noticed that they had my given name correct with both parts, except they omitted the hyphen, and of course my passport includes the hyphen, I remember shaking like crazy when we got to the customs booth on the US side, luckily it was just a quick thank you sir and I moved on. But on the SA side I guess my anxiety might have been boiling to the surface, I was "randomly selected" for a search, they even ran a glove through my hair and analyzed it (I am assuming they thought I might have been some kind of drug mule) my hair as well as the sweat under my arms was analyzed in a little machine they had there.

I know people with multiple names have a hard time with call center agents etc. But lets all take a moment to pay our respects to people like myself with a hyphen in their name... Sure it looks like 2 names on paper, but its only one. Even my drivers license has my initials wrong 😕 I tried to get it fixed the last time I went for a renewal, but I guess the person behind the counter thought I was just another idiot that added his middle name to the first name box.

Just a word of caution, just know what you might be getting yourself into, if the product support is bad (or maybe even non existent) Then you could find yourself beholden to help from people on forums willing to help you, or in extreme cases even a couple of friendly Aussies providing you with firmware updates because the manufacturer could not care less.

Here in attendance! I have a Sonoff basic on my pressure pump and its been there for over a year now like Jaco says, I also have the POW on my geyser, its not been in there for as long as the basic has been on my pressure pump, but so far so good.

Sorry to derail your thread but I am pretty sure if it says Averge you might have stolen telecommunication batteries. Its been said on here a lot but that Carte Blance piece a while back made it clear that Averge don't sell to the public, I am not sure if that has changed since then, but maybe ask your installer where he bought them from just to give you peace of mind.

@anotherbrownbear should be able to help you.

Very much possible, just inefficient. You would be doing double conversion the whole time AC-DC-AC. This would also make your potential charging current pretty bad, let me explain. Say your loads are 150W AC You go and buy a 12/30 Bluesmart charger. So now you have 30A of charging current, not too bad, except you will use around 12A (150W / 13.5V = 11.1A But there are also inverter efficiencies to take into account) just powering your loads. So only the remaining 18A can be used for charging, obviously this quickly spirals out of control as your loads increaase, if your loads are say 300W You will be using 22A of the chargers 30A capacity only power your loads, and there will only be 8A left for charging. If your loads are say 400W you would need the entire capacity of the charger simply to keep the loads powered, and you won't have any real charging happening. I would say go with a busbar because then you can easily fuse the connection going to the battery.

Also I would not recommend you do a install without a MPPT. If your system had a shutdown event (lets say you hit minimum SOC) and the AC falls away there is no way to start the PV Inverter again (Because it needs the AC from the Multi to couple to) so you would sit in a deadlock position where the sun could be shining but since your batteries are too low to start the AC Inverter, you also can't by proxy start the PV Inverter.

Very true, if I look at my house consumption 80% of the time its below 500W, with only peaks when things like the Geyser and Stove start chugging away, that's probably why I was able to get away with a single 800VA Multi for so long. My problem however was if both the fridge and chest freezer compressor both came on at exactly the same time I would trip the little Multi (It only happened like twice, both times after they were left disconnected for a while and reconnected back at exactly the same time) those compressors have insane startup current. But since I have the second 800VA unit on the wall its never been a problem since.I can also now for the first time ever use my pressure pump when the grid is down, its a 0.85KW pump. At first I wondered whether it would be worth it to add the second Multi, but when loadshedding started again and I had to forgo a few showers the decision was easy.

Not necessarily, if you go the Axpert route yes, but If you buy a Victron or Goodwe you can feed in excess solar power (granted while the grid is on) to those loads, without worrying about a big load taking your system down in the event of a grid failure.

The problem with going off grid is generating that last say 20% of your needs. If you stay on the grid, with a decent battery bank you can generate 50-80% of your power needs without blowing the kitty. But that last 20% gets exponentially more expensive to supplement, its definitely not linear. Also like Macleod pointed out, financing, you might have R50K in savings somewhere you can raid for a nice on-grid system, but R100K+ would see you having to finance a portion (or all for that matter) and capital is a finite resource.

I am not a member on any of the 4x4 forums, but I remember stumbling onto a thread one day on some SA 4x4 forum, and the one guy had the perfect idea for a perpetual motion machine, other members tried to explain to him that it wasn't possible, to him the law of thermodynamics was just a annoying law soon to be legislated away IIRC he also drove a Land Rover, make with that what you will .

How exactly is 5.4KW worth of panels considered 19.5KW? I don't see a generator in there? If its truly a off grid setup (No AC available) then you definitely need a backup generator, that solar array will on a bad weather day only generate around 3-5kWh for the whole day and you will be sitting in the dark. I would say to even consider "Off grid" you would need a backup generator, and double that solar array. Edit: I realize that you didn't say its a Off grid setup, I simply inferred it from the quote.

Fun fact about these, the amount of air changes required will be dictated by the maximum CO2 concentration you would want on the inside of the building. So the best way of actually designing this would be to have a CO2 sensor inside the building monitoring ppm, once the concentration goes above say 600ppm you start ventilating, once you reach 450ppm you stop. But the reason why I think we have bigger systems in the first place is because our mall experience is different to the ones in the developed world, in the developed world, you have fewer shoppers going to more malls, but each shopper also has much higher purchasing power than the average South African shopper. So fewer people with more money = the same as more people with little money. But having more shoppers = More CO2, and that CO2 needs to be taken out, whatever they are spending R10 or R10K at the mall. I saw this firsthand in the US, the malls where quite empty compared to what I am used to, I don't know how it is where you guys live, but here in Limpopo, if I go the local mall over a weekend the mall is guaranteed to be packed, however its mostly just people coming in to buy 1 shirt, or even just to buy a R15 Pie at the King Pie in the middle of the mall.