VicB7

This is such an underrated comment. It needs to be put into solar newbie FAQ of some kind. STC from Canadian Solar panels fine print * Under Standard Test Conditions (STC) of irradiance of 1000 W/m2, spectrum AM 1.5 and cell temperature of 25°C. Meanwhile in the cape peaks of summer can go beyond 1000 W/m2 I've experienced panels with Imp 13.20 A and Isc 14.00 A, push out 15A in some circumstances, leading to blown 30A fuses in a 2p configuration

🤣🤣🤣

Would love to get other people's opinions on this one. Is this standard practice? I've encountered opinions which state to not earth the battery. Ok, so then if you earth the battery. Do you earth the metal casing? or how do people earth their batteries? Thank you.

These might work for this kind of application

No, same here. Perhaps there is some auto hiding/filtering due to OP's choice of language. if you highlight the text you can see the contents

There might be an additional clause worth considering for "some" before buying from https://electromannsa.co.za/ Warranty: All inverters and batteries must be installed by a qualified electrical wireman or Master electrician with a valid registration with the Department of Labour. A valid electrical certificate of compliance (COC) must be issued once installed, specific to the installation of the backup or solar system. The installation must be compliant with SANS 10142 and ALL its parts. Any warranty claim submitted without installation photos, a valid COC and proof of a qualified wireman/master electrician installing the unit, can be rejected and will render the warranty claim null at void.

Good to know! Thank you!

@Greglsh if I was buying, this operation looks a whole more legit to me, yet I cannot speak for Snaga, but their web presence is very limited, I agree https://electromannsa.co.za/product/svolt-5-09kwh-48v-106ah-lithium-battery/

Good idea!

@PsyCLown ok Wow! Thank you for taking the time with your comprehensive write-up! I actually believe these are my existing batteries, mine are rebranded as something else though. Mine have the same "rare" battery connector that no other manufacturer uses it seems. which I can't seem to find replacements for anywhere to date 🤪 The BMS screens and even the on/off switch are identical. I have 2x 15cell 48V I've been able to get mine to work with Victron (no problem there), just only use CanH and CanL and follow Victron CAN pinouts 4,5 -> 7,8 Victron does pick them up as Pylontech. I've also been able to get them to work with a 4.6kw Goodwe as well with a 4,5 -> 4,5 CAN cable, then by either faking them as 4x Pylontech US2000 or using the Default setting the SolarGo/PVMaster. Do you have any more information on this supplier, their website is very bare bones. No address there at all. Likewise if you're able to share any more information on the South African office of SVolt and how to reach them if required, that would maybe also be helpful for people here. Thank you

I am inclined to agree, leaning towards LBSA where there seems to exist some published track record (on forums like this), dealing with their local support for various issues.

For those interested it looks like this is the monitoring cable and it looks like the battery monitoring software is also available there https://www.lithiumbatteriessa.co.za/shop/batmoncable-built-unit-battery-monitor-cable-871#attr= Perhaps @MdF can confirm Thank you!

All valid points. What is the price point of the SVOLTs at this point in time? I see the LBSA are on sale for 20k Looks like LBSA does not have remote monitoring, only via cable as @MdF has written.

As @MdF has written, in this case the LBSA battery does not seem to have this capability, but other technologies or batteries could conceivably have a small wifi modem built in potentially. That is why I was asking about the details of the remote update procedure.

Hi @MdF This is actually extremely helpful! Thank you! It means that the remote procedure is user initiated, and not remote controlled. I'm not sure what the capabilities of Hubble's cloudlink are but it is conceivable to me that some battery manufacturers may have more remote update capability, which in my case, I do not want

@MdF since you went through the process of having your LBSA battery/batteries remotely updated. Would it be possible for you to shed more light on the procedure? Did you have to connect the battery to an internet connected router first? Or does the battery itself have remote-connecting capability? Thank you!

Absolutely, and if this feature can be turned off, so that it cannot be remotely turned on, that works for me. Then if I need support or update, I switch it on, they do their thing, then switch it off. This internet of everything, remote control everything while you're sleeping these days, doesn't work for me 🤣 I think I will if there is no additional feedback here, the pricing at the moment, and their current in/out capabilities do seem appealing.

Just to add. As a prospective LBSA battery buyer, this would be good to know. I am personally allergic to any "remote" functionality that I cannot turn off. I understand that these features can be very useful in certain support use cases though.

Deleted due to bad quoting/editing on my part

I might be wrong on this but I think I read somewhere on this forum that even if the SOC drops from 100% -> 80% or something like that, and is then recharged, that counts as a cycle, and is stored as a cycle count on the BMS. So perhaps they are factoring that into their warranty terms?

Curious as to how that works? So these batteries have their own router internally or something, or how does that work? Thank you and more importantly can this "feature" be disabled if desired?

The sparkies came, tried to hammer in a spike. It wouldn't go deep enough due to house foundations launching a protest action, so they hooked up some 10mm green/yellow house wire from the earth of the house to the PV fuse/surge/switch box instead, and all was well.

> 2. Would it be safe to connect them to my households earth or should I be hammering in a separate earth spike for them? I have heard that this is ok, but I was advised that a standard 1.5 mm ac extension cable is not ideal. I had a plan to use solar dc 6 mm cable for this, into the earth pin of a house socket, however currently, I'm just going to get an earth spike installed because it seems like it is not that expensive. Having said that, I too would also be curious to hear from members on this forum. Maybe this kind of question is too DIYi-sh and no one wants to offer advice lest someone deems them later liable or something?

Did you ever have this retrofitted with the fan noise fix? Thanks! https://community.victronenergy.com/storage/attachments/54221-2023-05-mpii-retrofit-kit-to-reduce-low-rpm-fan-no.pdf

Honestly, quite surprised that locally assembled batteries are not on that list. BlueNova, Revov, LBSA etc