Vaal

Please Be warned it happened on my hobby system. If you use a cheap 12/24v charge controller, the V out gets determined by the battery connected to the controller and the default output V is 24V. That means if you run a 12v battery with a 12v load and the battery gets disconnected, the controller output V will default to 24v. And then the magic smoke comes out of the 12v device which now gets 24v and goes poof. Eish I don't know if this happens to all 12/24v controllers.

You say it is sorted. What was the cause of the problem? What about dry run protection kicking in? Tia

When people b&m about their high high electricity account but if you walk in the house, the kettle is 75% full of hot water, the geyser is set to 75°C and every light is on in the house. If you cannot save R1, how can you save R1000? To save is a mindset.

Are the panels connected in series or parallel? What is the panel's rating? Is the solar input voltage in the charge controller's range? What charge controller do you have? Are the panels aimed square to the sun with zero shade on it?

May I suggest that you get a decent couple of fused isolators with correct rated DC fuses, like a Keto / Jean Muller. The way I understand is that every battery must have its own fuse isolator and then 1 where all the batteries combine. What size and length is the battery cables?

It appeared to me that loadshi..ing always increased as soon as Eskom started to negotiate with Nersa. We are not heavy power users but our grid consumption reduced from average 17 units per day to less than 2 units a day. Running the whole house with a gas stove and electric backed up solar geyser. 5 kw Sunsynk, 5kw battery and 5.3kw array. For me to get rid of the 2kw grid power I need another battery but the roi on that will take very long, if ever. Cable problems in my area has caused a total of more than 20 days without power in 2 years. The next problem surfacing, is water supply. We are living in interesting times.

Oops, sorry my bad. Have nice day.

Marco, did you find a updated SANS copy?

It might help to state your area?

Why don't you use any battery power during night time? It looks like your setup is more as a ups for loadshedding and not to save max money. What battery do you have ? Because a working (regularly used, but not abused) battery is a happy battery.

Who is your insurer?

What does you solar production graph look like on a average day? I have a 5kw SS, 5kw Hubble batt and 5.3kw north facing array. We use about 2kw of grid power per day because I'm a bit low on batt capacity. It would be nice to have another batt but at 2 units a day it is not economically viable. I take my batt down to 33% soc and use about 200w in the morning, the rest is used during the evening to keep the batt at 80% till 23h00 after that it drains down to 33%. Base load is about 200>400w.

A meggar insulation tester helps a lot to point you in the right direction. But it is not a generally used meter. When converting a ballasted fluorescent fitting to Led remember to use a fuse in the starter's place. It looks like a starter but it is a fuse.

That can work, except if there a little bit of earth leakage on the common neutral circuit. To the OP, what type EL do you have and is it installed after the inverter?

I might be wrong but this looks quite a bit like a hot connection which caused the temperature to rise and that influenced the fuse rating. What is the size of your cable and how long is it? You can see that on the cable or even on the lug if it is thd correct size lugs used. The fuse size is decided by the cable size. I suggest that you get a decent double pole dc rated fuse isolator (Keto or the like), shorten the cable to get rid of the burnt part or replace the cables, crimp the lugs decently (or get someone to do it) and the tighten the lugs to the correct specs.

How soon is your battery charged in the morning? What is your base load during the day? I've got 5.3kw of panels, but my base load is about 400w/hr after my battery is full. I changed my geyser element from 3kw to 2kw and now I heat it up from 11h00 to 1600 to max available on the thermostat (about 72 °c ) 300L of hot water which gets heated even more by the sun after the thermostat stopped. My problem is that a heat pump can only heat water but a bigger PV system can heat water and power the rest of the house.

I use 2 RCD's. One after the inverter going to the circuits and the other one is directly on the non critical circuit. What type of RCD's do you use? I use "CBI QA17A63BP Overload With Earth Leakage". Not all RCD's are created equal.

5 panels in series. At what is the panels Voc per panel and I max? What length and size is your pv cable? Do you have access to a multimeter to test the pv V? What is the max pv input V of your inverter?

A Picollo kettle is a 900ml 1300W which can work if used sensibly. Do you get a loose standing setup which still have a working earthleakage unit in?

What about a cheap 1A trickle charger running of the mains? If the leads are too short you can extend them and cable tie the charger against a column or something. We use 12v isolator switches on our machines to lock them out. The advertised rating is 125A instantaneous but it has been working for a couple of years breaking the negative wire just after the battery connection. Www.colehersee.com E2484 bought from Midas I think.

I played a bit with a 2kva fivestart inverter trolley. That fans sounds worse than a jumping castle. You have 2 fans running in push pull configuration, which feels totally overkill. I disconnected 1 fan but the unit needs the fan turning feedback to stay on. If I can find a way to bypass the fan failure trip it would be much more quiet. I'm contemplating to mount the second fan somewhere inside the eclosure just to circulate. I'm going to run a bridge piece from the running fan's puls wire to the non running fan's pin. If it work you can put a thermal switch on the heatsink, which can switch on and off as the temperature varies.

Thanks for the reply, but I ment is that holder rated for 230v ? The live parts has got a tendency to hang out when you open the holder.

Are these holders 230v rated? You might get a shocking experience.

The EL is not there to protect any equipment. It is only there to protect the human user. The breakers are there to protect the cabling in your system. If you have 2 EL's in series you are prone to nuisance trips. 1 EL on the non essential system and 1 EL after your inverter. That is how I was taught. The E neutral bond is only there because if you switch off the mains there is no bond at the main transformer in the street.

Nb please be careful of starting a refrigiration compressor when it is still under pressure. If a compressor was running and is switched off and on in a short time, it tries to start against back pressure and the compressor can be damaged. To stagger the restart I'll suggest you get a couple of different Refrigiration Surge protector plugs. They have a restary time delay of between 2 to 5min . I know the Clearline have a 5 min, my Ellies one has 2 minutes and the Safy Volt I supplied to a friend was 3 minutes. Your fridge will love you for using this device. LoL If you can go to a supplier and ask them to test different models to see what delay they have because sometimes different units of the same supplier have n little different time delays. First test 1 and see if it is fast enough to catch your power dip or surge.