Krokkedil

Hi there My raspberry Pi packed up and currently do not have Money to buy a new one.
Does someone maybe have one that he are willing to sponsor or let go for very cheap.
I am am in Brackenfell in cape town and will pay the courier cost. 
 

Hi there My raspberry Pi packed up and currently do not have Money to buy a new one.
Does someone maybe have one that he are willing to sponsor or let go for very cheap.
I am am in Brackenfell in cape town and will pay the courier cost. 
 

RGB, it will give you 600w more 
RGB is probably the worst thing to gave on an inverter because who wants a inverter that is looking like a disco in the middle of the night. 
 
I believe that an inverter should be silent and dark and do the job.
 

Good Morning. 
Thank you all for your insights.
The house we are buying also has a flatlet that is also running of the 8kw inverter.
I will remove the flat from the 8kw inverter and use the 5kw with the lithium batteries for the flat, swimming pool and and borehole pump. The flat will be used as an air B&B to bring in extra income. 
Other option is to use the 5kw to run the 2 geysers ?? 
The extra panels will still go to the sunsynk because this will help with the offset of the electricity that we use from EKSDOM
I was hoping for a quick and easy way but its seems not.
 

RGB, it will give you 600w more 
RGB is probably the worst thing to gave on an inverter because who wants a inverter that is looking like a disco in the middle of the night. 
 
I believe that an inverter should be silent and dark and do the job.
 

RGB, it will give you 600w more 
RGB is probably the worst thing to gave on an inverter because who wants a inverter that is looking like a disco in the middle of the night. 
 
I believe that an inverter should be silent and dark and do the job.
 

1. Are you planning to feed back into the grid? then yes Sunsynk
2.  if you do not plan to feed back the luxpower with its 2 MPPT units 
3. The pylontechs are good but there are batteries that work very well, i use the Lithium battery SA unit and it works very well 
4. like the people said do not use panels that can deliver 18A if your MPPT can use maximum 11 Amp.
Hope You have a marvelous time designing and building your system.
 

You are on the right track.
I have never seen my 5kw inverter at 5kw, I dont know why a person will have lets say the tumble dryer and a geyser on at the same time. 
I used to have a 3kva inverter and that was too small when the maid wanted to Iron
With the 5kw i had the tumble dryer on and she irons and i turned on the kettle and it maxed out at 4,7kw for the time while the kettle was boiling. then it shot down again and the iron turns on for small amounts of time less than one minute when it is hot.
The thing is we all look at worst case scenario and speck our system according to this but usually under normal conditions the inverter sits at idle at about 300-500w
 

My understanding is that these higher voltage SCC models have their maximum rated power at about 230 V panel voltage. So 4000 W / 230 V = 17.4 A; I'd say that these have the 18 A maximum panel current rating.
I used to think that the current rating was very strict for these solar charge controllers, having seen one arc internally and burn badly. But this was eventually traced to a bolt touching (or nearly touching) the metal case. But I would be quite reluctant to go beyond 18 A of short circuit current (at 25°C anyway).
So the panels you're considering are right on the edge; my guess is that they would be safe, but I can't guarantee it.
If you can get slightly smaller panels, I think I'd go for those.

1. Are you planning to feed back into the grid? then yes Sunsynk
2.  if you do not plan to feed back the luxpower with its 2 MPPT units 
3. The pylontechs are good but there are batteries that work very well, i use the Lithium battery SA unit and it works very well 
4. like the people said do not use panels that can deliver 18A if your MPPT can use maximum 11 Amp.
Hope You have a marvelous time designing and building your system.
 

Please read the post above, it tells exactly what the problem is. 
The Diodes are blocking any current flow in reverse that causes the trip. 
After some research, it was proven that some pannels might be causing this to happen because the of water ingress during rain. 

I have resolved this by installing 2 stud mount diodes of 25A in series with the string before the circuit breakers.
I hope this might help someone else.

Good morning. 
I have a 5kw Kodak inverter with 12 solar panels 6p2s. The 2 sets are on different parts of the roof. one set of 6 panels is north facing on a tiled roof, second set is west facing on a corrugated metal roof.
The reason for having 6 panels facing west is I stay in Cape Town and we have sun until very late in the summer.  During summer months we hardly use eskom power. 
Both sets have individual cables running into the house and have their own breakers on each cable. 
The set that is on the metallic roof trips the earth leakage when it rains or when we have a lot of moisture in the air. I checked and cant find any place where the wiring is damaged. The strangest thing is it only happens when the inverter has Switched the solar panels off and don't draw power from it at night or when it is heavily overcast. 
If I isolate that set by turning the breaker off then it does not happen. 
Yesterday I measured and I have about 400v between the panel wires and the earth while the system is running, my plan was to ground the negative of the solar panels but after measuring this voltage I think that will be a bad idea. 
Will it help if I install blocking diodes in line with the cables?? 
Will the gurus please help me with resolving this. there must be some kind of earth loop happening when the mppt switches off but I don't know how to fix this. 
 
 
 

Gas geysers can be gas hungry if not installed correctly. 
Install a Gas Geyser in Parallel with your existing geyser, install ball valves so that you can direct the water flow. Use the gas when there is not enough sun.
Run the electrical geyser on your inverter from 10Am to 3 PM. replace the element with a 2kw element. Use a geyserwize to control the temperature as well as the switch over to mains. Switch the geyser off from 8pm. if you need hot water after 8 boil the kettle. 
Teach you family to shower early in the afternoon and not in the morning.
 
As A joke Tell them each person gets 10minutes in the bathroom. if we could get ourselves wet soaped and rinsed in 2 minutes surely the ladies can learn how to shave without water HE HE. 
 

RGB, it will give you 600w more 
RGB is probably the worst thing to gave on an inverter because who wants a inverter that is looking like a disco in the middle of the night. 
 
I believe that an inverter should be silent and dark and do the job.
 

RGB, it will give you 600w more 
RGB is probably the worst thing to gave on an inverter because who wants a inverter that is looking like a disco in the middle of the night. 
 
I believe that an inverter should be silent and dark and do the job.
 

Hi there, I am using 2 diodes 1000v 25 amp the type you screw onto heatsinks or stud mount as they are called. 
My panels are 330w with around 9,5A open circuit amps 6 in series the 25A diodes should be big enough. 
They are placed in series with the panels before the circuit breakers. 

I have resolved this by installing 2 stud mount diodes of 25A in series with the string before the circuit breakers.
I hope this might help someone else.

I have resolved this by installing 2 stud mount diodes of 25A in series with the string before the circuit breakers.
I hope this might help someone else.

Good Morning and welcome to the forum.
The Deye inverters support 500v max per MPPT. To be save never exceed 450v per MPPT. 
I am not a guru but looking at your figures you should be fine 

Good morning.
1. what Equipment. Inverter DEYE 5kw x 2 Battery Lithium batteries SA 5,1kw X4 Solar panels as big as you can afford. 
2. Start off by purchasing 1 inverter and 1 battery total cost around R40k, Install this properly on your essentials,
3. Purchase enough panels to fill up one MPPT on the Deye. 3500watt
4. Purchase enough Panels to fill up the second MPPT on the Deye. 3500watt
5. Save and purchase your second Deye and second battery. 
6. follow steps 3 and 4
7. Purchase more batteries.
Switch eskom off. 
If you have a borehole get yourself a tank as well as a proper filter system and pressure pump and reduce your water usage as well.
 
 
 

Mecer does have a repair center in cape town buy unfortunately they will not do board repairs but replace the full board. This will cost you more than a new inverter. 
there is a company called setsolar that does repair, i have not tried them yet
 

Mecer does have a repair center in cape town buy unfortunately they will not do board repairs but replace the full board. This will cost you more than a new inverter. 
there is a company called setsolar that does repair, i have not tried them yet