Toxxyc

Yeah overall it doesn't really change anything, except now it feels to me like something is wrong in the system. I have this constant worry that something is amiss, even when everything now works perfectly fine. Voltage mode works. System was optimised as bit more as well, and now the batteries also charge a lot faster. Dunno why, but they set the batteries to only charge at something like 680W max per battery, so it took the whole day to charge. Turns out they can charge a lot faster than that, and can now go from almost dead to full in like 4 hours, which is epic and opens up my mornings a lot more.

So after a lot of tweaking and testing, the problem can't be identified. The installer was here, they tested all the batteries, removing them one by one from the system, and the problem remains. As a solution, the system was set to lead acid on the batteries, the parameters set properly, and now the problem seems to be gone. It's REALLY weird.

I've spoken to the installer, and his managing guy says there might be a faulty BMS. It's very weird. For example, yesterday during the day, when batteries are charging, two will flash 60% to 80% SOC (the 4th LED flashing green), while the other two will flash 40% to 60% SOC (the 3rd LED flashing green), with the inverter reporting 71% SOC. So I prioritized battery SOC yesterday (usually balance it with running devices in the house like geyser and ACs and dishwasher and so on), so that I could get maximum charge earliest in the day. Around 14:30 I hit 100% SOC as reported on the inverter (while using power for the other stuff as needed), so I started switching off batteries in the line. However, they all reported 99%~100% SOC. So I figured "finally they're all full together" and continued as normal. During the night we ran the AC in the bedroom for 30 minutes at a time just to raise the room temp a bit, as we usually do, and we woke up to again 54% SOC on the batteries (as reported on inverter). So at 06:00 I switched on the AC again. I ran the AC until just before 07:00, when I switched it off. At that time, the battery SOC was reported at 42%. The second I switched the AC off, the SOC tanked to 20%. It wasn't gradual, it was instant, as can be seen on the graph as well (graph's time is an hour early, ignore that): So it looks like at least one of the batteries have got a faulty BMS. The problem is getting worse, so it also makes sense. It could be that at 42%, two of the batteries switched off, resulting in the remaining SOC halving to 20%. That's my best guess at this stage. I'm in talks with my installer to see how we can get this sorted. I have a genny, but can't run it 24/7, so this needs to be sorted ASAP.

Yeah I'm easily generating 40kWh+ per day in the bushveld. It's just getting everything else in the house running with the batteries charging to full that's also a challenge, but I think today I should manage. I'll get them all charged until the system reads 100%, and then start switching off and letting the lower batteries charge to full as well.

I don't have grid. I'm completely off-grid. On a related note, I noticed today the batteries aren't charging at the same SOC. It looks like some of the batteries are charging between 60 and 80% (the 4th light is flashing out of 5), and some of the batteries are charging between 40 and 60% (the third light is flashing out of 5). So I am guessing some batteries never reach their proper SOC, which could be why the low voltage is an issue in the mornings, no?

This makes sense, as mine trips every time I switch on a high current device, like the kettle or the air fryer. Only happens in the mornings, once sun is shining it's not a problem. Can you perhaps share the settings you changed? I just want to contact my installer and have something to point him into the right direction. In my case it definitely looks like it's the batteries shutting down, and not the inverter. The inverter still reads "on", with the house just drawing 0W, so it looks like the batteries are shutting down. My problem is getting worse, though. At the start I could run the coffee machine and the kettle comfortably when I wake up. Now I need to carefully choose what I can switch on, and it's annoying as hell. EDIT: Sometimes it even switches off without the F56 error showing up on the inverter. It trips exactly like usual, and then switches on again exactly as usual, but there's no error on the error logger when I check.

I have the same issue. It wasn't an issue before, but now it chooses to rear it's head. Early mornings when I use a little bit of heating power (like switching on the kettle or dishwasher), the inverter gives the F56 fault and shuts down before restarting. My installation is a Deye 8kW inverter, with 4 x Dyness 5.12kWh BX51100 batteries installed. The batteries have a recommended 0.5C discharge rate, with a 1C max, so to me, it should never happen. I charge them slowly (way slower than their max charge rates), so that should also not be a problem. I'm off-grid, so it's not a grid problem either. To me, 0.5C on 4 x 5.12kWh batteries means I should be able to pull 10kW from the batteries in total, easily, but they're tripping when I get close to 3kW. It also doesn't happen all the time, only from time to time. I have a warranty on these things (they're not even 4 months old yet), but I need to troubleshoot myself before I get the installer out.

Saturday was a hot, sunny day, and we had a kid's party. That involved people camping on the grounds in a caravan with an AC, as well as a jumping castle thing. Because a lot of power was drawn the whole day, we actually produced more than 50kW during the day from the panels. Incredible!

As an update, today is Day 34 off grid. So far I've had blasting sunny days, and days with so much cloud cover it's hard to get the batteries to 100%. So far I've generated 1.06MWh, and I've had to use the generator only once. Only once because I chose to run it when cloud cover was thick, so I can get batteries a bit fuller before bedtime. I could have skipped it, but I figured the generator needs to run anyway, and "today's as good a day as any", so went with it. So far, I'm not sorry for a second. It's worth every single cent.

In the end I went with Jayceek Electrical: https://electrician.org.za/electricians/gauteng/pretoria/ess-jayceek-electrical-contractor-and-maintence-pty-ltd/

As is our usual habit, we use hot water once a day - at night, before bedtime. As such, I don't want a heat pump and all that, specially since gas geysers are coming down in price DRASTICALLY. This would be for when people come visit, or the once in a blue moon when we need hot water in the morning. That's it. On the flipside, it's rainy today (totally cloudy), but batts got to 100% no problem. Geyser is hot and water tanks are full. House now pulls 923W now on idle, with my PC running (working), as well as the big 24,000BTU air conditioner set to 21C in the living room. Inverter ACs are amazing.

I think I bumped it up to 30A charging. The batteries allow up to 75A charging, but recommend no more than 50A, so I think 30A is a good middle ground.

OK, so it's been a while, but we are off the grid since Friday late morning. I did end up going with: 8kW Deye inverter 4 x 5.12kW Dyness batteries 18 x JA Solar 545W Bifacial panels Install was done in a bit more than a day, setup took a few hours and then it was running smoothly. Eskom is switched off at the transformer, so that's all done as well. Absolutely no complaints, but I do have a few ideas. First, I'll need to address the water heating. We kept the electric geyser as-is with its 3kW element and it's fine. Switch it on at 08:00 in the morning, when there's enough sun to heat the water and charge the batteries, and run the house altogether, without a problem. The cloudy weather has been harder to manage, but we still easily get to 100% late morning with the water hot, house doing its things (coffee machine, kettle, etc. all running as well), as well as running the new ACs from time to time as needed. So that's not a problem. Problem is when we have a house full of people, and it's dark, and now the geyser is empty and cold. I need to get a small gas geyser installed just for the showers, because that's all we need. Hot showers at night, or early morning, is the only thing I can think of now that's actually required. It's not a NOW NOW thing though, it'll come in time. The second question I have is around the battery charging. To save the batteries, I have the inverter set to charge the batteries at around 20A each. It's just under half of what they can handle, and it works perfectly fine. What's odd is that the inverter charges the last 10% of the batteries at half power. I can immediately see the charge power drop from around 2.4kW down to around 1.1kW when the batteries hit 90%. Is that normal? I'd prefer if it charges a bit faster, specially the last bit, so I can use as much sunlight as I can, as soon as possible. I guess it's not a huge deal, but I just want to check if that's normal?

Yeah I've thought about it, but I'm not in the mood for that right now. The cost is a bit more, but yeah I would prefer the all together setup instead.

OK, latest update, my system was changed to the same inverter, 18 x 555W JA panels and 4 x Dyness batteries, for just under R169k. The problem now is getting the property on our names. In very short, the property was never changed to a smallholding when the original farm was subdivided. It's still registered as a farm, and farms can, by law, not be registered in two people's names. So this was a huge fight because the place is under 5Ha and in a municipal zone (so taxed at municipal rates). So registration hasn't even started. Friday we got news that this farm is exempt from that law though because it is under 5Ha and in a municipal zone, so we're hoping they'll hand in soon.

A lot, yes, but in short, we're not there yet. I created another thread on the topic (outside of the Welcome section) and I'll post there in a bit.

Most recent quote I got seems to be inclusive of 4 batteries, so I shouldn't have issues in the near future. The money I'm saving is being kept in an account should one inverter fail - I can get a replacement or loan unit in ASAP. Anyway, I'm now looking at an 8kW Deye, 4 x 5.12kW Shoto batteries and 18 x JA Solar 550W panels. Should be good enough to keep me from using the generator too much, and should also allow me plenty of backup overnight. We don't use high-drain devices overnight, so no geyser or oven or electric heaters and stuff, so we should be fine.

I'm planning on using "brand" batteries like Deye or Dyness, so if I just buy the same batteries down the line, should be good, right?

So my requirements are to have a robust thing installed, but it also needs to be monitored remotely. I know Deye and Sunsynk. Victron I'm slightly familiar with but they're still a bit more expensive. And yes, it's going to be fully off-grid, no Eskom at all. I have no idea how reliable those other inverter brands are. I saw the Kodak things (and some other names like Must and whatnot), but I am clueless?

And then, how easy is it to add a battery to a setup? Say I buy a 10kW combo, like inverter, 2 x batteries and panels, how easy is it to add a third battery? I guess you mount it and then connect the cables, but is it really as simple as that?

I believe it's time to stop discussing on my intro thread, and this would be more appropriate. Some backstory: I bought a smallholding, paperwork is being finalized this week and hopefully before the 1st of December the place will be mine. The first step to really realizing my dream to homesteading would be to take the place off Eskom power. Right now it's on Landrate 1, and the tenants renting there are paying around R7k per month toward their Eskom bill. They user around 1,000kWh per month, which is more than we use now, so we won't have that high of a bill on our side, but it's still way too much. I simply can't have that, and it's not going to be decreasing anytime soon, so I'll be doing it independently from the start. As a result, I've secured financing for a solar system and the quote that I supplied to the bank amounted to R199,219. This is for an 8kW Deye inverter, 4 x 5.12kWh Dyness batteries and 22 x 540W Canadian Solar panels. It includes installation, CoC, all accessories and cables, as well as a connection point for a generator that I have already purchased. The generator isn't massive, and it won't charge the batteries and all that, but if I need to run the house off it for a few hours, I can, and that's good enough for me. My biggest requirement is that I need a 10 year warranty on the inverter and the batteries. That limits my options, because if I want that with Sunsynk, I need to install a Sunsynk inverter with Sunsynk batteries. Sunsynk batteries are overpriced. The other option is Deye inverter, because their warranty applies if it's Deye, Dyness, Shoto, Volta or another battery brand whose name I can't remember, and with those, prices are much better for the same sized batteries. So the price I have is good, but with the current specials floating around, I'm looking to save a few bucks. I got a price from a well-known place, and the package seems good. It's a 16kW inverter, with 2 x 5kW batteries and 16 panels, including installation, for R177k. I'm not sure if it's worth the lower price, but yeah, I'm a bit lost here, and that's why I need some help. I want to know if I can get 15kWh's batteries now, and later on add more. I also want to know if you can mix and match battery brands, and capacity. So if I get a 15kW battery now (a single unit), can I add 3 x 5kWh batteries later if need be? The system needs to be scalable, but I also don't want to sit with 10 x 2kW batteries down the line, if you catch my drift. It needs to look good as well. My other option is to build my own system and get someone to install it, but people seem hesitant to do that. I guess they know they can't mark up the hardware and therefore they lose out on revenue, so I understand that as well. In short, I need advice. I need AT LEAST 15kWh storage, AT LEAST 8kW generation capacity on the panels (so 16 x 500W panels, if that makes sense?), and around 8kW in terms of the inverter power, all with at least 10 years warranty on the inverter/batteries. I've been looking for specials but there are a ton of guys out there all with generic sites and stuff, and I'm really wary of getting scammed. So, help?

Was just wondering. Would be cool to heat your water and cool your house at the same time

Thanks @bobster. that's some good news. I don't mind neighbors, the closest house is more than 250m away, so noise is not a concern. I can plan the installation space fairly well. The geyser is currently situated on the ground outside (not sure why it's there) but I can install the heat pump close to it with little loss between the pump and the geyser. We also only heat water for washing ourselves, and occasionally for running hot water in the kitchen (close to the geyser anyway). I'm considering the heatpump because mostly it pulls around 850W, let's say 1kW, but heats around 3.6kW's energy into the water. I do have a question though - the cool air from the heatpump, where does that go to? Can it be directed into the house, by any chance?

OK so a lot of water has run into the sea in the past few weeks. I've gotten quotes upon quotes and finally got bank approval on a loan for both the property and a solar system. The solar system's allowed price is, for all intents and purposes, R200,000. That would include a generator connection, but not the generator, I have that already. It it strong enough to produce twice my load easily, and around 3-4 times the load of my entire house when it's idling. In other words, if I'm not running high current appliances like the stove or geyser, the generator can run my entire house's usage 3 to 4 times over, maybe even more, with regular use (water pumps, lights, fans, computer and internet access, TVs, etc). What I planned on getting is the following: 1 x 8kW inverter. Right now Deye looks to be the most promising, although Sunsynk seems to be a bit cheaper for some reason on my quotes. I prefer the Deye software though, and Sunsynk's app looks like it's offline a lot these days. 4 x 5.12kWh batteries. I planned on Deyness for the 10 year warranty, but I can get 2 x 10kWh from Sunsynk with the inverter for the same warranty as well. I was quite set on this, but now I'm considering actually reducing this to 3 x 5.12kWh batteries and using the R18k from the battery to purchase and install a heatpump for hot water instead of just brute forcing the water heating through the geyser. To me, this makes a lot of sense as I can get a 3.6kW heatpump with installation for that price, and it uses around 860W nominal, or around 1.1kW peak. That's power I can easily run off the generator or even sacrifice 3kWh on the batteries for, if need be, to get a full geyser boiling hot. The heatpump also works at night, when there's no solar, and it works even in rain, cold, etc. I need advice here for this. 16 x 550W panels. Brand doesn't matter much, this seems to be a common factor in terms of pricing so I'm happy with this. I'm planning two strings, one facing East-North-East and one facing North-North-East, but this is debatable and optional and whatnot. I can tweak this, but I'm clueless as to how to plan for it.

Good morning everyone, This morning at around 05:20 wife and I were sitting in bed, enjoying the morning coffee, and the lights and fans went off. At first I thought the power was out again, but then the inverter should have kicked in. Anyway, I investigated, noticed the battery is flat and the inverter switched off. I did my dues, switched off everything and switched it back on one by one. Nothing. The inverter was quite warm to the touch which shouldn't be at this time of the morning (battery should be full, inverter only passing through Eskom). I left it all off for an hour, including the mains to the inverter (Eskom to Inverter breaker) and switched it back on. I tried switching on everything but nada. 5 minutes later the inverter is hot to the touch and the classic magic smoke smell is apparent. Inverter is fried. What would the problem be? It's installed indoors, so insects and so on isn't a problem, and they're supposed to be quite hardy inverters, no? The inverter is less than 3 years old, but obviously out of warranty. Could it be fixed, is it an expensive fix, what could be the issue, etc? I'm getting a temp installed this afternoon just so we can have lights and fans in the house again, but I'd like to have this one fixed if possible.