PaulinNorthcliff

They'll take a couple of weeks to get in synch with each other.

Guys... If you're sitting on the fence... JUMP! The very best way to learn is to just start.

Are they connected in series or in parallel?

I see the City of Joburg and all of it's 'services' (water, electricity, waste) now style themselves SOC (State Owned Company). What the hell? They are paid for and owned by the Ratepayers (you and me). They are not supposed to turn a profit. And yet they are run 'for profit'. They NEED to sell you electricity because they turn a large profit on it! They would rather see us sit in darkness than sacrifice a revenue stream.

Flying in the face of the national crisis which is the failing of the national electricity generation capacity, the refusal of national and local authorities to gratefully accept ANY extra watts flowing into the grid by over-producing domestic generation systems is illogical and counter-productive at best, and treasonous at worst.

Yep. About 5 or 6K a unit. At the end of the day still cheaper than blown inverters.

A neighbor tells me that he once had a chunk of concrete about the size of a 5l paint can lying in the bottom of his pool (with a corresponding hole about a meter below the normal, now drained, water level). It looked for all the world like a cannon had blown a hole in his pool, from inside the earth! Eventually they figured out that there was a major lightning strike on the Berario side of the koppie, and the current had travelled through the ground and decided to pick his steel reinforced concrete pool shell to reappear through. Bizarre. I had a tall silky oak in my driveway literally

I sit on a mound of dolorite with thick iron veins running through the rock. One of the highest points in Jhb with crisp, dry air. The lightning here is epic.

I'll try remember the name of the product again. My mind is a huge pile of unordered factoids. They occasionally pop up at the most inopportune moment. The way the product works (as I alluded to) is by monitoring the waveform of the incoming power and when it identifies a certain pattern of buildup it opens the circuit before the voltage surges. Malcolm at Segen told me about it.

Earlier this year I had a major lightning strike on the koppie across the road from my office. It hit me through the earth and blew EVERYTHING, Main DB, electric fence, cameras, pretty much anything plugged in... also my two (two month old) Kodak 4.6Kw direct inverters (through the connection to mains). Blew them internally beyond repair. Insurance (eventually and reluctantly) replaced everything. I had a long chat with the technical manager at Segen Solar and the only thing that can apparently arrest a lightning spike coming through the earth cable is a piece of equipment that can sense th

I'll see your 5-8Kw, and raise you... Currently I throw away 17-20Kw per day. But yesterday, in Joburg, I only just filled my batteries enough for the night. Lesson: Have more than more than enough! I'm going to connect up another 2Kw per hour array (array #5) right now. (Damn... this drug...)

Hi All, Who repairs Voltronic local to burg?

I have a Goodwe ES5048 running the batteries. It communicates with the batteries, but I believe that the Pylon Master battery (the 3000) runs the show. They discharge and charge all together. I started with two 2000s and then added another two 2000s (second hand/6 months old), then added a 3000 after about 3 or 4 months so I can't really judge how they perform. The Goodwe app tells me that the battery bank state of health is 98%.

Yep. Almost a year on and it's working just fine. Will add a second 3.5 shortly, but I've yet to discover that I run short during the night... if SWMBO can be convinced NOT to put on the dishwasher at 17h30 (2 and a half hour wash cycle).

Indeed. Now let's work our corner of the problem.