PaulinNorthcliff

Hi Jacques, I have an almost identical problem. two US3000s that stopped working (I suspect a power surge via the earth). I'd be interested in having then repaired. Haven't been able to find a repairer yet.

Thanks, guys. I came right with Live-stainable in Pretoria.

Thanks Jason, have asked Philip to invoice me. Will pay first thing as soon as I receive the invoice and will collect in person from Segen thereafter. Oh, wait... did I get that wrong? Oops. Trust you are well?

AKA Newsphere Solar...

How about The Power Store? Anyone had any dealings with them?

Yeah... all the warning signs are there. Let me EFT them R15K... NOT!

Nothing? You guys have nothing?

Anything on

Interesting. So the Turkish Lira is about 2:1 to the ZAR... So about R360 per pack... Maybe worth taking the risk...

I officially give up. My situation has gone from bad to worse. Who, in Johannesburg, can I call in to assist?

I really wouldn't hesitate to pay someone to come sort this out for me on-site. I see there is a 'new' inverter repair place on Bram Fischer across the road (almost) from Franks Burgers. For now I seem to have 'rehabilitated' my bank of 4 3.5kw batteries, but I'm still struggling with the bank of 2 2.4kw batteries. I am completely in the dark re cell voltages.

I dabbled in the balancing act this weekend, got cocky, and managed to shut down most of my second (good) bank of batteries until 18h00 last evening. Made it through the night on a small supplementary genny (emulating two fully charged batteries via a pair of 52V power supplies). Let's see what today brings.

Thanks. I'll be trying to balance tomorrow. I have two battery banks (4x3.5 US3000 + 4x2.4 US2000). According to the Youtube vids I should be OK by balancing each bank whilst disconnected from the inverter and with the Can Bus cables disconnected. I'll give it a bash and see what happens.

My batteries are easily 5 years old. SOH sitting at 90%. How do I balance the batteries. The Deye inverter does all the charging so I have no real idea beyond 100% at 53.2V.

Hi guys, So my older Pylontech 2.4s (3 out of the 4) and one of my newer 3.5s are starting to have issues. They charge up to 100%, but then once the start discharging they fall off a cliff. What to do?

No. Not acceptable IMHO. But... you are West facing so you lose out from 06h00 to about 10h00, maybe 11h00. How are you measuring delivered output? Single MPPT or double? Your inverter may require higher DC voltage. You may need to add more panels to get to 380V or so to unlock the output.

Yeah, I hate struggling... I've now tried for about an hour... without success. Thanks to all who responded. Seems my Sonoff just won't play ball. It returns to the box...

Ed Zachery. I have the Deye 8kw. The big DC rotary switch disconnects ALL of the strings. I have 4 strings of panels... each has separate surge protection on positive and on negative, then each has a breaker, then each has a DC fuse, before the inverter and the big rotary switch. This way I can isolate each string.

Probably true. I understand the concept and the DC vs AC spark. Frankly, at the price differential, it still pays. Or, am I wrong?

Indeed.

Oh, and DC breakers are unobtanium at this time of the year.

Hi all, Years ago when building a solar system I balked at paying for DC circuit breakers to switch out strings of panels. I installed AC circuit breakers just before the DC fuses and after the surge arrestors (so a pretty well-controlled system in general). At the time DC circuit breakers for 400VDC (double DIN units) were about R500 each. I reckoned that even though DC arcing would ruin the switches with multiple on-off repetitions, these would suffice in a situation when I would very infrequently need to switch a string on or off. In the last week I had a string play up so tried to 'hard reboot' several times. The smoke escaped... and left the string offline. I again went looking (kak timing) for DC CBs only to find they are still exorbitantly expensive. I have dropped in a cheap R75.00 AC CB as I contemplate the cost/benefit of DC CBs. All the literature rages against using AC where DC switches should go, but if the smoke escaping after 3 years is the worst that can happen, where's the harm?

Hi guys, hope you can help. I bought a Sonoff Basic for the sole purpose of controlling a dehumidifier inside a closed off room. I can't seem to get the damn thing to communicate via WiFi. Chucked it in a box and forgot about it. What could be wrong?

You really don't understand how this all works, do you? The Shitty Council is about making money to pay their salaries, not about serving the citizens. BTW, I have two old rotary meters... they DO run backwards... but haven't run backwards or forwards for 4 or 5 years.

Lightning strike?