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PaulinNorthcliff

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Posts posted by PaulinNorthcliff

  1. 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.

  2. 17 hours ago, P1000 said:

    Well, if you have a fire at your home, and the insurance investigators figure it out, that DC breaker will look like a real bargain!

    On inverters with a DC breaker (like the popular SunSynk/Deye/GoodWe models), you only need to fuse the panels, the breaker on the inverter is sufficient if mounted at the correct height.

    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.

  3. 24 minutes ago, P1000 said:

    You will make fire every time you open the AC breaker under load, not just after 3 years. I think all the other times you were just lucky and the string was not under load.

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

    Or, am I wrong?

  4. 11 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

    I agree with the AC breakers, ideally you switch them off before power is being produced and there's no harm, if you need to switch with power being produced, shade one or two of the panels in the series string you're about to switch off and again, no major power should flow and no major smoke should be produced... but don't talk too loud, a few others on here will surely jump down your and my throat for suggesting such sacrilege...

     

    Indeed.

  5. 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?

  6. 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?

  7. On 2022/12/31 at 8:13 AM, Zapnologics said:

    Has no one in Joburg actually gotten this right?

    There must be 100s of thousands of private solar systems on houses throughout JHB,  how on earth can they not just allow us to push back, I am even happy to do it for free.

    The whole net zero rule makes absolutly no senes, that is why we have loadshedding.  

    Why would the city not just take cheap ( or free) power and sell it)."

    They could pass the rule tomororw, and in a week have 1000s of people pushing back,  at least we could be 1 stage of load shedding down midday, or in my mind each house could power a traffic lite.  I know its a drop in the ocean compared to what they actually need, But its quick and easy to enable.

    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.

  8. 30 minutes ago, Sc00bs said:

    @PaulinNorthcliff ROTFLMAO I agree 100%, have been thinking of new ways to use the extra power.

    Pity there is no way to generate Methane on a small scale as yet, maybe some SpaceX tech will filter down for household use

    Methane, huh?

    Well... I have found that Staffordshire terriers are amazingly efficient...

    Seriously, though, I am seriously considering creating a small pumped storage facility just to absorb extra power (keeping the panels cooler and hopefully preserving them).

    Before I cut the Shitty Power umbilical I was happily pumping power back into the grid. We estimate that for a number of years we supplied all the power for 3 or 4 of our neighbours (those old rotary meters are fantastic).

  9. 10 hours ago, Sc00bs said:

    2 x 8kw Inverters & more batteries would definitely help as my inverter runs quite hard during the day, my max daily production is 56kw but my batteries are usually fully charged by 13:00 so there is usually quite a bit of power available with no where to go. I decided to go with extra panels so as to get me fully charged on the marginal days. 

    Agree on this. I am over-panelled, but on a few consecutive overcast days it's still a close-run thing.

    At my office I have a standby 6.5kW silent diesel genny on the ATS output from the Deye, at home I have a 'spare' 4kW of panels on their own Kodak invertor which I switch in to help charge (I also have a standby genny, but it hasn't been used in a year).

    I am doing a major extension project at my office right now and will put up 4 more strings of panels and a second Deye 8kW (paralleled) when I have finished. Power is like beer or ammunition. You simply can never have too much.

  10. I have two totally off-grid installations (my home, and my office). I started with my home about 5 years ago (a Growatt with 2kW of Solar World panels), added a Goodwe and another 5.5kW of panels, and (eventually) 24kWh of Pylons. Last year I changed the Growatt and the Goodwe for a Deye 8kW. At my office I had 32 Canadian Solars feeding a pair of Kodaks (and briefly a Growatt) with 14kWh of Pylons. I changed the Growatt and the Kodaks to an 8kW Deye last year... and have NEVER had occasion to look back or wonder whether I did the right thing.

    Absolutely flawless operation on both properties for more than a year now.

    In retrospect I would never have been able to get both properties off-grid if I had gone the Victron route. As it is both properties are well into profit (original investment paid back long ago) now which has allowed me to invest freed-up cash in all sorts of new developments.

  11. 4 minutes ago, hoohloc said:

    Even with the spec posted, he might not have the right incline angle on his roof, or Shades, or no North facing roof etc, to be able to use the full potential of the panels. Over sizing helps, especially in winter or cloudy days. So I stand by my rough estimation above and I can guarantee you that he will make use of all the nine panels 😀

    As with beer... or ammunition... you simply can't ever have enough.

    I have a 'spare' two strings on a separate inverter (on a manual breaker) adding an additional 4Kw into my home system just for those inclement days. Consequently I have never needed to supplement with the standby generator.

  12. 1 hour ago, Sc00bs said:

    Hi Guys,

    I found the attached form online and was wondering if anyone has had any success selling their excess solar power back to CityPower? 

    Going to get it filled in and will see what happens.

     

    City-Power-Embedded-PV-Generation-Application-Form-V2 (1).pdf 385.36 kB · 4 downloads

    Good luck. A friend of mine took the trouble and it was a LOT of trouble. I don't think they actually pay you any money, they just give you credit on an electricity bill you may raise in the future... and at a WAY lower tariff than what they charge you for power.

  13. Of course. I had also often heard the 'equal length' statement, and had never really though about it.

    But if you look at a battery stack connected to an inverter, then the equal length proposition falls out straight away since the cables connecting the batteries in the stack are very short, and obviously, the cables connecting the stack to the inverter are a lot longer. If the equal length cable proposition held any water whatsoever, this would be a problem.

    Thanks for the sanity.

  14. 4 hours ago, Moose said:

    I installed Turner Morris 13kVa (0.8 power factor) run-silent petrol generator 18 months ago and finally made the "upgrade" to a SunSynk 8kVa inverter with a Freedom Won 10 battery and 12 x 450w panels to find out the generator will not work.

    The issue came in when I tried to plug the generator into the inverter which kept on tripping. The installer showed me that the generator was not pushing out 50Hz but seemed to be between 46Hz and 52Hz which was out of spec from what the inverter could accept. Long story short, my generator will NOT work and will need to be replaced.

    Now the big question - what to  replace it with? My requirements are summarised below:

    • Actual output needed is a minimum of 8.8Kva but could be a bit bigger
    • Petrol or Diesel but must be a "run quiet" version with a maximum of 80db as I live in a complex
    • Auto start not a requirement
    • Single Phase
    • It MUST push out a “clean” 50Hz so as I understand it, it needs to be an "inverter-generator" which is why my existing generator is not working.

    Can anyone recommend a good product with decent parts / backup / warranty etc. in Johannesburg?

    Bundu Power's 6Kw silent diesel works a treat. Has auto-start as well - a direct plug in. The petrol gennys will ALWAYS alter their frequency as the load changes.

    https://www.bundupower.co.za/gen-diesel-single.php?mod=BP6500S

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