Fazil

As you spoke ot so this it return lol
Im sending for repairs but was told R4k.
Ridiculous as mine is still 9months running

@Weasel explained the other day that there is an unmarked terminal that you simply need to earth, and the bond will be made.

Apparently the reason they do it that way, is for flexibility. It allows you to connect that to a local earth spike (if so required in your area), or leave it unconnected and instead bridge the neutrals (TN-C-S setups), or earth to the council earth.
I've never seen one of these machines in the flesh, so you may want to check yours to be sure.

All earths are always interconnected and should not be interrupted. The AC-in, out, etc will have their earths connected together. In other words, this is already connected to the earth provided by your supplier (for a TN-C-S connection, there will be an earth spike on your premises, and for a TN-S setup, the earth is at the transformer and you have a separate earth going back all the way to the transformer).
The advice I've been given is to earth everything to the same earth point. The earth provided by the supplier is usually of excellent quality and better than anything you can sink (unless you sink several spikes to get the resistance low enough), so in most cases, if it shows a low earth impedance, you can use it for everything.
I'm not an electrician though, so confirm with one 🙂
 

I have a SPF5000TL HVM-P model and suspect this is what everyone else is also running when they talk of the SPF5000's 

similar experience on some omnipower 240Ah I bought from them less than 2 years ago.
Batteries seldom cycle and discharge below 49V. When I reported the batteries are swollen prematurely, I was told I needed a bms and they don't have proof its the batteries.
So cut that loss and moved on. But I will personally never buy from them.

Just a warning to all of you out there wanting to buy LiFePO4 cells: DO NOT buy from Sinetech - they are selling 2nd life 85Ah cells as new cells. They are all under capacity and some have been discharged way below their safety level and are swollen and have been venting. STAY away from Sinetech - they are unhelpful and dishonest.

for R50k a backup system is your best investment.
add panels as some funds are prioritised and expand until offgrid.
but backup for no power situations is in my opinion best bang for buck.

sorry let me clarify
I have used both brands but NOT together.
I wouldn't try it as we are not  a research facility and don't believe in experimenting with client money.

sorry let me clarify
I have used both brands but NOT together.
I wouldn't try it as we are not  a research facility and don't believe in experimenting with client money.

After my installation I started playing with my new "TOY" but quickly realize that it's not going to perform to the levels I wanted to.
So like any software developer I started developing my own software. I wanted to achive the following goals:
- Generated max power, use the power as long as posisble, switch over to grid when needed
- Automaticlly change the power management for load-shedding 
- Protect my batteries against high power usage by switching over to grid when power usage exceed X for a few minutes and back when usage recovered
- Only switch to Solar when Batteries is over X voltage and Solar is over X Watt (provide to levels) 
- Switch over to Grid in the afternoon when Solar is under X level or Time. 
- Identify Low average power generation (Clouds, Rain) - For Load-Shedding
- Move from Solar Charge only to Solar/Grid when batteries are very low or for Load-shedding 
I also wanted the system to look "Cool" and I wanted to make it accesable from a browser. 
Bought a Raspberrypi and screen...
Here is the results...so much fun... still learning



 
 

You're probably looking at the battery discharge current, not the AC out line current. 50 V × 11 A = 550 W.

I am sure you just gave the Hilux guys an idea lol
But the Solar MD team seem to be doing some impressive stuff with the Axpert.

Never tried it.
We just set it as USE = 52V
Perhaps I must run it with L01 for a bit and see the effect.
Make sure the BMS is actually working.

Hi All,
I have two 7.4 kWh Solar MD lithium batteries installed with a 5kVa  Axpert MKS.  At the weekend the inverter is now known as Axpert Ai in my control panel.
Its was a bit eerie at first as the inverters settings have changed and it is making its own decisions and is dynamic. Its early days yet but the first tests seem to show an improvement in system efficiency.
I can chat online at any time to the Solar MD guys from the control panel and I will publish some results.
Well done Kayloyan and his team.

Oh, the diagnosis is pretty easy.  The key issue in that installation is the installer. 😅 

I am driving to MP tomorrow morning with the client to assess.
AS I said, I am not a Victron installer and perhaps will go for training sometime this year.
@Jaco de Jongh I will take as many pictures tomorrow and send to you as you requested. Goodwee was my recommendation because I am comfortable with it and I fear fiddling with Victron.

Absolutely correct. But again, you kinda sorta have to understand how these things fit together to understand when it can and cannot work.
You can always run a 48V inverter on a 48V battery. Even if the smart communications stuff isn't there. Worst case scenario... the BMS pulls the plug and you sit in the dark. Of course, the manufacturer might also not honour the warranty... but other than that... it will work fine.
I'm not convinced that the lack of a GX device was the only issue in that install. It looked horrible.

It really p*sses me off when installers don't go for training and/or don't do the homework, and then bad-mouths the product. Then they switch to another brand, get it right, and sing the praises of that other product (it was never the product you dimwit, it was you).
There has been a few cases of Revovs not working in Victron systems, because Revov is only now starting to (or so I hear) standardise on some kind of BMS. In the past it was hit and miss. I also heard they have a converter box that converts the BMS comms into VE.Direct, so you snap that into your color-control and it looks like a BMV. You get  accurate SOC, voltage, current and power values, and maybe a few alarms (I do not know). No charge and discharge current control of course. This is already a big step forward.
Besides, I have no idea how you expect to get it working correctly without a gx device (aka color-control). Yes, it can be done, but this is likely what tripped up the installer (as Fazil said) and the mere fact that he didn't know that proves my point re not having the required knowledge to install the product.

See my bus-bar solution, with BMV shunt and Fuses.  Uses a Gewiss box (GW44208) and a base-plate split into two sections.

I had the same problem. What I did is to close the gap between the roof and the panels with plastic fencing. It has been on the roof for about 2 years and I don't have any problems with pigeons under the panels anymore. 
 
 

I saw a product once called 'Flock Off'. No idea if it worked, but the name made me chuckle. 
You could try rubber snakes, and there are various ultrasonic things that help. Mirrors or CDs moving in the wind also apparently help.

PV production the last few days..

 
I have left 30% reserve for the batteries to cover loadshedding,  but have been setting ESS to keep batteries charged at certain points in time to ensure that if loadshedding is prolonged, I have a full battery to try and keep it going for as long as possible.
 
 

Hi guys,
Can anyone recommend a decent solar installer to help me sort out a solar installation in Johannesburg's northern suburbs? I need somebody reliable and with a good reputation. The system is still – theoretically – under warranty from the guys at Green-World Solar (https://www.green-world.co.za/home) but I just cannot get any joy out of them; it's like they dropped off the end of the planet. I get no responses to emails, no responses to SMSes, no responses to Whatsapp's, my calls aren't answered, et cetera. The system went down a month back and is still not operational. A diode blew on one of the Axpert inverters in early November;  a few weeks back they brought the inverter back in repaired form (by whom, I don't know). They took away one of the BMS' (Revov system - http://revov.co.za/) and I've never heard from them since. And as I say, it doesn't matter what I do, I can't get any comms out of them. No idea why or what's happened. 

take a print screen of the Mode and parameter settings. Infini are sensitive to settings so if your settings stop at 49.2V then it will do that, see it as full and show 0 charge current (full).

From what I read yesterday, the Sinopoly cells used by FreedomWon are in fact very good quality cells, except that they lost the right to the Winston formula when the companies split. Or something like that. So no Yttrium for them. I think the FreedomWon battery has the better BMS, but the BlueNova battery has the better cells. My opinion anyway. I like the white powder-coated package of the FreedomWon battery a LOT!