shanghailoz

Looking for suggestions on someone to install a rainwater system in Deep South, Cape Town. I'm on a hill, top of the property is about 30m higher than the bottom. House 1 (lower house) I have a 2500L tank already fed from the roof. (Probably could do with another tank or a much larger one as it fills to overflowing when it rains!) Would like to feed the water into the toilet and use the rainwater for flushing, and for it to be fairly hands off. Any people you can recommend? House 2 (upper house, same plot; still being built) I have a small stream

Finally got around to installing more panels in my offgrid setup in Noordhoek. Originally I had 6 panels -> FM80 -> Dead Acid ->Victron 24v 3000va At some point earlier in the year, I finally got around to installing the 10KW LFP I had lying around since 2019. ...and Now, I finally got around to installing another 6 panels to make it 12 panels on the roof as of yesterday. Setup is fully offgrid. I've been offgrid here since I built the place on the plot, never ever had Eskom or CoCT 6 panels worked fine for me on my own, even in winter, but now the GF

That system is offline now, as I've moved most of my panels to another location. The house my 3 phase setup was installed in is rented out, and I didn't trust the tenants with not farking up the batteries. I'll move most of the equipment at some point to my new house once finished next year. My current setup is now mostly Victron based. 10KW LFP Renov Battery + 48v 3KW + 12 Panels + FM80 (soon to be replaced with a Victron 150/80 MPPT solely for the logging, as my accountant is updating his system) Growatt was excellent in terms of support, although I dealt directly with them in

Way to resurrect a necro thread @WeNotGood I bought a 10.2KW set of the Revov refurb batteries for 35k delivered vat incl. last year Installed and running with them. Fairly happy. I do about 30-40% discharge overnight currently. Rough back of envelope calc - 365 days x 10 years x 10 kw = 36500 KW @ R35000 = R0.96 /KWhr for product lifetime. Haven't found anything near that cost since. I just added more panels to my setup today. (finally got to 12 x 300W instead of 6 x 300W). Next up I'll be replacing my FM80 with a Victron and going almost entirely Blue.

Try not to hijack threads. Use a new thread for new unrelated questions. 365w panels probably circa 45v each? @ 8a? In series will likely be close to 45v x 4 = 180v @ 8a. / and 52v @ open load. or 208v max. (Values are my educated guesstimate, read your panel specs for actual values) Whats the voltage rating for the MCB? Personally I would go for something with a higher amp rating, as you'll probably want to add more panels in future. eg a cursory google shows 600v / 63A is around R450 or so. - https://www.enway.co.za/beny-pv-mcb Voltex or similar will

Have ordered the waveshare rs485 adaptor, will play when i get it in a few days. Ideally I can adapt your python script once I have an idea of what the modbus fields are likely to be for the various parameters.

Yes, I was pointing out the same thing That cable is out of stock, I did look already. I haven't bothered asking yet, given the few data points I don't think will be too hard to plumb the depths of the protocol!

I won't lie, I've been watching your post with interest already The "RCU" BMC doesn't push much data over to the Victron - looks like a bare minimum. i.e. Voltage, Amps / Watts / SoC. The PC based BMS software can drill down to battery state, and see other details. I'll need to organize a cable then do some digging to see whats available from the BMS itself. I don't have a copy of their data sheet, but worst case can sniff. I have a ton of RS232 -> USB but no 485's! here. I also don't have any tools this side - all my goodies are back in China, so will need to buy s

Updating this post, seeing as I'm using the batteries now in earnest. I just splurged for the Canbus over RS485<-> to a Ve.direct usb adaptor to connect up to my "Victron" VenusPi, which means that finally my Victron can talk to the batteries and know an accurate SoC (State of Charge). The adaptor came from Revov. Works, but it's a bit of a crappy design. Looking at it, I could probably have just knocked something up with an ESP32 and pumped data over wifi to the VenusPI. Not like I don't have the time at the moment during lockdown! Revov have told me that they're replacing

...you can live dangerously, as long as you know what you're doing

@plonkster There's also the GX needs to be powered separately from the system itself to think of, as it will restart the inverter, which will restart anything connected to it! Best to have an MK3 as you've noted.

Pretty straightforward. Just did a Multi this morning using an MK3 USB cable (which you don't have ). I see you have a GX. If you have a GX connected to it, check if you can update the firmware in the vrm site, may need to turn on bidirectional comms on first though, and need GX firmware > 2.51 Settings / VRM online portal / VRM two-way communication -> on. Then https://vrm.victronenergy.com and click your site, then Device List / Firmware Update. (assuming your GX has internet) Remember, backup settings first!

Got my unit flashed successfully this morning. Relatively painless, other than having to enter the serial (as i had to dig around for that). I can now flash from the pi or vrm portal in future, which is what I wanted support for. Had to use a MK3 usb cable + a usb-c -> usb adaptor + a windows vm. firmware v158 was too old for their current Mac software. VEFlash - Typo's in the flash software (have notified them again) Working flash - (again, inside a windows VM, as their mac software support is lacking) ---

I bought my 10KW for 30k last year (35k with shipping and taxes), so not in the realms of unfeasibility!

Thank you.