JTK

Was aware of this for LiPo. did not know it was for LiFe also? as in a Mobile you receive is half battery.. that is not a mistake. it actually gets charged to 50% before shipping..

May I ask why would you disconnect on float charge? 13.7v float on charger and bluenova says it wants 13.7v on float? seems match made in heaven. My limited knowledge cant find any issue other than desulf which I checked now. It pretty much skips. Does not spend any notable milliseconds on the desulf

I hooked it up... voltage on battery was 13.2v. Have voltmeter attached and voltage is steadily climbing... 13.5 now... Seems to be happy... edit.. sorry not 108ah 104 wh.. dunno how I typed so stupidly

So everywhere you read it says NO! but when I look at the charging cycle of the MXS5.0 then is seems (when using normal cycle) to be a perfect fit for the Blue Nova 12v. Blue Nova 108 ah 12v... edit.. sorry 104 wh.. so small alarm system type battery 'operating V: 11.6-14.4 BulkCharge: 14.4v FloatCharge 13.7 Ctek on picture: Now that seems to be a perfect fit other than the desulf which it goes past in less than a second... What am I missing? As long as you stay away from the recon program should be fine?

also same issue with my dad's setup. I moved the light circuit away from the earth leakage and the problem went away.. PS: my earth's were bound already. so was not earth related.

Generator is less important... Yes 10kva would be nice but remember the gennie is really only for emergencies when the sun does not shine and batteries are depleted. Power is less of an issue so even a 5kva would be more than fine imho.. Water warming etc will be more of a driving factor. Thus a solar geyser or gas setup is probably more important to get right

just remember an earth leakage is not checking leak to earth. it is checking discrepancy between live an neutral... So yes a two prong plug is still protected by your earth leakage breaker

same here.. Microwave is easily readable from most places due to open plan. added bonus is it goes peep when power is back.. None the less. The OP should just use a NO relay for this. easy as pie... And not dependent on www access etc.. He can even run those loads he does not want on during load shedding using the same relay setup

to classify the statement. in series means you are splitting 240v between two loads... they wont work. it means live goes into first AC and neutral of that AC goes into live of next AC and Neutral of second AC comes back to board. Parallel would mean that live and neutral from socket run to first ac and then both run from from first ac run to second ac... but yes. if they were in series it would probably be the issue

assume you mean in parallel...?

you may find it is the light circuit. Do you have that going through the EL? Light circuits apparently do not reside behind EL anymore as modern lights cause issues with the EL. Probably the most unsafe thing I can think of but I confirmed it with my electrician. Wired correctly. So perhaps check if the lights are wired through the EL on the inverter side. This caused issues at my dad's installation.

nope. 48v MP2's in parallel

I have a fairly good idea of my load profile. Perhaps it did not come across that way. I use around 14KWh excluding Geyser per day. There are 5 people in the house. 4 of whom does a morning and evening bath/shower... To cater for the evening bath another evac tube attached to another 150l geyser is likely to help.. But the morning bath is the problem, hence the gas proposal... As to the balance of the load. Happy that I can cater for it by perhaps just adding one battery to my bank... Would love to be able to sell back because then I can perhaps find a way to cater for Eskom warming the morning bath geyser by adding another bank of panels exclusively to push back into the grid to use the credit tomorrow morning. Geyser is on a timer using the Geyserwise and is turned on selectively only for 90mins before the first bath to get the temperature up to standard...

But we are digressing. The discussion isnt around Tshwane. Tshwane was just the cause of me deciding to try and go off grid completely... So please ignore the Tshwane part.. Could we center around my thinking and your inputs on that perhaps please?

They actually came and replaced all the meters in our estate (friday and today)... So I am not isolated. And yes my electricity bill is paid every month . Yes it is relatively low due to my creative way of managing my loads.

@iiznh: Tshwane in their communication said they are rolling out the smart prepaid meters to enable us to sell power back to Tshwane... Now it seems they will not allow this as no one at Tshwane knows anything about it.. That is really what irked me... Yeah I know I could not sell back. But they used this ruse as specific reason for forcing everyone to convert... Now I have to pay a middle man for electricity... This whiles Tshwane will likely not reduce their staff that handled the billing before the forced conversion, making the cost per unit more. Again I digress. Just so fed up with lack of proper service.

So Tshwane has started forced installation of prepaid meters, my house done today. Their argument is that it is required to be able to sell power back to Tshwane. When prodding them about me being able to sell excess power it appears that they cant do this "yet". Thus its unlikely to happen given their track record. I generally am a calm person but this is a "last straw" scenario with a situation where things are forced on the consumer with little to no truth in the reasoning provided behind the process. Anyways I digress... This last straw has cause me to start evaluating my options and planning my journey to completely "off grid". NOTES. I have an existing solar system. And off grid can only be for power and not for water as we are not allowed bore holes due to dolomite rich soil. Current Solar PV: 2 Victron Multiplus 3kva's in parallel 3 Pylon US3000's Victron 150/100 MPPT Venus 12 Canadian solar 330W panels facing around 350degrees (angle of the house) Current Water heating: 150l retrofit standard geyser conversion evacuated tube solar geyser Geyserwise to run it. Geyserwise on dedicated solar line with the Geyserwise driving a contactor for the geyser power input from eskom. Some notes: I cycle my batteries every night they drain down to 40-30%. Min set to 20%. I have a full gas stove. House is running exclusively on the PV solar with the geyser and three kitchen plugs on Eskom. Fridge Freezer Chest Freezer Tv/Hifi/Wifi Big old school (speedqueen type) washing machine Lights Ironing (in the day) Vacuuming Hairdryer (this one taxes the batteries in the morning but you have to keep the wife happy The kitchen plugs run on eskom: Kettle, MW, Toaster, Air-fryer, Tumble Dyer, Dishwasher. Tumble dryer only used when its raining and dishwasher hasnt been used for a very long time. Currently I consume around 13-15KWh PV per day. My PV reliably generate around 18-19KWh on my 12panel/150-100MPPT. My thoughts are as follow: That my battery bank is too small. I need another US3000 or need to get rid of them and get a freedom1 of around 15KW. Issue is that on days where the day starts overcast that I cant generate enough PV to get some juice back and carry the house. (battery R18K) My panel bank is too small. I dont have more space on the north side and am contemplating putting perhaps 6x 650w panels on the garage roof (Panels R25k). Would need to elevate them slightly. This will effectively double my PV potential. If Tshwane decide to buy my electricity then I can sell around 20KWh back to them every day by adding another MPPT. (MPPT 12K) I am moving two more plugs onto PV. I am putting the MW on PV. One seldom use the MV for more than 2mins to warm food maybe. 1kw for a few minutes is nada. I am putting the Air-Fryer on PV. 2KW for around 15mins is around 500Wh. This is a lot yes but I will need to manage it. Can perhaps plug it into eskom Kettle going on stove. Done Leaving Toaster, Dryer and Dishwasher on Eskom and will reduce usage to as little as possible. I will install a gas geyser in line with solar geyser and effectively use the Geyserwise to switch off any Eskom involvement unless urgently required. Problem I have is that my bathrooms are on opposite sides of the house. Plumbing 15m apart. Efficiency would be much better if I could install two. One on either side. Can one run a gas geyser in a roof void? (14k) I may add another 150l geyser to the mix to store solar heated water more efficiently. Effectively have two reservoirs I can use with a solenoid valve in place to use warm one. (R4k) labour for my account and probably plumbing and cables adding anothre (R10k) What are your guys thoughts? What would the right gas geyser be to go for? I am considering Paloma (I dont know what the max temperature water is that you can supply it with tought) or a Bosch Optiflow with Bluetooth (One that can handle being fed 60 degree water form the solar heated geyser - bosch specs says max 80degrees) What else a I missing? Yes above is not completely off grid but the first step. a 20kwh battery in the system with a generator as backup would probably put me there...

yes this is what I am saying. no the current wont be zero. remember the two panels in sun will have voltage drop and generate watts/current. dont warry about the panel in the shade. It will generate no watts but because thy are in series you will find the two others doing all the work

just make three strings of 2 panels each and go for it. one panel east one panel west on each string. parallel the strings on charger input. this is if pitch isnt too bad.. else one would need to rethink. but you can do three of those panels on a string. for that you would need to split 2 east and one west for each string

the big depend is what is the temperature when you run the invertor. worst case is as above. However most AC's will run and switch off then run and switch off. Time running depends on how much the temperature differential is between the temperature outside and the temperature you want the room at and also how big the room and the insulated properties. Given it is at night it is likely that your AC will run a 50% duty cycle (on /off 50/50). Then you likely find that it will run double the time. What you must consider though is that the question you are asking is more of a "how long is a piece of string" type of question as the above factors assume you are not using the invertor for anything other than the AC.. and also that its not a good idea to cycle your battery 100% depth of discharge...

Hi Guys. I am looking at getting myself some convection chimneys. Also want to add some. Ceiling insolation. Can you guys recommend and option for affordable ceiling insolation? Need to cover say 100m2 so cost is important. Also where can one find those convection chimneys at affordable prices?

3 Pylon US3000's Victron kit: MPPT 150/100, 2x Multiplus3KVA's, GX 12 330w panels in 4 strings Little more than 4 happy years: BMS says battery health 94%. Seems to remember it started at 98% not 100... So lets say 4% lost. Daily cycle for consumption during night. so that is roughly 1500 cycles down to say 20-40%. This is unless Eskom plays around.. then it goes much lower. And cycles perhaps more as well... Daily charge to full on Solar as first priority / Eskom second at around mid afternoon... -> Battery has never alarmed or bailed on me. Had the Multiplus' internal trip 3 times on Eskom power returning after power outage. Seems to be spikes. Noting else.. Just works...

100% normal. Issue is if you are drawing a lot of power from PV/inevrter and the power draw stops. lets say a geyser drawing 3kw and you turn it off.. Then it takes a short while for the inverter/mppt to ramp down the power output. This obviously is an issue as your load is perhaps 100w and your inverter is ramping down from 3kw. The small amount the inverter draws from grid is there to prevent a small return spike to the grid. Some electricity meters will error when you feed power back to the grid. This prevents this from happening. Anyways. that is hat I understand from Victron documentation

So I got an ES for my Dad's setup yesterday. very much a better product than the TL's. There is one setting missing though. You need a combo of SUB and SOL. SUB is great for daytime but if you want to cycle your batteries at night then you need the condition that says if either solar or grid is not available then use battery. SUB will only go to battery when both grid and pv are missing. Anyone that can get them to update their firmware? With this setting it will be as good as any of the others... honestly.. the only thing missing with these... ps: second Growatt I purchased past few months TL and ES... both BMS working as required with Pylons...

Also want to see. Perhaps i can ise my carlo eventually for what i want to