chrisc

Was given this by a friend who vacated his rental house in Dec 2025 as it was to be renovated by the owner
He ended up in a flat so could not use it and since passed away. I gave his widow R500 for it
I have no means of testing it, apart from connecting a 220 volt supply to see it comes on
Please collect in Cape Town southern suburbs.

Don't forget Infinity Group Companies in KZN
They have scammed numerous people
I had their website taken down and opened a case with the National Consumer Commission
The NCC found that the registered address of the company is false. There is a building at this address, but they have never occupied it. The building owner said that people had been coming to the address for 3 years looking for them
The CEO's name is Christopher Gold

In the greater Cape Town transmission system, individual blocks can be managed at a switching control station in Newlands. It even goes as far as individual sub-stations if necessary
On the wall, measuring 12m x 4m is a display of the area served by City of Cape Town as far as Gordon's Bay. Each sub-station is identifiable and the operator can see the local load
If for instance a sub-station in Fish Hoek fails or is undergoing maintenance, supply can be diverted (up to a point) from another area

The "power" column in the system work mode 1. This will set charging and discharging watts. i set mine to 1000w through the night to prevent draining the battery quickly by larger loads.

I looked in vain for reinforced boxes
What I did worked fine. The battery weighed 53kg and arrived in excellent condition. A few scuff marks
I got the polystyrene sheets from Styro in Epping. Very cheap. You can cut it with a box cutter

I bought a standard box from this shop, then inserted loose sheets the same size inside. All 6 sides
Then, packed the battery tightly with polystyrene foam sheets so it took up all space. Then strapped the carton with nylon straps

There is a shop in Main Road, Wynberg who have everything you need
The Boxman
The Boxman
Buy quality moving boxes & packaging supplies online. 50+ locations nationwide. Free delivery across South Africa. SA's trusted supplier for over 30 years!

To each his own, and I don't think there's a clear right or wrong here. But I think @chrisc can get very close to the desired performance by just copying these exact time and percentage settings for starters, and tweak from there as and when needed.
The charging power will be limited by the grid amps you set, so if you go for 100A it will be around 5kW charge rate.
I'd suggest ticking the box for "Load Priority," and then for days of low sun, set a 2-hour charge in the slot 3pm-5pm. Or even set it later like a 4pm-6pm slot in summer. Ideally let it be done before peak hour.

Here are my System Mode settings. Keep in mind that I am running virtually off-grid, just (manually) switching the grid circuit breaker to "on" on Sunday mornings, and again to "off" on the same Sunday afternoon. I do this to just keep the grid meter ticking over, without using much grid power. I will likely formally go off-grid after installing a third string of PV panels this winter.

From the above, you will note that the lowest SOC is set at 55% for the period between 01:00 and 08:00 when I want the battery to empty out some more to enable the system to store more solar power later in the day. You will also note the 95% SOC set for the period between 15:00 and 16:00, when I want to ensure the maximum battery storage capacity for use during the night and early mornings. When I was still hooked up to the grid I had the "Grid" tick box ticked next to the 55% SOC value to allow for grid charging should the battery capacity drop to below that figure. This is obviously not an option if there is no grid connected, but so far my battery does not fall below about 70% SOC over night, so there is actually a large safety (buffer) margin before reaching the 55% limit.
Many people might disagree with my philosophy, suggesting that one should drain the batteries to 20% SOC (or even lower...). My counter argument is that the batteries cost more than 50% of my total system cost, and I prefer to not do deep discharges in order to extend the useful life of the batteries as much as possible... My system, My money, My choice 😁

Details of Infinity Group

Infinity Group Companies
Registered number                        K2023952280         
Physical address                              INTERSECTION SPINE ROAD AND THE BOULEVARD
WESTWAY OFFICE PARK
WESTVILLE
KWA-ZULU NATAL
3610
Director details                                Michael Maritz 851008XXXX08X
SARS tax number                            9242793264
Telephone                                         072775 6825           (WhatsApp only)
Email                                                  [email protected]
Website                                             https://infinitygroupcompanies.co.za/
SAPS case number                         
 
 

There is a warning on Capitec Business Bank to the effect that customers have problems with this business

UPS mode has a shorter transfer time from mains loss to inverter power, used for sensitive electronic equipment.

Are there places in Cape Town who can check batteries for dud cells and replace them?
Have 4 batteries (SHOTO 5.1kWh) and battery two never reaches 100% SOC

A day of (at least) 75% sunshine sees 4 x 5100wH batteries fully charged by 15h00
Testing a scheme where the house runs from Solar and Battery only from 16h00 to 08h00.
I want to avoid running the batteries below 70% SOC

Today the plumber removed the evacuated tubes and the associated copper pipes
The kit was sold for R4000 and an extra panel, with cable, will cost under R3000

Today the plumber removed the evacuated tubes and the associated copper pipes
The kit was sold for R4000 and an extra panel, with cable, will cost under R3000

Yes
The 20 evacuated tubes were installed to replace a flat panel heater in 2015. A plumber nominated by ITS Solar fitted them
They never worked. Despite many requests, this plumber did not come and check and told me I was being paranoid
In full sun in summer, the water never went above 45 deg
Three other plumbers looked. One said I needed a pump and fitted one on the inlet pipe. No difference
A second said that was incorrect, the pump needs to be on the outlet. No difference
A third said I didn't need a pump since the geyser is in the upstairs roof, 3m above the panel. But he and several other plumbers who have looked have no idea what to do.
Having now spent R28k getting nowhere, I bought a Geyserwise ECO with PTC element, 2 x 500 watt PV panels, had them fitted to the roof and wired it myself. In summer, water easily gets to 75 deg
It would be nice to have the tubes working, especially in winter
I find the expertise of plumbers very limited

Its not a castle but a nicely designed house, built in 1948. The owner/builder was once the City Electrical Engineer and built 4 houses in Plumstead. We found all the plans rolled up in inside cupboard.
His widow died in 1983 and the house stood empty for 3 years, deteriorating quite badly. I had done a job for a conveyancer attorney and he told me about this house he was having trouble selling (and an auction fell through) and said it looked and was neglected and the 3 heirs who lived in Australia and who were apparently not on speaking terms were holding up finalisation of the estate. He showed me a file 2 feet high of correspondence. I took a builder friend around we spent a whole day going over it. He listed as essential: New roof complete, fix 32 broken windows, new carpets throughout, wall and gate all the way round. In those days , this work was just under R50 000. I told this attorney and he immediately told me to go ahead and he would settle all the bills and deduct the total from the asking price of the house, which was R100 000,00. I found out that these 3 siblings in Australia received R9000 each. The one son had a 110 000 acre sheep farm in Queensland, his own plane, the works
I had HP Plum fit a mazista slate roof. At the time. R32k. Today well over R1m
Getting back to the panels. At the moment
7 and 8 are used by a Geyserwise (G1 and G2)
However,. there are 2 more panels on the west wall which cannot be seen by Google's satellite. The rectangle labelled "2 more panels on brackets here" (see under)
If I number these 7 and 8 and leave out G1 and G2, then
1 & 2 in series
5 & 6 in series
These pairs in series with 3 & 4 (which are also in series) and attached to MPPT-1
7 & 8 & 9 & 10 are all in series and attached tp MPPT-2
There is no direct access between roof where 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7,8,9,10 are

Thanks for your input
My roof is a peculiar shape, as can be seen from this Google Earth image. Its actually 3 separate sections, the north and south roofs are separate from the middle section which is double-storey
You are correct about the north side. Its about 10 deg towards the east
The only possible space left for 2 more panels is the area marked "space". Very awkward to get to
The 2 panels on the south roof, facing west are used by the Geyserwise ECO water heater

Yes, I thought of that about 10 years ago when I fitted the first 2 panels. There was a 4 sqm panel water heater which got in the way
This morning:
Wired east and west in parallel
Wired this combo in series with two north panels which are wired in series
At the out cables, could measure 191 volts
Looking at the inverter, when the sun shines (which is 20 mins each hour) for the first time the batteries are receiving over 2100 watts
I think that's about the end of my tweaking for the time being. Moving about in the roof void is a bit dodgy

A complaint has been registered with
1 - National Consumer Union
2 - Sunday Times (Wendy Knowler)
3 - SARS fraud division
4 - My attorney has written to Axxess to request a take-down of the website

v




To get a picture of the west side (which is the same as east, I will have to climb a ladder as the boundary wall is too close

@chrisc looking into specs I see that Kodak has:
MPP Range @ Operating Voltage                                                           90 ~ 450 VDC
Maximum PV Array Open Circuit Voltage                                             500 VD
MPPT Maximum Input Current                                                                18 A x 2
That won't work really good with just 2 panels in series. You can try it, but it might behave strange, especially in the morning, where PV voltage is not high enough.
Speaking of optimizers:
There's a number of manufacturers, each one having their own rules, limits and design best practices. For example, standard SolarEdge optimizers are meant for SolarEdge inverters only. They will not work with Kodak inverter. Same are Huawei optimizers. Therefore, the first step is to find an optimizer model that works with any inverter. SolarEdge makes a couple of like models, but you have to ask for them specifically. On the other hand, all the optimizers made by TIGO are universal.
Most of the time, rules for universal optimizers in East-North-West cases are:
all panels on the string have to be connected in series
one optimizer per each panel
every panel in the E-N-W string must have an optimizer (contrary, in the string where all the panels are facing the same direction, but there's a partial shading, it's OK to put optimizers only for the shaded panels)
if you use universal optimizers, then you cannot connect multiple strings in parallel
For example, here's QuickStart Guide for Tigo TS4-A-O: https://cs.tigoenergy.com/documents/quick-start-guide-ts4-a-o-s-m-with-tap-and-cca
BTW: To be honest, I would re-evaluate options for adding more panels and face all of them north. Don't focus on the roof, maybe that you have a nice space for a ground-mount installations. Reason is, that optimizers will add cost and complexity, but it is still just a band-aid. If you solve the space problem, you can add more panels for the same amount of money and the benefit will be much more visible.

I have 6 on one string and 4 on another
The 6 are 3 x 2, facing east, north and west. Highest voltage I have seen is 228 volts
The 4 are 2 x 2 and can reach 185 volts. Both face west

Having had 10 panels working for a year...

From October to March, PV panels provide 50% to 200% more electricity than the load
From April to September, they provide less than 70% to 50% of the load
On cloudy days, solar input is 1/10th of that in full sun