Durran

My call will be a pure sine inverter of 500/1000W or 750/1500W brick type inverter. A bit higher capacity working at 50% power always better than voet in die hoek. Silver calcium SMF100 Ah battery. Intelligent pulse charger. Charger connected to grid socket to always charge when grid is restored. Voltmeter to guide her to switch off loads when the battery reaches 12V and not allow deep DISCHARGING. One can even add a cheap battery protector to take the place of a manual user intervention. 11pin change over relay to switch off the inverter when there is grid to prevent wasting stand by 24Ah battery drain per day when not needed. This allows the loads to be always on just like with a UPS. 
This all could fit within the budget. 

I am curious to see what is suggested, I have not seen a lower powered inverter which has a built in MPPT or PWM charger - so a separate one may be required if you want to add a panel to charge the battery.

Just an update guys, went through numerous installers and all were pathetic other than Gideon at solarpower.co.za I can recommend him and his company without a shadow of a doubt, amazing prices, quality workmanship and great service and supervision on site!

Lol, and that ain't the half of it. 
There are good instructions on getting it to work on @kellerza 's Github page 
https://github.com/kellerza/sunsynk

Sent you a pm but you can download the card by following the instructions below
 
 

Think I figured it out. Copied the Raw Config file.
EDIT: Open the file at the bottom with notepad or Text Editor. Copy and paste in Dashboard "Raw configuration editor"
You need to install the following custom cards:
card-mod
Flexible Horseshoe card
Layout card
Atomic Calendar Revive card
Mushroom card
Plotly Graph card
Sunsynk card (manual download from @slipx
 
Home Assistant Dashboard

Thank You @Bloubul7 for the great info on nodered.
I have the latest Sunsynk Data logger, but, the data is not very close to real-time so not really suitable to use for gauges (I love gauges).
NOTE: This is a work in progress
Here is my 1st attempt at getting Sunsynk data out to my thingsboard cloud server.
All data is also pushed to my local mqtt in case the cloud(internet) goes down or is not reachable (No data lost)
Here is the link to my Test Dashboard (work in progress)
Click To View Live Dashboard
Data points come in at 0.8 second intervals
That's about the fastest I could get data posted to the cloud.
Nodered flows is different to how @Bloubul7 did his, I have gone a much simpler route as I do not need HA
All the nodered experts are welcome to make suggestions to how I can improve mine (Optimise etc)
As for thise little rs485 to usb converter that are so glitchy, I have stopped using them (Unless someone knows of a converter that is super stable)
I have opted to rather use rs232 to usb converter, super stable and no more timeouts causing missing data points

 
 

flows.json

If you are dead set on having a temperature probe that sits in the water inside your geyser this is how I would do it. 
Check what geyser you have, hopefully or Kwikot or similar.
You will need to take all the water out of the geyser for this.
Go buy a spare flange for your geyser, the element fits into the flange, looks like this

Get a spare flange gasket as well, looks like this

They aren't expensive, +- R200 for flange & gasket  just make sure you check the number of holes it has as they vary from make - make. 
Find as small a fitting that you can fit the temp probe into and epoxy the temp probe into the 
Drill a hole through the flange and the either get a nut welded over the hole or a through hole fitting that will be waterproof that you can screw the probe into 
My only concern would be the lifespan of the item you put into the geyser, they have a tendancy to eat metal things 🙂 
A plumber would definitely be more qualified to suggest another way of doing it that will last, stainless fittings maybe?
 

Very Simple Python script to send loadshedding status to influxdb for use in grafana on raspberry pi
Tip: If not already installed add the nano editor to your system, its just easier to use
Now Create file called loadsheddingcheck.py
You can do this i your home directory or anywhere you like to load your scripts, just be sure to change/edit the cron according to your preference.
touch loadsheddingcheck.py Then
sudo nano loadsheddingcheck.py
Add (copy paste) the following code to the file and save (ctrl x y)
from urllib.request import urlopen import json from influxdb import InfluxDBClient import datetime url = "https://loadshedding.eskom.co.za/LoadShedding/GetStatus" response = urlopen(url) data_json = json.loads(response.read()) print(data_json) theLoadsheddingChecker = [{"measurement":"Loadshedding", "tags": { "Country": "South Africa", "Utility": "Eskom" }, "fields": { "Stage":data_json } } ] influxdbClient = InfluxDBClient( host = 'HOST', port = PORT, username = 'INFLUXUSERNAME', password = 'INFLUXPASSWORD', database = 'INFLUXDATABASENAME' ) influxdbClient.write_points(theLoadsheddingChecker) Then add a cron to run every 30 minutes to check loadshedding status (or whichever check interval you prefer
open cron editor (will ask which editor, use nano as its the easiest)
crontab -e Then add the following line to the bottom at the last open line and edit to suit your requirements (the example below is for every hour).
* */1 * * * /usr/bin/env python3 /home/pi/loadsheddingcheck.py > /home/pi/loadsheddingcheck.log 2>&1 ctrl x y to save
Now in grafana add a Stat card and edit the settings and add some value mappings to show the correct stages.

End result

Faced with the costs of "Wonder Gadgets" to heat water from excess solar availability, I have come up with a different way of doing it....
I have already had, for some time now, a raspberry pi hooked to my inverter monitoring and controlling various bits and bobs around the place...
One of my greatest frustrations is the "lost solar" power that is often available during the average day.... This hot water system but one small addition I have made to try and utilize this unused power.
I put in an order to a local (EL) company for a triple 220V geyser element. It wasn't as pricey as I expected. The 3 elements are 500W/750W/1000W respectively, all on a single screw in, standard fitting (with an extra long thermostat pocket as well, which reaches well beyond the ends of the elements.).
The long and the short of it is, using my pi/mqtt/fabricobbled system, I can get a pretty close estimate of what inverter/solar power is available beyond the immediate consumption at any given point in time...
Using a small "Sonoff" wifi switch, hot wired to a quad 10A relay board, a bit of Node-Red and some head scratching,  the net result is, well fantastic!
If there's 500W excess available, turn on the 500W element... Same for 750/1kw.... Need more? Turn them on in combination, to step in 8 steps, 0W to 2.25Kw  as needed... The extra deep pocket for the thermostat got a Sonoff with a DS18B20 temp sensor to feed info back into the mqtt as well.... (Yep, you can series the elements as well with a bit more head scratching to lower the wattages still further, but lower than 500W is a waste of time as I have found out...)
Safety? Sure... Using the existing Thermostat pocket in the geyser, there's a good old fashioned clicky-clicky rod slotted in... Hooked up to the common neutral of the 3 elements... If he's unhappily hot, everybody shuts down...
And... It works... Well!
Total cost of the additional bits was less than ZAR1K, its been running for about 6 months now and barring some really crappy weather, the household of 4 has used very little gas in the geyser system over the period...
Cheerz...
E
 
 

My latest Dashboard

 
 
 
 

Or a sonoff with temperature probe

Latest Data Panel with newly added sensor data.
Now includes full weather data, both local and city wide.
Environment sensors now fully functional on version RC1.019
Next on the list is to migrate the eskom and solar sensors onto the new data panel.
 

It all depends on what you want to achieve. 
Light switches - No need to flash with Tasmota.  Can integrate directly with HA.  For those places where you can't get a neutral to light switch you can have a look at the Eachen switches as well, they use the same Ewelink platform Normal On/ Off control of devices - No need to flash. Integrates directly with HA Complicated load control - For example controlling Geysers.  Suggest to flash with Tasmota. The advantage of the Tasmota is the ability to set up "Rules" on the device itself which are stored in the ROM.  This provides additional backup should your HA fail for some odd reason or the unit looses it's WiFi connection.  For example, I have the following rules running on the TH16's controlling my geysers
Switch off when the temperature exceeds 65C.  Home assistant is set up to heat the Geysers to 60C, if HA fails to switch off the unit at 60 then I know the unit will switch off itself at 65 Keep the unit switched off when the temperature drops below 5C.  This is just incase the unit looses connection to the temperature sensor Switch off when the MQTT connection to HA fails.  This prevents the Geyser from heating if the Wifi connection drops or my HA fails. Some examples of items which I have currently automated/ controlling through HA
27 light switches.  Majority of them runs on Sonoff switches, the down stairs switches runs on Eachen as it is a hassle to get a neutral through the concrete slab. 2x Geysers.  Using Sonoff TH16 with DS18B20 temperature sensors, tasmota firmware and 40a relays 1x Pool Pump. Using Sonoff TH16.  Automated to run only when excess Solar generation is available. 1x Fountain pump.  Using Sonoff Basic, automated to run on a timer SunSynk Inverter.  Inverter values are communicated to HA via MQTT Wifi Mesh System.  Asus based Wifi Mesh, provides notifications when certain devices join/ drop off the network. 2x Home Theatre receivers.  The one receiver is automated to automatically turn on the projector, turn off the downlights and turn on the LED light strips when switched on.  Reverse when the receiver is turned off  1x Aircon.  Using Sensibo as gateway. Automated to operated at different modes based on the target temperature.  Will only turn on based on room temperature, time schedule and if we are at home Robotic Vacuum Cleaner.  Garden Sprinkler System.  Integrated with my Bhyve system.  Watering schedules based on weather forecast. Garage Doors. Using Sonoff SV flashed with Tasmota.  Can check if the doors are open or closed.  Can also open/ close via the app All of the above are nicely integrated with the mobile App.  I'm not using the HA cloud service, using port forwarding with integrated firewall in my router setup.
Some other nice features which you can build into the automations:
Limit/ reduce loads based on Load shedding status Check who is at home (based on wifi connections) Shopping List.  Useful to add notes of items to buy, I'm thinking of mounting an old tablet in the kitchen to easily add items as the need arise.

Had some time today to add the battery charge/discharge info.
Also moved things around a bit to make sense for me
See updated Grafana JSON and new Solar Sketch with added battery charge discharge code.

Power Monitor-1600266455741.json rev1_02_amps_volts_temp__hum_batdisscharge_charge.ino

Seeing as the 'smart' home bug has bitten me in a bad way, I've been working on integrating all the various bits of electronics in the house. One of the obvious things to get integrated is the power monitoring side and in my case, a Goodwe 5048ES inverter. I'm using Home Assistant as my automation system and there is integration for this available, but only to the SEMS portal. This won't do, as the SEMS portal isn't great, it sits in the cloud and it only updates every 5 minutes or so. 
Ideally you want to integrate directly to the inverter and get much more frequent updates, but I couldn't find anything that is integrated directly. Looking at the inverter there's a few RS485 ports available, so it might be possible to get some data off this. But it's also possible that these are only for battery integration or otherwise unused. So, I figured a more elegant way would be to try and talk to the inverter through the network seeing as it's sitting there already. Again, there's pretty much no information available on achieving this but I figured it was worth a try.
Running PV master on a mobile device and a packet sniffer running in the background, I managed to log some interesting data in order to allow me to talk to the inverter through it's network interface. I've made some progress, but this is very much a work in progress; decoding the data is a bit of a challenge but I think I'm about halfway identifying all the data. I'm posting this here as hopefully someone else has a bit more insight and can help filling in the missing blanks, or at the very least, it might help someone with a bit more smarts to crack it properly.
Basically, the communication between PV Master and the inverter is in the form of UDP packets with the inverter listening on port 8899. Because it's UDP, it's connectionless. There's no need to explicitly connect to the inverter (as would be the case for a TCP connection), it simply sits and listens for the relevant requests and then broadcasts back with the results. Nice and simple, although (because of the inherent handicap of the UDP protocol) there's no guarantee that there will be a response. In testing I've had responses from the inverter in most cases, but it did happen where the response went missing. So, you'll have to make sure your implementation is robust enough for this case and for ensuring that all the data packets do arrive and that they are complete. There is a checksum in the inverter's protocol in order to validate the data, but it's something to take note of.
There's a few requests you can send the inverter, and based on that the inverter can respond with things like it's model/serial, it's status or confirmations whens you change settings. For the most part I'm only interested in getting the inverter status. Interestingly, there's no authentication mechanism. You fire off the request, and the inverter will answer - provided your request makes sense.
I've attached a document outlining the information I was able to decode from the information request response from the inverter. Still a few blanks there but the results are encouraging. In order to get the response below, you need to issue the following bytes to inverter IP on port 8899: 0xaa, 0x55, 0xc0, 0x7f, 0x01, 0x06, 0x00, 0x02, 0x45. The 6th byte is the request type and the 9th byte is the checksum. For the purposes of this exercise I won't go to deep into the various requests you can send to the inverter. 

Just an update guys, went through numerous installers and all were pathetic other than Gideon at solarpower.co.za I can recommend him and his company without a shadow of a doubt, amazing prices, quality workmanship and great service and supervision on site!

What ever the market was. it drastically increased since Friday and stage 2...😬

Just an update guys, went through numerous installers and all were pathetic other than Gideon at solarpower.co.za I can recommend him and his company without a shadow of a doubt, amazing prices, quality workmanship and great service and supervision on site!

Pretty sure it's that Peter Salanje character. Stay far far away from him.

Hi guys, I have a 5KVA Axpert inverter and on average, once a week, my load goes over and above the recommended inverter threshold due to various reasons such as the wife and kids putting a toaster on with microwave and airdryer.  My installer mentioned that this should be avoided. My question is will this damage the inverter or does it just automatically switch to grid power?