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Basil Katakuzinos

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Everything posted by Basil Katakuzinos

  1. Have an install with a Freedom won 10/8 , 5KW Victron MPII and about 6kwp of solar. Upgrading to a second Freedom won 10/8 and an additional 3kwp of solar soon. They are great batteries... but … money...
  2. Have a +- 1KW DAB Easybox diver, works fine on my MPII even when large loads are running also. I am not super educated in the realm of pumps but I would imagine a VSD would be better for solar/Offgrid because it is not drawing the full 1kw whenever it is running.
  3. Caught my inverter charging the battery at 10A while the fan is off, that can not be a good sign...
  4. Thanks @LLawrence. Inverter did not work off of their batteries at their factory either. Inverter main board has been replaced and it works fine now. Am busy arguing with Geewiz now about these inverters not being compatible with lithium.
  5. Apologies for the typos above, am on my phone.
  6. Gewizz is closed for the week as they are moving and I woukd have to ship it from Stellenbosch to Joburg. Was planning on taking it to Mustek in cape Town tomorrow but after hearing this I am going to test in on a car battery tomorrow ( for the benifit of knowledge on the forum) and then email gewizz and tell them I will be returning the kit next week with the expectation of reviving a compatable inverter or a full refund(belive this is realistic and within the bounds of the CPA? ) . Now question is who will be liable for the courier cost and how the hell do I safely wrap the entire kit so it gets there in one piece, I didn't keep the shipping pallet.
  7. Was purchased as a bundle, could you please indicate where Mecer states this incompatibility so I have a leg to stand on when I complain to Geewiz. https://www.geewiz.co.za/long-run-ups-inverter-battery/178181-1200va-mecer-inverter-100ah-lithium-battery-6-hour-battery-life-kit-720w-with-lithium-battery-3000-cycles.html
  8. Good day I have a Mecer 1200Va 700watt inverter trolley with a 100Ah Revov 1st life lithium battery. Bought from Geewiz I have cycled the battery no more than 5 times and never below 70% SOC (IE only 30% Depth of discharge) Voltage is at 13.7 Volts confirmed with a multimeter and the BMS app. Inverter charges the battery and is fine until the power is disconnected. When the power disconnects I can hear the relay thud and then immediately after the inverter displays the error screen and an audible beep is heard. I have disconnected all loads from the inverter, the same thing occurs. I have never drawn more than 400Watts from the inverter and my average load is about 150Watts. This all stated today after i left home for a week. When I left I switched the inverter off and unplugged it, battery was fully charged when I left and fully charged when I arrived a week later (today). Plugged everything back in and this is when the errors as stated above started, inverter is about a month old. Edit: This is at a different location to the below mentioned Victron system, which to this day has worked without a single issue. Charging at 10A
  9. Our down lights in the house where all those 12V DC Downlights with each 2 or 3 lights sharing a transformer. Lights used to flicker occasionally and the transformer buzzing was driving me mad, changed them to 230V GU10 Downlights and that solved my problems. Now our dimmers don't work but that is a project for another day.
  10. Hi guys, so heres my problem. We have a lift in our building and the main board tends to fail (often spectacularly) when the power is restored after load shedding. I could be wrong but I have a hunch this is due to power surges when the power is restored. I would like to know if their is a solution to this problem. I was thinking of a contactor connected to some sort of timer that waits 1-2 min after the power is restored before closing power to the lift circuit. Is their a product that does this or a simple configuration of components that can get this done. (The lift is 3 phase)
  11. Is your inverter protected by this earth leakage (eskom >>> earth leakage >>> inverter), if this is the case then this may be your problem. It is recommended to not have your inverter protected by earth leakage but to only have the loads protected. so your power should flow as follows eskom >>> main breaker >>> inverter >>> earth leakage a >>> essential loads eskom >>> main breaker >>> earth leakage b>>> non essential loads where earth leakage a and b are two separate breakers. PS. I have not included some protection devices (like MCB's) above as the above example is just to show where the earth leakage should be placed. PPS. My system has the solar earth and AC mains earth connected to the same grounding rod, though I do not have the experience to say with confidence that this is the correct and best practice method. Edit: On second thought, I feel confident enough to say that your inverter should not be fed from earth leakage, here is a quote from Victron Wiring unlimited "An RCD must be mounted before the loads in an electrical installation. In reality this means that the RCDs have to be mounted before the installation is split up into different groups. If an inverter or inverter/charger is used, the RCD should come after this, otherwise there will be no earth protection while the inverter is operational. Consumers that are only operational when connected to shore power will need their own RCD."
  12. I feel like this could possibly be a communication problem between the BMS and the inverter. Surely this is alphas problem to solve considdering they replaced the inverter.
  13. As the battery fills up, it will start accepting less charge current. I feel like this may be what you are noticing. IE when the battery is closer to 100% it can not charge as fast as it can at 80% You can monitor this on your remote consol under battery parameters, you will see the Charge Current Limit set by your battery. I would stronly suggest setting your batteries to optimised with battery life and setting the SOC limit lower than 100% as this will give your system a buffer to use and reduce your reliance on eskom. Even if it is just at 85%
  14. From my understanding you will have problems.
  15. Microinverters output AC Power onto an existing grid. Your UPS can not make use of that.
  16. CoCT has strict limits to inverter sizing. I believe the verdict was that the actual inverters rating (what it says on the label) can not be above the a prescribed limit of 13.5Kva. and feed in can also not exceed 3.5Kw. Therefore i do not believe your inverter of choice will be allowed. Coct does not care at all about your battery size or size of your solar array from my understanding. In more broad terms. The max inverter size can not exceed your breaker rating and maximum allowed feed in can not exceed 25% of your breaker rating.
  17. I am having a borehole installed to share with some neighbors. The installer has placed a pressure tank on the system that feeds water from the borehole to each house. When this water arrives at my property i will have a tank to store water and a filtration system. The installer insists that I do not need a pressure tank for the system in my house, is that true? Also here is a screenshot of the parts he has quoted me. Also I am considering changing out the pump he has quoted me for a 1.5Kw JoJo branded VSD Pump as it is much more affordable.
  18. Just keep in mind that the sunsynk can not charge from the AC inverter when no grid is available. It is not an Inverter/Charger but rather a bidirectional inverter, it can not invert and charge at the same time. Furthermore placing a 50KW ac inverter onto a 12Kw off grid inverter may lead to instability in the grid I believe this is why Victron for example requires your AC Coupled inverters to not exceeded the KVA rating of your hybrid inverter. The hybrid inverter has to regulate the grid and with a 50Kw AC inverter it may fail to do this effectively. Also Keith from sunsynk advises that AC Coupled inverters should be placed onto the Gen Port and not the load.... this may be a problem for you also as I would not put 50Kw through the Gen port of a 12Kw sunsynk. Have you considered looking at an SMA system for this, they offer much more scalable systems and specialize in AC Coupled solar? Is it within the budget to parallel 3 sunsynks
  19. Could you give us a more precise location so that we can see how much sun you get?
  20. My personal favorite choice. I have avoided Gas cookers because that just means im paying for gas which works out more expensive than using a traditional electric stove top. Maybe im incorrect on this though.
  21. Quite disapointing that this is happening. How often does this occur and for how long? If it is just a few hours per day I would leave it and let the inverter disconnect. No use having power in my house if my electronics wont run properly! It is quite problematic though.
  22. So it sounds like maybe that is because your inverter is drawing a small amount of power from the grid (to prevent feed in to the grid). What inverter do you have.
  23. Okay now that I am not running off to dinner I will give a slightly more in depth breakdown of what I did today. I went to purchase the GU10 connectors from The Lighting Warehouse in Meadowdale(near Edenvale in Gauteng), I also purchased some of their in house brand LED's(think they where about R30). Climbed into the roof to change the first one but realised it was allot easier to just change them with a ladder from below. Wiring went smoothly and i will be having an electrician friend take a look at the job just to see that everything is safe and up to good standard before i continue with the rest of the house. The Lighting warehouse 7W LED's are way to bright for a bedroom so I will be moving them elsewhere and changing them out for Phillips Essentials. Doing this change was quite physically demanding (I have a newfound respect for electricians and plumbers who spend hours crawling through roofs and hanging off ladders). Furthermore it was quite interesting for me (As i come from a community where one would call an electrician or handy man for any and every small thing that needed to be done) I have a few questions for the people who are knowledgable on electronics than me. What is the best way to bond the metal light fittings to the earth terminal of the GU10 Connector. The wires in the transformers where just jammed together into the terminal blocks of the transformer (2 lives in the same connector and same with neutral). Is this allowed and what is the best practice for 'branching off' to the next light? I will update this post with some pictures tomorrow.
  24. Thanks, i just did the first room conversion today, went great. Everything earthed. New lights are great and my room is now so quiet without the transformer buzz.
  25. I think the CT coil and correct settings should be sufficient.
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