tetrasection

Please post any good deals you see. Here's one, 35x 455W panels for R45,785.-, works out to R2.875 per watt ($0.15/W). https://www.solarwaysuppliers.co.za/product/canadian-solar-455w-panel-pallet-bf/

I've got an Outback FlexMax FM60 in storage

Very interesting concept and seems superior to traditional wind generators in every way. Easy to replace kite in case of damage, portable and much smaller and lighter to transport (it's basically a shipping container), cheaper, will perform at lower wind speeds and I assume it is fairly silent, doesn't kill birds etc. Current model maxes out at 200kw but their next MW model is coming in 2024.

Hey guys, This is kinda random but my car wasn't starting earlier and I didn't have another car to jumpstart from so I decided to try connect a 12V gel battery that has been lying around for a few months, but the car still would not start. Figured the only thing to do is to just leave the jumper cables connected and wait for the batteries to slowly equalize over the next several hours. That got me wondering though, would it be possible to take a (or a bunch of) 18650 batteries and connect that in series with the gel battery to get the voltage up to +/- 15V in order to vastly accelerate the charging/equalizing process? Obviously I did not try that out of fear that it would lead to a lithium bomb type scenario... This should theoretically be possible though right? Then the question is how many paralleled 18650s would be needed to be safe? And finally, do you think it would be possible to connect the 18650s to the gel battery in that fashion and immediately start the car before the 18650s drain into the car battery?

Ok everything makes sense again. I thought it was very strange that @Dyness told you that your firmware was out of date and then Rectron said it wasn't.

So we got a decent amount of sun yesterday. Panel charging power dropped to 500w at 96%, then shortly after reaching 99% it dropped to 300w, then 150w, 60w, 30w and eventually 15w of charging power. That's when I disconnected the battery because I wanted to install the trunking to make it all look nice. So it looks like it is working as it should, it isn't "overcharging" like it seemed to be doing on it's first cycle, since the charging power now drops to virtually zero. So even though it never get's past 99% it is essentially 100% charged. Who knows, maybe in a few days it will say 100% but either way it's not an issue. Thanks to everyone on here for all the helpful info and advice!

Yeah but it was stuck on 99% for 4 hours and "charged" 2kWh, which is actually over 20% of it's capacity... I'm just hoping it's some kind of initial balancing or calibration or something that will sort itself out after a few cycles.

Was cloudy today, only got up to 89%. Hopefully there will be some sun tomorrow.

Good to hear your alarm issue is no more. Yeah idk, checking on the app now at 12:00 it reached 97% and capped the charging power from the panels to around 600w. It reached 99% by 13:00 (took 0.6kWh to get from 97% to 99%) and kept charging at 99% till the sun started fading at 16:45, so almost 4 hours. In that time it "charged" an extra 1.9 kWh. Will see what it does tomorrow. Really hope I don't have to send this thing back a second time! 😅

I got my battery back from Rectron, changed the dip switch to 0110 and it's working perfectly using the RS485 port and protocol 01. Only weird thing is that it's been on 99% charge for the last 2 hours and there's full sun. Is that normal?

You don't need a special crimper, it's just a standard crimper. Local Computer shop will probably do it for free.

TechCentral has learnt that the Durban offices and warehouse of JSE-listed IT distribution group Mustek were trashed and set alight on Monday. Mustek MD Hein Engelbrecht said no employees were present at its Durban offices when the criminals breached the security at the Redlyn Business Park north of the city — the company had told staff to stay at home given the volatile situation. “They attacked the office complex at around midday,” he said. “They hurt the security guards badly and broke down the gate.” The looters then gained access to Mustek’s top-floor sales area, where they proceeded to steal anything they could, but especially TVs, monitors and laptops. They also gained access to Mustek’s warehouse and damaged the company’s fleet of vehicles and stole stock meant for customers. https://techcentral.co.za/samsung-mustek-targeted-in-kzn-anarchy/109020/

What I meant about the firmware is that sometimes it says "update complete" or whatever but after restarting the inverter and checking the firmware version on the display it is actually still using the old firmware. So then you have to update it again. This only seems to happed with one of the two files. What I noticed on the spreadsheet is that when "capacity" changes from 50 to 100, the "status" changes from "Combine charge and bypass" to "PV charge and bypass". Does that mean once your battery is charged it switches to utility power? If that's the case it seems likely that something in the settings is causing this behavior...

That's strange... did you double check the firmware version on the inverter after updating? Cause sometimes it doesn't take... What is your battery voltage doing while this is going on?

Interesting... Well either way my battery is already booked for transport. Rectron said that turnaround time is 48 hours so it should be back by next week already. Though the real mission is getting this thing off the wall and back into the box!