Wilfred

The new model is called a "load-shedding relay", basically stop any power going to a certain appliance during certain times as well as when something else is drawing power.
After that item, lets say primary geyser shuts of, it will supply power again within 15 minutes.
Cost is over R 1 000, I have one installed, nice to have but not really needed if your timing/timers are working properly. If not, then you might see this as a need.

I had some custom made and slapped it in my meter box
 

I see the system working like an old school turbo charged car with lots of turbo lag.
Even if your inverter can do something like a 5 000w constant draw with a 10 000w spike, it would trip before it can even deliver that if your battery bank is sized too low.
The inverter need to supply the power you are asking from somewhere, it want to get it from the PV, but the PV’s and inverter has lag (turbo lag if you will), so first it will get it from the batteries, if the batteries can’t supply it, “CLICK”, self induced load shedding, reset everything, let’s try again.... rinse repeat.

Yes, your cable or settings is incorrect, just change setting 05 back to USE until you can resolve the cable setup.

For those who still struggle, received a mail from Pylontech:
1.
inverter pin: RS485B——3, RS485A——5
battery pin: RS485B——8, RS485A——7
2.
Connect to Master battery RS485 port,
RS485 baud rate 9600
the ADD setting for baud rate 9600 shall be “1000” (default is “0000) (master battery)
3.
section reference numbers from the 05 - battery type: “USE” or “PYL” (have to be PYL in my opinion)
4.
set low dc cut-off voltage: 47,5v or 48v (won’t matter if the communication works as 02, 12, 13, 26, 27, 29 become self regulated by the batteries)
5.
after turning off the inverter manually, all batteries shall be shut down and restarted
The above is for the Axpert VMIII / KING 48V/5KW inverters.

I moved to the Makita tool range little more than a year ago. the batteries are interchangeable and  with a 20 min charge time on the 1.5Ah and 40 min on the 3Ah I recharge a flat battery long before the fresh one reach the point where it needs to be recharged. Local support also makes the Makita more attractive. 
They have the brushless and normal models. Normal is under R3k and Brushless for around R7k. Brushless of course the way to go imo, but even i cant currently afford replacing all of my equipment with brushless. 

 
Other nice gardens tools excluding the vacuum cleaners are


I cant find a picture of the one that made me laugh the most what i saw it a wile ago... A cordless Wheelbarrow!! Imagine receiving a complaint just after lunch on a Saturday.... "I can not remove the leaves... the batteries are flat"
 
EDIT: Some More
 

Usually it is just a spike, if you have monitoring software, you might not even pick it up that high on your graphs. I have seen +-4100 on my panels of 3780. 

My insurer told me the same thing. He did advise that I should get an updated COC and send him a copy, but the premium was unaffected unless I specified the batteries or the inverter.

This is something folks may want to think about. If you don't specify those items they just get bundled in with the standard household contents and will be subject to the limit for those items. If   you DO specify them, they are specifically and separately covered but your premium WILL go up. You can't insure against your batteries eventually running out of juice - only against theft or accident (usually excluding any damage caused by pets).

If it was me, I would add whatever solar geyser you are installing in series with your old geyser, if possible. Just feed the old geyser with warm water, pretty soon you would have double your hot water capacity and the sun will warm the water for you without most probably using any power for your geyser form Eskom.
I just don’t know if the solar geyser will have the water too hot for the old electrical geyser.
I guess there are ways to overcome overheating of water.
Could probably burst the old geyser if the water is too hot.

It is a fixture to you buildings, thus it should be covered under your normal property insurance, I informed my insurer of the addition and she said it don’t even increase my premium.
My panels are fixed with a non-theft bracket, need a special tool to get them out or you either break the bracket or panel.
I believe those panels are pretty robust, unless you get cricket ball size hail
I am however busy putting each and every item together with serial numbers and pictures that I will send my insurer so that they have it on record, just so they can’t come back later and say that I did not have the items.

There are, go to browse, forums, then check out “water heating & pumping” some good ideas there. It is also the next thing I am looking into.
It is on this forum.
seems I can’t share links, search for this
rainwater-home-supply-assembly, pump, tanks etc

I shutdown the load from the inverter then the turned off my solar supply and finally turned off my utility supply. So I was left with the inverter only running on batteries. Connected the inverter to my laptop via a serial to usb connector. I ran the screen firmware 2.00 update first.
Then ran the 71.86 update and it loaded fine.
I turned on everything in the reverse order. 
I did however have to purchase another serial to usb connector as the first one I bought didn’t want to work with the software. 
This is the one I bought second time round. And it worked perfectly. 
https://www.takealot.com/trendnet-usb-to-serial-converter/PLID29271821

To all - and especially Jason and the moderators and knowledgeable chaps  (and gals) on this forum. Seasons greetings, Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Thank you all for sharing and helping - and being very patient (I know some of you answer the same questions over and over).
This is a fantastic forum and I hope it continues to grow and help and bless many more people to come! 

I see the system working like an old school turbo charged car with lots of turbo lag.
Even if your inverter can do something like a 5 000w constant draw with a 10 000w spike, it would trip before it can even deliver that if your battery bank is sized too low.
The inverter need to supply the power you are asking from somewhere, it want to get it from the PV, but the PV’s and inverter has lag (turbo lag if you will), so first it will get it from the batteries, if the batteries can’t supply it, “CLICK”, self induced load shedding, reset everything, let’s try again.... rinse repeat.

Hi,
For those who still struggle, received a mail from Pylontech:
1.
inverter pin: RS485B——3, RS485A——5
battery pin: RS485B——8, RS485A——7
2.
Connect to Master battery RS485 port,
RS485 baud rate 9600
the ADD setting for baud rate 9600 shall be “1000” (default is “0000) (master battery)
3.
section reference numbers from the 05 - battery type: “USE” or “PYL” (have to be PYL in my opinion)
4.
set low dc cut-off voltage: 47,5v or 48v (won’t matter if the communication works as 02, 12, 13, 26, 27, 29 become self regulated by the batteries)
5.
after turning off the inverter manually, all batteries shall be shut down and restarted
The above is for the Axpert VMIII / KING 48V/5KW inverters.
regards, Wilfred

when i went off grid after returning to grid 14mw a year, i had the surprise of virtually the whole management and legal from the muni connected to my meter box running whatever tests, and i was told i am stealing power.......now i don't even pay an availablity fee, dont buy any prepaid and so on for over a year i have been totally offgrid... i am happy, munu not so much

1st you need to determine what your usage are between 16:00 and 8:00 in summertime and also how the sun will behave in wintertime, I don’t have that data yet and will only know after the next winter. 
You will need a bank to supply you with enough kWh to go through the time there is no sun. Let’s say it is not raining, then you need enough battery backup to carry you through the night.
Problem is that winter time and summer time will differ, also what you will use will differ. If you use the batteries with heavy loads it might shorten their lifetime, in other words it might cause it to turn cycles quicker. This is the most expensive portion of your system, so you will need a couple of things added to get you totally off-grid, for example gas/solar geyser, but solar geyser might want to use electricity during the early mornings. Gas oven, etc.
 
Everyone have their favorite when it come to batteries, I like batteries that have an indication of SOC, such as Narada or Pylontech. New batteries such as Dyness (which is basically Pylontech) also have this indication with LED’s on the front indicating SOC. These are the lithium-ion batteries. With gel batteries I don’t know anything except that you need a proper battery monitoring system and you can only discharge 50%, therefore you need way more batteries, also that you can’t just add on and they also don’t have the lifetime that you would expect of them. The Pylontech’s came with a 7 year warranty + 3 year extended warranty by registering them on Pylontech’s website. They say 6000 cycles for 80% DOD, and 4500 cycles for 90% DOD, my batteries never went below 20% thus far. My cycles turn between 24 hours and 47-48 hours. I am currently on cycle 30 and have used the batteries for 40 days.
I currently have 4x US3000 Pylontech 48v batteries, I believe they are 70A max charge/discharge, 3.5KW x 4 with usable 3.2KW x 4. I have not have any problems so far with these batteries, even when I recently accidentally ran the geyser/s off them. Meaning that my batteries have never given me an alarm or error and they have never shut themselves down. I would like to add 1 or 2 new batteries before next winter, will see when the time come.
The difference is that we don’t have continuous loads of more than 1000w per hour from 16:00 to 08:45. 
I designed my system to produce 42KwH in 6 hours of sunlight (without any losses), so the panels will handle most of the loads when the sun shine. My current usage is between 32-36kWh per day.
Currently we are using the grid (in this rain), so my batteries are fully charged for most of the day, this is to prevent us sitting in darkness with the current load shedding schedules that have just been changed to stage 6.

There's a faint smell of chips hanging around the generator room, LOL.

Lead-acid is false economy if you ask me. Sure, you pay a lot less up front, but you will replace them much more often. There's also the issue of storage because potentially they can leak or give off nasty fumes, and they will take up more space than Lithium.

How would the support be if we can can start a repair center for voltronic ( Axpert, RCT etc) inverters.
I have: 
Contact in China to source the goods and i do frequent visits to China for business.
A workshop with a electronics engineer that is willing to make this happen.
Some funds to trow towards this venture.
I need:
Support from my fellow re-sellers/ installers/ end users/ pretty much anyone and everyone.
The clever ones that have  the brains but not the time to make this happen. ( eg schematics, common faults, parts list)
Maybe more engineers/techies in all major centers to bring costs down.
Did i mention support.
 
So i don't want to make this a money spinner for me.. I have enough on my plate but i feel the need to start this or at least investigate this .. maybe a Power Forum  Repair center if you wish.
We pay the guys the do the work. we try and get the parts in SA as a stock item and make sure we support his to keep it going.
 
Am I alone in this or do i here a Hell Yeah.
Or am I being foolish.. as we SAFARS are known not to stand together and make a difference.
 
 
 
 

Hi,
Keeping in mind that everything else is perfect......
So in short...
What comes to mind is the current sharing wires between the inverters and the parallel cards and cables between the inverters. All inverters should be connected to the same battery bank.
Usually at setting 28 on the inverter you have a option between PAL, SIG, PH1, PH2, PH3. You need to set it up as PAL, this mean it will run in parallel to the other inverters connected. Make sure all of the inverters are set at PAL (parallel)
Usually setting 01, 12, 13, 26, 27 and 29 will change on all slaves as soon as you change it on the master inverter.
Master inverter should be the inverter that starts up first. Order don't matter.
Hope this was what you were looking for.

Let me start out by saying how I appreciate the sincere attitude by everyone on this forum. Although other forums might have a section on 'Alternative Energy' my impression is that they aren't that serious about the subject.
However I reckon we can still do more: Most important is for members to proudly announce where they are located. Someone who has system in Zambia is in a totally different position to someone in Cape Town. The support up north is going to be marginal (or probably non existent!) This isn't the end of the world however. We can make a plan about how to support whoever but that plan varies on the scenario we are dealing with.
The internet has connected the world and that's great but members need to disclose their location so other members can tune in to their particular scenario.

Hi,
For those who still struggle, received a mail from Pylontech:
1.
inverter pin: RS485B——3, RS485A——5
battery pin: RS485B——8, RS485A——7
2.
Connect to Master battery RS485 port,
RS485 baud rate 9600
the ADD setting for baud rate 9600 shall be “1000” (default is “0000) (master battery)
3.
section reference numbers from the 05 - battery type: “USE” or “PYL” (have to be PYL in my opinion)
4.
set low dc cut-off voltage: 47,5v or 48v (won’t matter if the communication works as 02, 12, 13, 26, 27, 29 become self regulated by the batteries)
5.
after turning off the inverter manually, all batteries shall be shut down and restarted
The above is for the Axpert VMIII / KING 48V/5KW inverters.
regards, Wilfred

Thanks,
 
 

Hi everyone,
Just sharing my installation thus far as I have learned a lot from you guys here on the forum.
Installation consists of:
1x Axpert 5kw Inverter
4x Pylontech US3000 Batteries
15x 275watt JA Solar panels 3s x 5p (North at 25 degrees from horizontal)
160A Keto Battery Fuses / Disconnect
16A fuses on each PV string with a 63A DC Beny Isolator
Have redone the complete main DB as it contained some very old circuit breakers and space was a problem. The whole house runs off solar except for the stove and hob (for now). I have a EV tube solar geyser, but have it on between 13:30 and 14:30 to heat up to 60 degrees with excess PV. Also have it switching on for about 30 minutes in the mornings. (Klerksdorp: Winter a bit cold🥶). So far everything runs quite good with between 50 and 60% left of battery capacity in the mornings. Maxes out at about 80% of the available PV power. Developed my own software to monitor the inverter and batteries 🤗. (still busy adding features) Some things still needs to be done like lightning protection and PV panel earthing 🤔.
Attached are some photos. Feel free to comment or ask questions.🙂
Thanks
Jacques