Bushtracker

Thank you for your comments and advice - I was under the misconception that once the system was installed, it would look after itself ? How wrong I was! I guess I did not do my homework sufficiently and now it is a "catch 22" situation?! So I need 3 balancers and a battery monitor that will take care of 4 x 200aH AGM batteries? Any advice on which to install first or do they have to be together?

Thank you Plonkster, so do I conclude that a battery monitor is the way to go to balance your batteries and keep them healthy?

Thank you Jaco, I will look for one. Presumably one has to check each battery individually in the bank?

Thank you so much for this. Is there a particular make of battery monitor that you would recommend?

Thank you I will follow this up. I'm still concerned about my battery health and charging! Since commissioning (one and a half months) I have only seen 1 occasion where the Inverter display says 'Fully Charged' , It is set on Charging by PV only and some days when we are away for most of the day and there is not much load the batteries still do not reach 'fully charged' on the inverter display although it does get to 100% on the Watch Power display? Your comments would be much appreciated

Thank you, now I will check the battery manufactures specs to find out whether equalisation is necessary. I have not learnt about battery balancing, I will check if Youda can help me?

Could anyone advise me on settings for battery equalisation ? I have recently installed a Axpert 5 kW inverter with 6 PV panels and 4 x 200aH AGM batteries and I notice that the settings on the inverter as regards the battery equalisation is 'disabled' - is this correct? Setting 5 in WatchPower is set on AGM , and I have been lead to believe that battery equalisation is a good thing to do? Thank you

Hi Coulomb, thank you for your detailed explanation of the state of charge calculation, glad WatchPower does it all for me! At the risk boring you with trivial questions, I do have a query about switching from line mode to battery mode. I have noticed that during daytime, having dawned in line mode, when PV power is adequate to take care of the load and charge the batteries, once 100% is achieved the system does not switch back to battery mode for 25-30 mins. Is that normal?? I have not changed any settings from my first post yet. Thank you so much in advance, I hope to be running on my own very soon!

Thank you Coulomb, sorry for the confusion, my mistake. Setting 01 has 3 options for output source priority .viz: Solar first 01 SOL, Utility first 01 UE1, and SBU priority 01 SBU. Where the confusion is ,is that with both 01 SOL and 01 SBU , I understand that Solar energy provides power to the loads as "first priority" which I read as 'Solar first' . So yes I have set 01 to SBU . With regards setting 12 - voltage point back to utility - set at 48v at the moment - my over-night storage is sufficient to take care of the basic demands and draws the batteries down to between 48.3 and 48.5 . If I raise the voltage to 49v it will definitely switch to Utility, probably in the early hours!? I will make the decision as to whether I accept the cost of a short spell of utility for the sake of the health of the batteries, or leave as is. Can you tell me please the relationship between battery capacity and battery voltage - for example I will see battery capacity 63% and battery voltage display at that time as being 48.5 v ? Are they equally as important to as an indication of the state of the battery? Thank you for your help

On further inspection I have concluded that I am running a 5 kW model, (see image below) with the usual 58.4 V battery voltage limit (no 64 V option). So believe there are no patched or downloadable factory firmware for this inverter!? So we will have to live with it! This brings me to a further question regarding setting 13. If 54v is the battery voltage limit for my model is 'Battery fully charged' the same thing?

Thank you Coulomb and Dex, for your comments and advice, they are much appreciated! I do believe I have a genuine machine (see image below) so will consider the firmware update, but notice the adage "Not for the faint hearted" Hmmm! As soon as I have the details of the batteries I will adjust settings 26,27,29 accordingly. The discussion on setting 01 - Output source priority:- We are trying to minimise utility costs, so I have set this to SBU so that at sunset, so the inverter switches to battery mode for as long as its safe. the 'point back to utility' , setting 12 , will be adjusted once I get the properties of the batteries.

Hello everyone, I am a newboy to this discussion and world of renewable energy. I have recently had installed a Mecer Axpert 5kVA inverter/charger, model SOL-I-AX-5P, with 4 x 200 AGM Vision batteries, which started off as simple backup, but quickly grew to a ‘semi-off grid’ system when we added an array of 6 x 340 Watt PV panels. I was led to believe this inverter was a true hybrid however soon found out that instead of sharing the loads it switched from battery mode to utility (line mode) when the set criteria were encountered. I am very afraid with this sort scenario, that I maybe abusing my batteries and am relying totally on the charge controller to regulate the batteries in the best way. The Watch Power software ver 1.13 is running nicely where I can monitor the ‘invisible’, and I have changed the following settings from the default factory settings on advice from a colleague. · Setting 01: SbU – ‘Solar first’ · Setting 12: 48 v – Voltage point back to utility · Setting 13: 54 v – Voltage point back to battery mode · Setting 16: OSO – Only solar energy to charge the batteries The rest of the settings are on default. I would be most grateful for comments and advice from those who have experience with this inverter, especially on the settings and whether there are other settings that require adjustment? I acknowledge that my array of panels maybe a little under-powered but am retired and happy to manipulate the use of the heavy-use appliances, and accept that on an overcast day we will be paying the utility mainly.