Richard Mackay

Take the suspect panels down and set them up on the ground. Measure the volts of each panel..

Do you mean a charge controller when you refer to 'PWM'??

Agreed with water heating via solar bring the best option. As far as the cost of water heating of gas vs grid my understanding is they cost the same. But gas cooking has lots going for it. Battery storage for cooking can't compete presently.

Isn't everything on Facebook suspect??

What power (current) are you needing to feed?

Use a laptop PC

Have a look at this discussion:

Phone them..

What are you needing backup power for? Are these devices located in the same area?

I presume you are not feeding into the grid?

The argument I have heard is that the grid is cheaper than using batteries.

What information is available from your inverter? (a list of them provided by the manufacturer would be appreciated!) And how do you read this data (wiring, plugs etc.)

This is my pet subject: the scheduling of RE power. It's not easy to do with intelligent control (i.e by determining the available power and deploying it appropriately) It appears that with inverters that don't have a non essential output it's difficult to determine what the available power is. This puzzles me!

The non essential load supply will switch on when power is available. If you have a lot of PV panels then it can deliver a lot of power. So no need to reduce the size of your element before you see how much power is available. Those without a non essential output reduce their geyser element size so it won't overload the inverter if other loads are also on.

Modern electronic components can cope with water but must me dry when you power up..

There are many ways to clean your inverter. Meths is fine and is pretty safe. To start with switch the power off and blow compressed air to clean as much dust etc. as you can. Remember that with forced cooling the ducts are going to block up with dust etc. This needs to b removed regularly..

'However if I disconnect the neutral wire at the DB, some lights still stay on/flicker' Which neutral are you disconnecting? The neutral that feeds the house lights?

I suspect that heat is causing the inverter to shut down (if there isn't an overload condition) Try cooling the inverter with a fan (any fan). Get more air flow through the inverter and see if that makes a difference..

It sounds like an overload or heat related issue. Does the inverter have a log of the faults that have occurred? If does it register this fault?

Not an easy fix! Are there any conditions that are the same every time this happens? e.g. time of day, geyser element on etc. You need to identify if there something that is contributing to the fault and better still is if you can replicate the fault.

For a 24V system you shouldn't have an arcing problem.. I haven't seen many (single pole) DC contactors for large currents but I'm sure they exist..

A simple test would be (with fully charged batteries) to connect the batteries to a load. Use 4 automotive headlamps in series. Monitor the voltage across each battery (and current if possible). As the batteries discharge the voltage will drop. All the batteries should be the same voltage (approx). If they differ then the one that's different is probably kaput. Another test when the inverter is working is to check the temperature of the batteries (those Covid thermometers are ideal!) Hot batteries mean trouble!

You can go for an inverter as you have indicated but these are not very efficient. (i.e. Using a low voltage battery to generate 220V only for that voltage to be reduced to the battery voltage again) What you could try is to use a power supply for your PC like this: https://www.powerstream.com/dc-pc-48v-1200w.htm So with only a battery bank (don't use 12V!) of 24/48V you could keep your PC going for longer by comparison. You will also need a charger.. I don't know if your monitors have external power adapters but if so you can power them directly from 12V (which is their typical supply voltage)

Well you must have a different phone no. that you are dialing because the advertised one never gets answered!