Everything posted by pranam
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5kw System for Sale
8 x 390W Canadian Solar panels Goodwe ES 4.6kW inverter 9.4kWh Pylontech batteries (2 x 3.5kwh + 1x 2.4kwh) Plus all cables, racks, mounts, etc Everything was installed in October 2019 except one of 3.5kwh batteries which was done in September 2020. The SoH is currently 100% It's all currently installed in my apartment but will arrange for it to be professionally taken down so that the sundries are reusable. Looking for 100k or make me a reasonable offer.
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Goodwe 5048D-ES "Wifi Server Error"
Had the same issue. Goodwe advised to hard reset the system as follows and it started working: hard reboot the device, AC power off, PV off and then batteries off. wait 5 min and then start it back up in reverse. you may need to restart your batteries after this as well
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Geyserwise Failures and Other Issues
So I have 2 issues and I'm hoping someone here knows how to solve this or perhaps what could be causing the issues. 1) My geyser burst. Insurance replaced it but the people they sent obviously have no idea how to work with solar geysers. For some reason, my geyserwise says the temperature is above 65 but when I shower I get about 20 seconds of hot water and then cold water the rest of the time. Weirdly, the other taps in the house can give very hot water. The temperature on the geyserwise doesn't drop during showers like it used to before the geyser burst. These guys have no idea what to do so have completely disabled the solar and now my geyser is running off the element only. 2) My geyserwise control box keeps blowing up. I've had to replace it 3 times now. It's always during some weird situation as well. The last time it blew, the element was on and pulling 3kw. All of a sudden it demanded 6kw and then died. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
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Running a Fridge Off the Grid
My solar system is pretty decent and able to run my whole house off the grid as I long as I dont use more than 2 big appliances. I generally have my Eskom switched off completely and run off the sun and batteries. My flat runs like this 95% of the time. About a year ago, there was a period of around 10 days in jhb where there was no sun. I was concerned that my batteries wouldnt charge so I switched Eskom on to supplement my power. During this time there was also stage 4 loadshedding. One particular day, load shedding hit at the exact moment my fridge compressor started up and it blew up. The house stank to hell of burnt metal for about a week Insurance replaced the compressor on the fridge luckily. Fast forward to yesterday and, after Eloise covered jhb in clouds for like 3 weeks, I switched on Eskom again. No load shedding this time but the Eskom power cut at the exact moment the fridge started up and now 3 components in the fridge have blown. It is now beyond repair and needs to be replaced I'm not exactly sure what is going on here but maybe someone can shed some light on it. When Eskom is switched off, I have no appliance issues. I even use my microwave and kettle at the same time! However when I switch Eskom on and there's loadshedding or similar it seems like I am highly likely to get a blown fridge. Is it because the inverter can't switch between grid and battery/sun fast enough? It was a Bosch A+++ fridge and it is now being replaced with a Bosch A++ fridge and running on a Goodwe with Pylontechs. I find it weird that the fridge can burn components so easily when there's a potential shortage of power. Any advice on how to prevent this would be greatly appreciated. I'm tempted to just switch Eskom off permanently and push my batteries down to 20% if needed.
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Can I switch my geyser off?
Can this timer be used to control the solar 12v pump?
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Can I switch my geyser off?
Thanks @Vassen! You've got this spot on! I have tubes on my roof and when the water gets very hot (over 75), I get lots of water leaking down my roof! I also have a 12v pump so switching off the electricity supply does nothing. I was actually afraid of the cover up suggestion as there is no way for me to access my roof without getting contractors in. Guess I'll just have to take a chance that the valve is working
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Can I switch my geyser off?
Interesting! On "Holiday Mode" mine just seemed to carry on working as normal hence the 91 degree temp in winter!
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Can I switch my geyser off?
Even if switched off at the mains the solar pump still runs when the sun is out. One day I had no water and I tried switching the mains off but the pump was just making a huge noise trying the pump nothing. All it says on it is GeyserWise Max
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Can I switch my geyser off?
I have a solar geyser with a Geyserwise meter attached to it. . During a normal jhb summer's day, the water quite easily goes from about 30 in the morning to 55-60 by the evening. In winter, it goes from about 20 in the morning to 45 in the evening so I had the element on for about an hour to take it to 65. During winter, I wasn't home for a week and I 'switched the geyser off' using the function on the Geyserwise monitor. However, when I returned home the water temperature was 91! I think the pump still ran when the sun was out even though the monitor said "off". I'm going on holiday for a month soon and I'm really worried that the geyser will explode or something as I don't know how to stop it from generating heat when the sun is out. Does anyone know how to switch it off?
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Lunar Panels?
haha. I'm gonna go with UFO! I need more alien tech
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Lunar Panels?
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Adding Geyser To Inverter Circuit.
I just did this on my system. My element is 3.5kW which isnt great but the it's timed to run only when I'm sleeping. I would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about it as now I don't need to keep resetting my GeyserWise settings every time there's load shedding.
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Running completely off grid
@Bobster, is the 20A limit purely battery or in total (battery + panels)? If you're able to get 20A from the battery plus say 10A from your panels with good light are you not safe in 99% of situations?
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Running completely off grid
Mine does a similar thing when I switch my geyser element on. Even though the geyser is not connected to the system, the inverter will use battery+solar+eskom for it. The only way I've been able to go completely off grid is to switch my eskom mains off. However, the geyser element cannot be switched on unless I put the eskom mains back on. I think that the inverter is clever enough to realise it can "assist" non-backed-up items but unless those things have eskom to start up it cant do anything. Sorry I know this isn't the most helpful but perhaps an extra data point can assist you.
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Pylontech us3000b wanted
Do you know what the delivery times are? I need to get a 3.5kw asap
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Tripping of Goodwe Inverter
I'm not actually sure. Perhaps give Goodwe support a call on 060 719 2956. I know I usually have to try a few times to get my inverter to "take" a settings change. Usually, when I change from exporting to not exporting, the whole system shutdowns for like 20 seconds. It also seems to work better if I change it from a direct wifi connection to the inverter instead of via my home wifi.
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Tripping of Goodwe Inverter
On the PV Master app, set the export limit to 0 so that it doesn't try to send power back to the grid. It might stop the tripping.
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Pylontech red alm flashing light when drawing high load
I have the above config as suggested by GreenMan and it works great! I pull a max of 62A (if i put the geyser element on) but usually nothing more than 50A. This is on a 48-50V system Also, I recently bought a Russell Hobbs "Eco Friendly" Kettle. It's either 2200W or 2400W so not sure how true the naming is but it pulls about 48A at 50V. It's only slightly slower than the 3000W kettle though. Running everything off-grid at night so no sun or eskom
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Goodwe ES 5048
Mine does the same thing. However, I just need to reconnect the wifi rather than restart the inverter. However, I'm using a really cheap wifi repeater so I'm no convinced it's entirely the inverter.
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Inverter is Misbehaving
Ok it's sorted! Goodwe HQ remotely reset my inverter to run 100% of BMS recommended load. If anyone else runs into the same issue just call Goodwe support and they'll sort it out for you
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Inverter is Misbehaving
Interesting. I have spoken to a few people who have 5kw inverters and they are running a single Pylontech 3.5kwh battery on them because it's more than capable of running the 74A max and 100A surge. That's why I think it's the way the Goodwe and Pylontech BMS communicate. Other inverters are happy to pull the required amount. The Goodwe isnt
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Inverter is Misbehaving
This is the main issue! I feel a bit cheated by Goodwe on this tbh. This 20% buffer is nowhere on any of their documentation. I would understand if they said 80% of the batteries' max output but 80% of the continuous output just seems unnecessary. I'm honestly tempted to tell the installer to send this one back and get another brand but I'm not sure which one will be better.
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Inverter is Misbehaving
Thanks Bobster. This is very helpful! my system has always been in on-grid mode So, if I switch my Eskom mains off, picture 1 and 3 above just use the battery. If it's capable of handling the load without Eskom, and if the battery is charged, I would like it to do the same even if Eskom is there. In general, I want the system to always hit the battery first. However, it refuses. Picture 2 was a rainy day. I'm not too worried about the PV on that day. I'm more worried about the battery being completely ignored. It was an iron that was running so it should have drawn something from Eskom but not everything! 2 hours of ironing from the made and the battery was asleep! Any ideas on how to get the inverter to pull 62 amps?
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Inverter is Misbehaving
Thanks for the replies everyone. My system is as follows: 8 x 390w panels - I've included 2 pics of the generation on a fully cloudy day vs a day with no clouds 6kwh pylontech (2.5+3.5) - supposedly capable of pushing 62 amps (25+37) but the inverter is only allowing 50 amps (80% of 62😡) Goodwe 5048ES 4.6kw I generally use very little electricity. On average, when my maid isnt working, I use 4kwh a day. I've attached some pictures of it preferring Eskom and overnight. Do I need to put something on to eat up power overnight? It seems like under 100 watts it doesn't like the batteries
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Inverter is Misbehaving
Hi everyone I'm hoping someone here can assist me with 2 annoying problems I'm having. I'm running a 2.5kwh and 3.5kwh pylontech battery on my Goodwe ES inverter (4.6kw) with firmware 5171708. Problem 1: The continuous discharge of the batteries is meant to be 62 amps with a max of around 124 amps. For some reason, I can only ever draw 50 amps from them (2.5kw). Apparently this is due to the inverter limiting the draw from the batteries to 80% of the 62 amps. However, the 62 amps is the 'stable' current so why must it restrict it even further. Is there any setting on PVmaster I can edit to force the inverter to pull 62 amps? Is there anything on the BMS I can edit? Problem 2: This inverters just loves Eskom! When Eskom power is around it will always prefer it. It's driving me crazy now. Every night I use about 1.5kwh of power while sleeping and about 1.2kwh of that comes from Eskom My batteries are at over 80% when I go to sleep. I don't understand why the inverter does this. Earlier today, my system was actually pulling 2.7kw from Eskom to power the house while, at the same time, pulling 1.1kw from the solar panels and charging the batteries with 0.8kw! This is highly frustrating and has forced me to basically switch the Eskom mains off unless I need to use my iron. How do I get this thing to behave without switching my mains off? I've tried switching the work mode from "on-grid" to "back-up" but that actually made it worse! If I don't allow it to export power, it also gets worse. For example, if export power is zero then I get about 50% of my daily power from Eskom. If I let it feed back then I get about 20% from Eskom. I'm not sure what's happening with the feedback as I live in a complex so it's probably being used up by my neighbours or something 😕 Has anyone seen this kind of thing before? It's honestly quite a frustrating situation now as I've basically got a 4.6kw inverter that can provide only 2.5kw and then only when actively cut my power. I feel like I could have installed a 3kw inverter with no batteries and less panels and saved half my money because that's what I have right now