wolfandy

You would need to post the detailed specs (VOC, etc) of your panels for us to help you better I am running a 5kVA Axpert and have also added a Victron MPPT (and taken the panels completely off the Axpert). Mostly because I wanted to add more panels, but also because my Axpert was running quite hot under full PV. The Victron MPPT allowed me more PV and at the same time it takes strain off the Axpert (I am hoping that will prolong its life). I also thought about going fully Victron, but (a) I read somewhere that the inverter part of the Axpert is actually quite decent and (b) I would then not just require the inverter but also a GX device for system monitoring/management (which further adds costs). I have therefore decided to run my Axpert until it dies and only then do the full switch to Victron

If I read the 'Usage' chart in your screenshot correctly, then your PV only barely covers your load between 10h00 and 15h00. This would explain why your batteries are not really being charged as there is basically no excess PV available beyond your load What I find strange in your chart sis that your PV barely gets to 600W (except for 2 short peaks). You write that you have 6x 330W panels, which means that you should be getting significantly more PV from your panels (the bell-curve shape of your PV makes me believe that it was a relatively cloud-free day, correct?). So I would start with checking why you are only getting so little out of your panels One other note: You write that your panels are wired 3S3P - but that would mean having 9 panels...

You're welcome - happy to help No software required for Pylon balancing. See Youtube video here

Cool - if you have the Pylon comms cable it makes everything a whole lot easier to manage. Then you can have ICC change between Solar and Battery based on the SOC from the Pylon BMS instead of doing it based on the Axpert's voltages. To do that, you have to set the Axpert's voltage set points for Back to Grid and Back to Discharge lower/higher than usual so that they do not interfere with ICC (so that the Axpert does not switch by itself anymore). Then you have to set ICC to switch based on SOC and define your set points. Here are the settings that I use I think you need to balance your batteries as the battery that is not yet at 100% does not even receive any amps. I don't have the link at hand for doing that, but if you Google you should quickly find it.

I went with a Victron MPPT. On their website, you will find links to both their Excel-based as well as online calculator tool to determine which model best suits your requirements Correct. If you want, PM me your cell number and I can send you some pictures of how my installer connected everything I am also based in SA and for scheduled load shedding I simply change my SOC setpoint for switching back to utility in ICC to a higher value to make sure that I still have sufficient battery when load shedding starts. So instead of using utility to charge the batteries, the system switches earlier over to utility and preserves the batteries for later. Of course this requires ICC and something to accurately determine your battery SOC (e.g. Victron BMV). Alternatively, instead of using SOC for switching you should also be able to raise the Back to Grid voltage to make the Axpert switch earlier (I do not have AGM batteries, so I am not an expert on that side) Do you have ICC?

Did you also get the Pylontech comms cable to connect the Pylons to the Pi, so that ICC can work on the actual SOC from the Pylon BMS rather than the Axpert's guesstimate?

Yup - that is the one. It draws the data from ICC, so you do need to have ICC also. APM then controls Sonoff switches that have been flashed with Tasmota (really easy to do for the newer Sonoff Basic R3) via wifi - which means that it does not need to be installed close to your inverter as long as it has wifi reception. You can set APM based a number and combination of variables. I am currently using the following conditions for my pool pump: On between 09h30 and 16h30 On if battery SOC > 30% On if battery watts > 900W (as my pool pump draws about 800W) Off if battery watts < -300W for more than 30 seconds (the delay feature was added in the latest version last week) So if any large loads are switched on in the house (e.g. my domestic starts vacuum cleaning), then the pool pump switches automatically off if there is not sufficient PV - and then on again once the vacuum cleaner has been switched off I have an old Axpert myself, but the Axpert King is listed under supported inverters on the ICC website

I use the ICC add-on Advance Power Management (APM) to automatically switch my pool pump based on available power

SUB stands for Solar-Utility-Battery. In my Axpert manual it is called 'Solar First' This means that your inverter will run on solar until PV has dropped to 0 (once the load is higher than PV it will draw the balance from the batteries). Once PV has dropped to 0, it will switch to utility. It will switch back over to solar once it registers PV again (I think - I have never used this setting myself)

I am currently running a 5kVA/4kW Mecer unit - and can not say that I have been experiencing this issue. As you can see from the picture below, whenever the load (blue) exceeds the available PV (green) the Mecer draws from the batteries (purple). Utility (red) has not been used during this time However, it is correct that this model cannot supplement PV with utility - only PV and battery

When doing your conversions you need to keep 2 things in mind: The inverter does not operate at 100% efficiency The inverter has self-consumption, which it draws from the batteries. I don't know how much this is for the 3kVA Axpert, but for my 5kVA it is just over 40W An example from my system: My PV generation is 3800W and my load is 1500W. My batteries are only being charged with just under 2100W, which means that I have a bit more than 200W 'system losses' due to self consumption and inefficiencies

I've recently added an external MPPT to my Axpert - so let me try to answer your questions to the best of my knowledge I believe it is possible to have both panels directly on the Axpert as well as on a separate MPPT - but I have moved all my panels off the Axpert and connected them only to the new MPPT. I believe it can be a bit difficult (though not impossible) to synchronize the charging of the battery between the Axpert and the external MPPT Yes - even though I have to admit I do not fully understand what you mean by 'charge first then switch over to the solar power' You connect Axpert, batteries, and the external MPPT all together via a common busbar (on the Axpert the battery connection is only used, not the PV connection). The Axpert is no longer aware of your PV panels but does receive the energy provided by the MPPT through the battery connection. The external MPPT basically both charges your batteries and provides energy to the Axpert at the same time (depending on Axpert settings and energy available obviously). If the Axpert is in Utility or SUB mode, the MPPT will only charge the batteries as the Axpert is set not to take energy from the batteries. If the Axpert is in SBU, then any available energy from the MPPT will first be used to supply the loads on the Axpert. If the MPPT energy is higher than what the Axpert requires for the loads, any excess MPPT energy will be used to charge the batteries. Once the batteries are fully charged, the MPPT will throttle the energy it provides to match the Axpert load requirement. If the MPPT energy is not sufficient to supply the Axpert load (e.g. in the evening) then the batteries will supply the difference. The only time when this setup can be a bit problematic is when you want to charge your batteries both from utility and solar. Then you need to be careful with your max charge currents as well as synchronization between the two. As I have my settings that the Axpert does not charge the batteries with utility, this is not a problem for me

I also own 2 of these inverters (though RCT and Mecer branded) and both of them are running on 73.00e now Just be aware of the following (from this post): After a reflash has failed, don't panic. When the boot-loader runs, it will not drive the LCD display. Just cycle the battery power to the inverter, and re-run the ReflashTool as normal. If the above doesn't work, turn off battery power to the inverter. Re-run the ReflashTool. After you click OK to the "…are you sure?" dialog box, wait 12 seconds and then turn on the inverter battery power. Check for progress in the ReflashTool. In the hopefully very rare case that none of this works, you'll probably need to buy a replacement processor daughter board from whoever sold you the inverter. On my Mecer, the first attempt failed and the unit seemed dead afterwards (no beeping when starting, no lights or LCD screen). But following the first advice, I was able to run the flash process again - and this time successfully

Thank you @Jaco de Jongh 👍

Hi all I am looking for brief advice from our Axpert experts here: My 'good old' 5kVA Axpert (RCT branded) died on me yesterday - or so I thought. Luckily I managed to source on short notice another used 5kVA Axpert (Mecer branded), took the RCT off the wall and connected the Mecer. Only to find that the Mecer also would not switch on... After some lengthy fault finding, it turned out the that the cable in the top of the fuse box between my DC combiner box and the inverter was loose. Once that was tightened, the Mecer started. So am now not sure if my RCT actually did pack up or if it was the loose connection after all. I will get the RCT checked out at my local installer after the shutdown (and repaired if the relay really did fuse after the accidental overload last week as we initially thought). But this means that I will most likely have 2 Axperts going forward - so I am thinking of paralleling them. Both are PF 0.8 models and both are running firmware 73.00e. Am I correct to assume that I can parallel these without any problems? Here are their stickers Thanks in advance for your help !

Awesome - thank you for the detailed explanation @plonkster 👍 Am making my first baby steps in Victron territory, so am learning something new every day 😉

Hi all I recently had my system upgraded and Victron MPPT 250/100 together with 12x 380W panels (4S3P) installed. The MPPT is connected to a bus-bar, which also connects to my 2x Pylons and 5kVA Axpert inverter. Axpert and MPPT are connected to a Raspberry Pi and monitored via ICC. The systems runs great and I have already ordered a 3rd Pylon to better balance the system. However, I have noticed PV Watts and Amps coming from the MPPT regularly dropping - in what looks to me like 10 minute intervals. There are no clouds in the sky or anything else near the panels that could cause shading, no dramatic changes to my loads that coincide with the drops, and the Pylons are nowhere near full. I can observe these drops both in ICC in PV Watts and Battery Amps as well as in Victron Connect, which makes me believe that it is not a communication problem between the MPPT and ICC but an actual performance drop. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Then also thanks to @Youda 🙏

Thanks a lot for the feedback, gents 👍 I already increased Float to 51.5V yesterday to try to get closer to 100% SOC - but I will give Plonkster's values a try now

Yes, for me the Sonoffs simply screwed into the box that was behind the old switch. The pic above is a 1-gang, but 1/2/3-gang are all the same size Just be aware that the Sonoffs require a neutral wire to work, which in SA is not always installed. In my house, my upstairs switches already had a neutral wire in the wall box, but for my downstairs switches I had to pull a new neutral wire through to get the Sonoffs to work. So I would recommend checking what your situation looks like 😉 Here pics of old and new 2-gang

This is what they look like installed. They were approx. 1mm shorter in height than my old light switches, so I ended up with a very small gap at the top that I had to patch with silicon

Hi all, I would like to bring up this thread again. I had a Victron MPPT installed yesterday and have moved my panels off the Axpert onto the Victron. My installer has configured the Victron for my Pylontechs - but I am not 100% of his settings. So I am hoping for a bit of help from you guys please 🙂 On the Axpert, I had the following charge settings (which seemed to work quite well for me): Bulk: 52.2V Float: 52.0V My installer has now programmed the following values: Absorption: 52.0V Float: 51.0V Equalization voltage: 0.00V Re-bulk voltage offset: 0.40V Absorption duration: Fixed Absorption time: 1h 0m Tail current: Disabled Equalization current percentage: 0% Automatic equalization: Disabled Equalization stop mode: Fixed time Equalization duration: 2h 0m Temperature compensation: Disabled Low temperature cut-off: 5 deg Celsius In ICC I can see that the Pylon gets charged to 52V and then hovers for a while around that value (I assume that this is Absorption) - with SOC at 97%. Then it drops to just under 51V and stays around that value (I assume that this is Float) - with SOC at 96%. So I guess my questions are: Are the settings above made by my installer generally correct? Or is there anything that I need to change? What would you recommend I'd use for Absorption and Float? 52.2V/52.0V as I previously had it or 52.0V/51.0V as it is now? What are upsides/downsides and risks of each? Thanks in advance for your help 🙂

US model fits for SA I have bought all my Sonoffs from Banggood. With the shipping method 'South Africa Direct Mail (Tax Free)' the shipment has always arrived at my doorstep within 2 weeks (granted my last order was before Corona). And shipping costs were usually even cheaper than domestic shipping from a local supplier in SA 😶

Am running a bunch of T0 light switches all across my house - they work great. And if you order them from Banggood, they are only around $13 or so I really like the Sonoff/Ewelink stuff, so I have a bunch around the house: Outside lights on Sonoff Mini (wired into that light switch) Garage door on Eachen garage door opener Pool pump on Sonoff Basic (only one flashed with Tasmota; my pump only has around 750W, so the Basic is sufficient) Heat pump on Sonoff POW Sonoff LED strip Some other random stuff on Sonoff Basics Unfortunately not all Sonoff products work with IFTTT, but with the T0 and the Basics you can do really neat stuff (e.g. having your lights in the house come on when you get close to home in the eve) The pool pump is controlled via APM based on the ICC data, so switches on/off by itself (and gives option to manually override via VNC)

I have a 60A main breaker and a 5kVA Axpert installed - but only 2.8kW of PV panels. My system was approved by COCT last month. But also would like to install more panels in the long run - so am also interested about trying to find a way to be able to put more than 3.5kW on my roof...