Bain Viljoen

Hi
As @GreenMan suggests our DALYs with Custom firmware has CABbus communication with Sunsynk inverters. 

This is perfect if you want to leave some reserve for incase there is load shedding.
Otherwise take it down to 10% or even 5%, hell go down to 0 if you want hahaha, not advised though as you want to avoid a disconnect between the battery and inverter.
 

Joeyh
I see it differently, first I've increased the value of my property
Then consider the following
Let's say initial cost 85 K in the bank at present interest rate very low but I'm working  at 5 % would give one a return of R4,250.00 per year = R 354.00 per mount.
As you say I'm presently saving 50 bucks a day X 30 days = R 1500, about 5 times the amount I would get in interest from the bank.

Hi @JoeyhZA and @Antonio de Sa

Unfortunately I cannot help, I imported a few SACOLAR inverter (basically the growatt ES)
The aftersales service I received was atrocious to say the least, been begging them for months for inverter boards and eventually I had to pay for new inverter board even though they are warranty claims.

Even after I paid I had to keep begging them, telling them that my customers are pissed at me and inadvertently my service.
They just keep saying they don't have stock, basically it is more important to them to sell more units instead of aftersales support.
Eventually it just came to a point where I offered all the customers a refund if their inverters popped.
I would never in my life recommend a growatt/sacolar inverter to anyone ever again.

Unfortunately the fact that the AC breaker input trips is not a battery problem, HOWEVER, try turning the AC output breaker off. this is what happens with my system at home.
The growatts ignore the commands not to charge the batteries from AC, they start charging from AC at max power and power your house in bypass mode and the result is an overcurrent on the AC input breaker.
At my house the AC input breakers are always turned off, if my batteries get flat i switch over to Eskom manually and then the next day when the batteries have charged and I get home from work I flip back to the inverters.

Hope this resolves your issue.

If you have the bucks for it, get a LuxPower inverter/Same price range as the Growatt, recently tested one, man o man, what an improving of an inverter over Growatt.
I actually listens to you if you tell it it can only charge of AC at 1a for example, also has allot better monitoring and the settings of the inverter over the web are actually allot better.

With the newest firmware update of my battery you can get the AH of all batteries connected in parallel also displayed on the inverter.

Hi @JoeyhZA and @Antonio de Sa

Unfortunately I cannot help, I imported a few SACOLAR inverter (basically the growatt ES)
The aftersales service I received was atrocious to say the least, been begging them for months for inverter boards and eventually I had to pay for new inverter board even though they are warranty claims.

Even after I paid I had to keep begging them, telling them that my customers are pissed at me and inadvertently my service.
They just keep saying they don't have stock, basically it is more important to them to sell more units instead of aftersales support.
Eventually it just came to a point where I offered all the customers a refund if their inverters popped.
I would never in my life recommend a growatt/sacolar inverter to anyone ever again.

Unfortunately the fact that the AC breaker input trips is not a battery problem, HOWEVER, try turning the AC output breaker off. this is what happens with my system at home.
The growatts ignore the commands not to charge the batteries from AC, they start charging from AC at max power and power your house in bypass mode and the result is an overcurrent on the AC input breaker.
At my house the AC input breakers are always turned off, if my batteries get flat i switch over to Eskom manually and then the next day when the batteries have charged and I get home from work I flip back to the inverters.

Hope this resolves your issue.

If you have the bucks for it, get a LuxPower inverter/Same price range as the Growatt, recently tested one, man o man, what an improving of an inverter over Growatt.
I actually listens to you if you tell it it can only charge of AC at 1a for example, also has allot better monitoring and the settings of the inverter over the web are actually allot better.

With the newest firmware update of my battery you can get the AH of all batteries connected in parallel also displayed on the inverter.

Hi @Vaal, That was actually a response to another user that was extremely rude, so rude that the moderators deleted his comment, that should say plenty about the quality of the other users comment?
I was simply asking why the battery was being sold and then I get a sarcastic and rude comment from a user that has nothing constructive to add.

Hi @Vaal, That was actually a response to another user that was extremely rude, so rude that the moderators deleted his comment, that should say plenty about the quality of the other users comment?
I was simply asking why the battery was being sold and then I get a sarcastic and rude comment from a user that has nothing constructive to add.

Mine works with growatt + date, i.e. growatt20201012

So over the weekend I got my Lifepo4 setup up and running properly and moved the batteries to it's enclosure. Still some stuff to do around the unit like running the DC cables in black sleeve and crimp shorter cables from the battery to the breaker and used the old longer cable for the 2nd unit i want to build. So far the Lifepo4's perform really good and still tweaking my settings and stuff. 

GVC you only have 15S pack configuration and not 16S ?

Hi @Bain Viljoen you are on the forum as well! 
 
You should have told me you are now shipping to Cape Town! Last time I asked shipping was for own cost... made me not consider your product this time around. 
I wanted also to point out that the DoD for testing to 2000cycles is 100%, so makes a difference if doing 80% DoD. 
Anyway, a few questions on that:
1. Does your BMS allow you to connect old and new batteries in parallel without affecting the new ones.
2. Are you planning on integrating a "smart" BMS and Control system that can do communications (CAM-bus i think is the standard) to any of the main inverter suppliers (or that ICC used with the Axperts).
 
At this stage, I believe the units are sold as "dumb" batteries, fully controlled by the Inverter voltage setting and then heat protected by the internal BMS. 
 
ps. I would still recommend that someone use your batteries due to the price! 

I know at one point there was a SolarEdge setup -- I do not know if SolarEdge themselves did this or someone else -- that incorporated a high voltage Tesla battery. I don't know if you are familiar with the SolarEdge setup, but they essentially strap the boost stage to the bottom of the panel (so you get panel level MPPT for free) and they have one high voltage supply coming from the roof (around the 400V mark if I recall). The "ground unit" therefore needs no boot stage and like most "transformerless" PV-inverters, it makes AC directly from the high voltage DC.
By placing a high voltage battery in this system, they could store excess PV in the battery and use it at night. SolarEdge inverters are grid-tied and normally don't work at night.
Tesla batteries are not really readily available in SA and even though I hear noises about it every now and then (Rubikon is the importer?), it's also quite expensive.
In other words... there might be a market opportunity for a high voltage battery here. Sorry, I don't have more details.

Yes.
You will need to alter the charge voltages as i think a lot of batteries use 15 cells, i use 16.
Other then that it's plug and play

Thanks Bian for the email and all the info.
I cant wait to order these 
Yesterday with the storm our area was hit with a blackout again. The old batteries(narada 200ah) we have dropped from 52v to 46v in about 2 hours with about 500w load. I then switched off a lot of the stuff and reduced the load to about 200w and by 1AM the batteries were at 42v I switched everything off. This is way lower than what I am comfortable with. 
Power was still off at 6am, solar started to charge but with it being cloudy we will struggle to get them full. 
Kids say power came on at 10 now eskom is charging. I need to upgrade urgently

All the best Bain for your venture with these LiFePO4 batteries !
I am interested in getting some cells from you and for a BMS this unit from AliExpress with bluetooth module.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000425316662.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.679f305eqLa8vP&algo_pvid=20b3aad5-0dd6-4979-af68-93e2ef19e523&algo_expid=20b3aad5-0dd6-4979-af68-93e2ef19e523-18&btsid=13a4281f-b72b-4a12-9a8f-f49fd0ddc7be&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0%2Csearchweb201602_8%2Csearchweb201603_55&aff_request_id=141ae981c7b3450e82968bdf95e1bc07-1578901127032-03937-l5hk5UVw&aff_platform=link-c-tool&cpt=1578901127032&sk=l5hk5UVw&aff_trace_key=141ae981c7b3450e82968bdf95e1bc07-1578901127032-03937-l5hk5UVw&terminal_id=7ba9d86aa42e42478f72cdbbd6e8dfa0
Last year I  successfully purchased some 7S and 14S (Daly brand) BMSs from AliExpress for LiIon cells. These work fine but it would be great to be able to see the voltage of each cell which is what the bluetooth module and smartphone app allows you to do.
What warranty do you offer on your cells ? Obviously you are at risk from clients unaware of the detrimental effects of subjecting the cells to over and under voltage conditions caused by over and under discharging respectively. 

The testing is not always done the same. If you test at 90% DoD and 1C discharge currents, the battery will be EOL (defined as having irreversibly lost 20% of its capacity) after 2000 cycles. If you test at C/2 (as Pylontech does) or C/10 (as BlueNova does), and define your EOL as 40%-lost (As Pylontech does), you get significantly better numbers. I therefore tend to think the real life is going to be somewhere in the middle, probably around 5000.

True. I'm just making a point about how widely the advertised cycles can vary, to the extent that one manufacturer can advertise a number over 3 times bigger than the other, using the same cells 🙂
Of course it makes apples-for-apples comparisons very hard to the consumer, which is something I have often lamented.

If i'm not mistaken the Winston cells that bluenova uses are LiFeYPO4. These do last longer. Extremely expensive as well. 

Hi All,
My cells can, with no problem handle the 0.5c and 1c charge.
They are guaranteed to last 2000 cycles if not overstepping the 1c charge and discharge.
The 2000 cycles are at 100% dod means that you will have 80% capacity remaining there after.
That means after another 2000 cycles you will have another 20% capacity drop.
Taking that into consideration i can claim that the cells can do 6000 cycles at 100% dod and have 50% capacity remaining.
If looking at the data sheets and the tests performed, one will most likely get over 3.2k cycles out of the cells before they have a 20% capacity drop if they are not abused.
I test every single cells voltage upon arrival to make sure there are no damaged cells as this is an clear indication that the cells have been damaged by whatever means.
I do not sell cells that will give me a bad reputation.
Feel free to look at the reviews on my facebook page as well https://www.facebook.com/Lithium-Batteries-South-Africa-104002904362166
Kind Regards,
Bain Viljoen