superdiy

No, you can, with feedback disabled.

If feedback is disabled, the inverter will only draw as much power from the panels as required by the inverter, the load and the charger. There are however devices available which you can connect to these inverters and dummy loads like geysers, which will ensure that you don't feed back any power and all access power is dumped into the dummy load. As far as I know these devices are not available off-shelf (in SA), but there are designs available on the net if you want to build your own. I think you can purchase a DIY kit from the UK as well. The other option is to get an inverter which can control / handle a limiter - I know there is a specific brand available in SA with that option, but I cannot remember the name at the moment. Other forum members might be able to assist on that matter.

How do I delete a post, like you could in the previous version of the forum software?

Only problem with them is that they are very inaccurate. I've also bought 4 of them a while ago an connected them to an adjustable power supply. Their readings were out by as much a 2V at certain voltages with about 1.5V difference between the meter with the lowest and the meter with the highest reading at 13.0V. Mine cannot be calibrated, but at some point in time I might add a multi-turn preset or two to each panel meter to try and calibrate it. I guess you cannot expect much accuracy for about R25 a shot.

Hi Pierre, welcome to the forum. Yes, indeed, these inverters can be configured not to feed back to the grid.

Hi Camel, add your location to your profile and check out the others.

Looks much better than the old ones.

It is really sad that it is so expensive. I love my 3K+ and would love to have some more available power, but at that price...

Hi Prasert1965, the filter is designed to filter spikes on the mains, it will not help for low / high voltage situations.

I've painted the roof of my house with this prior to installing the panels about a year ago. I've used the greyish colour - temperature of the roof sheets and inside the roof is much lower than before it was painted.

Yes, it does work. My dad painted his place's roof white. Previously it was painted light grey and it is definitely much cooler since it is painted white.

Interesting article. Don't miss the second part: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10970858/flattening-duck-curve-renewable-energy

Hi Dave Welcome to the forum. Sounds like an idea, but you'll maybe have to add structural support all around the outside as well to reverse the bulging of the outer cells. PS. Wish I had 1660Ah cells.

You've mentioned inverters - I assume you have a few in parallel supplying the whole house? It is all about losses and voltage drops here, not about breakers protecting the cable. What length of cable are you looking at? The longer the cable the thicker it should be, but I won't even consider using 6mm2 if you are supplying power to everything in your house over that cable. If it is a short piece of cable, say 1m or less, I would maybe use 10mm2.

Usually only the cable between the street connection and the house...

Off topic. There is nothing like an angle grinder when it comes to tile cutting - not talking about straight cuts, but rather cutouts e.g. around door frames etc.

These kinds of things drive me insane! That is why I DIY everything - try to rely on others as little as possible.

Ah, OK, I forgot, you had a company who did the installation. That is probably why your links between your batteries are 70mm2. Sometimes the installers buy or make up links, but in only one size, which they then use in many different installations for battery banks of various capacities.

Are you really expecting honest answers? Maybe you should rather ask who has inverters capable of feeding back and who has rotary disk meters?

It is irrelevant, as I've said the same amount of current is going to flow everywhere. You would actually want it the other way around - the longer cables should be thicker to have less losses. The only place where you want to have the same size and lengths of cables is when you have parallel strings of batteries connected to bussbars - the total length and cable size per string must be equal in all parallel strings.

I use a baby grinder with a 1mm blade to cut all my welding cable, 10mm2 and up - just get your timing right - not too fast, because then you won't have a clean cut, not too slow because then the cable will heat up too much and melt the insulation.

TTT, I beg to differ here. The same amount of current is going to flow between the batteries and to and from the batteries, therefor your cables should all be the same thickness - but of course always as short as possible and as thick as possible to have the least amount of losses.

There might be more reasons, but I'll try to explain the most obvious one - bear with me. In a standard installation neutral and earth is bonded before the main ELR Neutral and live (current carrying) conductors are usually one size thicker than the earth conductor If you make another neutral-earth bond down the line and the neutral conductor between the two bonding points fail - e.g. because it was damaged or cut or because of a bad connection somewhere, the thinner earth conductor will be carrying the current, which might be too much for the thinner cable and which might cause over-heating and / or fire etc. etc.

The same amount of current will flow between the batteries and fuse box and fuse box and inverter. The only reason I can think of why someone would want to use different cable sizes, is if they use thinner cable for shorter distances and thicker cable for longer distances to try and have the same resistance and voltage drop. Maybe the installer have read something about the voltage drops in parallel battery strings, where you want to keep the resistance / voltage drop per string equal and misunderstood the explanation and tried to keep resistance and voltage drops similar in other parts of the battery cables as well. Since you want the lowest overall resistance and lowest possible voltage drop at high currents between the battery bank and inverter, you should try to use the thickest cable in all instances.

I'm glad you've mentioned this. We've discussed this for a very long time and the discussion is still open and unresolved. The automatic bonding options can only be used on non-hybrid inverters e.g. the Axperts. Since loadshedding started in SA there were obviously thousands of Axpert inverters installed in this country and all those installations had to be COC'd - how was that done - referring to the earthing / bonding in the installations? How do you need to connect / earth / bond in the case of a true hybrid installation like the Imeon and infini?