WannabeSolarSparky

Almost 5 days to get the second battery nicely balanced and ready for use 🙃 This second one has started "working" at 2am this morning. And as luck would have it no sun in Cape Town today, so a very good 1st test run on the go 😁

for 36v you could probably get a lifepo4 golfcart battery if you do not want to DIY the battery. Or 3 12V lifepo4 batteries.

+100 TO @madness_za Stick with reputable stores. If you already doubting then definitely stay away :) GUt Feel is always good to follow. My goto known legit stores (I have purchased from them myself multiple times) https://www.diygeek.co.za https://www.solarwaysuppliers.co.za <--- they often have great sales so almost top of my list https://lithium-cells.co.za

If your ct clamp is at the correct point at the 1st incoming grid point on your circuits then you can simply export to loads and zero export to grid and for safety set a 20 or 50 watt trickle feed. I have mine set like this and it works great.

The media always get technical stuff "wrong" for "reasons" The inverters are where the devices were found, this has nothing to do with the panels. It is very easy to hide radio comms devices in circuits these days so it is not outside the realm of possibility.

Only the 1st 2 are active right now :) Yeah let the inverters get them as high as possible then bulk the low ones individually, way quicker that way if you on have 5amps to push in. I use ZKETECH EBC-A10H so have the same 5amps limit, it does the trick with a bit if help upfront :)

For Axpert I think there are quite a few posts here on the forum for getting them onto home assistant. For sunsynk you can find good info here on the forum as well. See screenshots from the stuff you can get from these great guys work. look for @kellerza and @slipx https://kellerza.github.io/sunsynk/guide/overview I use that as well as for battery monitoring https://github.com/fl4p/batmon-ha and https://slipx06.github.io/sunsynk-power-flow-card/index.html

GitHubGitHub - KinDR007/VictronMPPT-ESPHOME: Victron Mppt charg...Victron Mppt charger ve.direct to esphome node. Contribute to KinDR007/VictronMPPT-ESPHOME development by creating an account on GitHub.thats for the MPPT's you did not mention what inverter, if also victron then there are quite a few solutions for their inverters. https://github.com/j9brown/victron-mk3-hass

Home Assistant can take just about anything you throw at it.

Second Narada Battery Upgrade finally completed and added Second new JK Inverter BMS. New cell16 is a bit low will need to manually pump it up tonight when the battery is at a high soc to give the balancer a better path to balance :) Busy testing the cells of the 2 batteries from @JohannesD then get them upgraded to also use the new JK BMS's and add them into the bank.

Definitely need to build up some reputation 1st else no one on this forum will support you... There are already trusted suppliers so you would need to prove yourself 1st :) And as @stefan44 mentioned, a good start will be posting a decent classifieds listing here on the site with decent info and price.

Lite-Glo in JHB 16mm2 - R56.50 p/m https://www.liteglo.co.za/product-category/general-purpose-house-wire-per-meter/page/2/ I buy from them all the time and I am in Cpt :) Best prices and quick reliable delivery.

Yip they the best and super fast delivery :) HIGH AT THE TOP OF MY TRUST LIST FOR LOCAL component SUPPLIERS. 4x 105ah cells bought and 2 x 100a JK inverter bmses https://lithium-cells.co.za/detail/429365

Item: JK Smart Bluetooth BMS Model: BD6A20S10P Age: 3 years Price: R499.00 Payment Method Accepted: Cash on collection Warranty: None Packaging: None Condition: Used - 100% working condition Location: Parklands, Cape Town Reason: Upgraded Shipping: No Collection: Yes Link: https://lithium-cells.co.za/detail/429356

Check messages :) @JohannesD

Yip, sounds like the same crappy excuse they used to protect the local "manufacturer" of solar panels which apparently turned out to be a bit dodgy.

Finally finished upgrading my 1st Narada 15 cell battery to full 16 cell with JK Inverter BMS... So far so good :) BMS now fully controlling the inverter. Performance already outshines all previous data. Now to get the second one done and get them working nicely in parallel :) Second upgrade kit ready to go

Are your CT clamps installed correctly? Those arrows seem to be pointing in the wrong direction.

And the main stream media goes ahead and blames the climate 🤣

Start by charging to 3.45v per cell and let the cells fully absord till the amps drop to about 2A then increase the voltage to 3.475 and let it absorb again till amps drop down, keep repeating increasing by 0.025 till you get all the cells nicely top balanced at 3.65v. Takes a while to do this but seriously worth the effort. Then reset the bms and set all your preferred settings, (Andy gives some good settings to use). Now do a full discharge and then charge back to top, SOC should then correctly give you 100% at the top setting you choose.

I am busy upgrading my battery banks and can show you an example of a weak cell that could possibly explain what is happening your side too. See Cell 8 below, voltage is lower than the rest of the cells. This is during discharging, if I now put a heavy load onto the battery (e.g. kettle) then cell 8 would drop very quickly which will then bring the total SOC down rapidly with it. The opposite happens when charging, that weak cell voltage goes up a lot quicker than the healthy cells, falsely/incorrectly pushing up the SOC as it prematurely hits its over voltage limit, resulting in the rest of the cells also not charging up fully. Sp your battery SOC ends up being totally out of wack. See second image below showing visually what happens. See on the left while charging the weak cell voltage rises quicker than the rest, and then on the right while discharging the weak cell voltage drops a lot faster then the rest. No amount of top balancing can fix this, I have tried every method out there and none of it fixes the weak cell. Only solution is to replace the weak cell to bring the whole battery back to a good working condition.

Sounds to me like your battery cells are out of balance due to not being full absorbed to the top. Or you have a weak cell or 2. Best would be to get someone to check all the individual cells for you.

Yip indeed, not blindly accepting the output is key :)

I use Ai extensively (mostly Grok as it's great with coding) to speed up mobile app development, massive time-saver. There are good and bad use cases for Ai, you see all the dodgy folk (Politicians included) that think Ai will make them "clever" they are sooooo wrong 🤣 coz they don't realise you need at least a few decent braincells to use Ai correctly and effectively.

Agreed, I have one on my main DB and it works a charm