branderplank

I used some 600v breakers from Onesto although I see you can get them in 1000v as well. The markers on this breaker seem to be laid out much better. Usually you can get them from Voltex quite easily - 48 hour turn around https://mce.co.za/product/four-pole-6ka-dc-circuit-breaker/

First time I see there is no fan. I sometime run independent PC fans from the top to avoid the internal fan switching on. The PC fans are much quieter than the internal fan (my inverter is in my house). Vassen made a frame from some Perspex that could be place on top - sure if you search the forum you will find the picture. (although I cannot see a single post from him now)

Hi JP I think anyone with a Sunsynk experiences this. However, you could try increase the minimum usage from the grid to say 50 watts - not sure of your current value? Unfortunately, if a big load is switched off and the battery is already full, it cannot react fast enough. But as you say the export should be very little. I don't believe the firmware will do anything in this regard. Thanks

Seems like there was a bit of discussion on the wiring of DC CB's in the past:

That sounds rather disappointing as we really haven't heard of a lot issues on these. @Leshen mainly installs these inverters and have only heard good things based on his posts

Hi Guys I know the cable has been covered, but is there an easy option where one can buy it? Thanks

See further discussion we had here:

Did you try and change the communication cable on the battery to see if this resolves the issue. We need to see the battery screen menu

For interest sake, how do you about getting these stats?

It looks like you are using some form of Sunsynk/Deye inverter (https://prismsolar.co.uk/product/turbo-energy-hybrid-inverter-series-5000-48/). Make sure that you connect the communication cable from the battery to the CAN port on the inverter and that you also select the battery type to Lithium under the battery settings as well as choosing CAN as the desired communication manner. Can you post some screen shots of the inverter setting menus?

To me it looks like the top battery is supposed to be your master since you have no cable in the link port 0. But your CAN cable is connected to the slave (bottom battery), please move the CAN cable to the top battery (the master) and see if this changes anything. Which inverter are you using?

I have the empire hexing one. The landys+GYR also seems to be less sensitive to feedback (my parents have one of these).

Generally I use 50 watt but my meter does not trip even if I accidently push back

Very nice install @Leshen I assume it is then two AM2's per Inverter and both Inverters will have panel from East and West side (as opposed to one being fed only from East and other only from West). What relay are you using for the N/E bond? Thanks

Thanks for clarifying So if I wanted to charge the batteries from the genset (via AUX), I would have to drop the grid side? Or can you achieve this on the system/timer menu?

Good to know - thanks - but I assume it would only blend to the UPS side if the Grid went out? And do you change any watt settings on the Aux screen? @Leshen

Hi Guys Did some testing the weekend. So as I mentioned, I could not get this working previously. My approach, replace Municipal supply on Grid side with power from Genny (i.e. I don't use the AUX port). I have 7.5 Kva petrol GenTech genny. So as experienced by @Sc00bs, you have to connect the earth of the genny to the earth of the house. At first the Sunsynk could not see the Hz of the genny - which was around 53~44 without any load (based on a small digital screen from the genny). So first I had to increase the upper range in the Grid settings to accept this (on the inverter). As a side note: My CT clamp was on the main incoming line, but my genny changeover switch is after this point, so I had to find a different spot for the CT clamp to allow the inverter to see the watts coming from the genny (i.e. I had to move it further up on the main incoming line) My DB is split between Essentials and non essential with the more power hungry items (such as geyser, pool pump etc) on the N/E side So after upping the Hz range, the relay clicked over after circa 60 seconds and the Sunsynk managed to synchronize with the genny. There was an immediate change in tone on the genny as if it was working harder (although I had ample solar power for UPS side and had switched off on the DB the pool pump and geyser) Some interesting observations: I was generating some good solar so that went to the battery and the UPS at the time the more loads I added on the N/E side, the more the genny increased its power With more and more loads on the N/E side, the Hz dropped to 51.5 as some point The inverter kept on supplying only the batteries and the UPS side (essentials) At some point I was drawing close to 4kw from the inverter and at this point, some of the LED long tube lights started some flickering Before all of this, my expectation was however that the genny would idle along nicely since the inverter would now blend back to the N/E side since there was ample solar available and I did not have my system screen set to charge the batteries from the "grid" (i.e. I never instructed the inverter to try and charge from the batteries). I mean this is what you get when you grid-tie with the Eskom grid, but contrary to this, the genny kept on working harder and no solar was diverted to the N/E (I got fed up with the noisy generator and switch everything off and back to normal again). So unfortunately, I did not try and charge the batteries from the genny but sure that it would be able barring in mind that you would have to limit the grid power as per the above video as it would probably start charging the at the prescribed BMS rate (in my case 111 Amps DC). So the only conclusion from this is that for some reason, the Sunsynk cannot throttle the supply from the generator but I don't know what the technical reason for this could be and hence you got to be careful what you switch on when using the genny as the Solar power will not supplement the genny to extent that there is excess available and not charging the battery. (or the Sunsynk just doesn't like the genny waveform and don't want to blend with it - see flickering lights mentioned above) I have some pics of the system flow chart if anyone wants to see these. Hopefully this will be of use to someone.

Check if this can be of assistance:

Glad to hear there is some change Did you adjust your settings to not immediately start charging the batteries from the genny? An alternative could be to drop some of the loads on the DB and progressively switch them on? Lastly, is this during a time period where you have little to no solar power available?

Thanks @YellowTapemeasure Seems he did not report back on the matter. However, that same grid screen says grid reconnect time = 60 seconds and power factor of 1.0 Could it be that the power factor of the genny is less than 1.0? It does seems strange that in that thread that it sees the AC volts but 0 for frequency? (this article seems to suggest that single phase gennies below 40 kw run at a PF of 1 - https://www.generatorsource.com/Industrial_Generator_Phases_and_Voltage.aspx )

Basically your inverter sees the AC from the generator between never switches off the anti islanding mode. And hence as you state, it does not accept any charge from the generator to charge the batteries. I also experienced the same and was wondering if it could have anything do to with the fact that the generator is not earthed. My generator is mobile so typically, there is no permanent earth linked up but I have not tested it with a earth connection. However, it may be something totally different... Also looking for the answer on this questions

Hi Leshen Tried to a search but difficult to get a direct find on this question. Does it make a difference in how you connect String 1 and String 2 to MPPT 1 And of course String 3 and String 4 to MPPT 2. Looking at the available spaces, you could connect String 1 and String 2 directly onto the Inverter MPPT 1 as there are 2 positive and 2 negative connections available. But would it make a difference if you first parallel string 1 and string 2 and then connect that to only 1 positive and 1 negative of MPPT 1? See below illustration (just showed the positive wires for illustration): Option 1: Direct to MPPT 1: Versus Option 2: First parallel and then connect to MPPT 1: I see the manual says the following: Therefore it seems that if there is a direct connection per string to the MPPT there may be some performance gains? Any insights on this matter will greatly assist Thanks

This is the general accepted practice and is mentioned in most manuals etc. Just wondering if there is any authority on this that can be specifically cited? With modern day Lithium BMS systems, is this still the case? Or will the BMS manage any problems due to wire length?

Your system will work but if everything is connected on the UPS side of the inverter your battery will not be able to handle the loads which may be running when an unplanned outage hits you. The part that is not clear to me is: "Whole house connected ..." By virtue of the CT coils being placed at the correct position, the inverter will send solar power to your whole house thereby giving you a saving irrespective of having it connected to the Grid or Load side. So you will get the benefit of the sun. But if the power goes out (unexpectedly), and you have all of these loads on the UPS side, I suspect that it would trip since the battery will just not be able to manage it (especially at night/cloudy conditions). So maybe what you could do is leave two phases on the non-ups side (the ones with the geysers, oven etc) and have the lights phase on the UPS side. This way you will make sure that the battery will only carry light loads during an outage. You can then later on move more loads over to the ups side as you expand your batteries. Not sure if this makes sense to you. Maybe someone else has better idea or experience with this.

Just a few thoughts: You can always convert your DB to use just one phase - this is what I did, I still have 3 phase but not using two of them. (although I see you mention you don't want to) I have not really checked the specs on the 12 KW but I assume it would be limited to 4kw per phase. Although I see something about: By moving everything to a single phase and installing a 8kw (for example) you can still support a "heavy consumer" versus having to limit your loads on each phase to 4 kw at a time and save some costs (although you can weigh up this saving against cost of converting your db to single phase). Do you have prepaid? If so what type of meter? One pylontech will not be enough to service the output your inverter can supply during load shedding - it can only do 50% of 3.5kw on a continuous basis. (you can limit the power draw from the battery on the timer screen to 1800 watt to protect the single batter) The panels seems fine, you will start saving money but of course it will not meet your demand of 900 kwh (especially if you use more in winter)