craig777

Hi everyone, Last year, after numerous power outages in my area I decided to go fully (more or less) off grid. I have an existing system (3kw RCT vmII, 2.8kw Hubble battery) that covers some stuff, but not enough to carry on normally during an area outage. That runs on a completely separate grid to the house mains. I'll be leaving that in place until the batteries or inverter dies. The new system is 2 x Solis S6 pro 6KW inverters paralleled for 12KW output. 12 x 550w Jinko solar panels, split in 2 strings to maximise morning and afternoon sun. The roof gets partially shaded by the neighbours tree in the morning and councils tree on the pavement in the afternoon. 3 x Dyness BX51100 batteries, rated at 0.5C. I may add to these depending on how my usage goes in winter. I'm not looking to feed back to the grid, I don't even think it's a possibility in my municipality yet, so I plan to run the system in islanding mode most of the time. I'm not splitting my load into essential vs non essential. I want everything to run as essential so I'm thinking of just using my existing DB. I've attached a basic plan of my wiring. I just want to check if I'm missing something. The existing DB is in my passage, so the inverter an batteries are installed in another room a couple meters away. I'm not sure if I should have an addition mini DB to cut off power to the inverter at the inverter or if the initial circuit breaker at the passage DB is enough. I was told that the inverters have isolation for the PV so I don't need an additional one for that. Is that true or should I also have an Isolator for each solar string? So the plan is to take the Eskom mains out of the existing DB and move it into a smaller DB that contains a breaker for the inverter and then goes to a changeover switch on another board to divert power from mains or the inverter. Am I creating too many sub boards? Also, if I have a surge arrestor coming in at the Eskom mains, and one at the inverter output, should I put another one at the existing DB input? Or is that creating too many routes? Grateful for any advice you've got.

@sunset1

Yeah, I think that's my issue, I haven't had a good experience with any of the sub contractors I've worked with. I'm partially to blame too, I ask a lot of questions and want things done in a certain way (translation: I have control issues). Another thing, my neighbours boyfriend owns a solar install company that does a lot of work around where I live. To put it politely, he only has 2 brain cells and they're busy fighting over third place. That doesn't really instill confidence in the local guys. I did speak to a supplier who said the installer doesn't matter for the warranty as long as I get a CoC. I also found a thread on here where a guy did his own install and detailed everything he needed for the CoC. Very nice set up from what I saw. Pretty much exactly what I'm wanting too.

yeah, that's what I thought. It's fair though I guess. I'm mainly concerned about a DOA issue. I had that with one of my Hubbles, they were very accommodating though. I haven't heard much about Solis, I'll research that a bit more. Thanks

Hi, I'm looking at expanding my current set up and essentially going off grid. My current set up is a 2.4kw Axpert inverter with 3x 200w solar panels and 2 x s120 Hubble batteries connected in series for the 24v set up. I built the system is 2014 with AGM batteries. The drop in Hubbles were a nice addition in 2022. So now I've been looking at what's changed and what's available and I'm busy calculating my solar needs. My daily usage is between 10-12kwh (including what I draw from my current solar set up). I'm thinking of 12 x 550w solar panels, 3 - 4 5kw batteries and possibly 2 x 5kw inverters (I'm undecided on that because it's very rare my draw exceeds 4kw, but may just do it to be safe). I'd like to do this myself because aside from saving on the installation cost, this is the type of project I love and would enjoy. My problem is that pretty much all the inverters I've seen have a warranty stipulation that it must be installed by a registered installer or electrician and must have a CoC. The CoC bit isn't an issue, I can hire an electrician to check that but I'm concerned that if it's not installed by an acceptable installer that they'll nullify my warranty. How likely is that? I'm specifically looking at Luxpower and Deye inverters so anyone who has warranty claim experience with them please let me know what they're like

Hi, I've got one of those axpert 24v inverters (I can't think of the exact model now but it's the little one) I've currently got 2 120ah AGM batteries connected in series but they're now done. I saw there's a hubble 120ah 12v that's supposedly a drop in replacement to VRLA and AGM batteries. would this work with my inverter and built in charge controller? I've currently got 3 x 200w solar panels that charge the batteries through it but I'm not sure if this is sufficient for the hubble battery. Thanks in advance