PierreJ

Hi, Could someone please recommend a good solar installer that does installations in Paarl? Thanks!

This online estimator uses the weather for previous years at your location in order to estimate yields going forward: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php It's the best one that I'm aware of, and it's free.

I really really tried to get off the grid, but failed. The winter weather here in the Western Cape doesn't make it financially viable. I've got 12kWp on the roof, and 20kWh of battery capacity. There are days, sometimes multiple in a row, where my yield is in the low single digit kWh. I would need to triple my battery storage to be able to outlast such days. So I'm grudgingly paying for my grid connection each month, even though for 8 months of the year I buy almost nothing.

"Hybrid inverter 6.5kW combined AC load & DC charge" This is extremely devious marketing. I would not do business with them. Walk away, if you still can.

Do you perhaps know when (or in which firmware version) this was addressed? The reason I ask is because I am seeing some spurious alarms at one of my installations and I'm wondering whether this is the same issue. The install is less than a year old, so the firmware of the batteries is fairly recent. These are the kind of alarms I am getting from time to time: The alarms resolve as fast as they happen, and there's nothing in the battery event logs.

Dewald, I just wanted to say that you very much for the fan. I installed it this afternoon and everything is working perfectly again.

Awesome, thank you very much! I've sent you a private message.

Do all the models use 4-pin fans, and is the pinout and connector the same?

That is correct. The left fan span spins freely when flicked, so it doesn't seem to be an issue with the bearings or some kind of mechanical blockage. Yes, I would prefer to replace it. The current fan is 80x80x25, 12V @ 0.55A. I can't find the spec for the fan, so I don't know how much air it moves, but I assume a fan with similar wattage will move a comparable amount of air. I notice that SegenSolar stock replacement fans for the entire range of Kodak (Voltronic) inverters that they sell, but they don't give any specs on them so I don't know which (if any) will fit. I believe the mapping of the Kodak product names is as follows: OG 5.48 = Axpert VM III OG-PLUS 5.48 = Axpert King II OGS 5.6 = Axpert VM 4 OG 7.2 = Axpert Max 7.2 OG 10 = Axpert Max II Do you know off-hand whether the fan of any of the above inverters will be suitable? Thanks!

When I opened up the inverter case I was fully expecting to be met with a mountain of dust, so I was already armed with a blower, switch cleaner and lubricating oil. However, for an 8 year old system it was remarkably free of dust. Unfortunately for me it looks like the issue is electrical and not mechanical. The fan turns freely, and if you flick it it spins for a while before coming to a stop (even when no power is applied), so the bearings seem intact and there is very little friction. It's a 4-wire PWM fan, so I'm suspecting something in the driver circuit has died. I haven't opened it up yet, but perhaps there's a transistor or capacitor in there that's shot? Is this something that happens? Thanks for the help.

He's got it the wrong way round. They must run in the same conduit, and if you have multiple strings in the same conduit then you need to tie the conductors of each string together at regular intervals for easy identification. From SANS 10142-1 2021, under the "Additional requirements for photovoltaic installations", page 237:

I've got a PIP 4048MS inverter that started throwing error 01 (fan trouble), so I opened it up and noticed that the left fan is not spinning. After swapping the two fan headers the right one keeps spinning, so I assume the left one has failed. (It was manufactured in May 2015, so it's about time for things to start going wrong.) The fan is an ADDA model AD0812XB-A7FGP. Here's a link to it that I found online: https://www.elecok.com/adda-8025-12v-0-55a-ad0812xb-a7fgp.html The problem is I've been unable to find it locally, and it is not listed at www.adda.com.tw, so I suspect it may be discontinued. Is there a similar fan that is more readily available that will also work? Thanks!

I think you can get away with undersizing the contactor in the N-E bond, because it would normally not be required to break the fault current. I would expect the carrying capacity of a contactor to be substantially greater than its breaking capacity. That said, I wouldn't do this myself.

In my experience if high voltage alarms persist with a Pylontech battery module then there's an issue with one or more cells, and a firmware update will not solve it. I would dump the event and cycle data of the battery module using BatteryView and then e-mail it to [email protected]. They usually take a couple of days to reply, but I have always received great service from them. If the battery module is indeed faulty they will guide you through the RMA process. Edit: Looking at the VRM graphs that indeed looks like it could perhaps be a software glitch. The same advice applies: Send the logs to Pylontech and ask what to do next.

That only applies to applications made from 1 October 2023. Someone at CoCT clearly didn't get the memo.