Yellow Measure

Just recently got myself a used BMW i3 .... LOVING IT!!!!
Now going back down the rabbit hole of having to upgrade the PV System to account for the new consumption ... and that consumption is quite something!!! Since plugged in our household consumption has more than doubled! 🥴 Totally worth it though, looking forward to an upgraded system 😁
Anyways, not that I have much experience, the only thing that I checked out was the battery SOH - and in the case of the BM you can't actually check the SOH itself, but rather the "capacity" of the battery which is apparently not an accurate indicator of SOH, but does give a good idea of where the battery is at ...
I turned down 2 i3's due to poor "capacity", both between 40 - 60,000km.
Third one I checked had over a 100,000km, beyond my comfort zone and wouldn't have been on my radar to check out, but stumbled on it by chance - according to the "capacity" reading it was well over 90% "SOH", waaay better than the previous two that had done only half the km's, so I bit the bullet and am super chuffed so far (been two weeks)...have since run the battery down to 5% and the range driven indeed does correspond with the capacity reading, so all seems great!
The capacity reading on the BM can be found through a "secret menu" - although the ease with which this menu was found through Google makes it "not so secret" 🤣

Interesting, I get SoH form my SS for my Dyness but only when the battery type is lithium. What I don’t get is cycle count though

SoH at a minimum should be available from the Inverter, assuming inverter comms were active. There are other tools as well you can use to connect to the batteries to find out more detailed Cycle and Cell information

Dark Mode is available! ;)

Just need to get another eTower once funds permit and before winter so that am sitting at least on 200ah, well less 20% to try and cover for the extra cloudy days.

Excellent choice, the e-Tower is a 1C battery, and the Solis S6 is starting to become legendary.

Great Product Choice ! 

Many thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately I’ve missed the boat, having gone for the Combo promo of Solis s6 6kw and Freedom Won eTower. No complaints regarding Freedom Won tech guys, save for initial teething problems with comms cable, which eventually got sorted. 

The Previous price VAT included was R49 000 give or take a few Rands I would say that is quite significant. 

Hello @Moffat we have sold a lot of Magneto Energy Batteries in the past and we can only say that they offer the best after sales service they are backed by a very large Commercial company and they cover every major town and city in South Africa the batteries are compatible with most major brands of inverters and their CAN RS485 Comms function well they have very good after sales technical team that will help installers with firmware updates and technical support. 
I have had scenarios in the past where their technical guys would actually go to the site to assist and when we had a faulty battery they would literally send a replacement to the clients location before taking the faulty unit back. 
As far as I know their warranty is a swap out warranty meaning they don't typically repair the faulty unit they replace it with a new one. 
I hope that covers your questions relating to their Support and Service. 

You cannot mix different battery brands as far as I know. This one's on you mate. 

Hi Charles typically most battery manufacturers specify that you can not mix different brand batteries their BMS technology may differ or the cell layout and chemistry may differ.
Pylontech will not honor their warranty if you mix their batteries with other brands and the same goes for Freedom Won Hubble lithium Greenrich Volta and any other brand in the market. 
In some cases the same brand has issues with different models like the Freedom Won Etower cannot mix with Home Light models and Hubble the AM2 cannot mix with AM5 due to different BMS Configuration and Cell technology voltage ranges of the cells differ so it is impossible to have a batteries of every make and brand to be able to work with each other on a common DC bus.  
I hope this clarifies matters? 
I would also recommend selling the New battery you have on the Powerforum Classifieds ads section. 

Hi. I see the price in R 34,500.00. What currency is that? Price in usd??

Aha! That's interesting. Somewhere in my province. 😎

😁 nope it's Actually in KZN Somewhere!

Hey Everyone 
So I have done the installation of the 2 KW Variable Pitch turbine and I will be posting some pictures and videos of the process.
The current configuration is connected to one of the MPPT's on the Solis S6 Advanced 6KW Hybrid inverter.
Power Generation when I have good wind seems to be acceptable however there are some small issues that I am troubleshooting with Solis for additional functionality on the Solis Hybrid MPPT.
To allow for more efficient production and more fine tune settings on the MPPT.
Settings like Stop and Start the genport at battery % this will allow the use of grid tied inverters that do not support frequency shifting.
Possibly other fancy communication features that allow comms between the inverter and the turbine controller however this process will take time to finalize. 
In the Meantime while they are working on that I am changing the controller to one of our own grid tied wind turbine controllers where the turbine connects directly to the controller and outputs 230VAC at 50HZ. This I will AC Couple to the Solis Inverter backup port, Generator Port and test it on the Utility port by deactivating anti Islanding... this is not recommended we are doing it for testing purposes to see if we can create a micro grid scenario.
There is no GRID and the system is OFF GRID so no risk of hurting anyone.  
The controller is very advanced it allows for frequency shifting and had modbus with RS485 comms we can also program the power curve of the turbine into the controller and the voltage range is very wide so we can make it work with various voltage wind turbine generators low RPM and High RPM Generators will work on the controller as long as we have an accurate power curve for the generator. 
 

Hello Everyone 
We have started a wind turbine project to Illustrate that wind power in the right area and with the right equipment is a feasible solution and worth the money time and effort.
Product Choice is very important meaning that you must understand the technology that is available for wind turbines.
We have been involved in the Wind Turbine industry for some time and just as with solar there are many pitfalls to look out for unfortunately there are an excess of inferior quality products in the market and a lot of people that do not understand the technology and how to correctly integrate it with existing systems. 
We are documenting this process from start to finish and will provide access to data real-time monitoring photos videos and guidance on how to successfully implement wind turbine technology onto a full hybrid system that is running off grid. 
Fortunately, the location we have available has decent average wind speeds between 6 and 10 meter per second with an average of 7 meter per second throughout the year. 
Average wind speed is the most important factor for the success or failure of a wind turbine application. 
We are very fortunate in South Africa to have reasonable feasible wind speeds in the majority of the country however there are some areas that are just not feasible, and a wind turbine would be a waste of money and time.
So here we go with a little info on the base system that we will integrate the wind turbines with.
The System
2 X Solis S6 Advanced 6KW Hybrid Inverters in parallel single phase in off grid mode. 
20 x 365 Watt Ja Solar all black solar panels mounted in a east northeast and west southwest orientation (side note this configuration performs surprisingly well) giving you a total of 7.3 KW of solar power. 
Panels are mounted to the corrugated iron roof with Renusol Metasole mounting structures with black mid and end clamps. 
7 x Hubble Lithium AM-2 Batteries of various ages the oldest heading to 4 years giving a theoretical total capacity of 38.5 KWH storage the batteries are on a common DC bus to alleviate balancing between the batteries. 
Ryobi 2.5 KVA Petrol Generator for Emergency backup purposes. (produces enough energy to run base loads and slowly charge the batteries) 
The system has a full COC for insurance purposes. 
Additional equipment that will be installed on to the system. 
Solis 5KW offgrid inverter with 1 x Humless 5KWH battery for long term review. Sponsored by Solis South Africa and Humless. 
HYE 1.5 KW Grid tied wind turbine controller integrated solid state dump load with comms and CT Clamps. (Not NRS Certified) Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD Thanks Jason
HYE 1KW Wind turbine Fixed blade rated @12MS weight 28KG 5 blades 2M blade diameter high rpm generator with SKF bearings 110V 3 phase AC Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD Thanks Jason
ODIN 2KW Constant Voltage Controller with 4KW Dump load and Comms and remote monitoring platform. Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD
ODIN 2KW Mechanical Variable Pitch Wind turbine rated @9MS weight 130KG 3 blade 4M blade diameter low rpm generator 380V 3 phase AC Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD
12 Meter monopole guyed wire tower hot dipped galvanized engineer certified for the 2KW Odin turbine comes with all documentation and a 3-year Guarantee Sponsored by Coastal Towers Thanks Derek. 
12 Meter lightweight monopole guyed wire tower hot dipped galvanized engineer certified for the 1KW HYE turbine. Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD
Custom 3.5 Meter powder coated portable turbine stand for the 1KW HYE turbine. (for experimentation) 
Miscellaneous DC and AC Switchgear for AC and DC protection boxes cable etc.  
More Info to follow .....
 
 
 
 

There is some information that is not show I used standard 6mm2 PV Cable connected to the output on the Turbine Generator there are 3 phases we joined each cable with a 6mm ferrule and insulated this with heat shrink and silicone insulation tape to ensure a waterproof insulation. It is crucial for this connection to remain dry and very secure we also used some cable ties to tie the cable to the cable hook inside the pole. 
The cable hook carries the weight of the cable. 
The three cables run down the pipe underground in LDP pipe into the house up to the point where it attaches to the controller for experimentation purposes I have a 3 phase changeover Switch to change the output from te turbine to two different controllers. 
This makes things a lot easier when running experiments. 
One controller is a 360 VDC output the other one is a grid tied wind turbine controller that outputs 230VAC @ 50HZ

Here are some Pics of the Generator and guy wires fixed to the pole.

The Guy Wire bases are 120 Degrees appart and 6 meters from the central base each Guy wire base is 1000 x 1000 x 800 and the central base is 1000 x 1000 x 410 mm 
One Guy base diagonal with the direction of swivel on the base this allowed us to assemble the turbine and tower on the ground. 
Total estimated 27 Mpa Concrete used was close to 3 Cubes in total all the rebar and steel mesh we had to supply the manufacturer supplied the base plate and threaded rod and the eyelet rods for the Guy bases.
More to follow...

We had to wait a couple of weeks for the concrete to set then we assembled the 12 meter pole.

Here are more of the same process and completed bases. 

Note all Welding was done from my Off Grid Solar system this includes the electric cement mixer no petrol generators were used.
Here are more pictures on the progress of the bases. Pouring Concrete and then the Final results. 

The Next batch are for the Guy Wire bases.

Hi Guys so here are some pictures from start to finish of the installation of the turbine tower and turbine. 
 
Central Base