Paul Vermeulen

Hi Jason, I am very happy to hear about your positive experience with the Blade battery. I have also seen the video with the nail being hammered through the battery, and am seriously considering getting a BYD Shark Plug In Hybrid (has the same battery) for work. I will upgrade my existing solar system, putting an independent system in my garage to charge my new car, and act as the backup for my existing system, much like a generator. Most of my traveling is at night, so I can charge the vehicle in the daytime. And my customers have 3 phase electric power available so I will get a plug in charge cable (22kW) to top up charge between jobs. But it should start up on petrol once the battery gets to 20% SOC anyway, so there will be no range anxiety. I am nervous of the new vehicle, I have seen so many reports of electric cars catching fire, but I have seen way more petrol cars burnt out on the side of the freeway. So I have promised myself that if, after one year of their release into the local market, there are no negative reports I will get one. Reliability is my biggest concern, breaking down at 3am outside an informal settlement is dangerous. But I will be saving R12k a month on diesel, and another R2k a month by going off the grid, so it will pay for itself in no time and have a long term benefit to our monthly expenses. I will keep you updated, Regards, Paul

I have a customer with this setup, a 3 phase Grid Tie Back system that powers an office block. It works perfectly, but a few months ago the modem that connects to the Data Logger was changed. The Wifi Username and Password were changed. Since then he has not been able to monitor the system on the SEMS Program. I have checked, everything on the Logger seems to be in order, except the PC Connection. I tried connecting my laptop with the ProMate program directly to the Logger, but it does not connect. I have also found the original modem connected to the Logger, and confirmed the new logon details. Does anyone here know how to connect to the PC? I am assuming this is where the fault lies. Thanking you in advance.

I use similar voltages with my Pylontech batteries, but the charge indicator on the battery is only going up to 3 out of 6 lights. That is why I am tempted to increase the bulk charge voltage to 57V and the float voltage to 56.6V, I also use 48V as the cutoff voltage which usually is close to the 20% limit too.

I have a customer with an Axpert 5kVA Inverter Charger, 12 x 410W Solar Panels, and he has just bought a 5.2kW Deye Lithium Ion battery. I set it up using typical Bulk and Float Voltage settings, but it looks like the battery is only about 50% when fully charged. On the battery it says the voltage range is 43.2V to 57.6V, do I use the 57.6V as the Bulk Charging Voltage, and the 43.2V as the cut-off voltage? Your help will be greatly appreciated, I have tried googling the settings but they don't seem to exist.

Today I set up a Solar System, 2 x Solar MD Batteries 14.336kWh, 48V with a Sun-Synk 8kVA Hybrid Inverter, 8kW of Solar Panels in 4 strings, 2 x 4 Panels AC-DC 450W 48V and 2 x 4 Panels 340W ArtSolar 48V going to MPPT 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and 2-2. Everything was going well until we started the inverter, it works well but shows the batteries as fully charged, whilst they are definitely not. I have connected the batteries to each other using the CAN1 and CAN2 ports, and the batteries to the CAN Port on the inverter as per manufacturers instructions. It appears the BMS is not working, there is no data there. I have now checked the web site, they say you need the V2 Logger to make the Solar MD batteries compatible with the Sun-Synk Inverter Charger. These are like hens teeth, is there a way around this problem, or does anyone know where I can get a V2 Logger?

My neighbour has an Axpert 5kVA-48V DC Inverter Charger with a Pylontech US3000C Battery as a backup for load shedding. At the moment the LED Lights are flashing quickly and there is no display on the inverter. The battery appears to be fully charged. I have tried resetting it, by disconnecting everything and the reconnecting, but that does not help. The manual says Check Battery Connections, they are all good. Any suggestions please? video_2022-08-06_11-45-49.mp4

Just to follow up I borrowed a Thicknesser Planer to repair our flood damaged wooden floor, the overload kept tripping. So I replaced the overload with an On-Off switch, and burnt the motor out. After I had it rewound I checked the current draw on Eskom power, it was close to 270V AC 14A (rated 6.5A Full Load). I then tested it on my inverter circuit and it was drawing exactly 6.5A. So I called Eskom, the technician admitted there was a fault, he managed to connect our power supply to different connectors on the transformer, and got the voltage down to about 240, which he says is the new norm and acceptable. But now I know why my electricity bill is so high!. Thanks for the advice.

A friend has just bought 2 x 14.3kW MD Solar Batteries and has asked my help to connect them to his existing system. It looks like the Logger V2 is required to get the Battery Management System working and to communicate with the inverters (2 x Axpert 5kVA 4kW 60A Solar with about 10kW of PV) has anyone here had experience with this configuration? And would it be better to get the SMH from Centurion to control the system? I have watched e few YouTube videos from MD Solar but none of them show the actual connection to the inverters.

Yes I will report the high voltage to our power provider, when the supply voltage dropped to about 265V AC the units recognised the Utility Input and started working again. And I found the reason that the utility feed to the inverters tripped, during the recent floods I bought an industrial Wet/Dry vacuum cleaner to help get rid of water, I have just found that it is 3500W and my wife was using it on the solar circuit. That combined with the usual load tripped the circuit breaker in bypass mode. Of course we only found out after the batteries went flat.

OK Everything is working again now, just need to find out why it happened!

Thank you for the reply. Our transformer was recently replaced after a tree fell on the power line and snapped the mounting pole and damaged the original transformer. The voltage is high, I have checked it with a multi-meter, but the system was working. I recently bought 2 new Axpert inverters SOL-I-AX-5P64 to get the higher Solar Input current of 80A to match our Solar Panel array. At the moment the inverters are charging the batteries from Solar, but are still reporting that there is a Utility failure. Most of our appliances run through the inverters, where the output voltage is shown at 230V 50Hz, though in bypass mode I always assumed that the load was fed directly from Eskom through the inverters. We have not had a problem with anything burning out yet. As soon as there is enough solar power I will try and turn the system on gain to see if it starts working, and then try to find out what tripped the utility power supply to the inverters.

The AC Voltage displayed on the Inverters is 275V is this too high? Should be 230V

Our system has failed, I heard the inverter alarms going off and noticed that the Utlility feed to the inverters had tripped. I reset it, the inverters show AC Input but the watchpower program shows no AC Input voltage. I have changed the settings to Utility Output Source priority, Utility Charge Source Priority, from the SMH Program I cancelled the SOC option and chose UTI/SUB as the mode. But it will not start working again. When I reset the batteries (6 x 3.5kW Pylontech) it does not go into bypass mode. Any ideas please?

Good morning all. My Raspberry Pi 4 is noisy, I am sure it is the cooling fan. Is it a simple procedure to replace it, and does anyone know the size/part number and where to get them from? And if I switch my Pi off will the solar system revert to the previous settings with the Axpert Inverters? If I could know I had the correct fan motor I am sure it will be a quick job.

The reason that the batteries ran out at 4am is because it was overcast the previous day. I have found that the batteries reach 100% at this time of year at about 4pm, in winter they only get to about 80% with the reduced solar. I believe that the extra few kW of solar power will charge the batteries fully in winter. I have 2 of the 250W 27V panels that I can use, and I believe that the 310W panels are still available so I will buy a few more to get the system up to full capacity.