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.

I recently upgraded our batteries to 14kW of Lithium Ion Pylontech batteries, a brilliant move. However now with my ICC Software I can see that I can add lots more Solar Panels. One inverter uses 12 x 27V 250W Panels and the other 10 x 36V 310W Panels. Can you just add to them or do they have to be exactly the same? I have checked my Inverter Chargers they can take up to 50A and maximum of 105V on the Solar. At the moment we easily get through the night if the sun shines, I would like to add panels rather than get another inverter for winter. Please advise?

Hi Andy, I have been checking on the newer range of Inverter Chargers and the Growatt is reasonably pried, appears to have a 5 year warranty, can be connected in parallel, and has a 4.5kW Solar Array input. If I were to replace my 2 Axpert Inverter Chargers I would be able to get 9kW solar power (my current ones will only give me 50A Solar) and they have built in BMS for Lithium Ion, though I believe that the ICC setup will work here too. Have you heard any negative reports about Growatt? I did see one member complaining about communications with the factory, but he also gave detailed instructions about hoe to configure them with Lithium Ion batteries. Your experience will be appreciated, Regards, Paul

Thank you the settings seem to have worked. The Inverter settings on the ICC Program seem limited, it will not let me change maximum charge rate and cutoff voltages, but otherwise I can do it from WatchPower and everything else seems to have come right. Do you know which is the best of the lower priced Hybrid Inverter Chargers are? I see Kodak, Growatt, Deye, Goodwe, Sofar to name a few. I am happy with the performance of the Axpert ones, but am worried about long term durability.

Hi Andy I have 4 x 3.5kW Pylontech batteries, I have been controlling them on SOC 20% back to grid and 25% back to battery. I have 2 x 5kVA 4kW Inverter Chargers. I have noticed that the battery cycles have changed on the program, they all used to be the same. Also I tried to change the back to grid and back to discharge settings on the Inverter settings and it won't let me. Hope it makes sense to you, and thanks for the help! .

My setup has started behaving strangely, alternating between bypass mode and battery mode every 10 seconds or so. I have tried shutting down completely to reset the inverter chargers (they have no alarms present), I have also disconnected the Raspberry Pi to see if that was causing the problem. I have tried forcing the system into bypass mode using the inverter settings, and I have tried switching off one inverter at a time to see if one of them is faulty. I am assuming the Inverters are faulty, and I will replace them during the week, but are there any other suggestions please? I am attaching a photo of the Dashboard, you can see where the inverter is short cycling. There is no sun today so I am charging the batteries with Utility in case the power goes out.

Thank you for the feedback. The electrician wired the inverter circuit through a changeover switch so that it can bypass the inverter in normal operation, not something that I would do because it defeats the object of having the inverter as a UPS supply. I did check the usual load, which is less than 1kW, and advised them to replace all their CFL bulbs with LED's, and to not plug any heavy current appliances into the inverter circuit, but sadly I know that the temptation will be too high. As a backup battery it should last a long time, I will reduce the bulk and floating voltages to stop it from over-charging. And the reason I lowered the cut-off voltage is because the inverter was giving an Alarm 04 as soon as it went into Battery mode. I will try increasing it to a level where it doesn't think the battery is flat. Long term they want to add to the batteries and possibly add solar panels, at that stage I will definitely recommend the ICC software.

I have just done an Axpert 5kW Inverter only with a 3.5kW Pylontech Battery, that will go into bypass mode if there is a power failure and hopefully feed the house for a couple of hours. Please can someone advise if I have the correct settings, I set the maximum charge rate to 20A (25A was not an option), Bulk Charging Voltage 53.4V, Floating Voltage 53.2V, Back to Grid Voltage 52V, battery cutoff voltage 44V it is working correctly. Do I need to connect the communications cable in this application or will the Battery Management System take over? Thanking you in advance for your advice.

I did notice when connecting the new batteries that the negative should feed from the bottom battery to regulate the current flow, but the cable was too short. I will reroute it or make up a new cable to solve this issue!

The batteries have balanced already after two days, I did notice that the older two batteries take a higher charge when they start charging, but the parameters per battery are exactly the same, SOC, Health, Voltage. I am very happy, just need some sun, sounds like we are going to have another wet patch this week!