Chris Hobson

East West is good especially if you are home most of the day.

I used 38mm square tubing and 76 by 38mm tubing for a 4 season manual tilt frame.. Mounted The panels mounted using Tek-screws (100 screws for 80 bucks). 

Take a theodolite down to the beach where you have a broad view of the ocean. Line up with the ocean in front of you and then look left and right and you will see the ocean dips away from you. Inland one can easily see 100km or more I can see a mountain in the Willowmore district on a clear day because I am elevated. At the coast you cannot see ships more than 5km out and if you are on a hill about 20 km out and then the curvature hides the object (ship). The curvature of the earth is the reason for crows nests on ships. If the earth was flat the lookout would not have any advantage over the captain standing on the deck.  

Use the direction of current flow into the switch i.e. the source side (PV in this case). You understand why you cannot use a DC CB between MPPT and batteries as sometimes the MPPT is the source and sometimes the batteries are the source. If you have a separate set of wires directly from the battery to load then you can have a CB between MPPT and batteries but then you need a CB/battery disconnect on the load cables depending on the maximum possible draw. I think you have a Victron MPPT. Some Victron MPPTs have terminals for load and others do not.
I would be inclined to have a DC CB between PV and MPPT and a battery disconnect between batteries and load. A second DC CB would be superfluous between MPPT and batteries. Just make sure your cables are specced properly. 

My experiences mirror Plonky's and I am still alive. My Dad who is 92 drank water from the same tank most of his adult life. I would be more scared of the water in the taps in a town like Grahamstown than water out of a rainwater tank.

Hi Don Pienaar who was a member here for quite some time passed away yesterday. I never met the man and he ruffled more than a few feathers by he was helpful with information from his own experiences. RIP
 

I used 38mm square tubing and 76 by 38mm tubing for a 4 season manual tilt frame.. Mounted The panels mounted using Tek-screws (100 screws for 80 bucks). 

Hi Don Pienaar who was a member here for quite some time passed away yesterday. I never met the man and he ruffled more than a few feathers by he was helpful with information from his own experiences. RIP
 

Hi Don Pienaar who was a member here for quite some time passed away yesterday. I never met the man and he ruffled more than a few feathers by he was helpful with information from his own experiences. RIP
 

Hi Don Pienaar who was a member here for quite some time passed away yesterday. I never met the man and he ruffled more than a few feathers by he was helpful with information from his own experiences. RIP
 

The recommendation is that you use batteries that are of the same size, manufacture, age and chemistry. Due to practical considerations sometimes one ends up mixing batteries of different ages (replacing a dud battery for instance) or mixing batteries of different capacity 232Ah and 236Ah from the same manufacturer (the difference is essentially minimal).
I would however never mix batteries from different manufacturers or different chemistries.

I have been designing systems and discovered that clients can change the goalposts sometimes more than once a day. I was using the Midnight solar sizing tool and ended up tired of re-entering panel specs. So I designed my own.
The yellow fields are for the user to alter. There is a drop down list of inverters and if your inverter is not on the list you can go to the inverter sheet and add your own specs. The same with panels there is a open column to add your specific panels. Canadian solar 260W and probably 265W are set to disappear from our shores so I will remove them from the list and add others.
Having set you inverter  then you can set minimum and maximum temperature. Remember these are panel temperatures and although panel minimum and ambient minimum will be the same panel maximum is likely to be 20-30°C higher than ambient temp. Minimum temperatures are important as panels voltages INCREASE with lower temperatures. I know several folk who exceed their SCC's Vmaxbut if you want to do it by the book this spreadsheet will help you. When your panels Vmp is below the MPPT minimum you are warned with pink text as this may or may not be a problem.
You can then play around with number of panels per string and number of strings to find a combination that works for your inverter. 
PV String Tool.xlsx

I had a look at this and it makes absolute sense. In my situation if it discharges over a couple of days no problem- basically so long as it can last 16 hours or so.

The volumes of water are enormous 
The potential energy (in Joules) is expressed as
 
Ep = mgh 
 
where m = mass of water (kg)
           g =  gravitational acceleration (a constant that has not changed, unlike Pluto)
           h = head (m)
 
(Don't you love the metric system. Try that calculation in imperial figures.)
 
Now 
       P(watts) = Energy(Joules)  /time(sec).
 
Working backwards for 500W we need to produce 500 J/s.
 
Therefore m= Ep/gh /s.
 
m = 500/ 9.8 x 40 (Energy the person's head in the example). 
 
m = 1.27 kg = 1.27 litres every second.
 
So we talking  just over 4500 litres/h.
 
This in the maximum possible energy. Pelton wheels can achieve 90% efficiency so lets say 5000l/hr. (2 Jojo tanks =48 Jojo tanks a day). 
 
One definitely could look at storage of part of one's requirement but if I was investing money in that sort of thing to my mind it should run 24/7.

East West is good especially if you are home most of the day.

I don't think so but is easy enough to change.
With the LCD screen active
Hold in  the Enter key for 3 seconds
Use the up key to scroll from program 31 to 28 
Use the Enter Key to select program 28
Use up and down keys to select  appropriate setting
Push Enter key to save setting 
push Esc to return to display menus.
 
My unit will not allow me to select anything but SIG so I think you unit was connected in parallel at one time perhaps in the warehouse or by the installer in his workshop as a test.

From what I can ascertain inverters working with the USB Type B cable may have communication issues. The serial connection over the RJ45 is more stable. From what I have been told the USB protocol was designed around descreet periods of communication and not the virtually continuous data stream from the inverter. I find with USB connection and WatchPower the inverter tends to trip over its own shoelaces. 

I used 38mm square tubing and 76 by 38mm tubing for a 4 season manual tilt frame.. Mounted The panels mounted using Tek-screws (100 screws for 80 bucks). 

They are expensive but I can recommend Makita. You can have more than 1 battery. They even have a charger that takes 2 batteries. Batteries are interchangeable. I used a reciprocating saw (borrowed from the chap adding decks to lodges)  to cut through 2.5mm unistut. Their machines are beasts. The reciprocating saw is about R3k. 

Although not in SA an image that a school friend sent me. He does gutter replacements with a product called Gutterglove which prevents leaves settling in the gutters. Cheap way of storing water although it will test the efficiency of your plumbing ability.

Hi Kobus 
have a look in the download section there is a Axpert Guide I wrote a year or so ago (it needs updating).
With a 3.5kW Pylontech the max charging rate is 37A. Since the Axpert can only be set in graduation of 10A that limits you to 30A.  So setting 2 and 11 should not be above 30A. Further the settings are exactly the same as the settings for US2000B below.

Thanks for the responses - the problem was that I use the RTC-Axpert 5KVA inverter as a standalone inverter and then the setting 28 has to be on SIG - it was on PAL. Everything working just fine now.  BTW, the 03 setting is on APL.
 

Hi All
After a period of absence  I am back without my much loved dual Axpert install. I now lived in (clears his throat) Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth for those of you without a throat infection).
My new home has a 3 phase supply and a massive 30 kVA  3P generator for the regular power outages. Heaven help us once loadshedding starts.  The roof is slate and probably singularly unsuitable for a PV install. Not to be defeated I do see there is space for a double carport which will then accommodate PV on the roof. 
At this stage I am looking at a Solis 3P GTI. Anyone have a system that they find superb?
 
Chris
 
 

Hi All
After a period of absence  I am back without my much loved dual Axpert install. I now lived in (clears his throat) Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth for those of you without a throat infection).
My new home has a 3 phase supply and a massive 30 kVA  3P generator for the regular power outages. Heaven help us once loadshedding starts.  The roof is slate and probably singularly unsuitable for a PV install. Not to be defeated I do see there is space for a double carport which will then accommodate PV on the roof. 
At this stage I am looking at a Solis 3P GTI. Anyone have a system that they find superb?
 
Chris
 
 

Hi All
After a period of absence  I am back without my much loved dual Axpert install. I now lived in (clears his throat) Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth for those of you without a throat infection).
My new home has a 3 phase supply and a massive 30 kVA  3P generator for the regular power outages. Heaven help us once loadshedding starts.  The roof is slate and probably singularly unsuitable for a PV install. Not to be defeated I do see there is space for a double carport which will then accommodate PV on the roof. 
At this stage I am looking at a Solis 3P GTI. Anyone have a system that they find superb?
 
Chris