SilverNodashi

On the Edison batteries, perhaps one day I'll tell you a story, about a meeting at one of the big local manufacturer's offices, many many years ago, about how they decided to make the plates thinner so they could sell more batteries quicker, or risk closing business down. A couple other manufacturers followed suite.

Interesting. pitty he screwed up the industry so badly.

Dude, if you're actually serious about this, we need to take it off-line. Even if it's crowd funded. Some stuff happen behind the scenes for a very good reason.

Interesting, so did Jason leave? I was part of that crowd. Learned a lot. Like how not to do business.

Drawing stuff is easy. Casting / molding cases is easy. Taking that to the production line is easy, but cost oolas' of moola's. The chemistry is a bit more difficult. I didn't spend time in school listening to my chemist teacher, but luckily these days the stuff is on the internet. And from what I've seen, if I could get my hands on a small smelter and some nikkel and iron ore, I could build a couple batteries. The next step would be to experiment with them and then do some tests to see how much load they can handle, how many discharge and recharge cycles they can endure. And then to decide which components to modify to make it better. hax0r!

I am engineer. I design. I build. You fund. And bring pizza!

don't worry, you're safe from legal action from them.

Well, thats the thing. eskom did not "wanted to" Many people want to go solar but don't know much about it and the costs are quite prohibitive in many cases. Take, for example, solar panels: They cost about US 53 per watt, after manufacturing, on bulk orders. Some are cheaper. Some are more expensive. So you buy 250W for $132.50. That's R1950.11 (rounded off). Add 14% VAT and 10% import duties and it cost R2445.44. No markup added yet. They sell for R2600 on the street today. Hardly any profit - approx 6%. These cheap grey inverters cost USD500. Do the math and see how you come to R11,000 that they retail for. Our government takes very little, bar VAT and import duties, but that's all part of trade. Then you take a locally manufactured inverter and it's bloody expensive. Cause our labor is expensive. And taxes. And insurance, marketing, etc, etc. The major problem with South Africa is that we're used to cheap electricity. Some of the cheapest in the world, till 2008 (two or years earlier perhaps) when Eskom realized they they wasted all the maintenance money on cheap hookers and booze. Now we sit with this crisis, which is both financial and supply & demand. The mindset we have, due to that past, is that solar is expensive. Heck you would buy a R750K SUV, which cost R15K to service every couple month and tires cost R20k a set, without even thinking twice about it. The moment you turn the key at the dealer, that rust bucket has dropped in value. Yet you won't invest in an energy plant for yourself and your future. South Africans need to get out of this mindset, somehow. But many corporations have seen the light. I can only imagine that those big 100mW+ solar farms could cost and they built it at the flick of a finger. Give it two years and most of the malls and shopping centers have converted. And it doesn't take much for the staff to see the benefit and use it at home as well.

Capacitors do store electricity but you won't be able to draw and use the same kind of (Volts / Ampere) over a long period of time, like with batteries. Been there, done that, tested it, was fun. Popped some caps afterwards. Trying to use them for 20 hours simply doesn't work.

you have been warned: GW Store - stay the F00k away from them!

It's limited, but handy to see which pin on a PCB caused the trigger.

It doesn't work inside a mall. And many malls don't allow solar panels or generators either, so imagine their battery bank, just for 4 hours loadshed backup.

Too some degree. We did a Nike store recently and their LED lights still use 12Kw energy. During the day! Stores, factories, hospitals, etc are huge and need a lot of light. LED is much better than halogen but still cost a small fortune to change.

But, when you drive a turbo charged V8, you don't care too much about fuel consumption

Net jammer daai goed is so moer duur...

They are busy already. Makro put up some solar carports, probably cause they ran out of roofspace. Life hospital in Fourways did as well. Do you know what a system like that would cost? Do so calcs on 10Mw worth of panels, 3 phase inverters and battery bank. Add another 3-5bar to that price for cabling and structures. Another million for labor, compliance, etc.

It also makes one wonder why Makro is busy going completely offgrid. Their 3rd store is now being converted. Many of the "Life" hospitals in Gauteng are also going totally off-grid. Many car manufacturers and shopping malls as well. These are all "megawatt" solar plants. They obviously know something we don't.

Check, and double check the earth on the inverters and on the heatpump. If there's a loose earth wire it could do the same thing. Or you could use "D curve" circuit breakers" as it can handle these spikes a bit easier. 6KVA should do.

Well done! I might just, just, just, decide to get a Victron after all. With this, at least, I'll be able to monitor it while it's keeping the door open

Yes I have one at home, and 4 on the farm.

Why?

Yes, but since batteries are being replaced often, many people use it as a baseline. But it does through your calculations off quite a bit!

don't you do any inland installations?

Where can I buy the software?

Are you still planning on doing something on the Pi, for the Axperts?