SilverNodashi

Cause BSD is the best?

If you have a 12V fridge and only ever intend to connect lights / TV / cellphone charger to this solar generator, then a modified inverter would be more than sufficient. Many smaller inverters and battery chargers have a built-in fuses and switches. So, first see what you can get your hands on and then see if you need extra fuses and switches.

It has dual MPPT trackers, do you could effectively have poly and mono crystal panals mixed, or west/south orientation mix if you need to. OR just have two strings of the same panels. Quite a nice feature. But it's a high voltage system - 250V - 900V, so you need minumum 11x 250W panels.

I'm not referring to MFD or "Hybrid" inverters, but rather true grid tie inverters. There's a bit of a difference.

Yes, I know it can push back to the grid. Let me rephrase, I didn't see an option that it would cut off the grid feedback, as soon as the grid fails. Will have to reread the manual.

It kinda makes one think, why did you Victron have to do so much research, at the expense of their clients, to get something working which other brands have done long ago already, and at a fraction of the price. You need to sit down and do the math, and see if these units will pay itself back in a reasonably amount of time. Or is it just a nice to have cause it's Victron and gives you bragging rights?

I don't remember seeing an anti-island option on the infini. The one advantage of using anti-islanding, is that you can push back to the grid when the grid is on (so essentially use it as a battery), but not when it grid is off - to make sure some guy on the wire doesn't get electrocuted. For those of you who want to go the islanding route: You need to pay a monthly premium (about R800 I think) to have a permit to do so. That's apart from the fact that your inverter needs to be certified. And, then you pay to push back, or differently put get very very little "rebate" for pushing back. I don't know the exact figure, but it's not entirely enough to make any money off the electricity you feed. Lastly, you need to use everything first, and then push back. The meters that are put in place can intelligently measure this. So, in layman's terms, if you have 5KW PV on your roof, but only use 1KW of it, you can't push back. You need to use at least 4KW of it. ( I forgot the ratio). So, yes, it's easier / cheaper / safer to completely disable grid feedback at this stage. The only people who really gain anything from it are the guys with very big installations, and with little "over flow".

RS485

as far as I know, no.

A Microcare grid limiter can be had for R2.3k.

shhhh! Don't tell 'em that.

yup, that's all you need.

If it's still under warranty send it back to Microcare

Here's the hard truth: No inverter will ever suit everybody's need, nor work perfect in every environment. Victron, Axpert, ABB, MLT, Sunnyboy, Microcare, Shneider, Infinisolar, Imeon, Goodwe, etc, etc. All these inverters came into existence cause the developer probably couldn't find an inverter which suited his exact needs. Or he saw a gap to make money, and hope his products will be used by many people. Just because it's expensive, doesn't make it the best. And just cause it's cheap doesn't make it the worse either. All of these inverters have some problems / bugs / drawbacks. The questions is: which will work best for you?

It's hardly a debate if you already made up your mind asto what equipment you want to use, and why.

haha, you had to bring in the negative side of this argument Yes, a smaller efficient, nut plonkster's response on the batteries says why such a system as a whole won't be. As I said, "at what cost"? You need to calculate the cost of everything involved, not just the inverter, or not just the batteries. For example, installing 6x 100W panels is far more expensive than installing 3x 200W panels. 2x 300w gets cheaper, to some degree as well. This is due to the amount of cable, connectors, and panel mounting structures involved. The efficiency of the bigger panels are generally also better. And MPPT charge controllers are also more efficient at higher voltages. So, here's a curve ball: To charge a "larger system" (Axpert 5KVA + 3KW PV + 48V/400Ah battery bank), and then charge a couple smaller batteries (100Ah?) from that system, to drive 300W inverters at night would be rather expensive - to the point where the cost/efficient watt doesn't make sense anymore. Remember, if you want to beat Eskom cost you don't just calculate your battery R/Kwh. Initially you need to calculate the whole system's R/Kwh. Then do the calculation again after 5/10 year - depending on what needs to be replaced when.

Yes, to a great extend it will help. But, at what cost and inconvenience?

that's where you're missing the point. If you were to draw 80A for 10hours, it won't exactly be 38,4Kw/hr (80 * 48 * 10). Between 50V and 48V you're loosing 1.6Kw. Between 50.9V (40,720) and 48.4V (38,720) you would loose 2Kw. See how much difference a 0.7V makes, over 10 hours? These calculations are purely on the battery side. I didn't take any power factor or other losses into account. The above calculations are done by multiplying Volt and Ampere, effectively giving you VA (or KVA) values, and not true Watts. If ALL your devices had a power factor of 1, you could use these values as absolute. But since most appliances are inefficient, you can't. Perhaps don't try and convert to Watts, unless you know the power factor of each device connected to the inverter.

48V is about 50% already. 50%: 48.4V :: 3872Kwh 60%: 48.96V :: 3916.8Kwh 70%: 49.49V :: 3959.2Kwh 80%: 50V :: 4000Kwh 90%: 50.48V :: 4038.4Kwh 100%: 50.92V :: 4073.6 Kwh. So you can't calculate 80Ah * 48V, over a period of time. The calculation will change every few minutes. These values are average battery level values taken when the batteries have rested for about 2 hours. IF, on the other hand, the batteries are being charged at the same time, the values will be much higher.

Nope. My "48V system" can sustain 4KW when needed. on a 12V system the batteries will take a LOT more strain - i.e. more Ampere will be drawn to deliver the same amount of watts. Here's the thing: a 12V system wouldn't allow me to boil the kettle (I should probably get a 1KW version), use the dish washer, lawn mower, welding machine, or allow my wife to use a hair dryer / hot tongues. A bigger system which could allow that would need either 24V or 48V. At 48V I'm getting better efficiency.

probably 150W?

I switch off the microwave and induction plate every night. My wife also got used to it. The fridge gets turned down a bit, in winter at night. The pool pump only runs between 10am and 3PM. No washing dishes or clothes before 9am. These small loads do add a bit of unnecessary strain on the system. The one thing I can't quite kill yet are cellphone chargers, purely since we charge phones and tablets at night. I have been toying with the idea of a 10W panel + small lithium battery just for this purpose, but have yet to find some DOD stats for these smaller litium batteries. So, this makes me think, what about installing some extra contactors on some of the CB's which has devices which can absolutely be shut down every night?

I was referring to the how the CAPS were used in the inverter 16V is safely within a car's 11-15V ratings.

it probably depends on where / how the CAPS are connected? Series or Parallel. In a 12V rail, or 5V rail?

Put into perspective, it cost a LOT more than it could cost, and used to cost - before the likes of Apple came to the playground. It's easy to say "it cost money for R & D, and marketing, etc, etc. I was there, and I know what the equipment really cost. The same is happening in this market. About 5 years ago my dad phoned me one day and bragged with his 250W panel for R6000. Now, the same panel (with better peformance) cost R2500-odd. The Rand/Dollar screwed up the cost this year. Take your broken inverter and go add up the cost of the components + PCB + aluminium case, see what it would cost. Now get prices for the same components per 10,000 (as example) and see how the prices drop. Open an account with the right factory in Shenzhen and it gets even cheaper. The software on the MCU, on the other hand does cost a bit more to write, but once the base code is written, it's fairly profitable. Before you stop you, look at the many other brands out there, that's not blue and see what they charge for equipment that work the same, or sometimes even better. Axpert is / was the market killer recently, but I'm not referring to them. As an example, a 500A shunt cost R900! R900 for a piece of copper with some screw terminals, a piece of copper which is precisely molded to have a specific resistance. Then you go an buy another shunt on ebay for R200 and it does exactly the same thing. Why? Is the "cheaper" one really that bad, or is the more expensive one just so much more overrated because it comes from Company-X? That's just one product, from one brand which I'm using as an example. The same can be said for many products, from many different big companies. Back to the topic, Apple fit components in their kit which cost 1/3 if you had to fit it into another PC. 1/4 if it's a "home brew PC". Is the more expensive one really that much better? Perhaps, to some degree. They use the same brand, make and model HDD's, RAM and graphics cards than some R10k PC's. My Mitsubishi Colt's clutch kit cost R5K - just for the spares. It's a rebranded Luke clutch plate and cost 1/2 the price from a spares shop. Will it break down quicker than the manufacturer branded one? Nope.