SilverNodashi

Yes, you're right. Amps add up in parallel, not in series. It was quite late last night when I made that reply. So in this case you have 9A. But the point I was making is that Ampere is drawn, not pushed. The question is, will the batteries use the max ampere available, or only what is needed? If it uses only what is needed then it should still equalize out over two battery banks with slightly different Ampere ratings. I don't have two batteries and two different chargers + 2 oscilloscopes to test this though. Edit: If there's 1Ah for 10 hours, then the batteries will draw 1A for 10 hours, with some "falloff" due to peukert's law. But if there's 200Ah and the battery is only a 100Ah battery, will it draw the full 200Ah for on hour, or will it draw 10A for 10 hours / 20A for 10 hours? P.S. I'm not a chemical engineer so I don't actually know the answer. I am asking an educational question here.

Batteries, but as Chris said it would be more economical to have a genset if the sun doesn't shine for 7 days!.

I use something similar. They're commonly used in car audio installations and can be brought from the bigger car audio installation places. Make sure it has M8 or M10 bolts and you're fine

Hi, I need to setup a 3phase inverter + PV array + battery bank on the farm, and want to use a generator for standby when it's needed. My initial choice would be 3x Axpert MKS 5Kva inverters + a 5Kw 3phase inverter from Adendorf. Does anyone know if this combination will work? I don't have either yet and need to know if this will work before I buy the units.

I have always been under the impression that batteries only charge at the rate they need, i.e. it will only draw the amount of Ampere needed. And since both battery banks should (maybe in theory?) have need the same Ampere, they won't necessarily charge at different rates? The same rule applies to solar panels, if you put a 5A and 4A solar panel in parallel, you'll get 4A

I would have expected that they would have used a voltage senors with an IC2 bus so one could connect a much longer cable without voltage drop.

Bookmarked!

Where?

Does anyone have an Oscilloscope to try this out with and see what's wrong with the Axpert, or generator?

I'm sitting in the same boat. Need to solarize 3 pumps on the farm. One of them is an "ancient" pump that uses about 4.5A on 400V. It's a belt driven pump and the electrical motor is probably 10 years old. The one quote I got for a 2.2Kw solar system was R72,000!

My first system was a 50W + 10A PWM charger + 102Ah battery! Currently I have 12x 265A Panels, 5Kva Axper Inverter and 48V 224Ah battery bank, at the house. Busy planning for the farm, looking at a 10KW 3phase system

I sat with the same conundrum a while ago and decided to just use 220V LED lights instead of 12V. A watt is a watt, right. So 12v, 5W should (in theory at least) use the same energy as a 22V 5W LED light - although the small driver circuit in the 220V globes do consume a bit of power as well. So the 220V globes do use a (slight) bit more power than the 12V globes would. At the end of the day I could still use the same conduit, same wiring, same switches and same switch board. But I have an inverter to invert the 48V DC to 220V AC.

Would you care to elaborate on the "multiple problems..." ?

Get some raw LED globes, heatsinks and LED drivers from places like RS Components, Communica, Mantek Electronics. It may not look as well as the commercial solutions but will be much cheaper.

Ok, so we learn something new every day I always thought 50Hz is the waveform? Needless to say, I don't own an oscilloscope and don't plan on buying one just for this exercise . Anyone with an Oscilloscope close to Brakpan, who'd like to see what's up with the generator and Axpert?

Did you read the whole thread? It's not a waveform issue, the Axpert reports 50.1Hz. Instead it's a firmware issue. I first need to get a Serial to USB adapter and then sit one day, when my wife (she works from home) can afford to be without power if the firmware upgrade fails.

Has anyone updated the firmware on their Axper / Mercer inverters yet? Any issues / tips?

You can use 35x8mm as well. Can get them from many places. I have a crimper if you want to come by Brakpan?

It can be a bit noisy (to some people?) if the batteries were drained quite a lot and it has to recharge them quite quick. And under load it could also be a bit noisy. About the same as a gaming PC with some 8cm fans running on a full blast.

As confirmation, my Axpert firmware are as follows: U1 - 52 30 U2 - 01 24 U3 - 01 03 So, the question is, where does one get the older firmware? I don't see if on the Voltronic website.

Those settings are very confusing to me as well. I just chose SOL as it makes the most sense! From my Efergy meter I can confirm that no eskom power is used during the day and my battery bank is generally 100% full upto about 17:30

I thought I'd start a new thread on this topic, since I can't find the other posts I made on this subject, in another topic. So, I have an Axper MKS 5Kva inverter and a Ryobi 6900 VA petrol generator. The Axpert doesn't recognize the power from the genset. The "AC icon" flashes and it beeps, but there's no error. Someone suggested I hookup an Effergy meter and read the Hertz coming from the generator, but my efergy classic 2 doesn't have a Hertz setting. The Axpert did show the incoming Herz as 50Hertz though. While looking for the other topic on this matter, I found this one: http://powerforum.co.za/topic/215-infini-axpert-firmware-solarpower-pro-software/?hl=generator#entry1481 where Chris Hobson quoted another forum:

well, that's why I posted this... Was hoping someone already did something similar and could tell me which components to use. We're not in the plot often or long enough for me to play with this. So I'll see if the 150W panel works well enough. The security guards in the area swap the batteries out every three days, or when they get a low battery signal. They'll let me know if it works or not.

My neighbor says the same. He build a stand to mount 9 panels on, with solar tracker, but ended up not using it cause he's too afraid the panels might fly off during the windy months. He recons the gain wasn't enough to justify the cost.

Interestingly, I have an 20-25year old upright freezer which we also wanted to replace with something new. Then I checked the consumption and it only draws about 100W. Our year old A++ combi fridge also draws about 100W. So, no need to replace the dinosaur! But I did see quite an improvement by replacing the light bulbs. The 6 foot tube light in the garage used 200W!! Replaced it with 3x 5W LED bulbs, which give sufficient light and my battery bank is much happier