Mark

Hi Gerald
Spoke to an Eskom friend.  They need to be as close to 240V as possible with a 10% deviation allowed.

Hi
See mine attached.
dbus-pvoutput new.py

So I would like to share my recent experience with ICC software and my Mercer inverter/solar system:
I contacted Manie at ICCsoftware.co.za. My ICC software was version 2.8.5,.The new version being 4.1.
I upgraded to the new software and after a few issues and help from Manie at 11pm in the evening, I was up and running.
However, I still had freezing issues on the Pi3.
So I bit the bullet and purchased a new Pi4 from Manie.
Once again, with online assistance from Manie, the installation went smoothly. Touch wood, the problems have been solved - 23hrs no freezing!
I believe the issues were related to the older Pi and perhaps a problematic SD card. I remember the old Pi hitting 75degC + with operating temperature. The new Pi averages around 45 degC.
Yes, a bit of pain having to FORK out $$ for an new ICC version, but worth it if it gives me reliability and consistent system monitoring.
Thank you Manie for the support.  
 

@PeterGutti You and I must count amongst those who have used ICC from the first version from Manie and even the Windows version before that. My system is the same as yours except for the battery type. I am glad to say that my ICC hangs maybe once or twice a year which is way less than my Windows and Ubuntu computers. If software or firmware in this case hangs frequently because of a bug, everyone will have the problem. That is not the case so I would suggest looking elsewhere. Power supply spikes comes to mind so I would suggest a spike suppressor plug on the RPi AC supply side of the power supply for starters and let the forum know if it helps. I am also running ICC 3.1 on a RPi 3.
The seems to be another version of ICC available to the one from Manie who originally programmed the RPi version to add to the confusion. So any comments need to relate to the specific supplier version. 

Because this is a monitoring device and not a load, I use a 2.5mm neutral wire from the load side of the main breaker/Neutral bar (Before the inverter) to one of the 2 poles. No fuse needed as non of the other neutral wires in your board are fused.
It literary only gives a return path for the current that is drawn by the electronic circuits, and even in the highly unlikely, very slim, 1 in a million change that a dead short might occur within this device.. the electronic circuit should fry long before it reaches the 25Amp rating of a 2.5mm wire.. 
This is just my 2 cents worth...  

As for this side of the question, if you want to use a fuse and make it nice and neat, I'd look for a 10x35mm DIN-mount fuse holder that can install inside the DB, and put a 5A fuse in it. But these 10x38 fuses can be expensive. Or you could use one of these glass fuse holders with an ordinary glass fuse rated for 250VAC. Or just use a 5A breaker...

This part often causes confusion and people wonder why that fuse is there. Let me see if I can explain.
That neutral wire, which would normally be black in colour, carries only the current required for the electronics of the meter itself. The red wires between terminals 1 and 2, they carry the big stuff. Since that black wire only carries a few milliamps, it does not have to be a very thick wire. It can be as thin as 1.5mm^2. And under normal conditions, that would be all that is ever needed. But you have to cater for what happens under not-normal conditions, aka fault conditions.
Under a fault condition inside the meter, that meter might be dead-shorted from either terminals 1 or 2 to neutral. It is unlikely, but you have to cater for that. In that case, you must have overcurrent protection for that thin black wire, so that the wire itself does not turn into a small heating element that burns down the house. That's what the fuse is for.
The fuse just needs to be sized for (or smaller than) the wire. In this case something like a 5A fuse will be more than sufficient. It is less than the wire can carry, so it protects the wire, but way more than the meter will ever need to operate.
But... you can also just leave the fuse out. But then you must size that black wire for the full current of whatever the upstream breaker is. Since this meter is usually installed right after the big 60A breaker that feeds the house, that black wire must be sized for 60A then, that is to say, it would have to be a 10mm^2. This is what I see most installers do, they just use a thick enough black wire.

Had the same issue. Sent Manie an email and all was resolved. Don’t buy it from anyone else. 

Still a work in progress. But I have build a dash to display all the different alternative energies on one page. 
 

It will happen every 48 or 72 hours (Cant remember ) if you dont discharge your batteries. It does happen in battery backup systems without PV panels and self consumption. The alarm is not serious, but it remains annoying. I found a site a while back explaining what in the firmware causes this, bu cant seem to find it now. 
 
EDIT: Wait here it is. its under the Victron Q&A section.

 

Mine with original fans hovers between 25 and 50 deg...

I have added an old cellphone as my display in the kitchen with remote display from the GX.  Cheapest option I think, and does exactly the same thing!  An old tablet would be bigger

Here is one thread:  https://www.photovoltaikforum.com/speichersysteme-offgrid-f108/pylontech-us2000b-daten-ueber-konsole-rs232-ausles-t118958-s10.html
Translate via Google

Again, that is maintained by the line that tracks the energy value on systemcalc, but that is unset cause you have no Multi. So just replace stats.pc with a zero... and comment out any places it is tracked...

I'm really sorry @Luminous , but there's not much interesting to share. Just everyday's boring stuff.
For example, I had to clearly label the bays in my space-shuttle landing dock, as some (female) family members were not able to clearly understand where they should (NOT) park:

 
Based on the current situation in the world, I upgraded to the AirLock. You know, just in case something goes wrong:

 
And yes, I bought another rack cabinet, so if I will accidentally become a billionaire one day, I will not have a problem with storing some additional lithium for my LAB:

 

Why would you need to trick someone or find someone gullible to do this. I am sure there is proper installers that would be happy to help?

Another option that I use more and more is server racks. The same size rack as the steel ones that you buy for Pylontech, turns out to be up to 50% cheaper and they look 5 times better.  

Hello Everyone 
I have been MIA for a while but Covid 19 has slowed my solar business down and I have had a bit of extra time.
I have finally put the finishing touches to my PV system and now have the control I have wanted for years.
I have a 1.2kW pump that lifts water 185m up a mountain (in fact two mountains but that is not really relevant). I was running and controlling it with a Sonoff switch. It would run from 8h30 to 15h30  and I used my phone to switch it off if it looked like the weather was clouding over. My staff quarters is powered from my home and I would switch it off once SOC was roughly 50%.
 
Just before Covid shutdown @PaulF007 visited me here on the farm - what a privilege. Paul introduced me to Node Red and 3 weeks later things have changed drastically.
First change was to put Tasmota onto my Sonoff devices so they are now local devices rather than being controlled by a remote server. I knew about Tasmota but without the software to integrate the Sonoffs with I would lose functionality hence I had never changed. I immediately noticed that the Sonoffs' performance was much improved as maintaining connection was always an issue with the Chinese server, now there is never an issue 
Paul then started integrating devices and software. Paul installed openhabian and Node Red on a Rpi. Once up and running the first order of business was to collect data from the inverters. Fortunately ICC posts to Emoncms and we used the Emoncms node within Node Red to pull the data. We could have just as easily subscribed to the topics within MQTT.
Once we had the data it was time to makes some rules which a fairly simple  but become more complex with overload exceptions etc.
Rule 1:       1.2kW Pump switches on after 08h00 in the morning once state of charge >30% and the batteries are being charged by at least 1500W. The pump switches off at 15h01. If at any time the battery had a sustained average discharge of 500W for longer than 7 minutes or a peak discharge of 1200W the pump switches off. This prevents toasters and kettles at breakfast time causing the pump to switch off. If the pump switches off after 30 minutes the pump will try switch on again. This  allows conditions to improve and allows the pipeline to drain so that the pump is not starting against a 18 bar pressure. If the pump switches off 3 times it will remain off for the rest of the day.
The change has been immediately noticeable as 3 of the 4 reservoirs we fill  are nearly full in spite of the cloudy weather over the last 5 days.
Rule 2: My staff quarters are supplied with electricity from 17h55 (just before Sewende Laan) till the SOC hits 50%. There is an overload routine and as time passes they are becoming more and more disciplined and their lights switched off after 9:00 pm last night.
Rule 3: Excess power is fed to a geyser. I plan to balance the geysers draw to currently available excess energy using Triacs. As we are heading into winter this part has not been implemented yet.
Finally the entire system reports to an Echo-dot (Alexa). This was slightly more cumbersome. Node Red has node that can easily pass text to speech (TTS) from Node Red to Alexa.  So Alexa reports on the pump switching on/off, the staff quarters switching on/off and low battery voltage or SOC. However querying solar data was more of a challenge. Writing a Alexa skill is relatively easy. Writing a good Alexa skill is a whole lot more difficult. The easiest workaround was to link Alexa with Webhooks using IFTTT and draw the command into Node Red using a Webhook. The Node Red Webhooks node is written by Webhooks and is flawless. So now when I wake up in the morning before it is light I can query battery health and know if anything untoward happened in the night all from the comfort of my bed.

Hi Guys
I am running v3.0 beta currently and WOW !! what a brilliant experience! I can't wait for Manie to complete and promise you all - A lot of wonderfull features inside !!
This is really worth the while waiting for !!
I am not going to let the cat out of the bag now, but just wait a little while and you will all be smiling! Everybody with a real ICC program will be able to upgrade to the new version.
Cheers
Chris-R
 

An update from my solar Lab:
As some of you might remember, I'm currently running 3x InfiniSolar 5K combined into a single-phase AC source of 15kW. Most of the year, it's okay, since there's plenty of sunlight and the idle consumption of the three running inverters does not matter. But during winter, it's a completely different story and every watthour, that I'm able to save, is crucial. Therefore, I decided to code a feature that will allow me to run just a single inverter 24x7 and once there's need for a more power, start two other inverters automatically. So, here's the result:
I created a short LUA script in Fibaro, that's constantly checking the AC load. Normally, just one 5kW inverter is running. Once the AC load goes above 4000W, the script starts other 2 inverters. It takes just a couple of seconds, and 15kW of power is ready to serve the loads. I've added a safety function, that will turn-off all three inverters once the SOC of the Pylontech stack falls bellow 25%. Once this happens, there's an ATS that will automatically switch all the house circuits to "ESKOM". Later, if all the inverters are OFF and SOC goes above 70%, then the script starts 1st InfiniSolar and the ATS will switch all the circuits back to the PV. Here's the GUI:
  
Here's the main part of the LUA script:

Since I have an EV charging wallbox installed too, I've also added a second script, that works like this:
Normally, just one 5kW inverter is running. If there's no EV connected, the wallbox advertises 10A AC charging (2300W). Once the EV starts to draw power from the wallbox, the script will start another two inverters. Once all three inverters are running, the script will instruct wallbox to advertise 32A charging (7300W). GUI:

I was too lazy to implement a function that will automatically turn-off two of the inverters once their power is not needed. But since I can turn them off via the mobile app, I'm okay with that. But I will add such power-off function later....maybe
 

Purchased the Pi and ICC software separately as it is cheaper than buying the bundle (and downloading the ICC image and writing it to SD card I can manage myself)...
If you already have a Pi to use, then to me it would be a no-brainer 😉
Also purchased the Advanced Power Management software from ICC to control Sonoffs (primarily pool pump) based on ICC data - and works like a charm

I actually thought about this for a bit. So one thing that is important: Business rescue doesn't mean you will actually be successful in doing the rescue. Many businesses, I hazard to say half if not more, fail anyway despite going into business rescue. The upsides to BR is:
1. You get some protection from the creditors, so it buys you time.
2. The directors/board, who are often the reason for the poor state of affairs, are stripped of their powers.
3. There is a better chance that the employees will be paid, as the process puts them first. Technically the employees are always the first "creditors" to be paid when something is liquidated, but under a formal structure like this there is someone making sure of that.
4. If the business ends up being liquidated, doing it through BR generally costs less (to the taxpayer in this case) than outright liquidation involving a bunch of lawyers. Or at least this is what the articles I read on this topic (involving SAA) said.
Since Eskom is one of those things that really shouldn't fail unless we're masochists who loves lots of pain... items 1 and 2 above is what we're after. Time... and kicking out the people responsible for the mess.
After that, you still have to come up with some sort of solution. The solution involves, as it does in all such cases including your normal household budget, cutting expenses and increasing your income.
One of the largest expenses is the salary bill. Eskom is reported to be top-heavy. So one of the first things to cut would be some of the non-essential senior management staff.
Other ways to plug leaks would be to find the high worth individuals in the organisation and actually give them a raise, so that they stay. Then get out of their way.
The next level is usually getting rid of the dead weight. Selling off things that are not profitable. Here there isn't much room to work with: Nobody is going to buy an old coal station. Eskom would have to pay IN to get generation profitable. Another option is to split off distribution as a separate entity, then downsize generation, and buy power from IPPs. Unions are not going to like that.
One final item: I'd say you have to do something counter-intuitive and pull the unions in right in the beginning. Force them to be part of the fireworks, and be brutally transparent when they are unwilling. Hold your friends close and your enemies closer as they say. When things go down, you want the union man in the room already... not out there where he can stage a protest about stuff he knows nothing about.
With all that said... I suspect the government will have to take over some of the debt to get things viable again. Move it over to their balance state. Which will cause a downgrade from Moodies no doubt, but I'm beginning to think that's inevitable, it is happening anyway.

Hi Jason
I will PM you with a picture of the settings I use for the 5 x Pylontechs connected to 3 x 10kw Infini Inverters, later tonight.
I also use the same program as you are, but not a "home-brewed" version of it. I am currently running on V3.beta with the following added features:
1. Victron energy meter integrated , ET112 for single phase and EM24 or ET340 for 3 phase.
   No more calculations for grid and load, but actual figures and accurate feedback figures to the grid, if you wish to.
2. Multiple inverters can now be used, on a single PI and all the figures will be combined on your dashboard.
3. In a grid format, all the relevant figures will be available per inverter, if required.
I am very happy with what I have now, and must admit that I was very tempted to re-spray everything blue, but the cost of duco prevented me from doing it!🤣 lol
I would suggest to just hang in there, the new one will be available VERY SOON !!
 
Cheers
Chris-R