Woody

thank you everyone for all the info and advice, out of curiosity what is the actual differences between us3000b's and us3000c's?

@TaliaB the wires in the picture (connected to the battery) are 35mm2, sound like doubling up the cables from battery to fuse is probably the safest and quite easy option. the 35mm2 cables from the fuse to inverter from the discussions above look like they dont need to be doubled at least @Beat yeah my loads tend to be small, we are on egoli gas, and the electric geyser and oven are on non essentials. in a year of having only 2*US3000c the inverter has only shut off twice when we had visitors who didnt realise there's a reason we dont turn on the kettle, microwave and heater on at the same time, in the evening when there is loadshedding (since then we have put in gas heaters as well). and then as an aside, when installing the 2 secondhand US3000 (seller says updated to latest firmware) batteries to connect to my 1 year old 2*US3000c batteries, they should have no compatibility issues? sorry so many questions, trying to diy the installation of these batteries if possible rather than getting an installer to come in for what looks on paper like quite a simple install. and thank you everyone for the input! really appreciate it!

Awesome TaliaB, so i wouldnt even need to double up the cables from the battery to disconnector/fuse? sorry for so many questions, just making sure i understand it 100%

ok thank you, and i guess i will have to double up the cables from battery to battery disconnector/fuse, and then double up from the disconnector to inverter? or i guess i could just limit the inverter to 100a from batteries? (this should accommodate my load at any one time tbh, but the extra storage capacity would be nice)

So my current setup is 2*us3000c batteries, with a sunsynk 8kw inverter (have panels etc but dont think relevant to this question). The connection from my pylontechs is the pylontech connectors on 35mm cables (alvern permopower welding cables), about 0.5m to a battery disconnector with 160a fuses, then from there another 0.5m on the 35mm cables to the inverter. If i add 2 more US3000 batteries, i assume the 35mm cables will support that (as well as the fuses)? or would i need to make any changes to my current setup like an additional pylontech cable pack from the batteries to the battery disconnector, would i need a busbar etc? realistically I doubt we will ever draw the max amperage from the batteries, and if we got close would probably be for a very short period

so this was in the recent coj budget, for prepaid charges; High Users (regular customers) +18.84% High Users will also pay R244.2 Service Charge plus R237.3 Capacity Charge (both plus VAT) Ie a R553.73 a month increase (with VAT) for pre-paid customers PLUS 18.84% increase in electricity use the capacity charge makes no sense tbh, part of the talk of bail outs to municipalities is for them to push the use of prepaid meters, to clear out the chance of the crazy non payment debt building up again. putting a fixed charge on prepaid goes against that

so most iot (internet of things) devices like the inverter dongles only use the 2.4ghz wifi channel from your router, it doesnt carry as much data but its better at going through walls and distances. now most modern routers support both 5ghz and 2.4ghz data channels, and most devices prefer using the 5ghz channel as its faster. so you need to get into your phone or laptop and check if its connected in 5ghz or 2.4ghz (google search how to do that depending on what phone you use android or ios). if your phone is on 5ghz then thats probably why you havent been able to connect to your dongle. in which case you need google how to set your router to only put out a 2.4ghz signal (each router approaches the settings differently), and connect your phone and dongle via 2.4ghz.

very much a noob suggestion (im a noob), but is your phone connected via 2.4hgz network or 5ghz. that was a big issue ive had with anything IOT related including setting up the sunsynk dongle tuya plugs etc as they all work only on 2.4ghs, especially since i use a mesh network.

hi, how did this go? looking at converting to prepaid (3phase COJ)

bump

with regards to your battery vs inverter size, i was worried about the same. but it is doable, wev had our system for just over a week (not nearly long enough so treat my points as assumptions not proven fact yet). so far we have had no trips, we have also had no grid power for 4 days due to eishkom, and despite this, still no trips. we can draw 3.5kw (2*3000c pylontechs) at a time on an 8kw inverter, but we do have egoli gas so in the evening our heating needs aren't very hectic and in a our household (4 adults and 2kids) it has been easy to ask everyone to be careful of running either the iron, electric kettle or microwave at the same time which are our only real big draws. to be safe though i got 3 tuya plugs from takealot, rated for 16a, in the evening if the iron is on the kettle and microwave plugs turn off, if the microwave draws more than 700w the other appliances cant be turned on etc. its not perfect as the tuya plugs still take a few seconds to pass commands via the cloud (local tuya via home assistant would be faster im told). saying all that i think one more battery at least, to take the draw to 5kw and allow for a margin of error is my next priority

Item: 2x 3.55kw Pylontech Lithium Ion batteries H48074 Age: second hand, manufacturing date 2022, 72 cycles Price: 17,000 each Payment Method Accepted: cash or eft Warranty: 6 years remaining Warranty Holder: Pylontech (no PoP) Packaging: none Condition: excellent (no cables, just batteries) Location: Johannesburg Reason: decided to go with a bank of US3000c's Shipping: large and heavy, prefer not Collection: preffered Sandton/rosebank Link: Pylon PowerCube H2 48V 74Ah for series connection for HV (H48074)

iv been looking at a similar idea/system. out of interest does it make sense to get those inverters which can connect parallel? i.e. looking at ur needs a 3kw inverter might cover you for the basics at the moment, then add on a larger inverter in parallel at a later stage?