PsyCLown

Gobel power make "DIY" type of batteries and options can vary - they can use different brands of cells and different cell capacity too if I am not mistaken.
 
Companies like Hubble, Freedom Won, Fivestar, BSL, Svolt etc. are more on the already built side of things, the cells are generally not changed out to different brands of capacities.
Some of the manufacturers will share what cells they use, I think Hubble shared this info a while back and Svolt use their own Svolt cells.
Majority of batteries use the Pace BMS, this includes the Hubble & Svolt batteries.
 
Some like to keep things more of a secret for whatever reason. Not knowing what is inside the battery isn't great but for the average consumer they do not care as long as it works.

Yes and no.
 
The voltage is definitely something you do not want to exceed as this could lead to permanent damage.
The watts, well it depends on the inverter. Some will simply clip amps to keep within the limits, others may trip / turn off the inverter until the watts reduce a bit. There may be some inverters which are damaged by the watt limit being exceeded, I am not sure.
 
Generally inverters will allow for more Watts from your panels then the inverter is capable of. ie the Luxpower SNA5000 is a 5KW inverter but can accept 6200W of PV (both MPPTs combined that is).

I can definitely recommend them. I am heavily invested at this point, since I am maintaining that plugin. 

Compared to the Deye/Sunsynk, they are pretty much the same, with the Solis having an extra 1kw headroom, and more PV potential. They have also been upgrading the software on the inverter side, to allow more TOU timeslots etc. The local solis support, is also amazing! They have been very active in replying to emails, and helping to sort out issues. 

As far as the rate of data  flow into HA goes, it updates every 15 seconds, you can change settings from within HA as well only the flow, by either the control switches, or via automations. The idea of the integration is to eliminate the need for the solis app, however, I am busy beta testing breaking the modbus connection periodically to sync to the cloud. 

There are currently around 380 entities, switches, inputs, etc. 
The majority is listed here, but needs updating since there were just over a hundred added in the last week: https://solis-modbus.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

Hey all!
 
So something has been bugging me about these Luxpower inverters for a while now, today I finally decided to investigate a bit further and this seems to have confirmed my suspicions and its quite frustrating...
 
I have a voltage protection device connected before my inverter circuit breakers (where Eskom gives power to the inverters). The voltage protection device allows me to see the voltage & current in realtime. I noticed a couple months ago that even when the load for the house is being carried by PV or if I am running on PV & Batteries, there is always current draw being displayed on the voltage protection and this current draw figure varies from time to time and is anywhere from 2.8A to 3.8A when there should be no draw from Eskom.
So I decided to stop being lazy and investigate further. I removed the cover of my DB board and used my clamp meter to assist me. Now I do not expect either the voltage protection device or my clamp meter to be 100% accurate but I do expect them to give me a fairly accurate reading. I understand the clamp meter is probably less accurate in this instance.
 
So before I started this test, I ensured that my inverter settings were as such to force the inverter to use PV & Battery only, no grid usage as per the below screenshot.

 
 
 
So below you can see a comparison of the clamp meter & voltage protection device both detecting current.
One reads 3,9A and the other 4,5A - this confirms to me that there is definitely current flowing

 
 
So I gave the Luxpower inverters the benefit of the doubt, maybe the voltage protection device is somehow consuming the power... although it seems a bit odd, lets try confirm this. So I turned off the breakers giving Eskom power to both my inverters and suddenly there was no usage displayed on both the voltage protection device & my clamp meter as can be seen below.

 
 
 
Now this does concern me and puzzles me a bit, I can understand that the Luxpower does not have an external CT coil and you have the CT coil offset to assist with calibrating it. By default mine was on 20W, I adjusted this (after I turned on the breakers, so my inverter had grid) to 199W and then to -199W and I did not see much (if any) difference to the readings on the voltage protection device or the clamp meter.
 
If we call it an average of 3,2A, since this is basically 24/7 that usage adds up quickly.
3,2A x 230v = 736W
736W x 24 hours = 17,66kWh per day
17,66kWh x 30 days = 529,8kWh in a 30 day month... Its a significant amount.
 
To be fair, this would not all be offset by solar anyways, there might only be around 7 hours in a day where this usage is offset by solar.
3,2A x 230v = 736W
736W x 17 hours = 12,51kWh per day
12,51kWh x 30 days = 375,3kWh in a 30 day month... A potential loss of 154,5kWh per month because of this.
At around R4 per kWh on the higher tier, this works out to around R618 per month.
 
 
So now, does anyone know why the Luxpower does this? Why does it draw soo much from the grid when the loads should be covered by PV or PV & Battery and it should not be drawing from the grid?
Also does anyone know whether the same is applicable to the Sunsynk/Deye inverters & Solis inverters?

For interest sake, why can't you switch brands?
 
If no money has been paid, I see no reason why one cannot change brands.
The only issues I have heard about with the original / S Series Volta batteries is the charging issue which was corrected with firmware but I have not specifically gone looking for issues with the Volta batteries.
 
R20k (S Series) vs R22.5k (Pro series), not a massive price difference but it does all add up. If there are no issues with the S Series then I'd likely go for those if I was forced to choose between those 2 batteries. All the small cost savings add up.

I did not realise Volta had a pro battery - curious to hear what the difference is between them.
 
I see DoD on the S series is 80% and Pro series is 90%, I assume the pro series use better quality cells.
Both have a 10 year warranty so not sure how much of a difference one would feel between these 2 batteries.
 
Pro says powered by Deye, so likely just a rebranded battery as well...
 
I personally still love my Svolt batteries, value for money is exceptional and makes it hard to justify other batteries.
Volta had some issues with their batteries not charging properly although I believe this was resolved with a BMS firmware update which at least shows that they are providing some support and fixing issues where necessary.

I cannot edit the above post anymore.
 
Just FYI, these Luxpower have 3 fans near the bottom which draw air in from the bottom of the inverter and then pushes the air up and the design by default requires for the air to dissipate out the top vents of the inverter. These additional 120mm fans are sucking the hot air out from the top of the inverter and when the Luxpower fans are not running these will still help keep some air flowing through the inverter and help remove the hot air from the inverter (remember, hot air rises).

i see it the other way round
ie the hybrid inverters you can set and forget and it will blend eskom and solar when battery hits x SOC you have set
while the off-grid  axpert types means you have to play around with switching UTI/SBU since only some can blend 
 
unless you have enough battery power to essentially go mostly of grid, which is often not the case ie those going for the cheaper axpert options tend to have lower battery capacity
Solarassistant can help make it a set and forget, then it will command the inverter to switch back and forth as needed, solar assistant allows you to pull data from axpeert types into homeassistant and can also give commands on certain things to the inverter via solarassistant pi
 
allowing remote management , and the data is realtime not the crap of 5min with sunsynk or other cloud setups
if/when i buy a sunsynk i would still do the pi realtime data route 

It depends on the situation.
 
I went for multiple smaller batteries initially as it was more flexible and allowed me to add batteries over time based on my budget that is what was available and at the time it suited my need, I am now in a situation where space is becoming a problem and I would like to add more battery capacity so now I would need to look at replacing them for multiple larger batteries.
 
It's unfortunate that Svolt do not offer their 280ah batteries in SA otherwise I'd likely look at replacing my current batteries with those.
Another thing to consider is charge & discharge current, although this can differ a lot depending on which battery but I have seen 150Ah batteries with the same 100A charge / discharge limit compared to your typical 100Ah battery.

If 25A is not essential then you can use a double 10A relay that is about the space you have. 
Normally sold in a specific length by Sustainable Energy. 

What is the current rating of the contactor? 
Get this type of adapter. 

I have gone ahead an created an integration for the solis. Whilst the modbus did work, it sometimes created timeouts. The integration combines multiple registers into single calls, eliminating overhead, and also combining the entities into a single device. 
 
Repo: https://github.com/Pho3niX90/solis_modbus

Batteries. A rather important and crucial part of a residential solar system, especially here in South Africa.
I was originally going to go the DIY route and even purchased some 184ah Svolt cells with the BMS and all other accessories necessary although something came up which lead me to sell the cells, skip the DIY batteries for now and look at purchasing already built batteries – this is where the Svolt 106AH batteries come in.
When I found out Svolt had an office open up in South Africa and they were selling batteries locally, my interest was naturally piqued as I already had some of their 184ah cells. Svolt is also a rather large company and they make cells for the EV market as well and Svolt will be supplying BMW with cells for their EVs in the future, along with CATL & Eve Energy.
 
Before I continue I want to state that I do not have any affiliation with Svolt. I do not work for them, I paid for all of my batteries, I do not get any kickbacks from them – nothing. I am just a client of theirs.
 
After reaching out to them and getting more info, I was invited to their Johannesburg office to view their batteries and other products (inverters). I had a brief chat to the guys and decided to purchase one of the 16 cells 106AH batteries to try out and see how it performs.
Taking it out the box, the battery looks really nice, the wall mount is simple yet effective, it comes with a nice set of cables and the crimps seem to be done well (as expected), the power connector which is used for the battery is very convenient and easy to connect / disconnect the cable from the battery.
Unfortunately I did not take pictures and mine are already connected, I do not really feel like disconnecting everything to take pictures but if you guys would like some pictures then let me know and I will make a plan to take some.
The battery has a nice button to turn it on/off and a screen to display some info from the BMS and once can easily navigate through the menu with the buttons.












Here is the Svolt catalogue which has the specifications for the batteries:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/69c9wnxrklmhc4xg9nn6c/Svolt-Battery-and-Inverter-Catalogue-20230803.pdf?rlkey=z8q9we55gzzs31e9wh3tw5ahp&dl=0 
 
I believe all the batteries make use of a Pace BMS. The Pace BMS is very popular with pre-built batteries and are used in many different brands of batteries. Andy from Off Grid Garage did a review one of the Pace BMS’s and you can watch it here:
 
At first I had some issues getting the battery to talk to my Luxpower, however Svolt confirmed that their batteries do communicate with the Luxpower inverters as well as majority of other inverters (MUST, Conderenergy, Growatt, Sunsynk / Deye, Victron, Svolt, Luxpower and more). The BMS has different options which Svolt can change for you to ensure it works with your inverter. By default it is set to Pylon which works with majority of inverters.
After reaching out to the Svolt guys and speaking to one of their technician staff, they decided to come through to my house to take a look and try figure out what the issue was – pretty impressive from a customer support point of view. Turns out it was a very silly mistake from my side, the dip switch was not configured properly (I left them all down as per the manual, where dip switch 1 should be in the up position). As soon as we did that, the comms started working – I had to use the battery without comms for a few days before Svolt came to my house and it worked well like this too.
After getting the battery comms working I was finally able to use the battery as intended with communication to my inverter.
The battery is 1C rated, with the communication it sets the max charge / discharge limit to 95A which is technically not the full 1C rating limit but it is close enough for me to not be bothered by it.
95A x 51.2v = 4 864W so just short of a full 5KW but if you were to have a 5KW inverter how often would you be running it at its limits when there is no grid?
I was able to access the BMS info via PBMSTools and below is a screenshot of the parameters:

 
I ended up purchasing 2 additional batteries, so that is 3 batteries in parallel and to get them connected in parallel is super easy. Adjust the dip switches as per the manual, connect them with the network cable supplied in the box and it just works. The BMS and inverter speak to each other and my limit now changes from 95A to 285A (as the limit is per battery, obviously keep in mind that you need to ensure the cables you use can handle the max current and obviously your inverter(s) too).
 
Out of the box I did have the cells being imbalanced, however I am quite impressed that the BMS was able to balance the batteries. Since it does not make use of an active balancer it can take a bit of time but it did work and it did manage to get them balanced!
At first I was a bit concerned that the BMS would not be able to balance the battery and while it was balancing I was concerned it would not  charge to the correct voltage, when I reach out to Svolt they said if that does happen they will be able to assist me and if the battery was in such a bad state that it was not usable they would replace it with a new battery for me (once again, I feel this is really good from a customer care point of view). I have not had to have any batter replaced though.
 
Below you can see a screenshot of the cell imbalances:

 
Here is a screenshot after a week where the BMS has managed to get them balanced:

 
Here is a screenshot I took at the same time of my older battery, as you can see the cells were balanced rather well:

 
 
My oldest battery has a total of 44 cycles only, so still early days but so far so good and I would not hesitate to purchase more of these Svolt batteries.
Based on my experience with Svolt customer support I am not worried about a valid warranty claim being rejected. The technical staff are knowledgably and actually know what they are talking about as well.

Svolt are still new in South Africa, the pricing on these batteries have been exceptional however I am not sure whether the price will increase with time as they become more established, I suspect this might happen as I have seen this happen with other brands but time will tell.
 
I hope this helps those who are on the look out for batteries. If there is anything in specific you'd like to know which I have not included in this review, let me know!

@Spys
The peace of mind part is very true for installer and system owner all the same, as i have gone through quite a few stressful RMA processes with different systems( combinations) not naming products and companies. The question now with Lux and Hina should there be a RMA process within the 10 years how would that play out. I keep a spare inverter and battery as backup should the RMA goes sideways but not all installers have the means to be disaster ready. 

I have 2 setups with a Pi monitoring the batteries via the RS232 port (I just use a MAX2232 module to do the TTL<->RS232 level conversion, but the USB<->RS232 devices work great too), using https://github.com/Tertiush/bmspace. Works great, and goes into home assistant.
I've also gotten PBMSTools to work remotely with ser2net to read out the logs which was helpful. They're standard PACE BMS's though, so anything that talks to Hubble/Revov/SVolt (and many, many others) etc will work.

Very good price.
 
One thing for everyone to keep in mind is that Svolt offer these batteries in a 15 cell version & a 16 cell version.
When expanding to your battery bank, you always want to go with the same number of cells to ensure the voltages match.
So if you go for the 15 cell version, if you want to add more batteries later it should be 15 cell LiFePO4 batteries as well so that they match and then the same for the 16 cell version.
 
48v / 5.09kWh = 15 cell
51.2v / 5.43kWh = 16 cell
 
Majority of the LiFePO4 5kWh batteries sold are 16 cell, therefore I would personally suggest the 16 cell battery over the 15 cell battery as it will likely be easier to find more batteries which have 16 cells later on.

So @Keith Gough joined on 28 March 2023, made 1 post and was last seen on 28 March 2023.
He is not active on this forum at all and has not returned since the post he made.
 
Once upon a time Sunsynk was one of few tried & trusted brands available in SA at a reasonable price.
However times have changed and the market has adapted and there are now many competitors available and quite a few at very good prices. 
The one thing Sunsynk still has going for them is the reputation they use to have, many people might not keep up to date with what is happening in the solar scene and therefore still be under the impression that Sunsynk is a fantastic brand and still one of the best inverters available. I do not believe that is true anymore.

Thanks to everyone. I eventually went with the SRNE HESP series. Mostly because of the IP65 rating. My environment is very dust prone hence the need.

Why not consider the Luxpower SNA6000? I feel support is better with the Luxpower inverters and the features it offers is great. Value for money it is hard to beat!
 
Growatt has put me off with them changing revisions on their inverters without documenting it properly. I have never considered SRNE as a premium brand but rather one of the cheaper brands, however I could be wrong here. I know someone who has a 24v SRNE inverter & battery AIO type of setup and he is not impressed with the performance (I think battery life, although chances are he just did not spec enough capacity as its a large property).

Pricing does not seem terrible. Sure you could find some of the equipment a bit cheaper if you shopped around and bought from a few different places but its always easier to have the installer supply the equipment as they should then assist if there are any issues and you do not need to play middle man between the supplier and your installer.
 
What I do not understand is why there is 2x 250A battery fuses?
I understand the 4x 125A battery fuses as this will be used when connecting each battery to the busbars but I do not see the need for battery fuses between the busbar and inverter?
 
I feel 250A for 50mm cable is optimistic / too high.
 
 
If it is out of your budget, there are other options though...
Pick different inverters (2x LuxPower SNA5000) and different batteries (2x Svolt 106Ah) and you could have a savings of around R32k (You'd get 10kW of inverter & 10.86kWh of battery in this cost saving situation.
If you are happy to spend that money, then the R32k could go towards some solar panels and you'd likely walk away with some money saved still.

I would not recommend waiting for the Sodium-ion batteries, go with LiFePO4 for now as 3 to 5 years is still quite a long wait and new products are often priced at a premium price.
You can look at replacing your Lithium batteries with Sodium batteries in around 10 years time when you are due for new batteries. By then we'll have a better idea in terms of performance and pricing as well.
 
I feel you'll have wasted a lot of money in the next 3 to 5 years if you buy lead acid batteries. Lithium batteries are not badly priced at the moment. 24v 106ah lithium batteries for around R10k is pretty good I feel and keep in mind you'll be able to get more discharge out of a Lithium battery compared to lead acid (80% DoD vs 50% DoD), you could even push the lithium battery a bit further and it will handle higher current better and obviously take significantly more cycles. (6000 cycles vs around 150 to 250 cycles for lead acid).

One of the best features of Pylontech is that all their batteries are cross compatible with each other and this makes adding more batteries to your stack extremely easy. You can mix and match different capacities or stick to the same capacity your choice.
Pylons are also LFP, the difference is that the pylons are 15 cells and the Shoto is 16 cells which makes paralleling them impossible , if they had the same cell count you could parallel them and control the system via voltage instead of BMS comms as you mentioned.

The problem with most AC clamp meters is that it measures Apparant power not True power. The formula for apparent power is P= VxI. True power:  P = Voltage x Current x Power Factor.
As can see in the formula you need voltage x current x power factor. The clamp meter assume the voltage is 230v and assume the power factor is 1.
Unfortunately, the power factor is not constant. It varies from device to device, and how active that device is. What you need is a meter which plugs into a mains socket, so it can sense the voltage and phase, and has a clamp connection, also known as a CT.
My brother in law stays in London UK and bought me a nice power meter Dola Tek power meter with CT that plugs into a 230v socket outlet. They are now available on Online Store.
I have measured quite a few households that power factors varies between 0.4~0.25.
Let us do your current of 3.2A and assume your voltage is 230v and power factor of 0.4. P= 230 x 3.2 x 0.4 = 294W.
Link for the Dola Tek power meter.
 
https://reliablestore.co.za/products/pzem-022-open-and-close-ct-100a-ac-digital-display-power-monitor-meter-voltmeter-ammeter-frequency-current-voltage-factor-meter-with-split-ct?variant=36606096769185&sfdr_ptcid=28846_617_662111363&sfdr_hash=b353f4d63665d4823cd3ba1d8f8afc9f&gad_source=1
 

I would not recommend waiting for the Sodium-ion batteries, go with LiFePO4 for now as 3 to 5 years is still quite a long wait and new products are often priced at a premium price.
You can look at replacing your Lithium batteries with Sodium batteries in around 10 years time when you are due for new batteries. By then we'll have a better idea in terms of performance and pricing as well.
 
I feel you'll have wasted a lot of money in the next 3 to 5 years if you buy lead acid batteries. Lithium batteries are not badly priced at the moment. 24v 106ah lithium batteries for around R10k is pretty good I feel and keep in mind you'll be able to get more discharge out of a Lithium battery compared to lead acid (80% DoD vs 50% DoD), you could even push the lithium battery a bit further and it will handle higher current better and obviously take significantly more cycles. (6000 cycles vs around 150 to 250 cycles for lead acid).