Long time lurker - finally got the courage to post. Got a simple starter system installed on Dec 3 - so 1 month of running thus far.

Components:

• 1x Sunsynk 5kw Inverter
• 1x Dyness 4.8kw battery
• 8x 330w Poly Solar panels on 1 string

The rain hasnt helped at all but have been able to generate approx 260kWh in Dec. Jan has gotten off to a great start and so far loving the system.

One or two items still need to be sorted by the Installer but happy thus far - will look to add an extra battery and 6-8 more panels in a few months

 

Nice installation! Good yield for the dismal December weather we had.

Clean install @mzezman – nothing quite like spending your hard earned money on something that starts giving it back from the first day it comes online 😎 nevermind seeing the system perform on sunny days like we've had of late!

Thanks @bigawatt @scubadude

Plan is to grow the storage and generation components in the next 6 moths. i reckon another 8x500w panels and 4.8kWh battery should do the trick

@mzezman I think the big questions is to ask about the batteries is, can you make it through load shedding with your existing battery pack? 

If so, then in my opinion at least, there is really not much reason to buy more battery packs on a grid attached home as the ROI on battery usage is VERY long unless there are other factors in play. 

Some assumptions:

12kw/hr battery pack costs around 60K 

You can use about 10kw of that at night (assuming your house uses that much power).

Cost per kw/hr is max R3 per kw/hr, so saves about R30 a night in electricity or around  R900 a month. 

 So, at best, will take at least 66 months (5 1/2 yrs) before you start saving any money. 

There are other factors that can start effecting the calculations but batteries have in no way nearly as good an ROI as just putting up more panels and moving your heavy loads to day time.  

 Until batteries get quite a bit cheaper it doesn't really make sense to go totally off-grid at the moment unless you really have to. 

Nice thing about having your system in place now is that you can do all the calculations relatively easily and work out the ROI's on the additions to your system.

 

 

 

Thanks @Sc00bs - we can definitely get through a 2 or even 4hr load-shedding session with no issues with the current setup. On sunny days like we've had the last 3 or so all essential loads have been running off the solar from 8 until 4pm-ish. I have also been experimenting with running off the batteries for part of the night to offset our evening usage. An additional battery would mean we can definitely get from 6pm to 6am, currently we can get through a 3rd of that time

Well @mzezman in that case I would not be spending more money on your batteries until it makes financial sense to go totally off-grid either due to inflated connection fee costs or reduced battery costs. 

The stuff I have read says you need enough power to get you through three days with no sun and then have a backup charger for your batteries i.e. generator of some sorts so you need a fair amount of battery power depending on your consumption obviously. 

I would definitely use your batteries at night to offset your Eskom usage. The trick is not being caught during load shedding with no sun and no power in your battery.  I keep my battery at 90% until 22:00 and then let my battery discharge down to 20%, it reaches 20% at around 06:00 so is then ready to start be  charged again. If we are in a load-shedding period, I set it to not discharge lower than 40% as I have been caught before with load shedding at 06:00 and no power in the battery. 

On 2022/01/05 at 2:46 PM, Sc00bs said:

Well @mzezman in that case I would not be spending more money on your batteries until it makes financial sense to go totally off-grid either due to inflated connection fee costs or reduced battery costs. 

The stuff I have read says you need enough power to get you through three days with no sun and then have a backup charger for your batteries i.e. generator of some sorts so you need a fair amount of battery power depending on your consumption obviously. 

I would definitely use your batteries at night to offset your Eskom usage. The trick is not being caught during load shedding with no sun and no power in your battery.  I keep my battery at 90% until 22:00 and then let my battery discharge down to 20%, it reaches 20% at around 06:00 so is then ready to start be  charged again. If we are in a load-shedding period, I set it to not discharge lower than 40% as I have been caught before with load shedding at 06:00 and no power in the battery. 

Interesting - 3 full days with no sun sounds like hell but also sounds like the summer we've been having with all the rain. 

We had a power outage on Tuesday that lasted from 10am to about 8pm - the sun got us through the day and charged batteries to 100% and we were on 70% when the power came. Our area does have these periods and sometimes its 2hrs others in 3 or 4 days with no power

I helped my Sister in Pta East with a similar installation (Sunsynk 5KW + Dyness A48100 + 6x450W Panels on first MPPT), generation during the day is about 2.5KW when the sun is out. Everything seems to be working very well, but I'm not sure if the BMS and Inverter is talking to each other like they should. Inverter shows Battery SOC, but the per-cell stats/volts is not reported by the inverter (Settings --> LI-BMS Option).

@mzezman, Is your inverter reporting the per cell voltages? Can you possibly share you battery/inverter configuration?

We have connected Sunsynk Inverter BMS CAN Port to the Dyness A48100 "In" RJ45 port. Battery is also configured as Master 1 (DIP set to 0-0-1-0 for positions 1-2-3-4). We also "restarted" by switching everything off, and then turning the battery on first and then the inverter.

 

12 hours ago, johanpre said:

I helped my Sister in Pta East with a similar installation (Sunsynk 5KW + Dyness A48100 + 6x450W Panels on first MPPT), generation during the day is about 2.5KW when the sun is out. Everything seems to be working very well, but I'm not sure if the BMS and Inverter is talking to each other like they should. Inverter shows Battery SOC, but the per-cell stats/volts is not reported by the inverter (Settings --> LI-BMS Option).

@mzezman, Is your inverter reporting the per cell voltages? Can you possibly share you battery/inverter configuration?

We have connected Sunsynk Inverter BMS CAN Port to the Dyness A48100 "In" RJ45 port. Battery is also configured as Master 1 (DIP set to 0-0-1-0 for positions 1-2-3-4). We also "restarted" by switching everything off, and then turning the battery on first and then the inverter.

 

Hi

Please see the below information：

1.The comms cable between the battery and inverter use standard cables.Connect the comm cable from inverter CAN port（ComSyncIn）.

2.The battery dip-switch  set to 0010

3.Inverter setting select LI  CAN and protocol set to 00.

If you have another question please contact us:

Whatsapp:+8617625812876

email:[email protected]

14 hours ago, johanpre said:

I helped my Sister in Pta East with a similar installation (Sunsynk 5KW + Dyness A48100 + 6x450W Panels on first MPPT), generation during the day is about 2.5KW when the sun is out. Everything seems to be working very well, but I'm not sure if the BMS and Inverter is talking to each other like they should. Inverter shows Battery SOC, but the per-cell stats/volts is not reported by the inverter (Settings --> LI-BMS Option).

@mzezman, Is your inverter reporting the per cell voltages? Can you possibly share you battery/inverter configuration?

We have connected Sunsynk Inverter BMS CAN Port to the Dyness A48100 "In" RJ45 port. Battery is also configured as Master 1 (DIP set to 0-0-1-0 for positions 1-2-3-4). We also "restarted" by switching everything off, and then turning the battery on first and then the inverter.

 

I'll double check for you but my BMS also doesn't show the per cell stats. I only get SOC, temp, voltage and a few other stats. I am not sure the BMS would see the per cell stats - hence on the other batteries the guys have gotten for e.g. the RIOT cloudlink 

 

 

Ended up getting more panels. Now have a total of 18x335w across the 2 MPPTs that the 5kw can handle

New battery incoming by end of week

 

 

Setup is looking very good 

4 hours ago, BryanOC6 said:

Setup is looking very good 

Thanks mate - been working flawlessly since installation. Am already thinking of phase 3. An additional battery will take us through the night and "100% off grid" for sunny / summer days. I will also need to look into perhaps another inverter + panels at some point - possibly an off-grid one that plugs into the SS Aux port

On 2022/08/15 at 9:29 AM, mzezman said:

Thanks mate - been working flawlessly since installation. Am already thinking of phase 3. An additional battery will take us through the night and "100% off grid" for sunny / summer days. I will also need to look into perhaps another inverter + panels at some point - possibly an off-grid one that plugs into the SS Aux port

This solar game never ends ! Lol 

Hi, I have a Sunsynk 5 KW with a Dyness 3.6 battery, when its loadshedding it just trips and it takes very long to reset, I just want to know if my charge and discharge settings are correct and should there be any dio switches on if Im only running one battery module?

18 hours ago, Jaun Minnaar said:

Hi, I have a Sunsynk 5 KW with a Dyness 3.6 battery, when its loadshedding it just trips and it takes very long to reset, I just want to know if my charge and discharge settings are correct and should there be any dio switches on if Im only running one battery module?

Does it trip as soon as LS is on?

Are there any loads running when it trips?

With 1x3.6 battery you are limited to 1.8kWh so the most you can power is 1.8kw..anything more than that and the system will trip

If the system is tripping when LS comes on and there are no loads then there might be another issue. In terms of dipswitches what does the manual of the 3.6 say? 

On 2022/11/12 at 1:33 PM, mzezman said:

Does it trip as soon as LS is on?

Are there any loads running when it trips?

With 1x3.6 battery you are limited to 1.8kWh so the most you can power is 1.8kw..anything more than that and the system will trip

If the system is tripping when LS comes on and there are no loads then there might be another issue. In terms of dipswitches what does the manual of the 3.6 say? 

Yeah, my system used to trip. I got another battery giving me 2400w of usable power. 

One year later

So yesterday was day 365 of my initial install. Some stats and thoughts on the last year below:

All in all i should have done this sooner as the benefits have been immense. Our area periodically gets plagued by an unwell substation - system keeps performing. Also managed to drastically reduce the Eskom bill (even on prepaid) and we have been able to continue working (from home) without a hitch... well - almost

If i had to do it again:

1. I would go for an 8kw unit - more regularly we have been having AC overloads on the 5kw
2. I would go for higher wattage panels - we got the 335s as these were in stock at the time but i should have gone for 455s or higher
3. I would have installed it in the garage and paid extra to run cables from the DB
4. I would have cut all the trees in the line of sight - we lost approx 25% production in the winter months due to tree shading - once we cut those we were cruising

[April 2023]

System has been rock solid with the exception of the AC Overloads we had bene getting quite frequently - mainly due to running too much at the sametime. Ended up buying another 5kw SS and 4.8kw Dyness and got these installed yesterday. The new SS came with the new dongle so now running both Solarman and Sunsynk dongles. Hasn't seemed to be an issue (for now) - just trying to get the inverters on the same firmware. Old one is on 3382-0513 and new one is on 3381-1515

Excuse the walls - these will be patched up soon

Hi there guys. 

Can I use 2x bx51100 5.12kwh Dyness with a 8kw Sunsynk inverter? 

12 hours ago, Renergy said:

Hi there guys. 

Can I use 2x bx51100 5.12kwh Dyness with a 8kw Sunsynk inverter? 

Yes you can - with no issues. Battery and Inverter will communicate if the correct cables are used 

On 2022/01/04 at 1:13 AM, mzezman said:

Thanks @bigawatt @scubadude

Plan is to grow the storage and generation components in the next 6 moths. i reckon another 8x500w panels and 4.8kWh battery should do the trick

What's the limit on the amount of panels you can install. My deye 5kw (basically the same as the sunsynk) only allows 14 x 455w panels.

49 minutes ago, CESPACH said:

What's the limit on the amount of panels you can install. My deye 5kw (basically the same as the sunsynk) only allows 14 x 455w panels.

The limit is based on the VOC of the panels you are installing. You shouldn't go above 425 or so volts per MPPT. 

Hi Mzezman,

 

Since installing the 2nd SS have the AC Overload Errors Reduced? How has it been running 2xSS in parallel?

 

Looking to get quoted on a system and i'm trying to decide between 1x 8kW or 2x5kW in parallel?

Edited January 29, 20241 yr by T.Mop
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