Hi All

Have had my current system for about 2 months now - has worked flawlessly - current specs:

• 1 x Sunsynk 5kw Inverter
• 1 x Dyness 4.8 kWh battery
• 8 x 335W CNBM panels on MPPT1 facing north

The plan was always to upgrade at some point and i have started looking at the upgrade path. Asked for a quote from my installer who suggested:

• Additional battery
• 10x 335W CNBM panels. 1 to join MPPT1 and the other 9 on MPPT2

Would you go for the 335s (R2100 / panel) OR go for fewer higher wattage panels? Roof space is not such a huge consideration and if needed i could split MPPT2 to have some panels on North and other on North West roofs

They are also charging me 13.8k for this installation which i think is high. Any thoughts / comments / alterations?

you need to keep the same panels on the one mppt, but yes, you can even go to 540 watt panels on the second mppt, unless you will never change your panels ever again. the 335 panels are fast being replaced with the larger panels and you would have a hard time finding replacement panels in the future.

Yeah if i got any 335s they'd join that MPPT. I wanted to upgrade that string to 10 vs 8 anyways. It the MPPT2 thats kinda messing with me - the 5kw has a 6.5kw PV limit - if i had the 8kw then id go for the higher wattages as there'd be more room to grow

you can go higher than 6500 watts, as long as the voltage does not exceed 450 volts, only time this can help is in winter when pv production drops.

i have nine 355 watts on one mppt and six 540 watt panels on the second mppt

See - now that arrangement works for me - that's what i was thinking of getting. OK - let me see what the budget allows. 

i was going to install ten of the 355 watt panels on the one mppt, but the total Voc was going to be 468 volts, so decided to back off to nine panels,

VOC for these ones is 47v so 10 would be pushing it 😐 might stick to 9 like you have 

Ended up getting the 10 335w, one of them was added to the 8 panel MPPT1 and the other 9 were put on MPPT2. So total is now 18x335w. MPPT 1 is 9 panels in N orientation, MPT2 has 5 panels N and 4 Panels NW

The additional battery is only arriving tomorrow so will be installed on Thursday

Looking good, happy solaring😀😀

On 2022/02/03 at 9:56 AM, mzezman said:

They are also charging me 13.8k for this installation which i think is high. Any thoughts / comments / alterations?

If this is just for the labour to install the additional panels and battery then it does look high to me. If it includes panel mounting frames, wiring and any consumables or hiring of scaffolding then it may be around that price. 
 

I don’t know, maybe someone else can comment on this price… 

1 hour ago, Gandalf said:

If this is just for the labour to install the additional panels and battery then it does look high to me. If it includes panel mounting frames, wiring and any consumables or hiring of scaffolding then it may be around that price. 
 

I don’t know, maybe someone else can comment on this price… 

You need to do a site visit in order to tell if labor charge is high or fair. The installer must have been to site and saw all the challenges he will face during the installation and then quoted accordingly. Commenting on the price without all the facts is pointless, best speak to the installer and negotiate a price  

2 hours ago, hoohloc said:

Commenting on the price without all the facts is pointless

You are right, I am jumping to conclusions. I must not comment on something before I know the facts. Thank you for your observation. 😁
 

But just as a matter of interest, what would the going rate be for a straightforward install without any complications? 

On 2022/03/01 at 7:52 PM, mzezman said:

Ended up getting the 10 335w, one of them was added to the 8 panel MPPT1 and the other 9 were put on MPPT2. So total is now 18x335w. MPPT 1 is 9 panels in N orientation, MPT2 has 5 panels N and 4 Panels NW

The additional battery is only arriving tomorrow so will be installed on Thursday

So how is the upgrade working so far? Are you happy with the solar output of both strings, and do the batteries charge up lovely and fast now.? 😆

2 hours ago, Gandalf said:

You are right, I am jumping to conclusions. I must not comment on something before I know the facts. Thank you for your observation. 😁
 

But just as a matter of interest, what would the going rate be for a straightforward install without any complications? 

Straight forward install, where you don't need to drill through any walls, you provide the ladders, step ladder and a long ladder to climb over the roof,  inverter and batteries to be installed right next to the DB, no splitting of DB, good access to a big ceiling/roof (not flat roof, I hate running cables in a flat roof), site within 10km radius from where I stay. I wouldn't charge more than R3k, but that is me 😁

23 hours ago, hoohloc said:

wouldn't charge more than R3k

Now this is more the price I would charge, although I tend to underestimate the amount of work and end up doing myself in with not having the balls to tell the client that it will cost more. My last install was like this, I quoted without properly inspecting the property and ended up doing R6k worth of labour for R3k. 🤬 Lesson learned! 

2 hours ago, Gandalf said:

Now this is more the price I would charge, although I tend to underestimate the amount of work and end up doing myself in with not having the balls to tell the client that it will cost more. My last install was like this, I quoted without properly inspecting the property and ended up doing R6k worth of labour for R3k. 🤬 Lesson learned! 

Eish! sorry about that, atleast you have a happy client and trust that you will get more referrals from him. I always insist on a site visit and try to check everything 

On 2022/03/06 at 4:10 PM, TimCam said:

So how is the upgrade working so far? Are you happy with the solar output of both strings, and do the batteries charge up lovely and fast now.? 😆

Sorry for the delay - was dealing with a crashed network this weekend.

System is performing really really well... we managed to go from 6pm to 6am on just the batteries and by 11am the batteries were charged up again. Mostly im loving the performance on overcast / rainy days where previously id only get a couple hundred w but now i get at least 1.5kw.

Today's performance

To have real power freedom is so lovely, and now with load-shedding again, we can all just carry on as usual.

Currently I am in the middle of a load-shedding stint, but carry on as normal, while most neighbors are dark, or running generators.

Enjoy the fruit and freedom of your solar labors.😄

@mzezman have a look at the cement tile that isn't in line with the rest of your roof tiles, looks like it wasn't put back into place correctly or slipped,this could cause a roof leak.