ipodmusicman Posted May 19, 2022 Posted May 19, 2022 Hi folks, I am in the process of getting quotes to install an inverter system at home. I got 3 quotes from one installer specifying a different inverter on each quote. As I am price sensitive, I needed to see all the options available. Sunsynk 5kw Kodak 5.6kw Axpert Max 7.2kw (8KVA) The Sunsynk is about R3k more than the Axpert with the Kodak about R6k less than the Axpert. I am keen on the Axpert since I know the name, it is 7.2 kw, have friends who have them and who are happy with them and the fact that I can integrate it to my Home Assistant set up. Why should I consider the Sunsynk over Axpert or visa versa? Looking forward to your replies. Quote
Steve87 Posted May 19, 2022 Posted May 19, 2022 (edited) Kodak and Axpert are made in the same factory. The Original Equipment Manufacturer is a company called Voltronics. Kodak is just a rebadged version that us in South Africa know as Axpert. Kodak is more pricey because the distributers market it as such. I can't talk for Sunsynk but both Kodak and Axpert are rock solid. A famous person once said: to us it does not matter if the cat is black or white, but the fact that it can catch mice. So the way I look at it all. We are all price sensitive, but who cares what colour your equipment is, Yellow or white. Does it make watts and does it keep the lights on. Edited May 19, 2022 by Steve87 More to add Quote
Krokkedil Posted May 20, 2022 Posted May 20, 2022 The sunsynk is a good option if you plan to feed your extra power back into the grid and it has 2 mppt units The axpert 7,2 also has 2 MPPT converters. In my mind if you are not going to feed back into the grid this is the one to choose. The kodak which I have has only one MPPT, this is a problem when you strings pointing in different directions because of roof space. When the one string has shadow it pulls the other string down. If you have 2 MPPT trackers it makes your design more flexible. Quote
Beat Posted May 20, 2022 Posted May 20, 2022 13 hours ago, ipodmusicman said: Sunsynk 5kw Kodak 5.6kw Axpert Max 7.2kw (8KVA) The Sunsynk is about R3k more than the Axpert with the Kodak about R6k less than the Axpert. I am keen on the Axpert since I know the name, it is 7.2 kw, have friends who have them and who are happy with them and the fact that I can integrate it to my Home Assistant set up. I do run Axpert (Sinerjy) for now 2 years and am happy. However, rather than go for one 7.2kW unit think twice. With an eye on service reliability I recommend to install 2 5kW units (MKS 5K) in parallel. In case one fails you still operate with the remaining unit until the faulty is repaired. In addition you would have 2 MPPTs that support together up to 8kW solar panels. Quote
Scorp007 Posted May 20, 2022 Posted May 20, 2022 Sunsynk even if it was R8000 more expensive Matthys Koch, TimCam, FixAMess and 3 others 6 Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 21, 2022 Posted May 21, 2022 It's actually an unfair comparison to be honest, the Sunsynk is in a different league completely to the Axpert-types. That said, if budget is tight, an Axpert type (particularly the Kodak due to its great warranty and support) is better than nothing at all. TI-Diesel and Nexuss 2 Quote
ipodmusicman Posted May 21, 2022 Author Posted May 21, 2022 33 minutes ago, YellowTapemeasure said: It's actually an unfair comparison to be honest, the Sunsynk is in a different league completely to the Axpert-types. That said, if budget is tight, an Axpert type (particularly the Kodak due to its great warranty and support) is better than nothing at all. In what way is the Synsynk in a different league to the Axpert? I am very new to this and I must say that there are not, if not any, comparison videos or anything of the like on YouTube, or anything like that. Quote
PowerUser Posted May 21, 2022 Posted May 21, 2022 (edited) 33 minutes ago, ipodmusicman said: In what way is the Synsynk in a different league to the Axpert? I am very new to this and I must say that there are not, if not any, comparison videos or anything of the like on YouTube, or anything like that. If you search around that question has been answered in all the finer details about 10000 times on this forum only. I can give you a clue - the answer is not that SunSynk can feed back to the grid as many many forum members keep on repeating. Edited May 21, 2022 by PowerUser Nexuss 1 Quote
system32 Posted May 21, 2022 Posted May 21, 2022 (edited) Sunsynk is NRS 097-2-1 approved. Edited May 21, 2022 by system32 Quote
Scorp007 Posted May 21, 2022 Posted May 21, 2022 9 hours ago, ipodmusicman said: In what way is the Synsynk in a different league to the Axpert? I am very new to this and I must say that there are not, if not any, comparison videos or anything of the like on YouTube, or anything like that. Batteries are the most expensive item. Because the other 2 operate on 1 setting to manage the discharge level and the Sunsynk has time settings for different conditions like normal or LS times or different levels of discharge dsy/night appeals to me. Also that you can charge a lithium battery and then disable it and use it without exporting for day time self consumption. When needed you can just enable the battery. You can in this way run any load with solar on the non essential side. The other 2 you are limited by the size of the load so DB must be split. There is also good reasons why the other 2 are not on the approved list for legally connection to the DB. Browse the topics on the forum and decide what is best for you. Quote
ipodmusicman Posted May 22, 2022 Author Posted May 22, 2022 Hi folks, I generally would search a forum, etc before posting a simple question as this, but I tend to find that it is more of finding a needle in a haystack than anything else in order to find a lament's terms answer or that bits and pieces of information is scattered across many many discussions. I am a technical person, but venturing into this side of things is new to me .. hell, maybe I made a post in the wrong thread for that matter, I don't know. If there are threads that I can read on different topics, I'll be more than happy to go there than having the information repeated. But based on Scorp007's answer above, I can start to gauge that the Sunsynk is a lot more configurable for different situations which is always a good thing, so already that is a good start as to the advantage of getting one over the Axpert .. I don't really understand that the Axpert based inverters are not on an approved list to be connected to the DB provided that these inverters have been in the market in SA for years? I'll read up on NRS 097-2-1 to understand what this really means .. hopefully there is a Cliffnotes version of this. hehehe. But thanks so far, I'll try and read more, but always good to get easy to understand insights on this type of stuff. Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 22, 2022 Posted May 22, 2022 (edited) On 2022/05/21 at 9:06 AM, ipodmusicman said: In what way is the Synsynk in a different league to the Axpert? I am very new to this and I must say that there are not, if not any, comparison videos or anything of the like on YouTube, or anything like that. My apologies, I was busy at the time, I didn't have the capacity to respond in full. Axpert inverters typically work well if all you want is a UPS, keeping essential loads going during a power failure or load-shedding utility. That said, there are losses in efficiency with any inverter, charging batteries from AC (AC -->DC conversion), storing the DC charge (standing losses), and then converting it all back from DC to usable AC again. These efficiency losses means that It becomes expensive to just keep the lights on. So you add some solar panels, thinking that it would be great to offset some of these losses using sun power. And it is, solar panels charge the batteries, and but when they are charged, they just sit there in the sun. So you decide that you want to use them directly to service loads, and they can, but the problem with most axperts is that they either use 100% Eskom power, or 100% battery power or 100% solar power, there's no in-between. This means that if you have a 5K Axpert inverter with panels capable generating say 2500W DC, and your load is 2000W, all is good, the inverter will convert and use solar power to power loads. The problem is when a cloud happens along, and solar generation drops to 1500W. The axpert-type inverter will switch 100% from solar to grid, and if not grid, 100% to battery. This is true for most axpert-type inverters, although I have heard of some that can do limited "blending" of sources. The Sunsynk, by contrast, will blend any source depending on how it is set up. In the above scenario, it will still use the 1500W from the panels, but supplement it with 500W of power from the grid, battery, aux, genny or wind turbine. So it is far more efficient. Another difference is that it is a true bi-directional hybrid inverter ( Sunsynk uses the term "Super Hybrid Parity Inverter"). The Grid and Aux input is bi directional in the sense that it operates as both an input and an output. So it can draw current from the grid or aux, and it can send current back to the grid / aux. It can also limit the load of the current flowing in either direction too, to a pre-determined wattage. This significant because, due to budgetary contraints, most homeowners cannot afford to put in a 20kW inverter, and so they split their db into essential and non-essential loads. Essential loads are usually quite light, and allow homeowners to reduce the size of the inverter to say 5kW. The non-essential loads are usually big current hogs (like water heating and pumping), and they are placed before the inverter, on the grid side, effectively being served directly by the grid before grid power even reaches the inverter. This also means that they are down when the grid power goes, but hot water is quite stable and doesn't change its temperature in four hours, and the pool won't go green immediately if there isn't any pump working, so this kind of works well from a functionality perspective. The problem with this is that it does not result in much efficiency gains or electricity savings, because the biggest current hogs are also the ones that are still serviced by the grid (when it is there). So homeowners either have to buy a bigger axpert type inverter, or get a smaller hot water installation, or change the element to a smaller one, or get a soft starter for the pool pump, and/or shift the load to the essentials side. The Sunsynk hybrid can safely export power to the grid side though, using a Current Transformer or CT coil to measure directional load (when the grid is up). So if you have a 4000W hot water heater element, it can still be on the grid or non-essentials side, but the Sunsynk can pump 4000W of excess solar to it. The CT coil measures the power and the inverter will reduce power when too much power is detected going to the grid. Even better, if the Sunsynk inverter only has 2000W of excess solar, the element will receive the other 200W from the grid. So it is efficient. The same with the Aux port, it is bi-directional, so it can be configured to take a genny input, or act as an output or "Smart Load" as Sunsynk calls it, and you can dump excess solar power towards it. Here is a video which explains it: Also important is battery support, the Sunsynk manual lists over 3 pages of batteries that it supports, most with CAN or RS485 communications. Another difference is the wide range of capacities that it supports. In addition to the ability for it to parallel (up to 16 inverters), it comes in 3.6K, 5.5k, 8.8K, and a whopping 16K for single phase installs, and there are 12 and 50K 3phase units available. Not even Victron makes such a wide range of self-contained units, their biggest is 5K. Pricing is a little more expensive than axpert-types, but it is nowhere near the pricing of Victron, which is a whole lot more. This probably covers the most pertinent differences between the majority of Axpert and Sunsynk Hybrid inverters, but it is certainly not all, and other forumites are welcome to supplement it with their favourite ones. There are many others, from its easy to use interface, to the warranty and support in South Africa, that are equally important. It's simply in a different league. Please note that I am not affiliated to Sunsynk in any way, I am just an enthusiastic owner who discovered this brilliant piece of kit under two years ago. Edited May 22, 2022 by YellowTapemeasure spelling wolfandy, Deon in ZA, Hyarion and 9 others 8 4 Quote
ipodmusicman Posted May 22, 2022 Author Posted May 22, 2022 Wow YellowTapemeasure thanks so much for the explanation and the link to the video. Going with Synsynk is an absolute no-brainer. Granted, I am not going solar in this install, but I know that solar HAS TO form part of the plan in some point once I have the funds to do so, but being able to feed the solar power into the non-critical load instead of it being wasted because the batteries are fully charged and the critical load is using just a litttle bit more than what the panels produce thus the critical load would be pulling from the grid only with a non-hybrid inverter. In saying, being able to power the house with the panels and make up the remainder of the power requirement from the gird - wow! Yeah, I want to keep the lights on during looadshedding, but gosh, one has to think a little more further than that, even if the cost is about R3k more in going with the Sunsynk vs the Axpert. Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 22, 2022 Posted May 22, 2022 To you and I, it may be, yes. Voltronic Axperts (and their clones) have a long history of providing good service to many, and I don't want to disrespect that fact, also the fact that there are many people who have limited means, and who wish to mitigate the effects of power cuts with a cheap and straightforward solution, so Axpert inverters (and even the old faithful Mecer modified sine wave 1200/2400VA trolleys) have serviced the needs of many, for many years. I have no problems with these solutions, yes they are inefficient and messy (particularly the lead acid batteries), but they have fulfilled a purpose. We are not all the same, and we all do not all have the same requirements. Some of us live in flats / sectional title units where there is no roofspace for solar. Some of us do not have the means to install even a small Axpert and a lead-acid battery, some have a 50Watt solar panel with a Ratel 860P to see them through load-shedding. The important thing is that we provide our own power during this absolutely disgraceful Eskom shortcoming. But I have to agree that, for the average full-title homeowner, with some roof space (or even space on the ground) for some panels, going Sunsynk is a no-brainer right now. And in five, ten or fifteen years' time, the tech will have changed again. GreenFields and jasweb 2 Quote
Beat Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 21 hours ago, YellowTapemeasure said: The problem is when a cloud happens along, and solar generation drops to 1500W. The axpert-type inverter will switch 100% from solar to grid, and if not grid, 100% to battery. This is true for most axpert-type inverters, although I have heard of some that can do limited "blending" of sources. This is simply not thru or a misunderstanding. The 48V DC terminals act like a bus. It has inputs from battery, grid charger and solar, load is the inverter. The input from solar is directed to the load, the surplus goes to the battery. If load exceeds the solar input, the remaining comes from the battery. The switching from battery mode to utility mode depends solely on the settings 12 and 13 with respect to battery voltage. And by the way - Axpert (Voltronic) offers as well grid tied as off grid models. Wether you want a grid tied or an off grid system is a basic choice at the beginning. I choose the off grid because I felt the administrative hassle and the reward for export not worth. My aim is to become as much independent from grid as possible. The size of the system depends largely from the number of persons in the household and their habits. I also feed the electric geyser heating as supplement to the thermal geyser solar panel. And we cook electrically. With other words I do not have a split DB, the inverter feeds the entire DB. In case of LS I simply disable electric geyser heating. The grid is otherwise not more than a back up. Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 1 hour ago, Beat said: This is simply not thru or a misunderstanding. The 48V DC terminals act like a bus. It has inputs from battery, grid charger and solar, load is the inverter. The input from solar is directed to the load, the surplus goes to the battery. If load exceeds the solar input, the remaining comes from the battery. The switching from battery mode to utility mode depends solely on the settings 12 and 13 with respect to battery voltage. Thank you for the correction, I did indicate that some axpert-type inverters do have limited blending capabilities. Quote
CyberJoe Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 3 hours ago, YellowTapemeasure said: Thank you for the correction, I did indicate that some axpert-type inverters do have limited blending capabilities. Why limited blending? If there is not enough sun, it blends grid. If there is no grid, it blends batteries. What more do you get with the Sunsynk for example? Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 13 minutes ago, CyberJoe said: Why limited blending? If there is not enough sun, it blends grid. If there is no grid, it blends batteries. What more do you get with the Sunsynk for example? Blending of the Aux / Gen port, so that would include micro inverters, another off-grid inverter, or genny. Quote
CyberJoe Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 Copy that, I would see those being features very few users would ever use, but may be wrong. Quote
GreenFields Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 16 minutes ago, CyberJoe said: Copy that, I would see those being features very few users would ever use, but may be wrong. I guess if you're fully off-grid then a generator input would come in handy for those extended cloudy periods. Wait for Eskom to implode, then it might be the next big thing. Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 1 hour ago, CyberJoe said: Why limited blending? If there is not enough sun, it blends grid. If there is no grid, it blends batteries. What more do you get with the Sunsynk for example? Is it capable of blending all 3 together simultaneously? Quote
CyberJoe Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 Do you mean PV, batteries and grid? I cannot think of an example of this? (And I am seriously curious, looking at the Sunsynk for an upgrade from the Kodak later. Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 30 minutes ago, GreenFields said: I guess if you're fully off-grid then a generator input would come in handy for those extended cloudy periods. Wait for Eskom to implode, then it might be the next big thing. My genny is fuelled and ready because sometimes substations explode and aren't fixed for up to six weeks, if you combine that with a week of thick clouds, then most of us will have issues. It also gives me black start capability, in the event that the batteries run completely flat and go into protection mode. The aux is useful, some put micro- inverters or even a full blown off-grid inverter (like a 4.6K Solis) on it, it then adds some extra MPPTs and allows for more panels. This can supplement PV during bad sun days, and can also provide black start capability. Some use it to dump excess PV, which cannot be done on the non-essentials side if the grid is absent. Quote
Yellow Measure Posted May 23, 2022 Posted May 23, 2022 6 minutes ago, CyberJoe said: Do you mean PV, batteries and grid? I cannot think of an example of this? (And I am seriously curious, looking at the Sunsynk for an upgrade from the Kodak later. Yes. MPPTs are usually quite slow to ramp up under changing conditions, and having the ability to blend all 3 makes things a lot smoother. A use case for this might be if you use another party trick of the Sunsynk: Load shaving, which can be done on the Grid as well as the Aux port. Please don't get me wrong, I am not knocking Axperts at all, far from it. I simply responded to a question on the differences. It's also fair to mention that not all axperts perform the tricks that yours does. Quote
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