Gabriël Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 hi folks, at present i have 8x300watt renosol panels, axpert 5kva and 4x250ah [sonic nps 250-12 agm gel, 48v system] batteries. my [main] settings on the axpert are 29 42v 12 47v 13 54v 2 30a in order to have the available electricity last longer at night/overcast days, i'd like to install another 2 or 3 of the same batteries [250ah sonic nps 250-12]. your advice please! in Christ gabriel ebrsa 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pilotfish Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 Hi Gabriel, If you want to add additional battery capacity it would need to be a full string of 4x250ah batteries matching what you are using at present (and then only if your existing batteries are not too tired). I think that the resulting 500ah battery bank is too big for a Axpert 5kVA with 2400wp panels, you would need to upgrade the entire system to get a reasonable balance of [charge capacity / battery capacity]. So... Add 1x Axpert 5kVA in parallel Add 12x Renosol 300w panels (to make 10 panels per Axpert) Add 4x 250Ah batteries to make 1x 500Ah bank Note that Axpert in parallel must use common battery bank Good luck getting all that past the missus! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriël Posted June 17, 2017 Author Share Posted June 17, 2017 hi pilotfish, just a thumbsuck on the maths already made it impossible to get it past me, never-mind the missus... getting another bank of batteries might be a an option, but to expand the system to nearly double its capacity is way to costly. i wonder if this discussion will not benefit from being moved to say the 'batteries' or 'axpert' part of this forum, i don't know how to do this... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hobson Posted June 17, 2017 Share Posted June 17, 2017 13 hours ago, gabriel said: in order to have the available electricity last longer at night/overcast days, i'd like to install another 2 or 3 of the same batteries [250ah sonic nps 250-12]. your advice please! in Christ gabriel Morning Gabriel Since you have a 48V system you cannot add 2 or 3 12V batteries. You have to add multiples of 4. Depending on how old your batteries are and how much "work" they have done this may either be a workable solution or a bad idea. It is never a good idea to add batteries later. Since you have access to Eskom/municipal power I would be on solar during the day and grid at night and batteries for the power outages that are due this winter. Batteries are expensive and therefore kWhs drawn from batteries is one of the the most expensive sources of electrical power. Therefore I would use them sparingly if I had the option. Before you decide on multiple strings of batteries download and read SuperDIY's battery guide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriël Posted June 17, 2017 Author Share Posted June 17, 2017 tx chris, the batteries are about 3months old and have not been stressed out so adding 4 is an option BUT if i balance generation/storage/consumption maximally with the present set, i'll save a lot of money; ergo, i'll shelve the idea and buy a steak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hobson Posted June 17, 2017 Share Posted June 17, 2017 Either use program 1 SOL or use Maine's ICC to schedule switching between solar and grid and then go and treat yourself to a steak. Sidewinder 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriël Posted June 17, 2017 Author Share Posted June 17, 2017 no 1 is on sol and i have manie's icc but it does not pick up the axpert. i have a cat5 in the rs232 of the axpert leading to my pc. there i have a cat5 to com converter and then i have a com to usb converter running to my pc - i think the signals get lost 'in translation'... does one get a cat5 to usb converter? it'll cut out the cat5 to com, maybe that is where the problem lies. oh yes, the steak was great, homemade - got a mature fillet, cooked in pan over gas with a lot of butter [rare] topped with paarmans pepper sauce, small potatoes and beans, microwaved together, also in butter; pudding was chocolate ... Chris Hobson 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebrsa Posted June 17, 2017 Share Posted June 17, 2017 @gabriel The RJ45 socket on the Axpert is not ethernet but is in fact an RS232 wired connection. So the correct way to wire it to your PC is to use the cable that came with the Axpert. Plug the RJ45 connecter into the Axpert and then connect the RS232 connecter to an RS232 to USB converter. This converter needs to be plugged into the sender of a USB extender pair into which you plug a CAT5 ethernet cable to your computer. The computer end of the ethernet cable has to be connected into the receiver of the USB extender pair which is plugged into your computer. This is the way to connect the Axpert if you use ICC for Windows using the RS232 port on the Axpert. Alternatively you could use the USB port on the Axpert in which case only the USB extender pair is required. All this is only required if your computer is more than about 3 meters from the Axpert. If not you could just connect using a USB cable. I prefer and use the Raspberry Pi version of ICC. The RPi is at the Axpert and connected with a USB cable to the Axpert USB port, no converter required. Then the Rpi is connected to my LAN with a CAT5 cable and everythng works fine. I did however also purchase @Manie 's MQTT remote dashboard which runs on the computer. To control the Pi from the computer, I use RealVNC viewer which is available for free on the Internet. I hope this helps in getting your ICC going. Chris Hobson 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriël Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 thank you ebrsa! pardon my ignorance but i am willing to learn PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST, SEE NEXT ONE! if i plug a ethernet cable into the axpert rj45 socket, take it to the pc [15m]. connect it to a serial to usb converter and the usb end into my pc will that not work? or alternatively use the usb out on the axpert with the cable which came with it, use a usb to serial converter from there, plug the e5 into it, run it to the pc and again, use a serial to usb cable into my pc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriël Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 hi ebrsa, please ignore my previous post. i have now slowly and carefully and with the help of google images gone through your suggestion and voila, the lights came on! basically what i need are two usb extender pairs! would you know of a shop? in Christ gabriel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebrsa Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 @gabriel The port that looks like an ethernet port on the Axpert is in fact an RS232 serial port and not an ethernet port. Axpert supplies a cable with a standard RJ45 ethernet plug on one end and an RS232 female pug on the other end with the Axpert inverter. There is also a USB socket that looks like the USB socket on a printer next to it. The first method of connecting your Axpert to the computer will not work as the plug on the Axpert is not ethernet. You have to use the supplied cable if you elect to use this plug on the Axpert. So then the RJ45 ethernet plug will be plugged into the Axpert and you have an RS232 female plug on the other end which has to connect to your computer. If you have an RS232 serial connector on the computer, all you would need is an RS232 serial extention cable to the computer. However if the computer does not have such a plug, you need first to convert the RS232 serial connection on the supplied cable to USB with a serial to USB converter. Now you have a USB connection to connect to your computer. But since the distance is about 15 meter and USB will not work over that distance, you need a USB extender kit which consists of a sender and a receiver. The sender is connected to the USB connecter on the RS232 serial converter and the other side of the sender is connected to an ethernet CAT5 cable which is routed to your computer where it is plugged into the receiver of the extender kit. The other side of the receiver is a USB plug which plugs into your computer. I used this method with the original AICC which ran on Windows and it worked fairly well but lost connection every so often. I would then have to disconnect the receiver at the computer side and reconnect it which was a pain and not very satisfactory. I cannot make out how you want to do the connection with your second method. You have two connections on the Axpert, one that looks like an ethernet port on the left and marked (12) in the manual which is in fact a serial port into which the Axpert supplied cable is plugged. Next to it and marked (16) in the manual is the USB port, similar to the square USB ports on printers. So you have two types of connections to use to connect to your computer, serial and USB. The way of connecting it, I have explained above. @Manie released the ICC-Pi first and I purchased that together with the MQTT remote desktop which runs on the Windows monitoring computer. The advantage of using the Raspberry Pi is that the connection to the computer is ethernet if you install it near the Axpert. The Axpert is connected to the Pi with a standard USB printer cable. I you have purchased the ICC for Windows, you will have to use one of the the connection method described above. The simplest is with a USB extender kit. I bought mine from Scoop Distribution in Montague Gardens for R325 plus VAT in March last year. They publish prices on the Internet so Google them. Good luck but ask if you need more information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebrsa Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Hi Gabriel, Finally finished my post above and saw your latest post. You only need one extender kit which includes the sender and receiver. Be careful not to connect them incorrectly as I blew up one kit with careless connecting. Fortunately I bought two at the time. I bought mine in March 2016 so prices may have changed. Gabriël 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebrsa Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 @gabriel I see Scoop has the extender kit for R420 plus VAT retail. Here is the link https://scoop.co.za/catalogsearch/result/?q=usb+extender Looks like they don't have stock in Cape Town but have in Johannesburg so I guess they can get it from there or you could buy from Jhb. Gabriël 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverNodashi Posted June 19, 2017 Share Posted June 19, 2017 If you don't use all the solar capacity during the day, it could help recharging your batteries for the night. I don't see you mention anything about being totally off-grid so I am going to assume that Eskom could be used to topup the batteries further, if needed? Otherwise you could squeeze a bit more out of your solar system by add 2x 300W additional panels - but then you need to run 5 strings of 2 panels. That would put you at 3KW potential solar PV power. 12x 300W would be 3.6KW, and you would potentially get 100% solar generation most of the year. But you would be close to your inverters max VOC of 145V (depending which model you have). And are you sure you have resonol panels? OR is it perhaps Renesola, or Enersol? Gabriël 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriël Posted June 19, 2017 Author Share Posted June 19, 2017 i'll get on the roof and make sure, the quote says 'resonol' and a quick check with the 24/7/365 library of google confirms that there is no such thing - i'll get back on this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverNodashi Posted June 19, 2017 Share Posted June 19, 2017 26 minutes ago, gabriel said: i'll get on the roof and make sure, the quote says 'resonol' and a quick check with the 24/7/365 library of google confirms that there is no such thing - i'll get back on this Renesol is the mounting structure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriël Posted June 19, 2017 Author Share Posted June 19, 2017 http://www.renusol.com/en.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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