6 minutes ago, Jaws said:

The equipment was purchased and installed badly by themselves  leading to lots of issues.

Thanks Jaws, you had me worried there for a moment. Victron kit is quite a configurable setup, not as easy as it seems upfront, but then it allows for a whole new dimension of maneuvering room over time.

I needed help the other day when I missed a setting. Thanks @plonkster for that little titbit. Plonk can explain in more detail if he so wishes. All I now is that it now works as designed, and to not to set limits on the controller if one uses ESS.

 

8 minutes ago, Jaws said:

But at 1/3 the price of the Victron kit the Axpert didnt do halve bad either.

Yes, we have thrashed that out to adnosium levels. This forum boomed because of Voltronic users over the years.

 

Wish it would become more balanced, Goodwe, Victron, Solis and other inverters also discussed in same detail as Axperts. Lots of info to share between users.

Victron is not cheap. But ... with patience / Gumtree / "connections", one can get the Victron prices down with support here on this forum. The savings one makes with a MultiplusII being grid tied, off-sets the initial costs quite nicely, with dedicated circuits on batteries if power goes off at night. Daytime the array will sort the dedicated circuits quite nicely.

Like smack bam during a time sensitive use of a large jackhammer being used, Eskom switched off. I sat there for a moment, I mean, the panels went up the day before ... when I realised I have the option now to plug that huge jackhammer into the Multiplus AC-out1. Why not ... they can take it ... let see.

The 3kva Mulltigrid preformed beyond my wildest expectations, not only powering the +-1400w jackahammer but also a bunch of IT stuff at the same time utilising the full potential of the 2.1kw array during the power failure. Priceless.

 

The ease of use after learning to tweak my Victron kit to my particular needs, the knowledge that when things go wrong, and they do with all makes, that there is local knowledgeable repair shops, a manufacturer that will help if you cannot come right, not being reliant on a forum for support ... for that I have no problem paying more.

1 hour ago, Jaws said:

R6500 for 1200w/2000kva modified sine inverter which is perfect for keeping the WIFI router, TV and a light or two on.

I sold a bunch of similar UPS'es to farmers. They bought them for the wife's 7de Laan and Sat afternoon rugby matches for it is a mission to start their generators.

Two comments:
1) They work!
2) The batteries don't last.

The users inevitably over tax the batteries ... the "maintenance free deep cycle" batteries in them cannot take it. +-100 cycles, 250 if you are lucky. 

Other than that, good cheap working solution.

Personally, and here I am going to cause a stir, personally I would look at same size Axpert inverter. They are pure sine wave, cheap, and brilliant as a UPS.

35 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

wife's 7de Laan and Sat afternoon rugby matches for it is a mission to start their generators

Yeah, I usually lay it out for people. You can go and buy a 500W jobbie at the local autoparts store (I see some at Midas for example) and it will be fine for a television and a decoder... or you can go a bit better and get the Ellies package from Builders... and that is fine for all the light stuff... but almost without exception these guys have higher aspirations: They want to expand, also connect the lights of the house... so at that point I tell them better to get a decent inverter/charger with a proper transfer switch. And then I point out that they are worried about the wrong thing anyway... the batteries costs the most.

The last guy I spoke to, he wanted to do it because of the noise levels... I advised him to buy a Honda inverter-generator :-)

On 2018/12/08 at 8:37 AM, Antony said:

R8k for a few bibs and bobs is far to little...

a 600V protection box with isolators could cost you over R7k and then what about all the brackets and roof hooks, etc just for the panels.

Managed to double it to 16k

Connectors cable and mountain racks has already been ordered. So it does not come from the 16K

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

They want to expand, also connect the lights of the house...

Like my friend, after a lot of talking, with the Excel spreadsheet on loads vs DOD and all that, his first "Ellies" UPS type with 2 x 100ah deep cycle batteries lasted +-2 months. He replaced the bank twice. Then he got a 5kva CyberPower, 4 x 150ah batt - +-6 months they lasted. He replaced that bank twice too.

Now he has 2 x 200ah truck batts ... they are down to 1 hour already.

So now being gatvol with all the batts he is getting a rather expensive generator. He already worked out that he can run for 4 hours on a full tank ... I recon that is the best answer for him, as nothing gets switched off during power failures ... unless the inverter overloads and switches off.

On 2018/12/07 at 10:59 AM, Jaws said:

Just my useless 5c on the geysers.

If you have access to Eskom you will not be saving money by installing gas geysers.

Gas geysers works well in remote locations or as a backup.

 

Also electrical geysers  can be used to dump excess solar energy into during the day

 

@Jaws Just want to check in on this comment, do you mean in stead-off getting a solar geyser, might be worth while running the electric geyser of PV if you have excess energy?

On 2019/01/02 at 7:38 PM, d3nominat0r said:

@Jaws Just want to check in on this comment, do you mean in stead-off getting a solar geyser, might be worth while running the electric geyser of PV if you have excess energy?

But you will have to replace your standard 4kW element for a 2kW or even a 1kW.

And even then you will still need to manage the "heating" times

You don't want to spend R140k on a 5kW solar system and it only manages to power your geyser ;-). 

You still need to charge batteries, run the pool pump, etc.

On 2019/01/04 at 4:04 PM, DaveSA said:

There's a lot more to consider than just Eskom availability vs Gas geyser. Start with a standing loss of around 2.5KWH per day for electric geyser. Point of use and hot water usage profile.. I have gas water heater placed after the electric geyser - so ''unlimited'' supply of hot water, without storing hundreds of litres just in case there might be demand. And solar excess can still be used to preheat.

also worth noting is shower times ... yes... it takes the same amount of energy to heat water to a specific temperature, but what is lost sometimes is that if you shower for 5 minutes a day you will only be using gas for that 5 minutes and only heat up say 50 liters, where as if you used a normal grid geyser it would have to heat up 150-200 liters per day for you to only use 50 liters.

Edited January 12, 20197 yr by stoic

On 2019/01/02 at 7:38 PM, d3nominat0r said:

@Jaws Just want to check in on this comment, do you mean in stead-off getting a solar geyser, might be worth while running the electric geyser of PV if you have excess energy?

That's what I did. Works great

13 hours ago, stoic said:

also worth noting is shower times ... yes... it takes the same amount of energy to heat water to a specific temperature, but what is lost sometimes is that if you shower for 5 minutes a day you will only be using gas for that 5 minutes and only heat up say 50 liters, where as if you used a normal grid geyser it would have to heat up 150-200 liters per day for you to only use 50 liters.

True, a lot depends on your usage patterns. In my case we don't have showers so I run my solar panels off my PV system, utilizing excess PV power later during the day when we don't use it. I downgraded the element to a 2KW element and set the timer to switch on at 13:00 and off at 19:00 (in case we want to take a bath later in the evening) The element is a PTC type element and I can see on my graphs that it use less energy to keep the water warm as opposed to a normal geyser element which would use the full 2KW to keep the water warm.

16 hours ago, stoic said:

where as if you used a normal grid geyser it would have to heat up 150-200 liters per day for you to only use 50 liters. 

Not really. In a normal geyser it will only heat what you use PLUS the standing loss (around 2.5kwh a day). So if you use 50 liters, and we assume ambient water temperature at 15°C and a thermostat set to 55°C, you will use 50*40*1.16 = 2.3kwh plus the standing loss = 5kwh a day.

Since the cost per unit of energy for LPG is pretty close to that of electricity, I'd expect gas to have the same cost. Gas is less efficient at heating though (pretty hard to beat an electric element sitting IN the water). So which one costs less depends pretty much on the efficiency of the gas compared to the standing loss on the geyser. I suspect it might be so close that one could call it a draw.