So after many months of reading and procrastination I made the leap and upgraded from a glorified UPS ( Growatt 3kva inverter and Mecer lithium batteries) to a full off grid solution.

My current average daily energy consumption is 31Kwh with the main culprits for the usage being the pool pump and 2 geysers. On very rare occasions did usage spike above 8kva.

I wanted to say goodbye to ESKOM for good but decided to move to prepaid just as an extra backup and to avoid the R800 odd a month connection fee.( thanks city power for starting the R200 a month for prepaid users), I also wanted redundancy and be over capacity so I would not stress if somebody switched on the oven or AirCon. So initially thought I would get

2 X 6 Kva inverters

16 X 500w panels

4 X 5kwh batteries

So I started shopping and hunting for the best prices on the above, and got lucky and found

8Kva inverters for R 13 300

6.1 Kwh batteries for R 11 500

I initially thought these prices were too good to be true so did some research and the kit was good, and supplied and supported by Voltex being a Bidvest company made the decision easy, so I bought

2 X 8Kva Megarevo  inverters

https://www.voltex.co.za/product/megarevo-chase-technologies-hybrid-inverter-ess-8kw-8kl1/

5 x 6.14 KWH Megarevo chase batteries no longer for sale but they are these batteries

https://www.eikto-tech.com/6kwh-energy-storage-battery/

21 X 550 W panels

Since the install the Eskom breaker has been on the off position and we have sailed through the cloudy and rainy period we just went through.

 

The install was done by

 

I have a slate roof and was very concerned about leaks and issues after the fact, Harlan did a Great job the slate looks great, and not a leak through all this rain we have been having. He did not mind that I had already bought the Inverters and batteries.

 

All is not roses though, the dongle that came with the inverters lets you use the Solarman app, but that does not integrate into Home assistant, so had to go down a rabbit hole of getting solar assistant installed, finding the adaptor that connects to the COM port for solar assistant was a long frustrating process, eventually settled for a hack there, on another note if anybody is looking for round 4 pin connectors let me know I have multiples of 2 different types lying round irritating me.

The hardware on the inverters is top notch they run quiet and cool, without a hitch so far. The only gripe I have is the firmware could be (much) better, it is a confusing mess and I am still trying to find a setting that will draw 0 from ESKOM and not attempt to sell back to the grid. Now using Home Assistant to handle unlikely switch to ESKOM if there is no sun for an extended period.

All in all happy with the monthly savings. some mandatory pics

 

 

 

 

 

Hi @regbes very glad you got there in the end & with the outcome that you wanted. Looks like you have yourself one heck of a system there !!!! Enjoy it!

Wow that’s a lot of battery power,  it’s at least a full days draw. Congratulations 

Hi Regbes

It's now been a few weeks since your installation.

I am researching a system for our family farm (we have sunsynk installed at home, so I'm biased), but the sunsynk/deye systems will just be too expensive for our use and I have come across this post of yours.

 

How are you finding your system so far, reliability and ease of use wise? 

I am struggling to find warranty details or battery details (C rating/useable cycles, etc)?

Regards

JP

Morning Regbes

Do you perhaps still have the WIFI dataloggers that came with your Megarevo's ? I would really like to buy one from you.

My datalogger stopped displaying production data on the Solarman app and I have tried everything to get it fixed with no solution.

I suspect the problem could be my datalogger.

I have also tried to buy another datalogger also without success.

Just for interest I have upgraded my inverter with new firmware which I got from the Megarevo EG4 website and it works very well.

I now have all the advance settings and can do so much more with the inverter regarding setting and has no longer any export problems.

On 2025/08/25 at 11:36 AM, JohanBreytenbach said:

Morning Regbes

Do you perhaps still have the WIFI dataloggers that came with your Megarevo's ? I would really like to buy one from you.

My datalogger stopped displaying production data on the Solarman app and I have tried everything to get it fixed with no solution.

I suspect the problem could be my datalogger.

I have also tried to buy another datalogger also without success.

Just for interest I have upgraded my inverter with new firmware which I got from the Megarevo EG4 website and it works very well.

I now have all the advance settings and can do so much more with the inverter regarding setting and has no longer any export problems.

Hi Johan, being a belt and braces hoarder personality type I'm not looking to get rid of my datalogger/s.

Have you tried Chase themselves? i have found them to be very helpful

https://www.chasetech.co.za

How was the firmware upgrade process? must admit i am worried i will brick the inverters if i try.

I found this site with lots of docs and firmware versions just too scared to try

23 minutes ago, regbes said:

Hi Johan, being a belt and braces hoarder personality type I'm not looking to get rid of my datalogger/s.

Have you tried Chase themselves? i have found them to be very helpful

https://www.chasetech.co.za

How was the firmware upgrade process? must admit i am worried i will brick the inverters if i try.

I found this site with lots of docs and firmware versions just too scared to t

Hi Regbes

Thanks for coming back to me. I decided to go the solar-assistant root because of the real-time monitoring. It's working fine and now at least I can see the solarpower production.

Only problem now with solar-assistant is that it shows my gridpower as 117v.

I got another firmware upgrade today for the Megarevo R8KLNA from https://beenebrothers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20221208-Megarevo-R8LNA-upgrade.zip but will also checkout the site that you mentioned.

I will upload over the weekend and will give feedback to you.

Regards

Johan Breytenbach

1 hour ago, JohanBreytenbach said:

Hi Regbes

Thanks for coming back to me. I decided to go the solar-assistant root because of the real-time monitoring. It's working fine and now at least I can see the solarpower production.

Only problem now with solar-assistant is that it shows my gridpower as 117v.

I got another firmware upgrade today for the Megarevo R8KLNA from https://beenebrothers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20221208-Megarevo-R8LNA-upgrade.zip but will also checkout the site that you mentioned.

I will upload over the weekend and will give feedback to you.

Regards

Johan Breytenbach

Yes, it is a bug with Solar Assistant, i have logged a call with them for this and other issues i have found i got this from them about a month ago

Hi Reg,

Thanks for taking the time to reach out. We have marked the Megarevo as beta for now as there is still a considerable amount of work that needs to be done for this inverter model in SA. We will be sure to reach out when we have made some progress. Your email will remain open with us until such time that we have rectified these issues and we apologize for the delay it is taking us to resolve this. In the meantime, we have extended the trial again.

Kind Regards,

but it gives me the important things i need, i can wait for the nice to haves.

Good luck with the upgrade, If you have a video or instructions for the upgrade please send it on.

p.s. the "Sunsynk Power Flow card" works well once you have solar assistant working

Morning Reg

Thank you so much for the info. I therefore did not take a change to do the firmware upgrade on the inverter because of your information that the problem is on Solar-Assistance.

I managed to get Solar-Assistant to work through the Wifi dongle, so that I also have Solarman smart monitoring at the same time.

(Solarman smart is very helpful for making changes on the inverter and give's many more options than what's available on the Megarevo panel.)

I did it as follow.

I loaded the new beta version 2025-08-19 of Solar-Assistant.

Then I remove the USB to RS485 cable and connected the WIFI dongle to the Inverter.

I then setup the WIFI dongle to my WIFI and made sure Solarman smart is working.

I then went to Solar-Assistant settings, and I clicked on disconnect.

A new setting appeared underneath Megarevo called Network connect which I clicked, and Solar-Assist picked up the IP address by itself that was allocated to the WiFI dongle.

I selected the IP address, and I clicked on connect and Solar-Assistant started to work.

Solarman smart still do not show solar production data but everything else is working 100%

Solar-Assist is working 100% (same as before with the cable) except for the wrong grid voltage which you are also getting.

Hope the above info will help.

Thanks again and please let me know when Solar-Assistant resolved the problem.

Regards

Johan

That is great news Johan, what does your dongle look like, i have the LSW-5(the fat one)

LSW-3

or LSW-5

Hi Reg

Myne looks just like the LSW-3 but is has the round connector on top that screw into the inverter. That could be the reason why I cannot find one to buy because everyone cells the one with the DB9 connector on top.

Regards

Johan

HI Reg

Just for interest sake.

My inverter is actually a 8kw OUCO inverter which came from ARB Electrical 3 years ago. They are not able to give me any support because they longer bring them is.

I also cannot find any information on the OUCO's on the various forums.

But it looks exactly the same as the Megarevo, Growcol and the EG4 and I am sure they came all from the same factory.

I took a change and loaded the EG4 firmware on my inverter after I start having problems with the WIFI dongle. My inverter is actually now a EG4 inverter.

There is plenty information on the EG4 on the forums and the EG4 is mostly in use in America. They rated the EG4 as one of the top inverters. Some owners claim its American design that is build in China under supervision and therefore the reason why the inverters comply to so many regulations and standards.

What I trying to say your Magarevo and my OUCO is surely also coming from the same factory and is actually top-rated inverters.

Regards

Johan

On 2025/08/29 at 1:24 PM, regbes said:

Hi Johan, being a belt and braces hoarder personality type I'm not looking to get rid of my datalogger/s.

Have you tried Chase themselves? i have found them to be very helpful

https://www.chasetech.co.za

How was the firmware upgrade process? must admit i am worried i will brick the inverters if i try.

I found this site with lots of docs and firmware versions just too scared to try

Afternoon Reg & Johan,

Jacques from CHASE here. Hope all is well with your systems.

Only came across this discussion now, is there anything we could perhaps assist with?

Regards,

On 2025/12/02 at 1:50 PM, JLL said:

Afternoon Reg & Johan,

Jacques from CHASE here. Hope all is well with your systems.

Only came across this discussion now, is there anything we could perhaps assist with?

Regards,

Thanks Jacques, My batteries seem to take very long to charge, I suspect they may be configured incorrectly, Happy to pay for someone to come and check if they have been installed / configured correctly, could you arrange that?

6 minutes ago, regbes said:

Thanks Jacques, My batteries seem to take very long to charge, I suspect they may be configured incorrectly, Happy to pay for someone to come and check if they have been installed / configured correctly, could you arrange that?

Would definitely want to help! Check your inbox.