Hi all

Currently installing a system at my new house. I'll post some updates as I progress.

System consists of:

1 x LuxPower SNA5000WPV
1 x Cyclone F5 5.12kwh battery
8 x JA Solar 600w Panels
Monitoring with Solar Assistant.

The system is being installed 90% myself with some help from family, mainly to get the panels up.
The system will then be inspected by an installer, any corrections needed will be made, and the system will also be inspected by an electrical engineer so that the sign off can be done with City of Cape Town.

The inverter is being mounted +- 10m from my DB which is in my kitchen.

The above was what I installed before the electrician came through and made some notes on changes I need to do.

The sprague between the DB's and conduit now has joiners.
I've also replaced the PV side conduit with 100mm x 40mm
Sprague has been installed over the battery leads from the fuses to the inverter.

 

For monitoring, I bought a Solar Assistant license for R899 as I'm not a fan of the LuxPower monitoring.

I purchased a Pi 4 2GB from Pi Shop and will have it set up inside at my office.
This is because the Pi does not need to be plugged in directly to the Inverter as the Luxpower connects to my wifi.

I 3D printed the case using ABS filament using these files: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3793664

I opted for a design with the 75mm vesa mount to allow me to mount it under my desk. Eventually I will remake the design to allow me to stack additional Pi's and create a cluster for Home Assistant, Pi Hole, possible a Pi NAS for media management, etc.

 

One of the down sides of printing with ABS is that if you don't use an enclosure to maintain a high temperature, the print begins to warp due to rapid cooling.
This is with a 100°C print bed and 235°C nozzle temperature, cooling fans off.
As I recently moved in, I've yet to setup my enclosure.

The enclosure traps heat in which allows the print to gradually cool, preventing the print from warping. To try and minimize this further, I printed the Pi case with a 10mm brim to give the case more surface area to stick to the print bed.

The panels are connected as 4 panels per string, 2 strings total.
No wires are touching the roof and fully covered in sprague.

The roof is not in an ideal direction though, facing ENE however I have noticed great output from the panels throughout the day.

There will unfortunately be some partial shading until around 09:45 in Summer on the 2nd string caused by my solar Geyser

 

Nice progress made. Coming along nicely.

Some updates:

• All conduit redone with 25mm
• 6mm solar rated earth cable pulled to the panels
• Additional earth cables pulled from main DB
• Sprague added over battery leads between fuse and inverter
• Battery comms cable rerouted
• Battery earth cable covered with sprague where exposed
• PV conduit changed to 100x40mm

Sparky coming tomorrow to inspect my work and connect to the DB

And the system is now operational. Everything has been connected and tested.
System is working as expected.

Now to start saving for a 2nd battery

Afternoon 

Nice installation. 

How are these batteries? I notice that they are well priced compared to others.

On 2025/02/25 at 12:15 PM, jdido87 said:

Afternoon 

Nice installation. 

How are these batteries? I notice that they are well priced compared to others.

Havent had any problems so far. It seems that its a brand of Solarway Suppliers and backed solely by them.
With that, my dealings with Solarway Suppliers have been phenomenal and bought 95% of the system from them. They even loaded my panels on my trailer and secured the load to ensure its done correctly.

Going to be buying another F5 battery soon

On 2024/12/23 at 10:15 AM, Bl4d3 said:

The panels are connected as 4 panels per string, 2 strings total.
No wires are touching the roof and fully covered in sprague.

The roof is not in an ideal direction though, facing ENE however I have noticed great output from the panels throughout the day.

There will unfortunately be some partial shading until around 09:45 in Summer on the 2nd string caused by my solar Geyser

 

This is the result of the anticipated shadowing:

I believe the only viable solution to this is to shift the panels upwards to the next beam as shown below:

Does anyone have any recommendations on an efficient way to do this? Or would the safest way be to take the panels off entirely, shift the rails, and then bring the panels back up?

On 2025/03/16 at 10:09 AM, Bl4d3 said:

Havent had any problems so far. It seems that its a brand of Solarway Suppliers and backed solely by them.
With that, my dealings with Solarway Suppliers have been phenomenal and bought 95% of the system from them. They even loaded my panels on my trailer and secured the load to ensure its done correctly.

Going to be buying another F5 battery soon

Just wanted to ask, are you running coms with battery on setting 2 for pylon?

On 2025/06/13 at 1:39 PM, Stefan Cornelissen said:

Just wanted to ask, are you running coms with battery on setting 2 for pylon?

Yes. Running comms with the battery.

Battery is set to Lithium and setting is option 2, same for Pylon.

I have also added another battery last week

System Update:

Generator input added. This was done with 6mm cable, a dual pole 25A isolator, and a 32A CEE plug on the outside wall.

Added an additional battery and neatened up the battery cable from the fuse holder to the inverter.

Next item on the to-do list is the route the battery cables between the batteries a bit neater and to cover the earth and comms cables on the left battery with conduit.:

1 hour ago, Bl4d3 said:

System Update:

Generator input added. This was done with 6mm cable, a dual pole 25A isolator, and a 32A CEE plug on the outside wall.

Added an additional battery and neatened up the battery cable from the fuse holder to the inverter.

Next item on the to-do list is the route the battery cables between the batteries a bit neater and to cover the earth and comms cables on the left battery with conduit.:

Does every battery needs to be on its own set of fuses or just the bank?

15 hours ago, Stefan Cornelissen said:

Does every battery needs to be on its own set of fuses or just the bank?

Just the bank.

I've wired mine like the below diagram.

Positive coming from Pack 1 and Negative from Pack 2, this ensures equal balancing when charging.

Blue line is the battery comms between the 2 batteries connected using the RS485 ports.
Green line is the comms to the inverter connected via the CAN port.

On 2025/06/13 at 9:40 AM, Bl4d3 said:

This is the result of the anticipated shadowing:

I believe the only viable solution to this is to shift the panels upwards to the next beam as shown below:

Does anyone have any recommendations on an efficient way to do this? Or would the safest way be to take the panels off entirely, shift the rails, and then bring the panels back up?

I've shifted the panels up today with the help of family.

It had an immediate noticeable improvement of 400w compared to the same time yesterday.

Has been running nicely for the last 2 weeks.

Seeing over 4kw in Winter is also amazing

After the panel move and updating the inverter firmware, the system has been running at full tilt.

Total my 8 x 600w panels exceeded 5kw output hitting a combined 5051w of solar power:

2 hours ago, Bl4d3 said:

After the panel move and updating the inverter firmware, the system has been running at full tilt.

Total my 8 x 600w panels exceeded 5kw output hitting a combined 5051w of solar power:

Nice to see, Have you ever used the full 9kw bypass of the inverter ? Running eskom+battery?

Mine is setup as a grid tied inverter at the movement till I have funds for a second 6kw. I do run into 9kw movements pretty often. Stove/oven geyser. Debating if I should just go for the connection and let it tap from eskom and see how it does on bypass.

55 minutes ago, Stefan Cornelissen said:

Nice to see, Have you ever used the full 9kw bypass of the inverter ? Running eskom+battery?

Mine is setup as a grid tied inverter at the movement till I have funds for a second 6kw. I do run into 9kw movements pretty often. Stove/oven geyser. Debating if I should just go for the connection and let it tap from eskom and see how it does on bypass.

I've never tried to be honest. I've only ever reached 5kw as I try to manage the loads as best as possible.

Sent up the drone to get a new image of the install:

Sealed the previous holes with Sika, have had no leaks, but need to go over it with paint to match the rest of the roof.

Extremely happy with this decision to shift the panels up, it has technically freed up space along the bottom for some additional panels mounted horizontally which I am considering adding.

The performance has been phenomenal. By 9am, the panels output 2850w, and the 2 batteries are fully charged from 30% by 11:45. I am also able to run the my newly installed 18000BTU Inverter AC all day

On 2025/06/13 at 9:40 AM, Bl4d3 said:

This is the result of the anticipated shadowing:

I believe the only viable solution to this is to shift the panels upwards to the next beam as shown below:

Does anyone have any recommendations on an efficient way to do this? Or would the safest way be to take the panels off entirely, shift the rails, and then bring the panels back up?

Yes landscape not portrait.

You will have 4 columns of 4 for 16 panels.

I had the same problem with jumbo aiko 650w 1130mm x2334mm by rotating the panel to landscape on my roof I can get 20 instead of 10. Just ensure 30cm - 40cm all round and minimum 10cm high for roof for airflow cooling for the panels

Edit: oh, I changed my rails orientation to vertical and just ran an earthing jumper across the rails for bonding.

Edited March 28Mar 28 by Croft