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SMA Sunny Boy 5kw

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2 hours ago, vulgrim said:

Can they run in parallel?

That question is actually a little bit non-sensical 🙂

It's grid-tied, so yes, you can put multiple ones "in parallel". It's not really the same as the parallel support of hybrids where they actually have to sync with each other... a GTI already syncs with the grid and is therefore already "parallel", even when on its own.

On 2019/03/23 at 7:36 AM, vulgrim said:

Any opinions on this  inverter. I hear it is excellent. Can they run in parallel?

SMA is very good. As @plonkster said, it ties to the grid. What's nice about it, is that if your load requires 3Kw, but you only have 2KW PV available, it will take the rest from Eskom. OR if you have a Sunny Island battery inverter, take the 1Kw from the batteries. They're basically set-and-forget inverters.

  • 3 weeks later...

Seeing as we opened a door her on PF, to give the other side also, something I saw last year, was reviews on SMA.

There where quite a few sites where people complained bitterly. The one was when manufacturing was move from Germany to China:
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sunpower-sma-choose-discreetly-manufacture-china/

The other re. warranties: https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/sma-solar-inverter

Not saying SMA is bad in SA, but I did stop looking at them because of a lot of not so positive reviews overseas.

YES, I do compare my Victron decisions at times. 😉 

I agree that they are set and forget, as well as one of the oldest brands with a very good reputation. my only negative is that they are fairly large - or mine at least. I think S.A. suport could be improved somewhat..

10 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Seeing as we opened a door her on PF, to give the other side also, something I saw last year, was reviews on SMA.

There where quite a few sites where people complained bitterly. The one was when manufacturing was move from Germany to China:
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sunpower-sma-choose-discreetly-manufacture-china/

The other re. warranties: https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/sma-solar-inverter

Not saying SMA is bad in SA, but I did stop looking at them because of a lot of not so positive reviews overseas.

YES, I do compare my Victron decisions at times. 😉 

Every inverter brand has had bad reviews somewhere in the world. SMA is a very good inverter, but one has to understand how it works and what it has to offer.

13 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

manufacturing was move from Germany to China

The only complaint I heard about was when they dropped the display and you had to use WiFi to see what the unit was doing. This coincided with the move to a cheaper unit that was made in China. I haven't actually heard any complaints about the units themselves (apart from the occasional complaint about WiFi).

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