May 10, 20197 yr Author On 2019/05/07 at 5:02 PM, plonkster said: Warranties are largely marketing tools. The best example I heard of this is paint. Paint with a 7 year warranty (typical Dulux). Read the small print. Must be applied by a professional painter. And you must fill in the warranty card and send it off. How many people do either of those? Paint companies know this. This means claim levels are acceptably low without having to put to much extra into the quality 🙂 Update: Inverter and PV Ready. Electrical cables (10mm) have been run along trunking. Tomorrow: Electrical work will be done, moving critical loads from my 3 phase DB to a new SUB DB board. Hoping it will be up and running by 3pm tomorrow. Then testing of the supercap. I am installing a pylontech 9.6kwh battery bank for a customer so at least I will have something to compare against.
May 16, 20197 yr Author Quick Update 3 Phase is a nightmare if you want to move critical loads to a DB. Finding all the Neutrals is a nightmare( It was wired like crap into the DB). We moved all loads to the new sub db thought we were done on Saturday but started finding funnies: Earth Leakage would trip on the new SUB DB *Fix* some neutrals for the upstairs lights going to the the main upstairs DB instead of the new sub DB. Tracked those neutrals yesterday and tripping stopped. My main lounge lights and study room lights are somewhere going straight to City powers Neutral. Let me explain we ripped the DB board disconnected all the live and neutral wires. We dropped two phases on the supply coming from eskom to prevent voltage from doubling. We run the one phase from city power with live wire on these lights connected directly to the single phase via a breaker. The lights TURNED on!!! This is with all the neutrals disconnected both upstairs and downstairs. I cannot get into the celling for these lights as the house is just built funny. So pretty disappointed about not being able to power the study/work room lights via the inverter. My father will figure this one out as it is beyond me The F#$ki#& buying never stopped, had to buy DIN rail breakers because every thing in the DB was samite. I did not mind as those breakers are pretty old and we found faults with some of them. The EL upstairs was also faulty from line side it was measuring around 236v on the load side it would drop to 196v *WTF* replaced it and that k@k stopped immediately. Took the cables to get crimped at a battery shop, the chops used a long nose plier to crimp it. That made me furious. I only feel sad for their customers. I went out and bought another set of lugs for the battery cables, went to 4x4 shop and dropped R800 on a Hellman(Thats what I think its called) crimpers. It Crimps lugs up to 50mm. Crimped it myself and Done! Only turned the system on yesterday after ensuring that new SUB DB had no way back to the main DBs Neutral. Turned on the battery Growatt powered up. Turned on Panels. Run the house for a few minutes of solar. Configured the growatt. Flipped the change over to inverter. Turned on the breaker on the AC input side and VOILA success!!! System is up and running. The sirius energy model was at 95% when I powered it up. *Note I am calling it an energy module and not supercap* Switched the growatt to power the house from battery got up this morning and it was at 89%. So far so good. Will update as I test the system more. I will post pics shortly
May 16, 20197 yr 59 minutes ago, Treschen said: R800 on a Hellman(Thats what I think its called) crimpers That's a good price for a crimper. I paid R1200 for mine... second hand. The really decent stuff goes up to 4k, and for the people who crimp lots of cables... there's battery powered hand tools that goes into the tens of thousands 🙂 1 hour ago, Treschen said: 236v on the load side it would drop to 196v It would have to get pretty hot if it's dropping that much, even at 100W we're talking around 20W of heat. I believe some of those old Samite breakers were combination overcurrent+earth leakage units, and the thermal component of overcurrent breakers does cause a small voltage drop and increase in heat... but this sounds really excessive, as if it might be carboned up inside.
May 16, 20197 yr Author 3 hours ago, plonkster said: That's a good price for a crimper. I paid R1200 for mine... second hand. The really decent stuff goes up to 4k, and for the people who crimp lots of cables... there's battery powered hand tools that goes into the tens of thousands 🙂 It would have to get pretty hot if it's dropping that much, even at 100W we're talking around 20W of heat. I believe some of those old Samite breakers were combination overcurrent+earth leakage units, and the thermal component of overcurrent breakers does cause a small voltage drop and increase in heat... but this sounds really excessive, as if it might be carboned up inside. R1200 is pricey the shop across the 4x4 shop said they would have given me a hydraulic one for R1200. Not sure the make I buy a lot of electrical products from him. As for the busted EL I am glad that thing is out 😁
May 16, 20197 yr 4 hours ago, Treschen said: The F#$ki#& buying never stopped Jip. I have to sit om my hands every now and the for even when you are done, you see something new and better ... "upgrade!!!" ... NO! 🙂
May 16, 20197 yr 1 hour ago, Treschen said: they would have given me a hydraulic one for R1200 The one I bought happens to be hydraulic. They were more than twice that price back in the day, but the prices have come down somewhat.
May 20, 20197 yr Author I have tested the overload protection charging the module beyond 54.5v and near 54.5v it kicks into over load protection. Drained it to around 62% this weekend and it still had more to give, did this to see how much my PV power will peak to, by 12pm it was fully charged. PV Peaked to 2450 watts need to start charging the CAP a bit later. (12 x JA Mono 315 watt panels) Tested grid charging from the inverter @60amps... Thing charges up crazy fast @ 60amps tested from 75% to 100%. Good on the inverter for coping. Would not normally do this as it was just a test. Washing machine and dishwasher run at separate times during the day to maximize PV power, inverter sometimes taps into battery when PV is not enough and the sirius charges very quickly back to 100%. Ironing also done at different times same as above but always before sunset, I have seen the Sirius go down to 87% after ironing. Then back to 100% shortly after. And no I am not doing the ironing Don't ask me about cloudy days I have no solution yet 😂 Going to buy a small kettle 1.2l ratted at 1200watts... As well a LG inverter microwave rate around 1200 watts as well. Russel and Hobs kettle was drawing too much (2700 watt) and funny enough the glass on it cracked this weekend. Hurray reason to buy a something smaller and more efficient. I think I have been cycling this Sirius module enough and will keep at it. It runs my house from 8pm to 7:30am, at 6am when I leave it usually sits between 67% to 77% thats with us running TV at night for around 3 hours, my home server, my PC, Samsung Fridge, lights, etc. Keeping in mind from 5pm to 8pm I set AC charge to keep the sirius at 100%. This is the grace period for the family to use the hair dryers, microwave kettle etc. From 8pm the loads then switch to battery. Now time to convert those Geysers to solar..... Watt hungry things
May 20, 20197 yr 12 minutes ago, Treschen said: Tested grid charging from the inverter @60amps... Thing charges up crazy fast @ 60amps tested from 75% to 100%. Good on the inverter for coping. Would not normally do this as it was just a test. Pffft. I charge my LFPs at 150 amps (C/2 for me). They suck it up like a dry sponge. Of course these aren't your garden variety Pylontech with their wussy C/2 charge rates, I can still double that... 😛 If these energy modules are indeed some kind of lithium chemistry (as suspected, or hybrid as alleged), it's not too surprising that they actually behave a bit like lithium batteries. What I would like to see is recharging in 30 minutes, or 15 minutes... that would convince me.
May 20, 20197 yr Author 2 minutes ago, plonkster said: Pffft. I charge my LFPs at 150 amps (C/2 for me). They suck it up like a dry sponge. Of course these aren't your garden variety Pylontech with their wussy C/2 charge rates, I can still double that... 😛 If these energy modules are indeed some kind of lithium chemistry (as suspected, or hybrid as alleged), it's not too surprising that they actually behave a bit like lithium batteries. What I would like to see is recharging in 30 minutes, or 15 minutes... that would convince me. Right now my kit can't charge beyond 60amp, the inverter does have settings to go up to 130amps but I doubt it will ever get there on PV alone. I am sure some worthy upgrades will get me there and quite confident it will also take 150amps with ease. Perhaps if I try and charge from both PV and Grid I should be able to see more than 60amps.
May 20, 20197 yr 2 hours ago, Treschen said: Perhaps if I try and charge from both PV and Grid I should be able to see more than 60amps. Yup, that is also the only way I can manage it. Full PV power is around 100A, and my inverter can add another 70A. I'm still beating the these-are-not-real-supercaps drum a little bit 🙂 If it is, the charge current would only be limited by the size of the cabling and the bus bars inside. That kind of tech would be amazing in an electrical vehicle. Right now it still takes around 45 minutes to charge a Tesla battery to 80%, which is around 1C rate... imagine doing that in 5 minutes... you know like filling with petrol or Diesel 🙂
May 21, 20197 yr Wow that battery looks amazing. I'm sure it'll be rock-solid. I see that their calendar life is 45 years which is still really great. http://www.greenfoxagencies.co.za/Kilowatt_Labs_Sirius-Technical_Data_Sheet-7100-48-B-2C-M-SD-L-G-v051018.pdf
May 21, 20197 yr Author 1 hour ago, DeepBass9 said: What was the cost of the batteries? Pricing is as follows but not final pricing (exchange rate): 7.1kwh Sirius around R99 000 6.7kwh Sirius around R96 000 3.5kwh Sirius around R49 000 I have sold 2 x 6.7 modules so far. Customer is using them with Axpert inverters (Pharmacy) Edited May 21, 20197 yr by Treschen
May 21, 20197 yr Author 5 hours ago, Charl_CCU said: Wow that battery looks amazing. I'm sure it'll be rock-solid. I see that their calendar life is 45 years which is still really great. http://www.greenfoxagencies.co.za/Kilowatt_Labs_Sirius-Technical_Data_Sheet-7100-48-B-2C-M-SD-L-G-v051018.pdf Rock solid yes, thing almost broke my back 😂
May 21, 20197 yr Author 15 hours ago, plonkster said: Yup, that is also the only way I can manage it. Full PV power is around 100A, and my inverter can add another 70A. I'm still beating the these-are-not-real-supercaps drum a little bit 🙂 If it is, the charge current would only be limited by the size of the cabling and the bus bars inside. That kind of tech would be amazing in an electrical vehicle. Right now it still takes around 45 minutes to charge a Tesla battery to 80%, which is around 1C rate... imagine doing that in 5 minutes... you know like filling with petrol or Diesel 🙂 Will see this weekend if I can get the inverter to push at least 130amps into it 😂 Hardware limitations here. For a short time only. The less I use from grid the better for me
May 21, 20197 yr 16 hours ago, plonkster said: imagine doing that in 5 minutes that would require some serious charging power. I doubt that such an infrastructure will ever become readily available.
May 21, 20197 yr 1 hour ago, Treschen said: Pricing is as follows but not final pricing (exchange rate): 7.1kwh Sirius around R99 000 6.7kwh Sirius around R96 000 3.5kwh Sirius around R49 000 I have sold 2 x 6.7 modules so far. Customer is using them with Axpert inverters (Pharmacy) Not bad, seeing as they will out live me apparently. Once my AGMs expire in about 2025 there should be lots of options on the marker, and hopefully the prices will have come down by then.
May 21, 20197 yr 10 minutes ago, Fuenkli said: that would require some serious charging power. I doubt that such an infrastructure will ever become readily available. As I understand the idea is that you'd fill some sort of a capacitor with a large amount of charge over a longer period, and then when the car comes in you'd transfer that into the battery really quickly. But I suppose it remains a problem, because you're talking about putting 40Kwh or something like that into a battery in mere minutes. Say 12 minutes... that would require 40*5 = 200KW for 12 minutes. Not impossible, but certainly "out there".
May 21, 20197 yr 6 hours ago, Fuenkli said: that would require some serious charging power. I doubt that such an infrastructure will ever become readily available. I can't see why you would need to charge it up quickly besides for EV usage. Tesla's current supercharger supports 150kW DC with plans for the next generation to support 350kW. It just amazes me how they can put these just about anywhere they like. How is there infrastructure to put down a 10 bay supercharging (Decent size. Biggest stations are 40 bay whilst the average is 8.3) which, from what I've gathered, has capacity to charge all bays simultaneously at 50%.
May 22, 20197 yr 18 hours ago, Fuenkli said: that would require some serious charging power. I doubt that such an infrastructure will ever become readily available. It's happening. Local (to me) fast charging company Tritium announced that they are selling 120 of their 350 kW ultra fast chargers to Ionity in Europe. I can't wrap my head around it; 350 kW is like 800 V at over 400 A. I hope this link works: https://www.facebook.com/Tritium.com.au/photos/a.423233144501010/1155257091298608/?type=3&theater
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