Turns out @The Terrible Triplett lives 2 streets down from me and is a nice guy willing to help 😎 So I kicked off this project.

The kit:

• Victron MultiPlus II Inverter 48/3000/35-32
• Victron Smart Solar MPPT 150/100
• Victron Venus GX
• 6 x KuMax 350 panels.

The existing DB board. A sad state of affairs.

After the sparky pulled and labeled all the cables.

Because of the uneven state of the wall we decided to mount everything on a plywood board.

Board mounted on the wall with 2 new Hager DB's!

 

To be continued...

Amazing all. Awesome @The Terrible Triplett. 

This is exactly what the forum is for. Connecting and helping each other. This is fantastic. Well done!

Jay

Next decision is where to mount the Victron equipment and where to put the Pylontech battery. There are 2 options.

1. First is a small toilet area which shares a wall with the garage.
2. In the garage on the wooden board (next to the 2 new DB's).

Here is a picture of the toilet area

Inverter and Pylontech will be on the rear wall as high as possible. MPPT and Combiner box on the right wall closer to the door. Advantage here is the more consistent ambient temperature and little to no dust. Disadvantage is, well - its a toilet room and maybe I should just keep it that way  

On the other hand the wooden board in the garage is almost begging for the rest of the equipment to go along the right hand side.  Garage has no ceiling (IBR sheet roof) so gets a lot warmer in summer. Also a fair bit of dust tends to settle in there.

What to do?

Good idea to ask here!!!

Now before @plonkster says anything, let me say it: Victron equipment can take the heat, a lot of it! I mean, they are installed in ships and boats that travel the tropics. Hot and wet!
And Victron is close to impervious to dust too.

But. We also know that the cooler electronic equipment runs, the longer they last.

Garages with say a flat roof with no ceiling and / or no insulation can get really hot. 
And the dust thing - it does affect stuff over time.

And I know:
1) The MPPT generates heat. I have tested mine to exceed 60deg, the max the aquarium thermometer could get to. It can take it!
2) So does the inverter heat up if running hard - we want them to run 2.4kw all day long. And the inverter has built in fans. It can take it!

Now add the summer garage temps to points 1 and 2 above.

Personally, I won't do it. Nope, I won't.

My vote is for a nice shelf above the toiler that fits the ambiance of the bathroom, a room only you use.
You install the Pylons on the shelf.
MPPT on the left against the left wall, closest to the combiner box and batteries as you can make it.
Inverter next to it.
To fit the ambiance of the bathroom, add nice doors in front leaving a large gap on top of the doors for the heat to escape on top.
With vents at the bottom of the shelf.

And if you see that it still needs more to cool down, my benchmark is how hard and long the inverter fans work, then connect the ceiling fan cleverly onto a timer (10am - 7pm in summer) to extract the air out of the bathroom into the ceiling. That fan was installed for the original shower that was also in there, so use it. 🙂 

With the ambiance fitting doors ... you see nothing / hear nothing and maybe speak nothing of it. 🤣

What say the rest?

O, I forgot.

Two more points:
1) The kit is hidden away from prying eyes - garage doors are open and people do walk past, even here where we live. 🙂 
2) Victron is plug and forget with all you need available on your PC / tablet / phone to see what it is doing. 

Thanks @The Terrible Triplett  - thorough answer. 

The door of that bathroom will be closed 99% of the time and its a small area - think heat build up. The reason the door will be closed is because it attaches to my office and I don't want to hear more fan noise. The extractor fan in the ceiling is noisy too - causes oscillating noises in the living area. 

Just now, deapsquatter said:

The extractor fan in the ceiling is noisy too - causes oscillating noises in the living area.

Replace it with a whisper quiet one inside / underneath the proposed "cupboard" above the toilet.

Me, I would remove that fan then and close the hole in the ceiling as we have same in two bathrooms. Winter they let the cold drop in, summer the heat is pushed down when the fans are off. Have to have them though as the bathrooms have no outside windows, and both have showers that are used.

Yet, it is still cooler than the garage.
And you don't have room to move unless you go for somewhere in a nice open area like say in the kitchen. The 220v AC cable from inverter to DB can be as long as you need.
... or the garage. 🙂 

Mounted the inverter today. The PV Combiner box will go above it. The Venus, MPPT and Battery will be on the other side of that wall - in my office.

Warning when removing the little screws to remove the grab handles from the Pylontech (to install the stand). They are very weak! Managed to shear one and now stuck in. It's like the screw is anodised into the bracket which means extra torque is required to remove it.

Edited July 9, 20196 yr by deapsquatter

At any rate - sorted.

So being on the back of the toilet , one could say it was nearly crap install