Hi Forum,

AS we have a lodge and cannot really cope with any form of breakdown with customers in residence, I am thinking of trading in my Axpert inverters in for something more robust. I have 3 separate systems 2 of which have 2 x 5 kva Axperts and 1 with 1 x 5 kva Axpert. Can anyone recommend a more robust inverter that I could swop out with the Axperts with minimal changes to the overall setup.

Thanks,

Chris

what issues are you seeing at the moment? so that people can advise accordingly on best replacements?

Not any real issues after a few teething problems. I am just not sure of the longevity of the Axperts in this commercial environment. I hear that Axperts are designed for residential purposes and we live in the bush in Malawi so a breakdown could mean a fairly lengthy setback. On the largest system I have 2 Axpert 5KVA 24 x +/- 290 w solar panels in 4 strings and 6 x 2.4 kwh Pylontech batteries.

Sorry forgot to mention that we are totally off-grid

Victron , SMA and MLT is the way to go if you want something that you switch on and forget about. 

As @Gerlach has mentioned, those are flagship inverters.

If budget is a factor, then consider InfiniSolar 5kw, Growatt, SoFar solar, and even imeon energy, ingeteam

I believe all of these hybrids have 5year warranty including the flagships but I speak under correction.

Buy something that have local backup in SA. All 3 of that brands have local backup that will help you. 

Thanks very much for the feedback.

14 hours ago, Gerlach said:

Buy something that have local backup in SA. All 3 of that brands have local backup that will help you. 

@Gerlach please share your experience with the brands I referred without local backup or support?  I am interested as well so I can keep away from them for future installs.

MLT is a local SA product  and there factory is in cape town and they have branches over south africa and one in Namibia. So if you have a problem with your MLT inverter, they send someone out. Parts inside is replaceable. Same with Victron. They have really good backup to in SA and some of the guys that runs Victron and that have installed them will confirm with this. SMA the same story. Yes, they are expensive but they got a name and warranty that can back it up. Microcare is local SA product to but abour 70% of comments that go's around is complaints. I called them one's to get info for replacing a board for mppt and after that mailed them to get a written quote, 2 months later, still no responds. 

So far with my MLT a can't complain and i bought it second hand and got the service record of it to. They are really helpful. At my father work they run 17 of them and some of them 16 and 24 kVa 3phase. 

If first se how they look inside, then you will be really impress. 

Why not buy another axpert that you are familiar with and just keep it as backup/standby?

On 2019/10/12 at 6:54 PM, Fazil said:

As @Gerlach has mentioned, those are flagship inverters.

If budget is a factor, then consider InfiniSolar 5kw, Growatt, SoFar solar, and even imeon energy, ingeteam

I believe all of these hybrids have 5year warranty including the flagships but I speak under correction.

Hi @Fazil, yes you are correct, our hybrid inverters at ingeteam have a 5 year warranty, on the 3KW & 6KW

On 2019/10/14 at 7:46 PM, Centurionsolar said:

Hi Chris,

 

We have done a project where they installed over 100 sites with Axperts in rural hopspitals in Malawi, many of which were these "hospital in a box" setups, where they drop a container and it slides out to become a care ward, operating room, maternity ward, etc.  They used Pylons and Axperts in all of them, and they run very smooth.  All of them are monitored by both the owner and installers on their phones, so someone can go out proactively to fix anything even before it becomes a problem, seeing as they are all in parallel.  They keep a spare inverter on the sites where operations are performed for this reason.  Have a look at www.centurionsolar.co.za/shop and this video where I boil my kettle to show the difference that monitoring makes to your system vs not having it:  (ps, I know that a kettle is too much draw for that battery, but it was done in the name of science ).

The point is just that even though there really are better inverters out there (blue team, etc etc), there are still a crap load of commercial sites that run on axperts and they can do so successfully, provided that your initial design and implementation is good, so if budget is a concern, I'd consider just keeping what I have and keep a spare in case anything goes wrong.

 

My 0.02c

Kind Regards

 

 

 

 

Hi Centurionsolar,

Thanks for this info. What is the software you are using (ICC) and how is it obtained?

Thanks, Chris

5 hours ago, Chris Buckley said:

What is the software you are using (ICC)

https://iccsoftware.co.za/

SoFar solar, ingeteam, and Growatt are good choices when you want a more cost-effective solution.