Ajdebeer132 Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 We dont have power for about 12 hours a day at least at night from 10pm we got power i want to buy a system and know it will last me 10 years. I want to buy a 5kv kodak inverter with bms and 2 x 50ah dyness batterys i got 2 380w jo pannes just for the day to charge it a little bit will that system last the other option im looking at is a 3kw inverter and then 2 of those mucer lithion batterys 200ah thats cheap can only put it in serial but i dont know how good that battiers is . what is the best that you guys would recommend i want the cheapest option that will last for 10 years i got 50k but want to use as little as possible Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fazil Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 for R50k a backup system is your best investment. add panels as some funds are prioritised and expand until offgrid. but backup for no power situations is in my opinion best bang for buck. Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 14 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: will last me 10 years Then don't buy the Kodak. Unless you're okay with replacing that item a few times in the next decade. PV modules generally last 15 years minimum (up to 30 years, but production decreases over time). But inverters usually don't last 30 years (not even the better ones), and if you want ten years a Victron inverter (with 5 years warranty) is the least you should look at. Otherwise you're looking even higher up (SMA maybe... Fronius have long warranties but they don't really make battery inverters...). Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajdebeer132 Posted June 17, 2020 Author Share Posted June 17, 2020 i got a quote now from solar advice for 2 dyness 50ah battery's and the growatt 5kw inverter. whats the differences between the pylon and dyness battery's is the one better than the other one both have 10 years warranty? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 (edited) My suggestion: forget about what you can get (makes and names) and first figure out what you need. 16 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: We dont have power for about 12 hours a day at least at night from 10pm we got power Are you without mains/grid/(eskom) power every day for 12 hours or is this for when there is load shedding or do you once every couple of weeks not have mains/eskom eletricity for a day and then it is back for 2 weeks? If you are without electricity everyday is it always during the day? 16 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: I want to buy a 5kv kodak inverter with bms and 2 x 50ah dyness batterys other option im looking at is a 3kw inverter and then 2 of those mucer lithion batterys 200ah thats cheap can only put it in serial you need to know how big the maximun and average load is that you need to power... do you want to power a whole house (business/office) where you power the kettle, oven, TV, lights or do you only want the TV/computer and a couple of lights to work?. There is quite a bit of difference in price and what you can do between 5kVa and 3kVa inverters. If you put 2 x 12V batteries is series (like the mecers) you end up with 24V battery which should make some 3kVa inverters options but for 5kVa you will need 48V batteries... if you only want to power a TV and couple of LED lights you might not even need 3kVA... 16 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: I want to buy a 5kv kodak inverter with bms and 2 x 50ah dyness batterys i got 2 380w jo pannes just for the day to charge it a little bit will that system last the other option im looking at is a 3kw inverter and then 2 of those mucer lithion batterys 200ah thats cheap can only put it in serial but i dont know how good that battiers is . You need to know what the average power draw will be on the batteries and also what the minimum time is that you will have available to charge them again to know if the inverter/charger can charge them quickly enough... you also need to check if the battery will allow to be charged as quick as you need. just because a battery can charge at 50A does not mean it is a good idea...especially if you want the battery to last as long as possible 16 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: i want to buy a system and know it will last me 10 years.... i want the cheapest option that will last for 10 years Cheap and quality very seldom go together. The inverter and solar panel part probably have the potential to last longer if nothing bad like lighting/hail etc. happen. Batteries (lithium or any other kind) are less likely to see 10 years. Edited June 17, 2020 by introverter typo Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajdebeer132 Posted June 17, 2020 Author Share Posted June 17, 2020 27 minutes ago, introverter said: Are you without mains/grid/(eskom) power every day for 12 hours or is this for when there is load shedding or do you once every couple of weeks not have mains/eskom eletricity for a day and then it is back for 2 weeks? If you are without electricity everyday is it always during the day? Our Municipalities dont pay eskom so they are cutting our power for about 12 hours every day we have power from 10pm to 6am 28 minutes ago, introverter said: you need to know how big the maximun and average load is that you need to power... do you want to power a whole house (business/office) where you power the kettle, oven, TV, lights or do you only want the TV/computer and a couple of lights to work?. There is quite a bit of difference in price and what you can do between 5kVa and 3kVa inverters. If you put 2 x 12V batteries is series (like the mecers) you end up with 24V battery which should make some 3kVa inverters options but for 5kVa you will need 48V batteries... if you only want to power a TV and couple of LED lights you might not even need 3kVA... i Know i dont even need 3kva but the battery's is 48v(the dyness). my load is going to be between 500 to 600 kwh's . i am not at home in the day so i need power from 4pm to 10 pm. i got 2 panels on its way 380W that will charge it in the day aswell slowly so it got enough time. 30 minutes ago, introverter said: Cheap and quality very seldom go together. The inverter and solar panel part probably have the potential to last longer if nothing bad like lighting/hail etc. happen. Batteries (lithium or any other kind) are less likely to see 10 years. i did not say i want cheap stuff , i said i want the cheapest option that will last there is a big difference. im looking for brand that a guy now will last and that if there is a warranty issue they will fix it fast. i looked at that battery's because of the 10 years warranty cause if those things only last 2 years what is the point then its cheaper to buy the mecer battery's every 2 years new cause its the same kwh than the dyness battery's . i would rather buy small now and expand later to know what i buy will last then to buy cheap stuff that i must replace in years of time. with the inverter i know lightning and all those stuff is a factor but that my insurance will take care off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Ajdebeer132 said: Our Municipalities dont pay eskom so they are cutting our power for about 12 hours every day we have power from 10pm to 6am that sucks big time 1 hour ago, Ajdebeer132 said: my load is going to be between 500 to 600 kwh's . i am not at home in the day so i need power from 4pm to 10 pm. Is this your average monthly electricity bill or daily? Someone at home during the day cleaning house/cooking? Fridge/freezer running? When getting home at 4pm do you then need to cook with electricity or is it mainly to have some light, tv and keep fridges going?... any of the things that heat up (kettles, stoves, heaters) will drive up what you need for battery use, so looking at things like gas cooking could also be worthwhile. 1 hour ago, Ajdebeer132 said: i am not at home in the day so i need power from 4pm to 10 pm. i got 2 panels on its way 380W that will charge it in the day aswell slowly so it got enough time. If the load on the batteries during the day is very low or non existent and depending how much you take out of the batteries between 4pm-10pm you may not need solar to charge the batteries.. 1 hour ago, Ajdebeer132 said: i did not say i want cheap stuff , i said i want the cheapest option that will last there is a big difference. My bad 1 hour ago, Ajdebeer132 said: i looked at that battery's because of the 10 years warranty cause if those things only last 2 years what is the point then its cheaper to buy the mecer battery's every 2 years new cause its the same kwh than the dyness battery's . I cannot speak to who honours their warranty easiest but keep in mind the lithium warranties do not mean the battery will last 10 years. The warraties generally mean that if the battery is used in a certain way that it should still have about 80% of the capacity that you started with. Edited June 17, 2020 by introverter humble pie Ajdebeer132 and francois 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajdebeer132 Posted June 17, 2020 Author Share Posted June 17, 2020 4 hours ago, introverter said: Is this your average monthly electricity bill or daily? Someone at home during the day cleaning house/cooking? Fridge/freezer running? When getting home at 4pm do you then need to cook with electricity or is it mainly to have some light, tv and keep fridges going?... any of the things that heat up (kettles, stoves, heaters) will drive up what you need for battery use, so looking at things like gas cooking could also be worthwhile. That is the load it will use if the power is off. all that will be connected is my house lights , tv , router , and a laptop or pc if i must work thats all so no stoves or fridges or anything else 4 hours ago, introverter said: If the load on the batteries during the day is very low or non existent and depending how much you take out of the batteries between 4pm-10pm you may not need solar to charge the batteries.. i also though about that now but the problem is i bought the panels already before i decided to buy a system like this , now what i though about is if this panels should be able to run a tv in the day if it must 4 hours ago, introverter said: I cannot speak to who honours their warranty easiest but keep in mind the lithium warranties do not mean the battery will last 10 years. The warraties generally mean that if the battery is used in a certain way that it should still have about 80% of the capacity that you started with. i understand that but im out of ideas i dont want to buy every 2 years new battery's then its cheaper to buy a generator and run that the whole time This is the help that i need i know you set forget about the brands but we own a computer store and i know some brands give you better after sales service than other brands and thats what im looking at if something breaks that they can help me either with warranty or fix maybe the thing with parts. cause the normal china stuff dont last and you can fix something. cause like i said in the beginning i can buy cheap mecer 200ah thats half the cost of the dyness but will it last as long? i wan to calculate what will work me out the cheapest over a long run like 10 years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 22 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: i did not say i want cheap stuff , i said i want the cheapest option that will last there is a big difference I get it. What everyone wants is bang for buck. We don't mind paying more, but we do mind paying a premium for an ordinary shirt just because it has a Nike (TM) logo on it I do believe the Voltronics provide bang for buck... but only because they are as cheap as they are. Once you realise that you will replace them a few times during the same time span, they cost the same if not more than the others. I realised this almost 20 years ago when a Sabat battery was R300 and a Bosch battery was R500. The more expensive battery is expected to last 5 years vs 3 for the Sabat... so you may naively calculate "R600 for two Sabats vs R500 for the other one... hey I'll take the cheaper one!"... but you're forgetting that 3 years from now the replacement is going to cost more... and it will leave your wife stranded at a mall in the middle of a rain storm... which means no quality time tonight! Don't do it man! Ajdebeer132 and SYC 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 21 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: my load is going to be between 500 to 600 kwh's . i am not at home in the day so i need power from 4pm to 10 pm. 15 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: That is the load it will use if the power is off. all that will be connected is my house lights , tv , router , and a laptop or pc if i must work thats all so no stoves or fridges or anything else I think you may be mixing up some concepts or your neighbours are hooked up to your electricity supply and they are miners (bitcoin or zama zama). My entire house (including electric geyser, electric oven, electric pool pump, etc) use about 400-500 kWh in a month. If your TV uses about 100W, PC 300W, Lights 50W, Router & Laptop 50W, your combined power draw is 500W, which for 1 hour will be 500Wh , and for 6 hours will be 3000Wh or 3kWh per day between 4pm-10pm. (the just Watt (W) part is probably a bit more relevant for the inverter size and and Watt-Hour (Wh) for the battery size... based on your looking at 2 x 50Ah batteries you probably meant to type a 500W load ...you got the right numbers just not the correct units (which can leed to very different and waaaayyyy more expensive advice). 15 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: i understand that but im out of ideas i dont want to buy every 2 years new battery's then its cheaper to buy a generator and run that the whole time This is the help that i need i know you set forget about the brands but we own a computer store and i know some brands give you better after sales service than other brands and thats what im looking at if something breaks that they can help me either with warranty or fix maybe the thing with parts. The problem you have is that the lithium batteries are fairly new in South Africa (Dyness probably a bit newer than PylonTech) so the chance for people to have had lots of problems and report it on forums like these have been limited. Looking through the forum it seems like there are more problems in setting up the batteries with different types of inverters than any clear problems of batteries breaking. That is why you also need to look carefully at the inverter and what that support is like (firmware upgrades etc). About setting up a system that should last 10 years... no one locally has had these batteries installed so long and with the way the world is going the best we can hope for is that the companies will be around even 3 years from now. In your situation (municipality issues), if it was me, I would try to take a bit more time and seriously look at a plan to get as much as possible off the grid - so a smallish generator might not be such a bad idea for now (gives you power while the municipality and eskom hopefully sort something out and you have a backup no matter what system you decide on for the future). Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 15 minutes ago, introverter said: kWh The plan I came up with to explain the difference to people is using a car analogy. Cause I'm male and all that Power is analogous to speed. It has a time component. If I ask what speed you drive to the office, you might say: Oh, I average around 45km/h. Energy is analogous to distance. It has no time component. If I ask how far the office is, you might say: Oh, it's only 30km away! In electical terms, power is measured in watts, and energy is measured in watt-hours. Which is already weird cause the SI unit is Joule, but using Wh makes the math easier. A Watt-hour is 3600 joules if you really want to do conversions. But now you might say.... well how is there no time component in Watt-hours!? You wrote "hour" right there in the unit! Well yes, but that is because we need to cancel out the time component in the Watt unit. A Watt is a joule per second, so to cancel out the time component and make the unit "timeless" again we need to multiply by time. So by multiplying the watts by a time component we cancel out the "per second" part and we get back to energy. Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 1 minute ago, plonkster said: time component And this gentlemen (and the odd petrolheaded lady), is also the difference between power and torque on those pesky car spec sheets. Power has a time component to it. It affects how quickly you can get to 100km/h or overtake a taxi. Torque on the other hand has no time component. Loosely speaking, power = torque times rpm (and there sneaks in the time component in the "pm"). Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 5 minutes ago, plonkster said: Power has a time component to it. It affects how quickly you can get to 100km/h or overtake a taxi.... or come to a stop..... to fill-up the petrol tank again... Ajdebeer132 and ___ 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 (edited) 20 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: cause like i said in the beginning i can buy cheap mecer 200ah thats half the cost of the dyness but will it last as long? If definitely going the 48V lithium battery route and planning to cycle the batteries (discharge and recharge) every day for more than a year I would close my eyes and hope the more expensive new batteries (pylon or dyness or whatever) will live up to their claims of 6000 cycles. The Mecer batteries are so called second life batteries (reclaimed from E-vehicles etc) and when combining 4 them to get to 48V I think you are adding to the gamble of cells not being balanced etc. 4 x mecers probably R28000 (?) with roughly double total capacity of 2 X 50Ah Dyness/pylontechs at R30000-R35000(?). Mecer warranty 2 years with expected cycle life of 1500 cycles. Pylontech/Dyness 7/10-10 warranty with claimed 6000 cycle life. So unless the total capacity is the make or break factor I am not sure the mecers represent that big a bargain for this application where hoping for longevity in the expected design life? If not yet done, get something like this and just confirm your load (often is lower/higher than the appliance label indication) and look for ways to reduce load (do what you can with the laptop and try to minimize the PC etc)... maybe you can get away with one of the 75Ah lithiums (R21000-R25000?) for now and upspec on the inverter/solar.... you can add more batteries later if needed. Edited June 18, 2020 by introverter punctuation Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 16 hours ago, introverter said: Mecer warranty 2 years with expected cycle life of 1500 cycles. Pylontech/Dyness 7/10-10 warranty with claimed 6000 cycle life. There is so much fine print in the warranty that I would not be swayed solely by the warranty period. I would however still opt for the hopefully newer/better matching cells. Ajdebeer132 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 4 hours ago, introverter said: There is so much fine print in the warranty Warranties are marketing tools. There is some correlation with the actual quality of the product, but it is not one to one. The company expects a certain amount of returns, and all they do is cheapen the product until they hit the acceptable failure rate. Then they simply budget for replacements As the warranty gets longer though, and the equipment gets more expensive, I'd say that deliberate cost-savings tends to take a back seat and they do design something that would last at least that long. I'm fairly convinced that an LiFePO4 battery will last at least 6 to 7 years even in a worst case scenario. Ajdebeer132 and introverter 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 Just now, plonkster said: Warranties are marketing tools. I posted something in the dyness vs pylon thread about the warranties. The manufacturer is one side to it. I do wonder whether distributors/retailers do not perhaps have a role to play to make the warranty terms a bit more clear as opposed to just "Warranty: 10 Years".... the pylontech warranty exclusions for instance list as an exclusion: "5. storage, installation, commissioning, modification or repair of the Product that has been performed by a person other than Pylontech or a Pylontech’s certified installer". This would suggest anyone who bought a pylontech through their friendly online retailer and hooked up their batteries one afternoon after work could have a voided warranty... Ajdebeer132 and ___ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajdebeer132 Posted June 19, 2020 Author Share Posted June 19, 2020 Sorry to come back now still sitting without powwer since 2 days ago i saw at work you get super capacitors batterys they have a 10year swap warranty and 1million cycles and a life span of 45 years. Do anyone have any experiences with batterys like that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajdebeer132 Posted June 19, 2020 Author Share Posted June 19, 2020 Sorry dont know how to edit but want to add this their dod is 100% and they habe no capacity loss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: super capacitors batterys they have a 10year swap warranty and 1million cycles and a life span of 45 years. 1 Million cycles at even 3 cycles a day is way more than 45 years. You can get 45 years with 50 000 cycles My personal opinion about those so-called super-capacitors is that it is a borderline scam. I get into trouble for this a lot... but I will state my case. It is most likely a Lithium Titanate battery, which means it is not a complete scam (there are some cool things about that chemistry). But it is a scam in the sense that it is not a super capacitor battery, and here is why... The largest super/ultra capacitor in the world is made by Maxwell Technologies. These guys are the market leaders. You can look it up. These caps have a energy density of maybe 8Wh/kg. A Lead Acid battery has 4 to 5 times more than that, and LiFePO4 battery has more than 10 times that. If this was an actual super capacitor battery, it would weigh moer than twice as much as the equivalent lead acid bank. If it really is a supercapacitor battery, it means that somehow, this manufacturer made a massive breakthrough, kept it completely under wraps, nothing leaked out in academic papers or anything, and it made it all the way to market, leaving Maxwell tech completely in the dust... I'd say that's a bit thick for a Dutch coin (te dik vir 'n daalder) Edited June 19, 2020 by plonkster Fuenkli and Ajdebeer132 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coulomb Posted June 20, 2020 Share Posted June 20, 2020 2 hours ago, plonkster said: borderline scam Borderline? I'd go further: total scam. That doesn't meant it isn't a reasonable product, just totally not what they claim it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted June 20, 2020 Share Posted June 20, 2020 7 hours ago, Coulomb said: That doesn't meant it isn't a reasonable product, just totally not what they claim it is. We're on the same page here. It's on the same level as those lead-crystal batteries from almost a decade ago... those were also going to last ages and you can freeze them and the Chinese Military use them etc etc... When it comes to warranties, I think manufacturers actually rely on people simply not bothering. To use a personal example, our ten-year-old Bosch dishwasher failed this week. I tossed it out and bought a new one (repairing is 50% of a new one). If it had a 10 year warranty... would I have bothered to claim? Probably not. The schlep of all that paperwork for an appliance that's done its job was not going to be worth it. I think that slapping a 45 year claim on something is exactly the same. When that battery fails on my grandkids, chances are they'll just toss it out... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 20, 2020 Share Posted June 20, 2020 14 hours ago, Ajdebeer132 said: super capacitors batterys they have a 10year swap warranty and 1million cycles and a life span of 45 years. Do anyone have any experiences with batterys like that I do not have any experience but based on what is available in our market, other than plonkster and coulomb's s responses have a look through here and the various links from that thread. My very subjective response to the marketing info about these particular super capacitor (?) batteries are similar to financial advisors that guarantee to double/tripple my money in a very short time with with no risk... but then again I doubt I will ever own a yacht Coulomb and ___ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajdebeer132 Posted June 20, 2020 Author Share Posted June 20, 2020 Thank you guys for all your help i really appreciate it alot. I listen to what you said and my problem is with that batterys why is there only one brand cause if its that good every company would want a cut in the pie. The other thing is even at that hogh price people would be all over it on youtube and stuff if it is that good. What i decided to buy on monday is the dyness powerbox 7.5kwh and the 5kwh growatt inverter. I will use the battery sparely that it would last me 5 to 6 years and then make a decision again. Would love your thoughts on my decision if its a good a bad idea? The other question i have i see the growatt cant handle icc software is that a very bad thing or not cause i see it has wifi build in and you can monitor it over the internet. The other thing is how difficult is it to setup an inverter like that i would love to know? If you can can you tell me what i must buy to get everthing working cause acourding to me its just the inverter and the battery box then the cable from the battery to the inverter and from the inverter to the db board (that cable was done by an electrician already when i installed the ups that im going to scrap now) If ther are anything else like cables or anything i would love to k ow what that i can order everything i need at one time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introverter Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 @Ajdebeer132 I understand the urgency to get this sorted but you already bought solar panels that may or may not help you (adding more panels later can be a little bit like having to match memory DIMMS 8 years later). Looking at the amount of money you consider dropping and at the risk of overstepping (apologies in advance to all concerned) I suggest trying to contact @Jaco de Jongh (maybe PM him or check here) en gesels met hom , if he can't assist you maybe he knows someone closer to your side of the woods that can. My concern is that you either end up with a pentium I 90mHz PC to do 4K video rendering or a R50 000 gaming rig to play solitaire. If definitely going with the growatt and powerbox there is some useful info in this thread (seems like dyness and growatt can work but not sure about the powerbox) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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