4 minutes ago, Power Me said:

When did SunSynk come onto the market?
I don't recall seeing them when I chose the GoodWe 21 months back.😒

Indeed. Deye/Sunsynk is da bomb!

3 hours ago, Daranger said:

Yup, im in this position

I'm genuinely sorry to hear that bud. More than you can ever know!

On 2020/10/28 at 11:41 AM, Leshen said:

Hi Guys. My new installation. 24 x 390w JA Mono solar panels with an 8kw Sunsynk inverter and 2 x 5kwh Bull Lithium batteries.  More pics to follow soon...

Hi

 

I see that the max amps on the inverter is 18a but a few of you on the forum are going over the max amps. Is this safe? has anyone had any issues?

 

Thanks

50 minutes ago, M4A2 said:

Hi

 

I see that the max amps on the inverter is 18a but a few of you on the forum are going over the max amps. Is this safe? has anyone had any issues?

 

Thanks

Hi. You can safely go above 18A, the inverter will limit panel current to 18A. The reason some installers prefer more than 10400w of panels is to produce power earlier in the day and for the late afternoons as well as cloudy days. Just don’t exceed the max Voc of 500v

Gents, It really is nice to see all the positive comments on the Sunsynk inverter.

Please expand on how you use the power generated in your homes.

What special arrangements do you have to prevent overloading?

What type of geysers do you have?

What do you do for power during times of no solar i.e. night time.

I have a 4000W inverter but am now installing pv of 4500w. So it is going to move from a backup to generating power full time. 

But to make do with 4kW power will really take some effort.

All comments will really be appreciated.

On 2020/12/04 at 1:59 PM, M4A2 said:

Hi

 

I see that the max amps on the inverter is 18a but a few of you on the forum are going over the max amps. Is this safe? has anyone had any issues?

 

Thanks

The max amps PER MPPT is 18.

IOW two strings of xS, or 2PxS (where x is the number of panels in the string).

Charge/discharge amps will be set by the BMS or you can manually set. Mine is set to 148A.

On 2020/12/04 at 8:41 PM, Johandup said:

Gents, It really is nice to see all the positive comments on the Sunsynk inverter.

Please expand on how you use the power generated in your homes.

What special arrangements do you have to prevent overloading?

What type of geysers do you have?

What do you do for power during times of no solar i.e. night time.

I have a 4000W inverter but am now installing pv of 4500w. So it is going to move from a backup to generating power full time. 

But to make do with 4kW power will really take some effort.

All comments will really be appreciated.

Which 4kw inverter do you have? I don't think sunsynk has a 4kw inverter. Only 8kw, 5kw and 3.6kw inverters. 

I have the 8kw sunsynk and run my whole house from the inverter. I have a 4kw geyser but also have evacuated tubes on my geyser. I also run my pool pump and well point pump, a 24000btu and 12000btu inverter aircon when it's very hot. My combined loads hardly ever go beyond 6kw though. I have pushed the inverter to see how it would cope but it just seamlessly blended from the grid anything over 8kw that was needed. Not really concerned about overloading if the grid is available. When there is loadshedding then I just need to make sure that my loads do not go over 5.328kw as that is the maximum that 3 pylontech batteries will be able to provide. I also try and manage it to well below this during loadshedding as I need to make sure that the batteries will last through the 2 hours of loadshedding. 

I have 3 x 3.5kw pylontech batteries connected so use the batteries at night. It's not enough to carry me through a full night and the plan is to eventually add another 3 more batteries. 

My system is running for 4 months now and has reduced my grid usage to virtually zero and already saved over R11k. 

On 2020/12/06 at 7:48 AM, PaulinNorthcliff said:

The max amps PER MPPT is 18.

IOW two strings of xS, or 2PxS (where x is the number of panels in the string).

Charge/discharge amps will be set by the BMS or you can manually set. Mine is set to 148A.

 

On 2020/12/04 at 2:49 PM, Leshen said:

Hi. You can safely go above 18A, the inverter will limit panel current to 18A. The reason some installers prefer more than 10400w of panels is to produce power earlier in the day and for the late afternoons as well as cloudy days. Just don’t exceed the max Voc of 500v

Thanks for the replies.

So would that mean I could use 2 strings of 7 canadian solar 360w panels per mppt and that would work fine?

My max wattage would just drop by a few watts?

Here's the panel specs:

Power	360W
Input Voltage	39.6V
Output Current	9.10A
Size	2000x992x35mm
Weight	22.5kg
Open Circuit Voltage	47V
Short Circuit Current	9.67A

53 minutes ago, M4A2 said:

 

Thanks for the replies.

So would that mean I could use 2 strings of 7 canadian solar 360w panels per mppt and that would work fine?

My max wattage would just drop by a few watts?

Here's the panel specs:

Power	360W
Input Voltage	39.6V
Output Current	9.10A
Size	2000x992x35mm
Weight	22.5kg
Open Circuit Voltage	47V
Short Circuit Current	9.67A

Perfectly fine. You can safely go up to 9 panels in a string as Vassen said. 

On 2020/10/29 at 8:24 PM, ChristoSnake said:

Nice setup, but you forgot to install the last row of 4 panels on the right-hand side of your roof

I have nearly as many panels as you have, and in summer my batteries usually recharge before noon.  After that I use the spare energy to boost the water temps in the geyser.  And later in the day the famous Pretoria summer thunderstorms make sure that there's no more generation to be had!

In winter the batteries take a tad much longer to recharge, but at least we are blessed with cloudless weather so it does not really matter...

Hey Christo,

 

How have you set up your geyser to charge from solar? Do you have a switch to switch it from your inverter to the grid and back? I assume that unless your battery is charged and the sun is shining you wouldn't run the geyser off the inverter?

 

Thanks for any inspiration you can give

Frans

 

 

On 2020/12/06 at 7:28 PM, Achmat said:

Which 4kw inverter do you have? I don't think sunsynk has a 4kw inverter. Only 8kw, 5kw and 3.6kw inverters. 

I have the 8kw sunsynk and run my whole house from the inverter. I have a 4kw geyser but also have evacuated tubes on my geyser. I also run my pool pump and well point pump, a 24000btu and 12000btu inverter aircon when it's very hot. My combined loads hardly ever go beyond 6kw though. I have pushed the inverter to see how it would cope but it just seamlessly blended from the grid anything over 8kw that was needed. Not really concerned about overloading if the grid is available. When there is loadshedding then I just need to make sure that my loads do not go over 5.328kw as that is the maximum that 3 pylontech batteries will be able to provide. I also try and manage it to well below this during loadshedding as I need to make sure that the batteries will last through the 2 hours of loadshedding. 

I have 3 x 3.5kw pylontech batteries connected so use the batteries at night. It's not enough to carry me through a full night and the plan is to eventually add another 3 more batteries. 

My system is running for 4 months now and has reduced my grid usage to virtually zero and already saved over R11k. 

Wow, what are you doing to drain 3 3.5kWh Pylontechs? We've got a single 3.5kWh battery and *almost* make it through the night with just that.

 

But what I was wondering: how do the Pylontechs play with Sunsynk? Does it read the SOC from the Pylontech BMS or does it "guess" based on voltage?

We currently have an Axpert (or possibly a clone, who's to say) and it's been unreliable from the start so I'm looking to ditch it and get a Sunsynk. I currently have ICC running on a Raspberry which receives the SOC readings from the Pylontech and switches the Axpert from inverter to grid if it gets too low.

I'm wondering how that would translate to a Synsynk-based setup.

 

Thanks!

Frans

 

 

 

32 minutes ago, SolarFrans said:

How have you set up your geyser to charge from solar? Do you have a switch to switch it from your inverter to the grid and back? I assume that unless your battery is charged and the sun is shining you wouldn't run the geyser off the inverter?

Sadly the geyser is still "dumb"...  I use a Geyserwise megafter that will only allow it so turn on between 12:30 - 14:00 if the water does not exceed 62 Deg C.  By that time the batteries are normally fully charged again, and even if they aren't there's enough sun to allow them to continue charging despite the 2kW diverted to the geyser.  I might do something with Tasmota & Nodered at some stage, but at present it works well for me.

BTW: I find it easy to drain my 5x Pylontechs from 100% down to about 40% during a normal winter's night.  I have a video projector & AV system that chows plenty of power when watching movies (we do that most evenings), a file server that runs 6 hard drives continually in a RAID 5 configuration through the night (security system), a 16 zone alarm system with many beams, 200 W fish tank heater that runs roughly half the time, 3x fridge/freezers, electric blankets, etc. etc.  I won't go as far as calling you a Luddite, but I definitely enjoy a more electric life-style 😋

44 minutes ago, SolarFrans said:

Hey Christo,

 

How have you set up your geyser to charge from solar? Do you have a switch to switch it from your inverter to the grid and back? I assume that unless your battery is charged and the sun is shining you wouldn't run the geyser off the inverter?

 

Thanks for any inspiration you can give

Frans

 

 

Hi. You can use a 15amp Sonoff switch to power your geyser during the day with a good 2.4g WiFi connection. 
 

I have 2 x 200l Heattech geysers with a 2kw element in each. I set the timer on the Sonoff to come on at 9am and to go off at 2pm. We still have hot water till the morning. Works well

1 hour ago, SolarFrans said:

Wow, what are you doing to drain 3 3.5kWh Pylontechs? We've got a single 3.5kWh battery and *almost* make it through the night with just that.

 

But what I was wondering: how do the Pylontechs play with Sunsynk? Does it read the SOC from the Pylontech BMS or does it "guess" based on voltage?

We currently have an Axpert (or possibly a clone, who's to say) and it's been unreliable from the start so I'm looking to ditch it and get a Sunsynk. I currently have ICC running on a Raspberry which receives the SOC readings from the Pylontech and switches the Axpert from inverter to grid if it gets too low.

I'm wondering how that would translate to a Synsynk-based setup.

 

Thanks!

Frans

 

 

 

In summer have my 12000btu inverter aircon in my bedroom running whole night. 

Also have a garden cottage with tenants running from the system as well. 

The BMS talks to the sunsynk and manages the inverter. It sets the max and min charging and discharging rates depending on the SOC. 

My sunsynk is set to never charge from grid but once the the battery went to 9% SOC. The BMS sent a force charge instruction inverter which overrode the inverter settings and it charged to 15% SOC from the grid. The inverter also looks up the state of health of the battery bank. 

Edited December 9, 20205 yr by Achmat

18 minutes ago, Vassen said:

I hope you are using an external relay. According to the specs of the sonoff, it should be perfectly fine to run the 2kw element but I have seen many posts with fried sonoffs running a 2kw geyser element. 
 

a 40A 220V coil relay is ~R80 at AC/DC. 

Seems strange that a 2kw element would fry a 15A switch. My sonoff registers 9.4A when it comes on. 

I seriously wish people would STOP suggesting Sonoff (any of them) for switching geysers. It’s a shit idea, and enough examples of these melting all over the internet. The relay might handle 15A, but the terminals on the PCB are not rated for that, nor are the tracks on the pcb. 
 

If you want a smart switch, either use a higher current relay/contactor or use a CBI Astute.

And for the people saying “works fine for me for months”, I say you can also do away with an Earth Leakage. It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea

Edited December 9, 20205 yr by gbyleveldt

Yeah, I meant Sonoff directly. The next paragraph I said to use a contactor/relay. I probably wasn’t clear enough.

In rands per gram a sonofff is definitely more expensive than a geyserwise 🤑

A geyserwise with all its functions built in is all I need to run my system in an energy efficient manner. 
Lots have been published on this topic.

I am extending my solar system and I’m evaluating options on everything. I see my new geyser heats a big bath’s water (80l) for R6.50 vs the current Paloma gas geyser at R10.31. But then it cannot beat the Paloma system advantages which is setting temperatures easily (important when my kids and the granddaughters visit) and off course an unlimited supply of hot water - irrespective of the municipal power being available.
So some things go beyond technical advantages.

10 hours ago, gbyleveldt said:

I seriously wish people would STOP suggesting Sonoff (any of them) for switching geysers. It’s a shit idea, and enough examples of these melting all over the internet. The relay might handle 15A, but the terminals on the PCB are not rated for that, nor are the tracks on the pcb. 
 

If you want a smart switch, either use a higher current relay/contactor or use a CBI Astute.

And for the people saying “works fine for me for months”, I say you can also do away with an Earth Leakage. It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea

Maybe suggest to the forum admin that people should STOP suggesting Sonoff switches. Don’t agree with it being a “shit” idea. Mine works fine. 

3 hours ago, Leshen said:

Maybe suggest to the forum admin that people should STOP suggesting Sonoff switches. Don’t agree with it being a “shit” idea. Mine works fine. 

And again my point, just because it works doesn't make it safe. I even made an analogy for you. Seriously, do some searching on Sonoff's catching fire when connected to geysers, don't simply take my word for it. In any case, it's your house you can do what you want; I have a problem with people advocating it's use on forums when there's enough evidence showing it's a shitty, dangerous idea. Especially if it's been discussed on this very forum:

And another one:

 

Edited December 10, 20205 yr by gbyleveldt

Gents,

Just one question to put this issue to bed. 
Has anyone had a COC certificate done with a Sonoff? 
My neighbour’s house burnt down last year Oct. Forensics reported it was caused by a spark to his tv caused by a load-shedding event i.e. too high voltage. 
They were visiting family that evening. 
You just cannot be too careful. 

31 minutes ago, gbyleveldt said:

And again my point, just because it works doesn't make it safe. I even made an analogy for you. Seriously, do some searching on Sonoff's catching fire when connected to geysers, don't simply take my word for it. In any case, it's your house you can do what you want; I have a problem with people advocating it's use on forums when there's enough evidence showing it's a shitty, dangerous idea. Especially if it's been discussed on this very forum:

And another one:

 

And again, my point is if you have such a major problem with it then contact the forum admin about the protocol on posts.

Here is a simple analogy that you might understand, Axpert inverters blow all the time due to improper use or poor solar design, it doesn’t make it a shitty product nor does it make it unsafe. 

I can advocate whatever I want if it works for me and if it doesn’t work for others then I can’t comment on that. Just because something doesn’t work for some people doesn’t make it a shitty product. Contact Sonoff with your concerns.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Leshen said:

And again, my point is if you have such a major problem with it then contact the forum admin about the protocol on posts.

Here is a simple analogy that you might understand, Axpert inverters blow all the time due to improper use or poor solar design, it doesn’t make it a shitty product nor does it make it unsafe. 

I can advocate whatever I want if it works for me and if it doesn’t work for others then I can’t comment on that. Just because something doesn’t work for some people doesn’t make it a shitty product. Contact Sonoff with your concerns.

 

 

So you insist on propagating information that's documented to be dangerous and unsafe? I can only hope that others who come across this thread is more interested being safe than being obtuse.

Be cool gents. 

Sincerely.

Jason

4 minutes ago, gbyleveldt said:

So you insist on propagating information that's documented to be dangerous and unsafe? I can only hope that others who come across this thread is more interested being safe than being obtuse.

I think everyone can make up their own mind on what they would like to purchase, on their own accord, after gathering info and doing their research. I assume everyone here is intelligent enough to decide on their own. I am certainly not asking anyone to buy sonoff switches, I said it works for ME. There are millions of forums in the world, where products are punted - yet consumers still make their OWN purchasing decisions. I trust this is a little less obtuse for you.