battleaxe:
Hi Pranil,
Curious as to how you sized your fuses between your batteries and inverter.

I thought with 8 nos. of 200Ah, 12V batteries, making a 48V, 400Ah battery bank, that you would need a bigger fuse?

Also, there are several schools of thought on having a fuse on the negative. I notice you have a fuse though halved. May I ask why?

@Barezzi
Max PV Array Open Circuit Voltage for the 5kVA is I think 145V DC.

Plenty of protection I am paranoid - I have 125 Amp on each battery connection - +Ve and +Ve https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Systems-MRBF-Terminal-Blocks/dp/B071H9NL9G

After that A combiner switch with 250 Amp DC fuse on +Ve and 150 Amp MCB on -Ve ( The mCB alo stops my systym from Feeding more than 8 KW in oveload cases - ) See attached photos

Thanks Pranil, very detailed response.

[quote author=pranil post=56800640][/quote]


Software by order of prefrance
ICC - http://iccsoftware.co.za/

Lucibus - http://www.lucibus.com/( end May) and OLD verison -http://www.homoandroidus.com/forum/ - Inverter control , Hostory ,s ttings Additional peripherals to switch on and off specific loads based on production /SOC and web browser interface on any phone tablet

Watchpower( official) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO1Oskf3HHA - Download from Any vendor site also comes on CD with inverter - Msut for changing some settings

Solarmon -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiBDnjGH5Oc - GREAT dashboard buggy . Don't think it is supported anymore, can't find the download link.
Website is closed - http://www.solarmonitor.co.za/


SolarPatrol
Great program used it for quit a while, stable, USB & rs232 support, great built-in timer to turn on and off inverter -
Download Link: http://www.energialternativa.info/public...Patrol.rar


SolarMon





ACDC power monitor
never used it but seems a fair effort has gone into it.
Website : http://www.acdcpowermonitor.com/Default.aspx
Video review :

pranil:



Software by order of prefrance
ICC - http://iccsoftware.co.za/

Lucibus - http://www.lucibus.com/( end May) and OLD verison -http://www.homoandroidus.com/forum/ - Inverter control , Hostory ,s ttings Additional peripherals to switch on and off specific loads based on production /SOC and web browser interface on any phone tablet

Watchpower( official) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO1Oskf3HHA - Download from Any vendor site also comes on CD with inverter - Msut for changing some settings

Solarmon -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiBDnjGH5Oc - GREAT dashboard buggy . Don't think it is supported anymore, can't find the download link.
Website is closed - http://www.solarmonitor.co.za/


SolarPatrol
Great program used it for quit a while, stable, USB & rs232 support, great built-in timer to turn on and off inverter -
Download Link: http://www.energialternativa.info/public...Patrol.rar


SolarMon





ACDC power monitor
never used it but seems a fair effort has gone into it.
Website : http://www.acdcpowermonitor.com/Default.aspx
Video review :

Thanks a lot for the detailed response. Indeed that Axpert series of inverters are hugely popular in most OECD countries like Australia and South Africa. I would be considering them now so that I can join the club of cool kids with their cool wall mounted Inverters. I just wished the pure inverter units without the charge controller bits are also sold in Nigeria

pranil:


a single company called Voltronic Power - Sold in South Africa as Axepert and in Europe /Latin America as MPP solar
The company is as big as APC and very well known brand having more than 15 % global market of Hybrid inverters .

You mean MPP solar and Voltronic are one and the same? I thought there were different companies

thanks for your compliments...welcome to the family and feel free to ask questions and contribute as well...remain bless.

mcTrinity:
Finally, after 2weeks plus, I finished reading 246pages.lol.. No be small thing o!
Right now I feel like opening a Solar training center... lol. the knowledge here is so vast.

Abunufiu, Saipro, Bigrovar, Dunka, JUO, Chris81964, Efuro... you guys are just too good. the more you help others, the more God will send help to you
not forgetting the great scholar and prof himself, Dmerciful. did you study Solar Engineering lol. I remove my cap for you sir

and the host of others too who has contributed immensely to the development of this "community", God bless you all

GeorgeD1... hmmmm...the founder, patron, and pillar of this great forum and the great great great father of all the Greeners here. men, you were born to lead. A great leader in the making. you are 2derdul!!! God continue to take you higher ... I remove my head for you... lolz.

before I even finished reading the pages, I've done modifications to most of my clients solar system and the turn around was flabbergasting.
Later I will be sharing one significant turn around in one of my clients solar system, based on what I learnt here.

You guys should keep up the good works, knowing fully well that God rewards every good work
Thanks to you all and remain
blessed

Yes i can confirm must power inverter self consumption is about 100w, I have one and i have measured. Powering a few energy saver bulbs with mustpower is like using a plant to run a TV...

earthrealm:


my 4kva mustpower has <25w sticker, but someone has confirmed that this is a big lie that it consumes about 100w, using a watt meter, so am a bit sceptical of all these oem data

MPPT is better. Is like comparing gas vs stove
As for setup parameters, go with the default settings for now while you learn how things work. you dont want to destroy your batteries

emmaniche:
House Please help a Noobie in Green Energy.

Please what are the parameters that can be obtained from a charge controller setup?
which is better MPTT or PWM charge controllers?

Thanks very much and God bless the house....

The inverter looks cool indeed however i may join the band wagon after ur experience

bigrovar:


Thanks a lot for the detailed response. Indeed that Axpert series of inverters are hugely popular in most OECD countries like Australia and South Africa. I would be considering them now so that I can join the club of cool kids with their cool wall mounted Inverters. I just wished the pure inverter units without the charge controller bits are also sold in Nigeria

bigrovar:


Thanks a lot for the detailed response. Indeed that Axpert series of inverters are hugely popular in most OECD countries like Australia and South Africa. I would be considering them now so that I can join the club of cool kids with their cool wall mounted Inverters. I just wished the pure inverter units without the charge controller bits are also sold in Nigeria

Considering you get charge controller , Inverter and AC charger in one unit at the price of only Charge controller from Outback or Midnight solar it does not mater if you don't use some of the parts

DMerciful:
The inverter looks cool indeed however i may join the band wagon after ur experience

bigrovar:


You mean MPP solar and Voltronic are one and the same? I thought there were different companies

YES Voltronic is the OED - MPP SOLAR makes some of the units based on their design in Taiwan and gets boards for some specially the CE marked units of grid tied inverters for Europe I guess ss . For a long time I also thought MPP Solar was the OEM but then when I ordered remote display unit from MPP SOLAR ( Zinox does not sell it in Nigeria) I noticed the box it cam in carried Voltronic label - I guess they forgot to remove it
On close inspection even the PC is marked with Voltronic .

Considering the history , and product lines it is anybod'ys guess who is the actual maker .

By the way the reason MPP solar is so much mentioned on the forums is that the company has horrible support in technical. They refuse to support you without getting serial no Picture from you. Now I know whay they want to support only their own products and not solt by voltronic to other CKD unit sellers .

All my units in one picture

Ignore the wiring mess. Installing new monitoring software on my Raspbery Pi

Barezzi:

I have used Prag , Sukam, Mpower etc at sometime of other and also familiar with Hight end units like SMA , Schinder etc.

Unless netmetering becomes legal in Nigeria it does not make sense to spend r times the money on AC coupled system with attend losss of efficiency


I am basically running the two inverters full time in DC mode with the Third inverter and solar keeping the battries topped up. via NEPA or 7.5 KVA DG .


The way it is setip is the load is divided in following priority - if one is not sufficient the next source is used to make upo the shortfall Solar , NEPA , Gen, Battery


Apart from the High end systems ( mainly german) I have not come across any budget inverters which give you power sharing options .

In the price of one Conext XW 6848 I can buy 6 to 7 units of Axpert with paralleling , remote monitoring and have cash to spare

Now if NEPA becomes 65 Naira per unit and you decide to go completely offgrid with the whole house including conditioning , pumping , water heaters etc. or DISCO's allow you sell excess Solar then it is different story

I love your setup Pranil. If i can lay my hands on a monitoring software like that of Justin Case, I'd be sold...
I just love his dashboard.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAwG9VtvSGE

chris81964:

Send an email to ksolaiya@atlanticwastepower.com tell him Dr Solar sent you. What load are you running on the inverter.

@ chris81964
Dr Sola, I appreciate your reply to my inquiries, I have been able to figure it out, I have posted the solution also on this forum, however I will keep the contact fmight be useful in the future.

Thanks.

I have been able to resolve this, for the record purpose while using the Schneider Conext SW4024 Inverter built-in charger only to charge the battery without solar installation with external charge controller, in the setup parameters while commissioning the unit you must adequately define the battery parameters and more importantly you must ensure that the right charging rate for battery is calculated and represented by the right percentage setting under the Charge rate parameters, otherwise you will be having F49 fault (DC Over Voltage), which might take you a while to figure it out.

bodeface:
Hello house,
Anyone with experience on Schneider product should help out on this;

Schneider Conext SW4024 Inverter tripping on F49 fault (DC Over Voltage), the battery bank is a set of eight nos of 200AH wired for 24VDC, I have monitored the charging voltage while the inverter is charging not to exceed 26.1VDC and the battery bank voltage sitting pretty at about 24.8VDC, however once the utility power is applied to the inverter after charging for about 2-3 mins will trip on F49 fault.

Has anyone experienced this before? Appreciate all comments

PRINTED SOLAR STRIPS

can someone shed more light on

"PRINTED SOLAR STRIPS"
It expected to replace the present poly & mono solar panels considering price and performance in low light conditions (including at night)

present cost/price is $7 per square meter.
market entry is in 18months.

can gurus speak on this emerging trend which will soon be embraced by millions of electricity starved worldwide.

Barezzi:
I love your setup Pranil. If i can lay my hands on a monitoring software like that of Justin Case, I'd be sold...
I just love his dashboard.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAwG9VtvSGE

You can do same with emoncms. see my dashboard variations - You can configure it your way in half an hour once the basic setup is running

The yellow one is for my kids and wife . They know very well based on battery charge status when to use TV or washing machine etc. The moment the pointer is in Orange they swtichoff non essential stuff such as AC , TV , etc.

I have two units of the ipowerplus; a 1KVA model and a 3KVA model. The 1kva model has an idle consumption of 20W. I'll test the 3kva today and give you the value.

bigrovar:
Has anyone here who uses any of the Axpert series of Inverters be it ipowerplus or Gennex been able to ascertain the idle consumption of these units?

My 1kva unit very conveniently powers my fridge (130w) plus two cieling fans (150W) and 6*30W CFL as well at 29inch led tv. My 3kva also conveniently power my scanfrost microwave oven. I have a sneaky feeling about the inbuilt mppt too though.

kiekie1:


You are right .. I have a client who used same ipower 5kva 48v and complained a lot after working on the FETs on 3 occasions .. He concluded its not really a pure sinewave power inverter since he keeps having issue's using submersible water pump, aircon unit, microwave etc on it .. He also complained the inbuilt solar controller wasn't as efficient as external mppt unit . He simply upgraded the inverter to a transformer based pure sinewave, 60a mppt, more units of 300w solar modules as he is almost offgrid and needs some appliances running whilst mppt is absorbing-floating ...

Have you tried watchpower software. I have never been able to get it to work on both my 1kva and 3kva ipoweplus inverters.

pranil:





Watchpower( official) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO1Oskf3HHA - Download from Any vendor site also comes on CD with inverter - Msut for changing some settings



SolarMon





ACDC power monitor
never used it but seems a fair effort has gone into it.
Website : http://www.acdcpowermonitor.com/Default.aspx
Video review :

@pranil, thanks for modifying an earlier note you wrote. Was easier to grasp afterwards.

Will the below work?

pranil:


You can do same with emoncms. see my dashboard variations - You can configure it your way in half an hour once the basic setup is running
The yellow one is for my kids and wife . They know very well based on battery charge status when to use TV or washing machine etc. The moment the pointer is in Orange they swtichoff non essential stuff such as AC , TV , etc.

@Pranil

Love your Raspberry Pi setup and beautiful dashboard. Could you guide or point me to a place I can setup something similar for Fangpusun/Outback. Thanks as I await your feedback.

dejidotun2000:
Have you tried watchpower software. I have never been able to get it to work on both my 1kva and 3kva ipoweplus inverters.

Yes both all type of connections, Serail , USb and even connected to my remote display unit no issues . Can confirm that Zinox also uses it at many locations

Are your inverters serial ( the cable is like network cable at inverter end and DB-9 -9pin Serial )

The you will need a genuine Serial to USB converter - in My experience the prolific PL 2303 chipset works without problems .

See the link

For inverters after 2016 they are both serial and USB - Use the cable that came with inverter

https://www.amazon.com/Trendnet-TU-S9-USB-Serial-Converter/dp/B00BL697VA

babaegun:


@Pranil

Love your Raspberry Pi setup and beautiful dashboard. Could you guide or point me to a place I can setup something similar for Fangpusun/Outback. Thanks as I await your feedback.

Unfortunately they do not have open protocol that I am aware . EMONCMS uses JSON calls on the API . Google srecah turned up nothing .

I got fed up with crappy software and shoddy practice of charging extra for remote monitoring by mainly USA based manufacturers like morningstar and extremely to shift to Chinese stuff . I have a ATS from company called powergen - Costs 73 USD only but comes with full windows software and remote monitoring. Anything close to that from established brands is upwards of 500 USD.

battleaxe:
@pranil, thanks for modifying an earlier note you wrote. Was easier to grasp afterwards.

Will the below work?

You are wiring it slightly wrong Unless I am reading it incorrectly . Can you mark the MCB coil and power inputs separately .If following is not clear I will draw it time permitting in next few days and send it

MCB has total 6 terminals Say A1, A2 - Coil terminal Allows the MCB to become on when supplied with 230 V PH ( A1) and N ( A2)

Terminal L1 and L2 are NO rated to carry Nominal rated current at AC -7B duty
Terminal L3- L4 are NC rated to carry Nominal rated current at AC -7B duty

Please remember there is no Make before break so You cannot use this as changeover otherwise it might short inverter i/P and o/P for a sustained arc on inductive loads like motor

Only one of them can be used - based on your usage scenario

For your case one primary contactor will be needed on Grid side to avoid short circuit

efuro:


@ Chris (Dr. Solar)

one chance batteries 1-4 is
quite interesting. keep up the good work.

Thank you bros. I did a new one today. Happier face today. I was able to run my 2 hp pumping machine for 5 minutes with only 400 watts coming from my PV. It is recovering slowly. I am not doing with them what I did with my T105's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDj5yNsRcTI

bigrovar:
Has anyone here who uses any of the Axpert series of Inverters be it ipowerplus or Gennex been able to ascertain the idle consumption of these units?

I use the Gennex brand. 3kva type. Good efficient inverter with very poor inbuit CC (MPPT). My instantaneous harvest on the inverter from a 1.4kw thin film panels usually range from 500-700watts compared to 1.2-1.4kw when i was using a standalone 60amp EPsolar MPPT CC. Almost worse than a PWM CC.
I horribly busy lately with no time to tweek my system otherwise................. By the way, i have checked my wiring, nothing loose!

Yachi / Yahsun solar modules still in stock

DISCOUNTS....!!!

Mono
100w P-30k,M-32k
140w M-43k
150w M-45k
200w M-60k
260w M-70k
310w M-80k

Magnum 4348 USA inverter ............920k

Ep solar a series mppt 40a 12-24v ..75k

Fangpuson mppt 80a 12-24-48v .....180k

Solarworld German 315w xl mono panel....92k

Solarworld German 325w xl duo mono panel...95k

Smartcell Global Services ..
CALL NOW : O8I35O3I95I

please gurus.....

panel specs
250w poly (Sunshine solar)
Vmp- 29.5v
Imp- 8.47A
Voc- 35.5v

CC specs
Epever eTracer 60A Auto voltage (150v max)

currently, 8 of those panels are connected in 4x2 configuration on a 3.5kva/48v inverter with 400ah battery bank capacity

is the configuration safe for the CC?? or should I ask the client to get one more panel and do 3x3 configuration?

I've recorded 134v on the CC around 8am
thanks guys

I have a similar experience. I never see more than 270watts even at midday with 600watts installed capacity. Wiring and panels checked out fine too.

durodee:

My instantaneous harvest on the inverter from a 1.4kw thin film panels usually range from 500-700watts compared to 1.2-1.4kw when i was using a standalone 60amp EPsolar MPPT CC. Almost worse than a PWM CC.
I horribly busy lately with no time to tweek my system otherwise................. By the way, i have checked my wiring, nothing loose!