Axpert invertors

@theghid - PLEASE, contact the ECB (Electrical Contractors Board), and find out who the chief electrical inspector is in your area. Give them the COC, and ask them to come and look at your installation.

1) The contractor will be -required- to fix your installation, at his expense,
2) The installation will not be seen as fixed, until such time that the Chief Electrical Inspector says so (regardless of what the laws, SANS regulations, etc. says,
3) The sparkie, will more than likely loose his license in the process (which is great, because he shouldn't have one to begin with.

Consumers (in general), really takes WAY to much ***** from wannabe electricians that doesn't know jack *****. It just gives the entire industry a bad name, together with the few, really, really good sparkies that are out there. There are numerous actions that you, as an individual, can take...

Just for reference sake - all those panel / house wire running to/from your inverter, is illegal. It must be inside a conduit, or otherwise, must be Twin & Earth, or Surfix cable. You aren't allowed to run panel/house wire like that at all...
 
Somehow may previous post is missing, so here it is again....

The part in "pen", was it actually connected like that??? .... I'm sure the part highlighted in red would then be the problem ???

Displaying circuit diagram.jpg
 
JohnHay said:
That part added in pen in the bottom right hand corner. It looks like the mains red is tied to the isolator output? But the isolator is fed from the inverter output? If this is how it is wired, you have the inverter's input tied to the output.
Click to expand...
Hey, well done, that seems to have fixed it, but now only my downstairs lights don't work on backup. I will have the electrician come through on Monday and have a look at the problem and solve the rest of the problems.

Next time you in the Ballito area are give me a shout, beers are on me.

@savage - When he comes through on Monday I will suggest to him that he should make sure everything is legal etc, if he doesn't fix all the f**kups then I'll get hold of the relevant people. Thank you for pointing these things out.

Thanks to everyone on this forum who helped with this setup. Happy load shedding :D
 
savage said:
Just for reference sake - all those panel / house wire running to/from your inverter, is illegal. It must be inside a conduit, or otherwise, must be Twin & Earth, or Surfix cable. You aren't allowed to run panel/house wire like that at all...
Click to expand...

Agreed. And, wow, AC and DC breakers in the same box? DC wiring also looks a bit thin to me. Not sure that will carry the requisite 86A for the 6kVA model.

--deckert
 
Hi all,

I am considering buying one of these RCT Axpert Inverter's.

I currently have an outdated modified sine wave inverter that I am sick of and want to upgrade. But I dont want to make the same mistake twice and go for something that seems like a bargain only realise a year later that I've thrown money down the drain. Can anyone give me some feedback who has been running one of these units for a few months?

Do you have any negative issues such as:

1. Flickering LED lights running off the inverter power?
2. EMR feedback?
3. Phone line static on phones connected to the unit?

Any other issues you've had?

Who will repair these units in 3-4 years time when they die, is there a local supplier?
 
savage said:
Made by Voltronic, same guys who also make the InfiniSolar inverters. I've installed quite a few and had nothing but absolute pleasure out of them.

OP's price is rather low for the 5KVA unit though
Click to expand...

Hi Savage, Are they good enough quality to sell to clients. So if voltronic makes them, they will also carry the warranty and repair i guess?
 
Nicksteroonie said:
1. Flickering LED lights running off the inverter power?
2. EMR feedback?
3. Phone line static on phones connected to the unit?

Any other issues you've had?

Who will repair these units in 3-4 years time when they die, is there a local supplier?
Click to expand...

I have a 2KVA Axpert and do not have any LED flickering or static on the phone or noise/buzzing on the hi-fi speakers or any interference on the TV at all. I'm very happy with the quality of the inverter output.

When switching to/from Eskom there is a slight blink in the lights, but the TV, decoder and PC keeps running flawlessly. Chances are you won't even notice the switchover.

Don't know about repairs.

I have said this before, if you use the Axpert like I do (not off-grid, no solar, for load shedding only), the inverter part works only when Eskom fails. This is very little compared to an off-grid solar installation. It will most certainly last a lot longer than what has been said in this thread before by various people. The FET's inside will not work nearly as much as in a 24/7 solar installation.

My 2c.
 
DollyAAAA said:
I have a 2KVA Axpert and do not have any LED flickering or static on the phone or noise/buzzing on the hi-fi speakers or any interference on the TV at all. I'm very happy with the quality of the inverter output.

When switching to/from Eskom there is a slight blink in the lights, but the TV, decoder and PC keeps running flawlessly. Chances are you won't even notice the switchover.

Don't know about repairs.

I have said this before, if you use the Axpert like I do (not off-grid, no solar, for load shedding only), the inverter part works only when Eskom fails. This is very little compared to an off-grid solar installation. It will most certainly last a lot longer than what has been said in this thread before by various people. The FET's inside will not work nearly as much as in a 24/7 solar installation.

My 2c.
Click to expand...

+1

I do use it with about 3kWp of Solar - and still no issues what so ever. Personally, I think how it is installed, what you put on it, and how much you load it is very important. No motors (or inductive loads), and no more than ~80% load...
 
I am trying to decide whether to fork out for one of the more established brands like Victron or SMA but this unit is very enticing at less than a third of the price of one of these other brands.

My biggest concern though is after sales and repair service. I understand that Rectron is the distributor, will they provide after sales service.

Also what is the warranty on the unit?
 
I love these units, pity stock availability from the dealers has been low. So i imported me a few of them for resale to fund my solar habit.:D

I got 5 X 2400watt units and 2 X 4000watt looking for owner. Drop me a message if you interested.
 
Nicksteroonie said:
I am trying to decide whether to fork out for one of the more established brands like Victron or SMA but this unit is very enticing at less than a third of the price of one of these other brands.

My biggest concern though is after sales and repair service. I understand that Rectron is the distributor, will they provide after sales service.

Also what is the warranty on the unit?
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat... there is a lot of negative feed comment on the MPP Solar units in AUS... where as the SMA stuff looks rock solid..
 
Loadshedding done. It was a trouble-free 2.25Hrs ;)

Fan was noisy for about 50min after at full speed to charge batteries, then died down to about ½ speed for another 15min (cooling I suppose)

Only came down to 12.2V with normal usage for those times.
 
A question for the WatchPower users...

I finally got around to installing the software and hooking it up to the inverter over the weekend... I noticed something really weird with the Battery Capacity % numbers. I've read concerns online that the software shows 100% when eskom is up, but that it drops to 60% (51-ish volts) when eskom drops away.

The strange thing though is that mine shows 63% when charging, which drops to around 30% when eskom drops. The voltage when eskom drops away is also around the 51v. Is this just the Axpert charge controller being confused/bad at monitoring SOC?

I'm concerned that my batteries aren't charging fully. I've monitored the LCD screen and I don't think I've ever seen it go to Float charging (which according to the manual is charging led on solid and all four bars of the battery icon being on). It seems to always be charging led on (indicating charging is finished), but the battery icon has bottom 2 bars static, top 2 bars flashing, indicating 2.083 ~ 2.167V/cell.

It's a 48v battery bank. Reading across all four batteries I see 55.5v and individual batteries are 13.7 - 13.8v.

Am I being paranoid? Is this simply because the Axpert is bad at monitoring SOC?
 
I think there's a reason it doesn't show SoC on the inverter itself, it just doesn't measure it accurately.
If your batteries are sitting at 13.8V or so and the charging current has dropped to zero then they are full.
 
Vetseun said:
A question for the WatchPower users...


Am I being paranoid? Is this simply because the Axpert is bad at monitoring SOC?
Click to expand...

Edmundp in this thread identified that if you have your low battery cut-off set to anything other than the default (42V in a 48 V system or 21V in 24V system) the SOC goes for a ball of ...... The SOC is much better but not accurate with the default low battery cut-off, a Victron BMV battery monitor solves this problem for you. It has an external battery shunt and now you can accurately measure what is going on.
 
I did a couple of screenshots from WatchPower during load shedding (6-8pm) a few weeks back. These are readings on on a 24V system. Battery started at 100%. My kids put on a 400W heater from 6:30pm to about 7:00pm...

[table="width: 500"]
[tr]
[td]
Time
[/td]
[td]
Battery V
[/td]
[td]
Battery %
[/td]
[td]
Battery A
[/td]
[td]
VA
[/td]
[td]
W
[/td]
[td]
Load %
[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
06:25
[/td]
[td]
24.85
[/td]
[td]
91
[/td]
[td]
12
[/td]
[td]
215
[/td]
[td]
215
[/td]
[td]
8
[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
06:58
[/td]
[td]
23.57
[/td]
[td]
74
[/td]
[td]
32
[/td]
[td]
704
[/td]
[td]
693
[/td]
[td]
28
[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
07:12
[/td]
[td]
23.88
[/td]
[td]
67
[/td]
[td]
13
[/td]
[td]
254
[/td]
[td]
254
[/td]
[td]
10
[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
07:56
[/td]
[td]
23.68
[/td]
[td]
62
[/td]
[td]
12
[/td]
[td]
212
[/td]
[td]
212
[/td]
[td]
8
[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
 
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