Jladans Solar setup

[Jladan]

Howdy,

Following W@P's suggestion to share my solar setup and experience thus far.

Went team blue July last year, yes its expensive, but I like the tech (Lots of toys and interfaces for me toplay with), and also how its very modular and flexible. if I lose a charge controller I only lose that and the rest of the system lives for example.

We are a super power hungry household due to some light mining, and also the women folk who love their appliances.

Main objectives was to avoid load shedding, reduce power bill, and if we run lean and its sunny be able to survive extended periods without needing Eskom. We also have a Gennie input should the proverbial hit the fan.

Setup is a 10Kva Quattro, 2Mppts for 6 x 550w panels and 12 X 450w JA's. With 6 (Now 7 when I get my one dud back from Pylon in a few weeks) US3000C's. Also a Cerbo. All Lniked up nicely to my HA, which is automating various lights, Pool pumps, Geysers and Stove.

The above runs the whole house, we want to be able to decide what to turn on and off when we running batteries.

Running LED and induction stoves.

Got a very decent installer who is very responsive and looks after all the hairy stuff for me. Hit me up on PM if you want his details.

Install





Use to date:


Issues so far:
Had one Pylon develop a dud cell, so that Batt has been sent in to be fixed / replaced
Still need to optimize properly
Very very occasionally we forget we have solar and push the inverter a little to hard and the power goes for a few seconds...

Things I still want to do:
Add a fronius and another array to the fronius to generate additional power more efficiently

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Fantastic setup!

 

[Jladan]

Hmmm just read I might be able to do ac coupling with microinverters , anyone have experience with this locally ?

 

[BadBoyGP]

Howdy,

Following W@P's suggestion to share my solar setup and experience thus far.

Went team blue July last year, yes its expensive, but I like the tech (Lots of toys and interfaces for me toplay with), and also how its very modular and flexible. if I lose a charge controller I only lose that and the rest of the system lives for example.

We are a super power hungry household due to some light mining, and also the women folk who love their appliances.

Main objectives was to avoid load shedding, reduce power bill, and if we run lean and its sunny be able to survive extended periods without needing Eskom. We also have a Gennie input should the proverbial hit the fan.

Setup is a 10Kva Quattro, 2Mppts for 6 x 550w panels and 12 X 450w JA's. With 6 (Now 7 when I get my one dud back from Pylon in a few weeks) US3000C's. Also a Cerbo. All Lniked up nicely to my HA, which is automating various lights, Pool pumps, Geysers and Stove.

The above runs the whole house, we want to be able to decide what to turn on and off when we running batteries.

Running LED and induction stoves.

Got a very decent installer who is very responsive and looks after all the hairy stuff for me. Hit me up on PM if you want his details.

Install
View attachment 1308468
View attachment 1308466

View attachment 1308470

Use to date:
View attachment 1308472

Issues so far:
Had one Pylon develop a dud cell, so that Batt has been sent in to be fixed / replaced
Still need to optimize properly
Very very occasionally we forget we have solar and push the inverter a little to hard and the power goes for a few seconds...

Things I still want to do:
Add a fronius and another array to the fronius to generate additional power more efficiently

Highly impressive setup here..

Well done.

 

[W@P]

Very very nice. Do you have a pic of the cabinet a few steps back, open and closed? I was also looking for a cabinet like that for my father's installation. Is the cabinet IP65 rated? Any ventilation you got setup there?

Well done on a very neat system.

 

[Jladan]

Yup cabinet is properly rated and has ventilation on the side , it does get a little toasty on super hot days but the batteries have never gone much above 25 due to their location at the bottom. Have considered getting some sort of fan in there but would only need it if I got another mppt or inverter in there.

It wasn’t cheap though and delayed the install by a few weeks while it was made

 

[hj2k_x]

Howdy,

Following W@P's suggestion to share my solar setup and experience thus far.

Went team blue July last year, yes its expensive, but I like the tech (Lots of toys and interfaces for me toplay with), and also how its very modular and flexible. if I lose a charge controller I only lose that and the rest of the system lives for example.

We are a super power hungry household due to some light mining, and also the women folk who love their appliances.

Main objectives was to avoid load shedding, reduce power bill, and if we run lean and its sunny be able to survive extended periods without needing Eskom. We also have a Gennie input should the proverbial hit the fan.

Setup is a 10Kva Quattro, 2Mppts for 6 x 550w panels and 12 X 450w JA's. With 6 (Now 7 when I get my one dud back from Pylon in a few weeks) US3000C's. Also a Cerbo. All Lniked up nicely to my HA, which is automating various lights, Pool pumps, Geysers and Stove.

The above runs the whole house, we want to be able to decide what to turn on and off when we running batteries.

Running LED and induction stoves.

Got a very decent installer who is very responsive and looks after all the hairy stuff for me. Hit me up on PM if you want his details.

Install
View attachment 1308468
View attachment 1308466

View attachment 1308470

Use to date:
View attachment 1308472

Issues so far:
Had one Pylon develop a dud cell, so that Batt has been sent in to be fixed / replaced
Still need to optimize properly
Very very occasionally we forget we have solar and push the inverter a little to hard and the power goes for a few seconds...

Things I still want to do:
Add a fronius and another array to the fronius to generate additional power more efficiently

Some lovely stuff there. That inverter is 10kva? How are you pulling as much as 13kw at one time without it going pop?

 

[TheChamp]

Some lovely stuff there. That inverter is 10kva? How are you pulling as much as 13kw at one time without it going pop?

That's 13kWh not 13kW if we are referring to the same thing, it's energy consumption and not instantaneous power draw, but some of the inverters have a pass-through to handle the excessive draw.

 

[Hd7]

Great system! Modular is always a big plus

 

[Jladan]

That's 13kWh not 13kW if we are referring to the same thing, it's energy consumption and not instantaneous power draw, but some of the inverters have a pass-through to handle the excessive draw.

Yup it can passthru quite a bit more for short periods and can also spike over the 8 for short periods safely, but as I’ve mentioned if we have too much stuff on all at once then the inverter shuts itself down for a short period and resets, thus tripping our power for a short period.

It one of the nice or annoying things about the victrons depending on how you look at them, they tend to always err on the side of caution in their programming. Eg: they have hard locks in the ESS that prevent the pylons from getting to absolutely full charge across the 15 cells in order to protect the batteries. But it been done in conjunction with pylon tech directly so trust it to help the batteries last a bit longer. It does however get the batts high enough that they balance though.

In winter now , with the house drawing power and the sun going to be where it is , I’ve also got a short scheduled charge setup to top up the batteries to ensure proper pylon cycling before the evening cycle.


But to the actual actual question posed we have never tried to pull 13 KW thru the inverter, and I would expect it to do it reset trick if we tried pulling that much all at once.

 

[Next Thing]

What is the current rating on your battery fuses ?
Is each battery bank seperatly cabled to the main battery fuse ?

 

[Jladan]

200a battery fuse, the banks are joined on bus bar from what I understand

 

[W@P]

Yup cabinet is properly rated and has ventilation on the side , it does get a little toasty on super hot days but the batteries have never gone much above 25 due to their location at the bottom. Have considered getting some sort of fan in there but would only need it if I got another mppt or inverter in there.

It wasn’t cheap though and delayed the install by a few weeks while it was made

Yes, they are expensive from what i could gather. Is the cabinet outside or in your garage or where? Is everything mounted to the cabinet and the cabinet mounted to the wall?

 

[hj2k_x]

Yup it can passthru quite a bit more for short periods and can also spike over the 8 for short periods safely, but as I’ve mentioned if we have too much stuff on all at once then the inverter shuts itself down for a short period and resets, thus tripping our power for a short period.

It one of the nice or annoying things about the victrons depending on how you look at them, they tend to always err on the side of caution in their programming. Eg: they have hard locks in the ESS that prevent the pylons from getting to absolutely full charge across the 15 cells in order to protect the batteries. But it been done in conjunction with pylon tech directly so trust it to help the batteries last a bit longer. It does however get the batts high enough that they balance though.

In winter now , with the house drawing power and the sun going to be where it is , I’ve also got a short scheduled charge setup to top up the batteries to ensure proper pylon cycling before the evening cycle.


But to the actual actual question posed we have never tried to pull 13 KW thru the inverter, and I would expect it to do it reset trick if we tried pulling that much all at once.

Ah ok.

Our 8kw Deye also shuts down under too heavy load.

Having to get a second one in so that we can cope with demand.

 

[DuracellBunny]

Some lovely stuff there. That inverter is 10kva? How are you pulling as much as 13kw at one time without it going pop?

That’s the joy with Victons, I remember in training that you are able to pull higher than the inverter rating and will sustain the load till it reaches its thermal threshold before restarting.

 

[Snyper564]

Ah ok.

Our 8kw Deye also shuts down under too heavy load.

Having to get a second one in so that we can cope with demand.

The Sunsynk only switches off if 8kw is exceeded with no grid otherwise it will pull excess from grid. But we have only exceed 8kw twice.

 

[DuracellBunny]

Awesome setup @Jladan nice work to the sparky for splitting the batteries into 2 banks there.

 

[Jladan]

Yes, they are expensive from what i could gather. Is the cabinet outside or in your garage or where? Is everything mounted to the cabinet and the cabinet mounted to the wall?

Cabinet is outside but in a shed like (Open the one side) structure for a bit of weather proofing, also doesn't get direct sunlight or any other weather exposure, although it is designed to take it. Everything is mounted to the cabinet which is reinforced, but is freestanding should it need to be moved, or access to anything behind it is required. Wouldn't want to try moving it though without unloading it first. I've also got an alarm and a pretty hefty lock on the door should anyone try to tamper with it, as well as some camera coverage.

 

[Jladan]

That’s the joy with Victons, I remember in training that you are able to pull higher than the inverter rating and will sustain the load till it reaches its thermal threshold before restarting.

Yeah so the 8000 which is the one can peak to 16000w for short periods, but like I mentioned the Cerbo keeps an eye on things and protects things long before anything to hairy happens. The experience reality is if we push much over 8 or 9 it protects and shuts down.

Oh and one last thing I can highly recommend and should be standard, ensure you have a proper bypass switch, so you can run off Eskom while doing maintenance, or if anything goes pear with your system.

 

[hj2k_x]

The Sunsynk only switches off if 8kw is exceeded with no grid otherwise it will pull excess from grid. But we have only exceed 8kw twice.

The Deye seems to get grumpy is the load is sustained at more than 8000W, regardless of source of power, which is a pity.