Neuk_'s Home ESS - Round Two

Neuk_ said:
That reminds me, my wife is scheduled to get a new work laptop, I'll see if I can 'procure' her old one to use for an HA server.
Click to expand...
That's what I've been meaning to do with my wife's old one :-) but so far it's sitting on the chair waiting like a good laptop
 
Bugger :rolleyes:

My FIL and I were in our roof yesterday afternoon quickly before lunch to get our bearings for putting the CT clamp in so we can use excess solar during the day to run our electric geysers, ovens, underfloor heating. It is a bit of a mess in the roof compared to our last house, a lot of electrical wiring, network cabling, rubbish, offcuts, a birds nest, etc. which I will need to clean up as best I can. There is also no insulation above the ceiling boards on at least one side of the house so I'll have to check the other side and get that sorted at some stage else it will be a cold winter. On to the DB next, which is also a complete mess compared to our last house, but worse is that my FIL noticed that the earth leakage CB outputs are not connected at all so we have no earth leakage protection. We have two COC's for the house, one from when we bought it from the ex owners and one from when the ESS was installed, a reason why I tell people that COC's are largely useless unless you do things yourself and know exactly what is going on. My FIL will sort the DB out for us, he is a fully qualified electrician and electrical engineer, so now to do some digging as to why the earth leakage CB isn't connected...
 
Neuk_ said:
Bugger :rolleyes:

My FIL and I were in our roof yesterday afternoon quickly before lunch to get our bearings for putting the CT clamp in so we can use excess solar during the day to run our electric geysers, ovens, underfloor heating. It is a bit of a mess in the roof compared to our last house, a lot of electrical wiring, network cabling, rubbish, offcuts, a birds nest, etc. which I will need to clean up as best I can. There is also no insulation above the ceiling boards on at least one side of the house so I'll have to check the other side and get that sorted at some stage else it will be a cold winter. On to the DB next, which is also a complete mess compared to our last house, but worse is that my FIL noticed that the earth leakage CB outputs are not connected at all so we have no earth leakage protection. We have two COC's for the house, one from when we bought it from the ex owners and one from when the ESS was installed, a reason why I tell people that COC's are largely useless unless you do things yourself and know exactly what is going on. My FIL will sort the DB out for us, he is a fully qualified electrician and electrical engineer, so now to do some digging as to why the earth leakage CB isn't connected...
Click to expand...
With your FIL around that helps. My understanding is that one would be able to ask the electrician who issued the CoC to bring the earth leakage up to spec at no cost, but it's probably easier just having your FIL do it.
 
Speedster said:
With your FIL around that helps. My understanding is that one would be able to ask the electrician who issued the CoC to bring the earth leakage up to spec at no cost, but it's probably easier just having your FIL do it.
Click to expand...

The previous owners organised the COC during the sale of the house to us so I have no idea who the electrician is but I would rather my FIL sorts it out. He can show me what is going on, what he needs to do, any other issues, etc. instead of the all too common story of a 'professional' telling you all is sorted and you don't really have any idea.
 
Anthro said:
I have heard good things about those Longi panels.. apparently they are world #1 manufacturer ?
Click to expand...
They claim to be the biggest manufacturer of silicon wafers. They make excellent panels, with some good recent independent reviews from Australia.
 
Bit late to the party perhaps, but what is/goes wrong with HA on a pi?
 
Düber said:
Bit late to the party perhaps, but what is/goes wrong with HA on a pi?
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Nothing wrong with it on a Pi, just lots of writes to the SD card and so these get fried more often than not
 
Mzezman said:
Nothing wrong with it on a Pi, just lots of writes to the SD card and so these get fried more often than not
Click to expand...

That is what happened to my RPi, followed by some network issues which saw me stop using HA as we were moving house, I have yet to get it back up and running.
 
Neuk_ said:
Bugger :rolleyes:

My FIL and I were in our roof yesterday afternoon quickly before lunch to get our bearings for putting the CT clamp in so we can use excess solar during the day to run our electric geysers, ovens, underfloor heating. It is a bit of a mess in the roof compared to our last house, a lot of electrical wiring, network cabling, rubbish, offcuts, a birds nest, etc. which I will need to clean up as best I can. There is also no insulation above the ceiling boards on at least one side of the house so I'll have to check the other side and get that sorted at some stage else it will be a cold winter. On to the DB next, which is also a complete mess compared to our last house, but worse is that my FIL noticed that the earth leakage CB outputs are not connected at all so we have no earth leakage protection. We have two COC's for the house, one from when we bought it from the ex owners and one from when the ESS was installed, a reason why I tell people that COC's are largely useless unless you do things yourself and know exactly what is going on. My FIL will sort the DB out for us, he is a fully qualified electrician and electrical engineer, so now to do some digging as to why the earth leakage CB isn't connected...
Click to expand...

Main DB has been pulled apart and put back together as it should be, earth leakage connected and working, although I am keeping an eye on things. I wanted to get a CBI Astute fitted at the same time for the pool but there wasn't enough space in the main DB so it will have to wait until I can sort the geysers out and pull out the geyser timer and contacter out.
 
Neuk_ said:
Main DB has been pulled apart and put back together as it should be, earth leakage connected and working, although I am keeping an eye on things. I wanted to get a CBI Astute fitted at the same time for the pool but there wasn't enough space in the main DB so it will have to wait until I can sort the geysers out and pull out the geyser timer and contacter out.
Click to expand...

And the first load shedding slot on Friday night after sorting the main DB tripped earth leakage CB bringing down all our plug points :rolleyes: Used the generator for the load shedding slot, got hold of our electrician who came out on Saturday morning and together with my FIL, we did some testing before installing a contactor to bond the earth and neutral, which was on my to do list, problem sorted. My FIL climbed in the roof, located the combined main incoming feed from CityPower/generator to the main DB and fitted the CT clamp so we can see non-essential loads so now we can feed non-essentials while we have CityPower supply. I still need to relook my settings to avoid using batteries when the geysers or ovens are on and also get some Geyserwise smart switches for the geysers so I can run them independently of each other, remove the 'dumb' geyser timer and contactor, install the CBi Astute for the pool as there will be more space in the main DB and then relook getting 2kW elements for each geyser.

It
Never
Ends
:ROFL:
 
No issues with the earth leakage CB tripping since we installed the earth neutral bond relay (contactor) :cool: Playing around with running non-essential loads while there is mains supply, put the geysers on too late today (13:30) for various reasons, will do it earlier tomorrow...

1677000252213.png

At least it was a great solar radiation day...

1677000188334.png
 
Install of two of these which my FIL ordered is planned for tomorrow, to have better control of the electric geysers...

shop.hellermanntyton.co.za

Timer Wi-Fi Smart Energy Monitoring Relay 20A

shop.hellermanntyton.co.za shop.hellermanntyton.co.za

We'll remove the existing single digital geyser timer and accompanying contactor, as well as fit a CBi Astute to control the pool pump so I have better control of it in case we need to switch it off during the day. I still need to get cooling sorted in the cupboard where the inverter and batteries are but will get to it, eventually...
 
Time for a small update, after hitting 3MW total PV production and winter on it's way...

  • DB is sorted, smart switches/relays in to handle the pool and two electric geysers, helped a lot with me back at the office three days a week.
  • E/L tripping traced to outside lights old wiring shorting on a housing, redid all connections using Wago connectors/terminals.
  • Discovered a few electrical items were not powered through our main house DB but through the generator DB, so they never got power from our inverter. Ran a new cable from a sub DB to sort this out.
  • Winter is on it's way which has meant that we are currently only making a max of 5.5kW from our PV panels, so managing load even more closely now to minimize CityPower use and make sure batteries get charged.

Otherwise the system is working well, I'd like another battery for winter but will have to clear some debt before so will have to live with a bit more CityPower use over winter.
 
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