fikfik:

in addition to the above UNCLE G, how is it not a waste if you already have solar chargers that can charge to float? Even with the magnum and the poor electricity you've mentioned you have in your area, the 3/4 stage charging of the magnum will hardly be utilized, right? And did you ever have to repair your cyberpower in the past? I noticed you didnt use the AVR and small changeover that comes with the cyberpower, or they didnt come with yours? My cyberpower has been running very strong (after proper installation) without any faults and my batteries are always charged to float by my MPPT, so I dont know if its a good investment (at least with my setup, which takes queues from your former installation) to get an expensive inverter to replace my cyberpower.

You may also want to discharge you batteries to 40-50% SOC before checking the volts with a voltmeter, or better still try to get a battery load tester, so you get a good idea of their SOC while offline. I had to change some batteries that read well with a voltmeter, but when I tried with a 150amp battery load tester dropped under load.

fikfik,

just as i said in my reply to bodejohn's post earlier on, i think it depends on how you look at it.

my cyberpower inverter had to be worked on like three good times before i was finally able to enjoy it in its
present condition. the luck i had was that i got it from a dealer who was close by. i just wonder how
i would have fared had i purchased it from a faraway place like lagos. what irked me most was that from the very
first day i bought it, i was told by the dealer that it needed 'special installation' as according to him it was not
'like every other inverter'. well, i soon found out exactly what he meant when i was hit with problem after problem
arising from its operation. and, mind you, i'm not exactly a novice when it comes to inverters, having been in the
business close to 7yrs!
also, i just recieved my sukam inverter from my dealer after having been to the workshop for the better part of a month.
at the end of the day, i had to cough out a whopping 22k for the repairs!
so, when you talk of waste of money i think we all tend to have this general idea of being penny wise. its much like
telling someone who bought a mercedes benz that he could have saved money by going for a cheaper korean car model
instead since both of them do the same job of moving people from one place to the next. we all know that they are not
the same. several years after that korean car would have been long forgotten in the scrap yard, the mercedes benz
would just be starting its useful service life.
the renewable energy option by its very nature attracts droves of people with the promise of low maintenance, low
cost and durability. that is why you see most solar panels with warranty of up to 25yrs, batteries with service life up to
8, 10 and 15 years, charge controllers outliving the very systems they were initially installed to charge. i could go on
but you get the general idea. therefore i get worried when peeps become comfortable with the idea of batteries
which last maximum of two years and are changed out and they see this as normal? inverters which only serve you for a
year or two and after wards send you running to the electronics repair shop. imagine if you have to climb your roof every
other year to change your solar modules? how clumsy would that be? but this is what we do with our batteries. this is
what we do with our inverters. this is what we do with our charge controllers, etc all because we think we are saving
money going for 'low cost' alternatives. put together, all those low quality batteries we changed out over time could
have given us a trojan or hoppecke battery that would have lasted the whole of 15 years! put together, all those low
quality, average inverters changed out over time could have given us a sunnyboy or a xantrex or a magnum, etc that
would have lasted the better part of 10 years! so, how wise do we make out at the end of the day buying lower quality
alternatives that only give us pain in the long run? maybe we should ask the man visiting the mechanic after just two
years of purchasing that korean model car while his mercedes benz counterpart keeps cruising around in his sleek auto
without any care in the world!

HURRY HURRY HURRY !!!!!!

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My Oga,

Very well said, u could not have put it better.

Brothers is time we start setting examples to the newbies, or at least talking about it, funds is always an issue when you have to do anything right in life, so if we cant afford it for now, we can talk about it so when newbies come on board, they at least know the right thing to do.

I cant even start telling you how many batteries i have gone thru. My cyberpower has been repaired once, but i guess i am lucky cause i am like 90% off-grid, all i do is invert and use my gen in raining season. I have 3 xantrex inverters i bought for my cybercafe like 7years back, up till this day i still use them and i have never had to repair them for once.

My Oga thanks for setting the pace... we go work harder

George_D:


fikfik,

just as i said in my reply to bodejohn's post earlier on, i think it depends on how you look at it.

my cyberpower inverter had to be worked on like three good times before i was finally able to enjoy it in its
present condition. the luck i had was that i got it from a dealer who was close by. i just wonder how
i would have fared had i purchased it from a faraway place like lagos. what irked me most was that from the very
first day i bought it, i was told by the dealer that it needed 'special installation' as according to him it was not
'like every other inverter'. well, i soon found out exactly what he meant when i was hit with problem after problem
arising from its operation. and, mind you, i'm not exactly a novice when it comes to inverters, having been in the
business close to 7yrs!
also, i just recieved my sukam inverter from my dealer after having been to the workshop for the better part of a month.
at the end of the day, i had to cough out a whopping 22k for the repairs!
so, when you talk of waste of money i think we all tend to have this general idea of being penny wise. its much like
telling someone who bought a mercedes benz that he could have saved money by going for a cheaper korean car model
instead since both of them do the same job of moving people from one place to the next. we all know that they are not
the same. several years after that korean car would have been long forgotten in the scrap yard, the mercedes benz
would just be starting its useful service life.
the renewable energy option by its very nature attracts droves of people with the promise of low maintenance, low
cost and durability. that is why you see most solar panels with warranty of up to 25yrs, batteries with service life up to
8, 10 and 15 years, charge controllers outliving the very systems they were initially installed to charge. i could go on
but you get the general idea. therefore i get worried when peeps become comfortable with the idea of batteries
which last maximum of two years and are changed out and they see this as normal? inverters which only serve you for a
year or two and after wards send you running to the electronics repair shop. imagine if you have to climb your roof every
other year to change your solar modules? how clumsy would that be? but this is what we do with our batteries. this is
what we do with our inverters. this is what we do with our charge controllers, etc all because we think we are saving
money going for 'low cost' alternatives. put together, all those low quality batteries we changed out over time could
have given us a trojan or hoppecke battery that would have lasted the whole of 15 years! put together, all those low
quality, average inverters changed out over time could have given us a sunnyboy or a xantrex or a magnum, etc that
would have lasted the better part of 10 years! so, how wise do we make out at the end of the day buying lower quality
alternatives that only give us pain in the long run? maybe we should ask the man visiting the mechanic after just two
years of purchasing that korean model car while his mercedes benz counterpart keeps cruising around in his sleek auto
without any care in the world!

so lets do a trojan battery group buy....who is game?

but come to think of it..i think there is now a trojan battery registered distributor in nigeria now

shithapuns,

i am for trojans anytime, any day. cut me in when ready!

I could commit to some trojans too

Greetings to this great forum
I have been a silent reader of this forum for a long time. I must say it is an impressive group to be for anyone in renewable energy (or even aspiring to be in) deal.
There are tons of useful informations in here.
One of the reasons I only read n say little is because I do commercial installations.
I've been in renewable energy business for quite a long time and have some experiences and a fair enough technical background on it.
Well, I feel I should start contributing.

To start with, I'll love to share one of my recent casual installations which I'm still doing test and monitoring;

Config:
12*230W panels
16*6v 225AH Trojan Battery in 48v configuration
5KVA Cyberpower Inverter
60A Tristar MPPT
10kva Prag Stabilizer

Panels, inverter, battery, meter

Stabilizer & Distribution separation

This is stage 1. The panels and the batteries are going to be 24 pcs each.
The Protection accessories are on the way to Naija.
The construction of the structure that will sit the 24 panels is on going.

The structure will also serve as a car park as shown in the image below

Before I proceed I'll love to give a very good shout out to Oga Georg and other ogas at the top of this group.

Georg_D, Congratulations on your recent upgrade. I'm sure you are thinking of expanding your power output in future that's why you spent that amount of money on the cascadable version of the Magnum Inverter.

I will love to post more pictures of some of my installations

I'm a regular installer of Prag Servo Regulators as shown in some of my pixs below.

I'm wondering if you are aware that the 220V displayed on the regulator is actually not the output voltage reading (I search this forum and the entire nairaland to find out if this has been mentioned any were but couldn't fine any). It is just a number reading permanently on the LED screen. the output voltage also varies with the input to as low as 180v like in one occasion that public power supply was 164v.

To me, that is deception.
Well that's a personal opinion though.

I have read through the forum and noticed that a lot of people want an entry level configuration in to renewable energy.
Here is one of the simple entry level config pictures I've used of recent and derived satisfactory results at low cost:

Just to share some more pixs of my installations:

10kVA Servo Regulator, 3.5kVA INVERTER & 860AH (2V 430AH GNB Asolyte Batteries in 4 packs of 6 2V batteries each) 24V Battery Bank, 6*230w PSC Solar panel Powering a 3 Bedroom Residence

The panels are just the recent upgrade.

10kVA Servo Regulator (not shown in the pix), 3.5kVA INVERTER & 860AH (2V 430AH GNB Asolyte Batteries in 4 packs of 6 2V batteries each) 24V Battery Bank Powering a 4 Bedroom Residence

20 kVA Central Servo Regulator, 3.5kVA inverter system with 24V 800AH battery in

3.5kVA Mopower Inverter 48V 400AH Battery System powering a 6 Bedroom 2 story residence.

The distribution separation was neatly concealed behind a woodwork

7KVA Cyberpower Powering 3 treadmills in a hotel

A simple backup for a cyber cafe

simple 3.5kva cyberpower 200ah for a residence

Funny set up
2.2kva Modified sinewave Cyberpower came in here at first as a temporally replacement (low cost) to the faulty system that was there before but eventually out performed the previous and became permanent. The only issue here is the charging time. An external 20A charger was later added to the unit.

richmon74: Funny set up
2.2kva Modified sinewave Cyberpower came in here at first as a temporally replacement (low cost) to the faulty system that was there before but eventually out performed the previous and became permanent. The only issue here is the charging time. An external 20A charger was later added to the unit.

Nice work richmon. I particularly like that car park installation. Pls keep us up to date with that. Interesting thing you mention about those prags. I've instalaled a couple myself and output is always 220V . It surprising you say 164V was only stabilized up to 185V, that one might be faulty. Will have a closer look at some of mine though.

Thanks and keep up the great work.

Edit: Had a closer look and your right. Its never really steady on 220V. THey should put the 220V as target output and not just output. Kind of deceptive there. Thanks for the heads-up

abt d prag. i actually opened the stab to see whats in it. well i was satified. i then connected separate meters to display the input and output

the good part. output was nwvwr above 230 irrespective of how high d inpiut was.

the output however was fluctuating as d input was fluctuating.even at 210 input the output kept rotating btw 225 and 215.
the prag is not 100% perfect but for now its d best alternative available.
my century relay stab ususly outputs 245 wit input of 140 which was responsible for a fault on one of my inverters.

So I have noticed this flaw since day one of use...but I felt its still ok provided ur input doesn't go below 140 when d output also goes below 180.
Guys please enjoy ur prag

I USE THE SERVO ALSO...I THINK THAT PARTICULAR UNIT U MENTIONED HAS A FACTORY FAULT.....mine only give 190v~`when the input is about 135v.....anything above 140v am sure of a steady 220v.......thats why the relay stab is slightly better as it accepts input voltage as low as 120v......unlike the servo that the minimum input voltage is 130v

@richmon...good job on the pictures and info......nigerians are really coming up to use inverters/alt energy....i learnt haier thermocool now have an inverter line...it appears people are yet to embrace it?......i have been searching for it in shops...still no show....maybe they will have it in their lagos showroom on adeola odeku str vi?...can some1 confirm this?

@richmon nice work. pls which solar mount are u using?

idsolar: @richmon nice work. pls which solar mount are u using?

Custom made using flat bars

richmon74,

it's quite refreshing to know we have an installer in our midst who has been following the thread so
diligently. the pictures really say a lot about your solar prowess. thanks for your input.

as for the prag stabilizer, i too have noticed exactly what you discovered about the output voltage and i'm very
disappointed. first it was with sukam. the inverter has its own input voltage display separate from the stabilizer.
every time i checked, the two never seemed to match. initially i thought it was due to different calibration of the
meters. then i used a stand alone meter to check and discovered that the stabilzer was the culprit. the stand alone
meter gave a reading much lower than the displayed voltage of 220v. at a different time, it was with cyberpower.
somehow, it began to dawn on me that the excitement about prag servo stabilizers out performing other brands may
have been misplaced. depending on the input voltage, the prag will only maintain an output of 220v beyond a point
after which the voltage drops significantly. a few weeks ago, we had a case of low voltage in our area and the
cyberpower could not charge the battery bank despite being on stabiliser. we almost concluded that the inverter
charging circuit was bad until we now tried again at another time when there was stable public power and it was
charging normally.

this definitely is the height of deceit from prag. and personally i do take such things seriously as it bothers
on integrity.

Why do some people hype prag stab a lot ?? Prag servo aint the only servo stabilizer in the open market please! I have used vectron, mega & matsushita 10kva servo stabs and they were all very efficient .... #cheers#

@kie ke..pls post pictures if possible and price of such stabs...do u know their lowest input voltage?.............I wonder why prag seems to be the stab of cjoice when peeps talk about >10kva servo stabs...seems the other makes aren't doing their marketing well...never heard of them..........happy with my prag...but pissed off at the 130v least voltage input...it keeps on tripping on/off whenever the voltage is in the 125 ~ 132v band..............I wish it was 80v or worst case 100v.

can anybody confirm if a 1.5kva luminoiusinverter /any inverter can power a 350liter double door fridge [haier thermoccool]?...the chart on inverter.com.ng says it can......but want hands on experience pls

earthrealm:

can anybody confirm if a 1.5kva luminoiusinverter /any inverter can power a 350liter double door fridge [haier
thermoccool]?...the chart on inverter.com.ng says it can......but want hands on experience pls

Yes it can. If you have other loads on it up to 30% before you try switching on the fridge, you might experience a trip off of the inverter (overload) but if the system is switching from public power there will be no problem.

earthrealm: @kie ke..pls post pictures if possible and price of such stabs...do u know their lowest input voltage?.............I wonder why prag seems to be the stab of cjoice when peeps talk about >10kva servo stabs...seems the other makes aren't doing their marketing well...never heard of them..........happy with my prag...but pissed off at the 130v least voltage input...it keeps on tripping on/off whenever the voltage is in the 125 ~ 132v band..............I wish it was 80v or worst case 100v.

The first picture below havs 3 different servos on the left:

BTEC 10kVA
MEGA 10kVA
NEUTEC 5kVA

All of them have been working simultaneously for years now with very smooth output voltages (far better than PRAG 10kVA & 5kVA)

The second image is a BRIAN 5kVA with the same output characteristics of the above three.

The build and cct of the above servos are all the same. Just change of names.
I have particularly used the BRIAN 5kVA for 12yrs now. It's an excellent product. I have never had any reason to open it nor do anything on it (not even dusting it) for that period of time and I have supplied a lot of clients who are very happy with it for yrs now. Ironically, I have a friend of mine who has fried a couple of his in his office. So don't quote me to mean 'they are indestructible'.