₦airaland Forum

dapsyra:
I have since learnt not to buy these so called high quality high-tech equipment where cheaper equivalents exist.

The quality @Barezzi mentioned as reason to buy high priced brands translates into two factors; performance and longevity.

Performance of top brands might be better than their Chinco equivalent on the surface but when you factor in price differentials the story might change. I most cases, performance difference is not more than 20% (where it exist) but price difference is in the order of 30-100%. On this point, one is therefore better off buying the cheaper Chinco version.

Longevity on the other hand is also not a very good factor to consider when buying High-Tech gadgets. Today's state-of-the-art gadgets will be obsolete in one or two years. While the equipment might still work very well, the allure for improved performance and better features will force you to drop the equipment long before it's end of life. If I may ask, how many people are still using that expensive, durable Nokia 3310 we all bought back then? New technologies have since forced us to retire it despite the fact that it is still working perfectly well.

One of the main limitation of Solar Panel deployment is space. I give you a practical example. More than ten years ago, I purchased and installed my first set of Solar Panels. They were 4units, 80W mono panel. Very expensive state-of-the-art panels for those days. Three years ago, I decide to upgrade because Solar panels have become cheaper, more efficient and smaller. I purchase 6units 300W Chinco (Roysolar) panels. Although my old panels were still working very well, I got rid of them because of space inefficiency and backward incompatibility. The space occupied by the old 320W panels is now sufficient to mount 900W of the new panels. Who knows what will be available in another 10years? Most of us in the forum will gladly get rid of our current "expensive" panel if a new technology suddenly appears that shrinks the size of the panel by half. This will allow for installation of more wattage on the same space.

With my Chinco panels, I have harvested more than 10MWh and it is still going strong with an efficiency of over 4kwh/kw on a sunny day. How many people with the high priced panels have efficiencies that is better than that?

If you are just venturing into renewable energy, I seriously recommend that you don't throw away your hard earned cash buying high-end products. You might just be paying for the name and durability that you don't need. Look out for equally good cheaper alternatives with the features you require. New innovations in technology will force you to replace it before their end-of-life.

After all, we now live in a disposable world, as far as technology is concern.

For the most part, I support the above post. every component that I use is from tier 2 solar producers. Yet the above should not be taken for suspending due diligent. The biggest advantage of premium products (including solar) is the brand of quality which assures the users that the product had undergone best practise in production and best production materials. Premium brands generally have a name to protect and as such you can be assured what you getting is top notch.

for value brands, the user gets the product cheaper but pays the extra cost by doing his own due diligence and research. E.G Sunshine panels has been proven to be a decent PV but don't be naive, the market is full of crappy solar panels that are not worth 40% of their rated power and will not take you far at all.. From Inverters to controllers, PV and batteries buyers beware applies to non premium / value brands.

I have some check I apply when procuring a product.. I check the word of mouth from previous and current users,
I check for international review of the product if available (most products in Nigeria are sold under a brand name but usually have their international OEM e.g IpowerPlus Solar inverters are actually voltronic axpert inverters
then I check for the web presence of the producer.. I go to youtube if their manufacturing process is available..
Lastly I do my own physical inspection to make sure at least prima facie the product is OK.

mank1234:
The yield is impressive.
I'm wondering why folks would prefer to spend almost double on brands like solarworld!

Quality and durability. We often forget that a solar panels should last for over 25 years. Many PV might start proper but degrade at a very rapid rate down the years. You experience things like burnout of the silicon and drop in yield.

twinskenny:
had similar issue solved with help of white or yellow cement..

can u please expatiate on the above. You mean I should use just white/yellow cement and I should not mix white + normal cement?

teamman:
I take exceptions to all you have written. Telling me to act matured is rude bigrovar.

Actually what I said was "Learn to express yourself and your opinion without using colourful languages, it shows maturity and good breeding." I was telling you to learn to express your opinion without colorful languages or insults. If you see that as rudeness than my apologies although I find it ironic that you see the above statement as rude given the statement I was responding to.

I only said the information he gave about coscharis was wrong that all. How could he have said l was throwing tantrums. Haba. However I will let this pass

That is all you should have said minus the name calling.

bigrovar:
Hi guys. This is a bit of a long one:

So I have been away (hustling and stuff) and decided to build a low budget functional house for my family and stop the house rent which is becoming a drain. I decided to build on a 50 by 50 plot of land. A basic 2 bedroom bungalow.

I did very basic floor plan (see attached) to allow for enough space for rooms and a packing space which can take 2 cars. I used this tool http://www.sweethome3d.com/ for my floor plan.

Due to my busy schedule, I left the supervision with my brother since he had experience in construction. He hired the technicians and hands for the project while I provided money.

They took the project to lintel level when I came back to inspect it. Unfortunately I was very unhappy with what I saw. Here are my concerns


1) Against my instruction, my brother still went on to mix 9 inches with 6 inches for the outter walls. I told him to use 9 inches for the outter walls of the house all through and reserve the 6inches for the house. This was not done instead 9 inches blocks was used up to window level and 6 inches used to lintel level. I fear that this might affect the structural integrity of the house in future, since the house was designed not to have pillers and DPC was not used in the 3 course foundation.

2) I halted the roofing of the house because the carpenter recommended I use head course which is a casting done round the house 2 courses after the lintel. Is this really necessary?


My brother said the style of laying 6inch blocks on 9inch was fine since I wont be doing parapet and the soil was dry and good and " people do it alot without issues" but am not sold.

Is they any remedy to this before roofing? please gurus in the house. I would appreciate your take. I have attached pictures of the property in its current state.

Hi guys. here is an update on my kobo kobo two bedroom flat. Last time I was here. I needed opinion on how advisable it is to mix 9 inch blocks (to form the base of a bungalow from foundation to window level) with 6inch blocks from window level to lintel. Thanks to all who gave their feedback. The house has moved on since my last post and lots of progress has been made. If all goes to plan I hope to move in within the coming month.

The major problem I am having now is with the tiling. After the flooring and tiling of the house was completed. I noticed some problems with the tiles. some form of discoloration of the joint where two tiles meet. This problem affected the 2 bedroom, living room and kitchen tiles. Non of the bathroom tiles was affected. I initially thought the problem was as a result of bad filling after tile were installed. so I called another tiler to redu the filling. However a day later. I started noticing the same decolonization happening.

I was informed that it might be moisture from the ground.. however if that is the case, why wasn't any of the birthroom floor or even the balcony affected?.. The land is very dry even when we dug the septic tank, we didn't meet water (and that was during the raining season) The flooring and tiling were all done doing the dry season.

I have attached an image that show case the problem.

The first image was after the tiling job was finished (Job was finished sometimes in November, picture was taking mid December

The second image was after the previous filling job was removed and the tiles refilled (using a mixture of white cement and cement)

teamman:
Name calling wont help you. Ignorance is an aliment you suffer from. You had all these information and you were spewing wrong information. Grow up. Kobian still produces for rideplus. What is the difference between logistics and what you wrote. You just want to sound knowledgeable all the time however the harder you try the more you are exposed.

Haba this is totally out of place. How would you feel if you had a son or or younger one who is reading what you are posting. Your post above is completely unprovoked and unnecessary. If you bare a grudge with someone abeg, don't bring the matter to this thread. You won't die from being civil. Your post have just degraded this forum one step closer to the gutters. Learn to express yourself and your opinion without using colourful languages, it shows maturity and good breeding. The world is watching and you never know with life where you will end up or who will be behind that door that will take u to the next level. Live up to your name and be a team player.

samnaija:
Why are we deceiving our self's on this thread. At the beginning of this wonderful thread there was a strict code of no sales or adverts to entice people. Along the line this was eroded.
So what you have is sellers pushing sometimes not all the time substandard products to endusers. Then the conflict begins. The two sides leash war on thread.
Can I point out this is a DIY thread. Where people come to share their personal experience on their solar journey.
I am grateful to some peps but more to George d always updating us on his project. Bros we miss u.
But what I recently notice some people have forgotten this is a DIY thread. Your real life solutions to problems you or others encounter with your system. Is what we all here to interact with.
This is the internet you are dealing with a faceless person .on your dealing an element of caution must be in place...let us not overlook what we are here for share, contribute, and learn.

This thread is not perfect. but it remains a DIY thread. over 95% of post here is remains problem solving or technical discussions. In a perfect world they would be no adverts. Yet how many here will say they have not sold or benefited from the sellers we have here? Kiekie, Juo and zeestone99 are all also contributors and have helped and joined in the discussion on many occasions. I have reached out to them many times offline and they have helped me out of tight situations. Solar is what bring food to their table and we have a large pool of solar enthusiast so I rather see ads on solar panels and inverter here than see one about something completely irrelevant to the discuss... as long has the ads are from members of the community we should not begrudge them. What will kill this thread is lack of respect for opinion and disregard for civil discussion.

In life.. S**t can happen. Go to Amazon / AliExpress review section, even the most highly related item have reviews that would shock you. Same with brick and mortal. It would be so nice to have a place like home depot in Nigeria but alas we do not have the customer base to support such. Kiekie, Juo and many other seller on here have handled thousands of deals that have gone smoothly without issues. How we handle conflicts matter alot.

Even oga George once had issues with someone who claim he got a wrong panel from what was advertised to him. In the end things were resolved. It is important that we always find path of least conflict in all our dealings. Here is an example.

I once bought some used panels from a member here. When the panels were delivered. Found out one had experienced burn out and had a wound. The other was ok but both didn't gave stickers to verify they were truly first grade panels that was claimed. I was very angry and at first felt cheated. Thankfully I calmly involved the seller about my observations. He was sorry and promised to send another panel to replace the bad one. He did.. And added yet another one even though I told him he would receive delayed payment. 2 day I gave 4 extra panel. The one with the burn out still works with almost zero degrade in harvest compared to the rest. And I got it for free. Today me and Seller are still in good terms.

How we handle conflict matters alot. I have once refunded a buyer of my PWM with a replacement after he complained of what I sold him. Till date I never got the replacement. I didn't complain or insult him. Even when he reach out to me recently. Throwing insult will not get any body anywhere.

For sellers : we learn everyday and am sure everyone would have taken a lesson or two from this episode.

Cover yourself : never give warranty beyond what you are given by the product manufacturer.

Never give warranty on a used product. It should be a case of buyers beware.

Spell out the terms of sale. Let the buyer know the level of support he is to expect from you.

No body knows it all. Our sellers have been great for the most part. We should not forget the customized service and support we get from them. Millions naira worth of transactions has taken place here without an hitch with both parties going home smiling. Let's remember that

dezo:
Its because of issues like this i always prefer driving down and buying from registered companies with warranties (Aedunamis prag etc)and not resellers. When dealing with resellers on this forum if you are not a known person in this solar section just pray you dont have issues with goods bought, if you do, all 'known' persons will always back the reseller. Bought an inverter recently from a known reseller here and it never even worked for a minute. I just jejely asked for his repair guy and bore the cost. Life goes on..

I can only speak for myself not anyone. I don't get what is meant by known person. Regarding the Juo matter, I reached out to him back stage and to hear his side of the story. From all I got from all he told me is that according to him, the story is longer than what was stated here. There have less than cordial transaction history which raised lots of bad blood. He felt insulted choose not to respond. I have had dealings with Juo before where I got some used battery. 6 in all. 2 where not up to my requirement and Juo insist I return them. In fact he sent me the replacement (at his own cost) before I sent him the faulty batteries. The story here is uncharacteristic of my dealings with him. I do hope that when the blood cools he would come on here to say his own part of the story and most importantly so that both party can come to an acceptable agreement.

makavele:
You couldn't have worded it any better.
More like a "solar caucus" . . .
Instead of sitting on the fence; they would all back the "known individual"
as if the fools are on his payroll.

Rubbish

Yeye dey smell

It seems you can't open your mouth without using colourful language. Does it make you feel taller or that is just how you were brought up. Issues comes up all the time. Considering the amount of transactions that takes place on this forum back stage without issues its no surprise that once in a while problems comes up its part of life. What is important is how this things are resolved and handled. I am doing my bit to talk to the party I know back stage so that this matter can be put to rest. I am sure many on here are also doing same.

jarkbauer:
I intend to combine it with NEPA light.

In this world, only thing that is certain is the sun!.. It is best exclude things you can't control and that are notoriously unstable e.g NEPA from your calculation. For me, NEPA is treated as bonus points

jarkbauer:
I currently have a 1.5KVA 24volts inverter
2 200amps batteries.

I want to add solar array.

Please Can someone tell me what I need if I want to add solar.

Thanks.

Putting the cart before the house. Do a simple energy audit. How many appliance do you intend to power and for how long. This would allow you have a good estimate of your daily power consumption which will in turn make it clear how much energy you need generate from solar to keep your batteries in the green. My advise is to trim your consumption to about 960WH which is about 40% depth of discharge. Then get at least 4 250w solar panels. Design your system to run heavy loads like fridge/freezers only during day and leave night loads for lights, fans and TV. That way you can keep your nightly discharge lite and not have to worry about draining your batteries or filling them up the next morning. Less your discharge over night, less is required to top up = more energy available for running heavy loads while the sun is shinning. An Energy audit is the cheapest and most rewarding effort any potential solar off-grider needs to embark on.

DMerciful:
My People,

i made this request before and i am making it again.
kindly recommend an air conditioning unit brand that consumes low power such that i can conveniently power with my inverter.

thanks

any of the LG/Samsung "Inverter AC" should do. They are the most efficient in the market. At they do not have start up current

regarding the effect of mixing batteries. Here is an email I set to battery supplier after one of their batteries failed kobalizing the other batteries in the bank.

I would like to bring to your attention the state of one of the batteries deployed under the Tertiary Institutions Knowledge Center (TIKC). I noticed that the uptime of the Inverter deployed has reduced considerably. I did a voltage test of all the batteries in the bank. (See attached) and noticed one of the batteries attached to Inverter 1 can no longer hold a charge and now displays 11.7v when under charge.

From the attached notes u can see that while the rest of the bank is in float 13.* v, the string that has the shorted battery stuck at 11.7 are all doing 14.* v when there should be at float. This is what causes gasing.

kiekie1:
Hello, kindly use a digital multimeter to read the individual charge voltage of batteries .. I don't really advocate mixtures of old & new sets of batteries in any situation to save you the stress of cumbersome trouble shooting ! Cheer's

+1
You are witnessing the effect of mixing batteries (old and new or mixing products) the difference in internal resistance forces the stronger battery to get more than their share of charge and load... the stronger battery gets over charged and over worked.

Feshizzy:
Thank you kind sir for you swift response,
Batteries are AGM and the inverter have it settings to the letter, the current charge has 3 profile, low/medium/high and it is on the medium setting.
Forgive my ignorance,
But has there been known cases of inverter having failed algorithm and fixed?

Regards,
EF

That battery is being over charged to the point of gassing which is forcing it to lose water (never good for AGM as water lost can't be replaced) get a multi meter and check the battery voltage when it is charging. What is the name of your inverter

olagunju2000:
Thanks Niyi.

I still have challenges achieving full charge everyday. In most cases, i get past bulk charging to Absorption phase around 4pm everyday except yesterday that i got to floating stage because we had grid supply BY MISTAKE!!!

I try to ensure i don't go below 55% DOD as I am practically living off grid. We only get power supply whenever there is a major fault

A quick question, i am planning to increase my panels so as to cover for my day use and also enough to fully charge the battery for the night. What brand of panel are you using? I am considering 300w Joysolar or may be Sunshine. Is there any other reasonably priced panels i could explore?

Thanks

My advise. Get a panels from a tier 1 solar company. Or a strong tier 2. They are bit more expensive but pay of in the long run and they might actually give u more than some of these black China products like sunshine and joysolar. The first set of products are usually OK and decent.. Once they gain market share.. Subsequent imports end up being crap. Also remember solar PV are suppose to last 25 years. They last longest of all your PV components besides cables so your investment in panel should be over a 20 years at least. Many black China panels are will last tops 10 years if u are lucky. Most degrade even faster. I have seen numerous joysolar installations that have suffered from cell burn out. It's is a common problem with joysolar. Sunshine is just not it for me. Maybe the first set were really good. Present ones in the market I will not recommend. Best PVs are those produced via fully automated production line removing room for human error. With stake naira and PV prices coming down. You can get a good 250w panel at sub 60k price and they would give u rest of mind. Any PV whose name and review you can't find on Google is suspicious. Google the company, read their profile and user review. Also check on YouTube. Jinko, Canadian Solar, Yingli, solar world, etc are some of the names brand you can get and go to sleep. Only time I will go for a tier 3 provider is if am getting it for almost free in which case I have nothing to lose.

makavele:
It depends on individual preferences though ; for example; some people cannot stay with air conditioning . . .
hence more batteries and/or solar panels.
While some can do with a ceiling/standing fan overnight . . .

The most important thing is, if you won't be powering heavy appliances;
then there is no need for an insane battery and/or solar bank.

Except you wanna show off; at which point it becomes a thing of either foolishness or wasteful spending.

I use microwave, energy efficiency does not mean live like a monk. Juo uses electric Iron. Energy efficiency is about doing more with less.. If you have the money and AC is a priority then by all means but at least save energy in other areas. For me and I know many do not have the luxury here.. Energy conservation is at the back of my mind .. its one of the most important parameter I choose when I want to pick an apartment. Well ventilated windows. In the construction of my house I made sure to use large windows that are located to the north side to reduce impart of the sun. Colour of your roof, creation of roof attic ventilation to prevent build up of heat in the root attic which then sips into the house via the "man hole" I was going to use hydraulic compressed bricks due to their excellent thermal resistance but lack of know how in my area. But I intend to plant flowers and trees that will help in keeping the house cool requiring less need for AC. Worked on a design of the plumbing of the house so that grey water from the washing machine, kitchen and bathroom can be channelled into drip irrigation for the house trees, garden and flowers. will help to reduce my energy footprint.

Lastly, I made sure the kitchen used white tiles so that a 6w LED bulb will provide sufficient illumination due to the whites bouncing lights amplifying it's intensity. 90% of outdoor lights are small solar motion controlled lights are are dim by default and brightens when there sense motion. They come with their own batteries and tiny solar modules and are as such disconnected from the house. They come on at night and go off automatically.

All the above I did to ensure I use less energy in the house. It doesn't mean I wont have operate my washing machine or microwave on solar. but at least I spent some time in tweaking and optimising the energy needs.

makavele:
I have dozens of this in my house . .

Recently, I had to replace all the bulbs in my house with the 5W cool-white LED bulbs . . . 45 in all

(minus 14 x 3W spotlights)

Thats 45 X 5 watts (max) = 225W if they are turned on concurrently

Cos I came to realize it is cheaper to save energy than it is to generate it.

I got tired of preaching this. It does help to take a chill pill on the massive upgrades and consider optimization of loads for efficiency. The less power you use. The more what you generate will cover. When you understand peukert effect on battery charge and discharge rate, the impact of depth of discharge on life span of a battery and the need to ensure your battle receive a daily cycle to 100% state of charge.. all this point to 1 thing. ensure that every 100w you generate for you system is most optimally utilised. That 100w can power a 42 Inch TV at moderate screen settings, 2 electric fans and 6 5w light bulbs if you know what you doing. 2018 is Year 3 of doing renewable. It means 3 years of 2 220AH batteries providing 24/7 power to a household and never once the battery gone below 45% depth of discharge not once in 3 years has the battery gone a day without getting fully charged. This is what it means to have a system designed for maximum efficiency.

Ijeoma660:
@mcTrinity @NiyiOmoIyunade @makavele

Thank you for all the selfless support you are providing here...

Please I am about setting up and commencing my DIY solar project. I have

i. a 3KW, 60A mppt CC
ii. 4nos PV panels whose capacity [wattage] were not stated but made by afromedia. i assume they about 250w each.
iii. 1.4KVA inverter and
iv. 2x200AH deep cycle batteries

Kindly advice what size and type of cable I require between the pv panels and the CC. The distance from pv panel to CC is estimated around 12m max.

for cable service you need to calculate voltage loss there are sites on the internet where you can calculate this by putting in the expected voltage from the panel to cc and from cc to battle. Standard practice is to ensure voltage loss between PV and CC stays between the 1-5% ball pack and battery to cc should not be more than 2%. Like Oga makavele said, do a test to figure out the VOC of the panel and its ISC. You can always use a multimeter just make sure you do your test around 12 noon on a sunny day. Test all your panel for VOC and ISC and then connect them a CC and battery and test the VMP and IMP. this should give u a close indication on the size of the panel. whatever u get, make sure it is original flexible wire for solar. I think Frankie sells some so U can reach out to him

DMerciful:
The pv configuration for mppt depends on the brand of controllers. while EPSolar works best with 3x3 configuration, fangpusun works best with 2x2 configuration where Voc is twice battery voltage. However, as a general rule, PV voltage should be atleast twice battery voltage but ensure the right cable thickness is used. one watchout for using 3-4times PV voltage compared to battery voltage is a tendency for the mppt CC power tube to fail especially during cold bright sunny morning where the max allowable Voc could be exceeded due to the illuminance that may exceed standard test condition so always create buffer btw the PV voltage and the max allowable Voc input to mppt.


Anyways i leave you with pictures of my remote monitoring using the epsolar ebox-DTU that allows monitoring and control over the internet anywhere in the world.

The above plus physics also comes to play. There is no way 250VOC panel on a mppt charger would charge a 12v battery bank as efficiently as it would charge a 48 or even 96v battery bank. with the 250v a lot of work is required to down convert to battery voltage of 12v, and more work means more energy.. more energy used in the down conversation process means less for the battery. it is just more efficient to leave the PV VOC to be about twice the battery voltage. Your mileage my differ based on the design of the CC. Episolar as stated above prefers a 3x3 because of its huge toroidal transformer and excellent heat dissipation of it's controllers. However Victron energy works best when the panel voltage is about double the battery nominal voltage. It is not written on any stone (rarely is anything nowadays) but it is just best practice for getting the most from your system.

israelpalatoe:
Do you think that is how they started?
We have found ourselves at the bottom, we need to use bottom to top approach.
Are you saying we should not produce because we cant at the moment match with the production process of the developed world?
We are improving as people patronise us. We get motivations to invest more to learnings whenever we earn from our learnings.
We have drawn the map, we need your support to get there. We are building a brand, not a product only.

Goverment is not looking to invest hugly in such a sensitive area like developing our tech. Majority of us has been doing self financing.
Note: I'm not saying that you should buy out of pity or sentiment. We have grown beyond that.........Try us....!

before we try you. show us your product. We are a technical bunch on here and even before we buy recommend any product (US or china) we always do our research. Do the review and tire down let see if your sword is made of Valyrian steel. try us we not cut it much here

DMerciful:
I understand all what you said but we need repeatability and reproduceability of their products as well as using factory process that ensures high quality control. The world has moved beyond backyard business for things like this

Yet many Chinese products, including many inverters we rate highly here are produced using "backyard process" only thing that guaranties "repeatability and reproduceability" is factory automation. Even in the far east it cost a lot to have fully automated factories only tier 1 solar companies can afford them. Majority of Chinese producers carry out most of their manufacturing in dingy, basements or old farm houses.. many no name black china products which floods Nigerian market are produced with little quality control yet they don't have the issue the Nigerian manufacturer have to deal with like power, lack of basic infrastructure or trained man power and a vampire government. The lad here might not have the scale to mass produce but this thing takes time. Let him show us what he has done first.

DMerciful:
Makavele you harsh o
loool @ "trust you to incinerate me in my sleep; no way!"

While it is good to patronise made in Naija but i will only go for factory process product with seriously quality control consistent with global standard.

Let us take a note from the Indians. They are one nation that have completely grown their own renewable industry based on their own experiences and in the process have become not just self sufficient but also earn forex exporting renewable energy products around the world from batteties, inverters, solar panels and controllers. Some of the biggest brands of inverters in Africa today are Indians from batteries to inverters. Rather than import and depend on likes of Trojan they built their own battery making industry with batteries that can compare with western brands in terms of durability. The likes of Luminous, Sukam, Genus, Quanta to mention a few. Sukam even partnered with Trojan to make batteries for the Indian market.
Yet all this started from humble beginning. U should go watch the story of the Sukam founder how he started the business. It wasn't from factory but from his backyard. He built learned and got better and better rest is history.

Other than the true trusted US OECD country brand of product.. Many of the products coming from China are garbage and should not come near a home. They were hand built using cheap components, crapy capacitors and dangerous engineering.. Many Chinese companies are nothing but fraudulent in their ways and will sell a pwm and mppt. The Chinese do not have the culture for standards and quality of the Japanese even Taiwanese companies are doing better.

Now am not one of the buy Nigeria blindly type.
As Oga makavele said. Do a review of your product.. Especially a tire down let us see what it is made of and get quality feedback on where to improve. The Indians built their inverters and batteries to suit their own local market and needs. Our feedback will help u shape your products for the better. While it is my hope that we build an indigenous self sufficient renewable industry exporting world wide.. Am more concern by quality of our products. We need to embrace standard not race to the bottom approach of the Chinese and also not the scam hoodwink approach of Zinox and Co who only weep sentiments

babaegun:
Well, for the Raspberry Pi 3, it comes with inbuilt wireless and bluetooth connection. So just add it to your wifi at home and thats all.

Data usage is actually very small because it is in text/csv format say like couple of kb.

I will advice against opening your device too much to the internet less your CC becomes part of a botnet. Hackers are using all freely/non-secured IOTs to DDOS all around the world.

my problem with the home wireless solution is one more power hungry device. With a small usb data dongle connected to the Rpi you can have it do it's thing irrespective of an external wireless device. My home don't currently have a central wireless system because am yet to see the need in the age of mobile phone tethering, almost everyone has a data connected phone in the house. With regards to hacking.. changes are quite small. most consumer grade internet service provider don't give live IP to their customers. in fact you are access the web via their own giant NAT hence whatever ip you are given can't be routable anywhere but within their network and many of them (particularly MTN) have round robin IP address allocation system where by your IP address is always changing... Lastly every connected system should have a firewall.. block all then allow, configure fail2ban and enable automatic security update and you should be fine. most IOT devices are hopeless insecured even (and especially) wireless routers many of them carry out dated fimwares which have known exploits yet have not been patched. A Rpi in the hands of a capable person is a much more safer option IMHO

babaegun:
@dapsyra

If you can extract the api´s from the midnight classic website, then it is a piece of cake cause thats exactly how i upload to pvoutput.org. I pick the api´s from emoncms and upload to pvoutput.org

You´ll need a raspberry pi, install php on it, internet connection, schedule it on crontab and voila, you are up an running with your live data.

How does the pi connect to the internet. My plan is to have it rigged up to a data modem with internet connection. About 500mb of data should last 2 months for uploading real time to the net. It might even allow for sending remote commands from the internet if the cc supports it. With internet of things being the new IT craze. More and more devices would come with internet cloud connectivity built in.

Barezzi:
Dapsyra, Do you still enter your production data to pvoutput.org manually or you've found a way to automate the process?

Get a $30 raspberry pi if you have knowledge of Linux you can attach it to a USB dongle and have it upload the csv or relay the data real time. There are lots of python scripts online that can do this using pvoutput.org API. Nothing too hard if you set your mind to it.

pranil:
Older ipower are 3 years max wht do you expecet 1/6 of the price of similar sized brand name invetter +CC plus display combo

the newer model is more robust but PV has to be Grid panels in series atleast 11 of 250 Watt

https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/pip-ge-series-high-pv-volt/

So the newer Ipowerplus are same as newer models coming from. Axpert / mpp solar?

And damn.. How do this people do it. I would keep my fingers crossed and see how well the new models perform over a period. Chinese Taiwanese are known for cutting corners which might end up affecting durability.

pranil:
somebody posted about ipower error 52 ( low bus voltage) i cannot find the thread. But normally the errors with bus voltage low or high are due to failed capacitors or signs of impending failure.

If the machine is pre-March 2017 then more the reason. Voltonics started using better capacitors after March 2017 and now allow up to 61 V on 48 V model and equalization

If the model is not with equalization setting then it is the old one

Unfortunately, the only solution is to replace the main board ( 70 to 130 K)

Was the setting on CC or other chargers in the system set above 58 V DC then most likely high DC voltage is the culprit - The old capacitors have a 2000 Cycle life and wear out faster at higher voltages

It was me. Thanks for the insight. We got the inverters as a donation from a government agency sometimes in 2016. The error made me lose confidence in the durability of the ipower / axpert inverters.

Also, is there a reason nobody mentioned Outback

thanks

One clear advantage of Midnite over outback is internet connectivity out of the box, with outback you either get another addon device (MATE 2 or something like that) or go into the word of hacking together a 3rd party solution using something like a raspberry pi. Midnite is just the clear leader although I am more in the Victron energy camp due to their level of support and use of IT enhancements

pranil:
Nope has a password lock

But it is just an 3 pin plug so can be easily removed and plug directly inserted into the socket . But makes a nice loud alarm sound once the load goes above alarm value before tripping the output if the trip threshold is met ( has time to avoid peak spurious triipngs)

I even asked the company if they will make a wired version but no plans yet

if you have money to spend and don't mind tinkering the smart sockets like TPlink and Samsung smart things also have a power threshold alarm and a notification on the phone ( need full time wifi though in house)

Egbon pranil abeg drop me your mail or mail me at bigbrovar on Gmail I have some questions on Ipowerplus. The unit we have randomly throws up error 52 taking AC out offline until inverter is reset. This happens mostly during switch over from gen to NEPA but not always. If u have experience on such issues or about fixing those inverters drop it here so bad bad it can be filed into the knowledge bank

makavele:
Let me break it down for you sir . .

What do you mean sun intensity to calculate . . ? LOL

You be confirmed olodo

I need real life answers . . . So i go to my lounge; hook up a multimeter and see what is coming in . . . How simple can it get . .

I don't even take into account what the Charge Controller is telling me, i check voltage and current and resistance manually . . .

That's an overkill for practicality . . .

Back to you: Let's be honest and serious for once . . .

Even with a Yachi, Yingli, Solarworld, CanadianSolar or brazilian whatever . . in real life specs; you cannot get 91% of panel specs . .

That is the answer he needs. So if we go back to why I told you all to discard the manuals, now you see it.

Under STC, a 100W panel should produce at least 99.9W of power . . . but if you are basing your judgements on STC, you are headed for an

epic world of failure or regrets.

He asked a question, f*ck the STC; give him a real life answer . . .

if he gets above that, good . . ; if he doesnt, then he won't be disappointed.

Let's watch how we talk to each other. Let's watch our language and explain our point with respect. You made a major goof about current flow between charger battery and load yet no one called you names we all took time to explain and correct your misconception. No one knows it all. The pride of this thread is that we manage to build a brotherhood, an oasis from the general ceaspet of insult and hate that NL can be. Let's maintain the decorum.

makavele:
Thanks to Bigrovar . .

you would never get close to the panel specs . . at most 77%; if you're lucky

no matter how the sun shines . . .

as a matter of fact; too much sunshine + poor ventilation = too much heat = reduced panel performance

I consistently get above those figures on my ground mounted array made up of mismatch of different panels from MyHome to Solarland non a tier one provider 240w x2 + 250w x 2 connected in series parallel. With a combined functional output of 960w I consistently do over 750w to 810w on a clear sunny day between 11 and 1pm. I have seen occasional pick of 900w before too.. But standard generation is way north of 700w on sunny days. Part of the reason for this is because they are ground mounted and face true south at 81 degree vertical tilt. A 4500w system installed on a carport with clear view of the sky and installed flat yet picking at 2.5kw is not doing fine especially when total generation stuck at 6kwh.. My 0.96kw system does 4kwh on a regular. Before talk about load, remember he uses a high capacity battery drained to 50% dod that's a lot of kwh that need be replaced. Something ain't right. There are folks on here with 3kw array cranking out 10kwh daily, some of them even hit 2.8kw and have the log files to show for it. Proper real time minute by minutes log files.

olagunju2000:
Good day house. Please i need your help to help review my setup as I am getting not up 60% of my installation capacity

I have the following

1) 15 pcs 300W mono solar panel (3 in series and 5 parallel)
2) Panel Spec:- VOC = 44.3, Isc = 8.93A, Vmp = 36V, Imp = 8.33A.
3) Based on the connection, Total V= 132V and I= 44.65A(Voc and Isc used in the computation).
4) I have a Master Charge Controller: Max 150V and 80A (48V system)
5) Battery setup: 24pcs of 2V 600A batteries connected in series to produce 48V.
6) The setup was installed 2 months ago.
7) The highest generation seen has been 6.1Kw/day on a sunny day.
I leave at Ajah area of Lagos
9) My Depth of discharge has been around 65% until last week when I was advised to use more to see if it will boost the production. I increase DOD to 45 - 50%
10) in Real time, the maximum that I have seen is 2400W.
11) Installation was carried out by a professional.
12) I check for loses, I am only losing average of 100W (comparing power from solar output measured under the solar shed and Controller output)

QUESTIONS:
1) my total installation capacity is 4500W (solar panel), out of which I am getting max of 2400W. Is this normal
2) Is there anything wrong with my installation.
3) The power generated has not been sufficient to charge my batteries. Is there a way to improve this

Please help

Number of things could be wrong. The first thing that caught my eyes is the controller. "Master Charge Controller" don't sound encouraging. Is it MPPT? even if it claims to be lots of controllers out there claim to be mppt yet don't mpp nothing. If it is PWM then what you are getting is inline with what is expected given how the panels are stringed. While PWM works best when the solar panel VMP is matched very close to the nominal voltage of the battery bank. MPPT works best when the panel VMP is generally about double the battery nominal voltage. If your controller is actually PWM then it explains the loss.

Another thing you might want to check is the cabling, the direction and tilt of the panel, if there are any natural obstruction blocking sun rays. After all this, you might want to check each panel to be sure they are working optimally. It is not uncommon especially with large panel installations for 1 or 2 panels to be completely dead or below per. a weak panel not only brings down the overall output of the string. It can also cause the working panels to short circuit and good bad completely.