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    • Are you a renewable energy installer looking to expand your business and provide the best possible service to your clients? Look no further than Powerforum , a leading platform for renewable energy solutions. By partnering with Powerforum and Powerforum Store, you can access a range of benefits that will help you grow your business and better serve your customers.

      Here are some of the benefits of partnering with Powerforum and Powerforum Store:

      Access to Exclusive Pricing: Powerforum Store has established agreements with Importers that allow us to offer the best possible pricing on equipment. This means you can provide your clients with high-quality products at competitive prices.


      Direct Manufacturer Support: Powerforum Store has direct lines of communication with manufacturers, allowing us to provide you with the latest information on new products and technology. This ensures that you are always up-to-date and can offer your clients the best solutions.


      Increased Visibility: By partnering with Powerforum, you gain access to a vast network of potential clients. We receive many inquiries from consumers looking for renewable energy solutions, and we can refer them to installers we trust. This increases your visibility and helps you attract new business.


      Reduced After-Sales Service Burden: Powerforum Store provides consumers with accurate information on products and installation best practices, helping them understand warranty conditions. This reduces the burden on installers to handle warranty issues and protects you from abuse of your services.


      Extensive Product Range: Powerforum Store offers a wide range of products, including wind turbines and solar panels, as well as expert technical support for any size installation or project. This allows you to provide your clients with tailored solutions that meet their specific needs.


      Access to Experienced Engineers: Powerforum has a team of experienced engineers in various fields, ready to assist with any project, regardless of size or complexity. This ensures that you have access to the expertise you need to deliver successful projects.




      If you’re an installer looking to partner with a reliable and reputable platform, Powerforum and Powerforum Store is the perfect choice. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you grow your business and better serve your clients. Wimpie Bronkhorst, our Commercial Sales Manager, is ready to communicate and negotiate with you to provide the support you need and can be contacted at [email protected]

      Don’t miss out on this opportunity to take your business to the next level.
      • 3 replies
    • Hey All

      We have another Awesome Powerforum Store Review and Lucky Draw Giveaway of a very nice Lithium Battery and some other soon to be disclosed goodies on its way....

      Thank you to the Team at Magneto Energy for providing us with equipment to test and review and the best part to let us give it away to one of the lucky members on our forum.

      Terms for you to be eligible 

      Must be a Power Forum Member. Yes even NEWB's Can win the product in the lucky draw.


      Must be willing to give feedback on a thread you create on your experience with the product.


      Allow the Manufacturer to communicate with you to get realworld information on how their product performs and some technical feedback for future improvements.


      If you win the product it must be installed by a qualified technician NO DIY Installs Please we need to support the professionals in the market.


      Provide us with nice photos of your Installation on the thread you created. 


      Cost of delivery or collection of the prize is for the winner.




      We will Post more details on the giveaway in the next couple of days. 

      Thanks for your Continued Support. 

      Powerforum Store
      • 66 replies
    • Vital to being able to keep within the inverter output limits (and avoid importing expensive grid power unnecessarily) is having the means to display the relevant information in an immediate and accessible way.

      That's what I told my wife, anyway.  Really, I'd just scored a bunch of old RC servos on ebay for £5 and I wanted to play with them. 😉


       

      In context:


       

      It uses 6 servos, a Wemos d1 mini clone and a tri-colour LED.  Dial faces are 3D printed, with a filament change from white to black (which turned out much better than I imagined, TBH).

      The servos only had around 90° of sweep angle, so I 3D printed some little holder/gearbox things to get over 180° and provide a shaft for the needle to go on, plus some 'steampunk' needles.



       

      All run buy the obligatory D1 mini and held together using the very latest in 'twist and tape' technology.


       

      Yee-haw! 🤠

      It gets fed the data from 'node-red' running on a Victron CerboGX via UDP packets over WiFi, updating as often as the data changes (approx 3 second intervals).  The LED changes colour according to state, so 'All OK' is green, 'You're getting very close to/exceeding the inverter output limit, so if you don't want to pay for grid, don't turn anything else on' is red, then blue for 'dumping power into the hot water tank'.

      It's by no means silent in operation.  I originally made a single-servo version for just PV generation and coded it so that the meter movements were gradual (a kind of PID to get from one value to the next), but apparently it 'sounded like we have cockroaches' when it made it's ticky-scratchy transitions between values, so the big version just jumps between values with a 'zzziiiiiup!' sound.

      It's actually quite reassuring to have an audible indication when the sun comes out for 5 seconds, or it starts charging at night.

      I'd also put a little radar sensor in there, with the aim of having it detect when there was nobody around, so it could stop displaying to save power/noise.  Unfortunately, that meant that every time you entered the room, all 6 needles would suddenly move at the same time, making you jump out of your skin and spill your horlicks, so we just leave it 'on' all the time now.

      There's also a basic web UI, so you can see the same data on your phone or whatever, plus it's useful for troubleshooting:


       

      I had fun and learned loads making it - and now it's become a family game to try to cook dinner without making the red light come on. 🙂

       

      Libraries used are 'ESPUI' and 'servo', plus 'arduinoOTA'.  Code, FreeCad file for the gearbox & stl file for the arrow-head needle are all in the attached zip.

      Power_meters_v2..zip
      • 62 replies
    • Hi,

      I'd like to introduce myself, and my small setup. 

      I'm Bianco, a Dutch male, and my wife and I moved to Spain 2 years ago, where we live on a small piece of rural land, in Aragon. We are completely off-grid. 
      Therefore I Hired a friend two years ago to install a solar system. he and a friend installed a Voltronic Expert 24V 3Kw, with 6 320 Wp Solarpanels, and 2 Ultracell 316 Ah Gel Batteries, and I paid good money for it.  After 1 year and a bit, every thing shut down at 2 in the morning, whilst the day before was a clear and sunny day. In the months after that, it started happening more and more. Well long story short, The Batteries were fried. After contacting the "friend" He basically told me he could do nothing: A bit like: Shit happens. 

      After studying I chose to do it myself. The panels were fine, so they are still there. I bought a new Inverter, another Voltronic Axpert, 5Kw, on 48 Volts And two Pylontechs US3000C

      All connected, everything works fine. in the (hopefully near) future we'd like to add another Pylontech to the bank. Its enough for us. We have a TV, and we mostly watch during the day (if we do), and no dishwasher, washing machine or other heavy stuff, besides a Nespresso, but that is also only used during the day. The only thing that is a big consumer is the waterpump, but on a timer, controlled by Domoticz. During non-solar hours, it is off. 

      So I have a raspberry in the bedroom, wich is equipped with Domoticz, wich controls most of the lights, and a few other stuff. In the Batteryroom, there is another raspberry, wing contains Solarassistant, and monitors the Pylontechs via the Inverter.

      I'm still looking for a way to connect the Pylontechs Directly to the raspberry, I read something about the console port, but can seem to find if you can connect it at the same time as the port to the Inverter.

      So, Newbie in Solar, but I like learning about it, and helping. 

      If anybody knows something about connecting it to a raspberry, (or maybe my way of thinking is wrong) much obliged.

      Greetings from a cold (+2), but Sunny Spain.

       
      • 58 replies
    • When I google this or ask installers, I'm getting mixed answers.

      Some suggest that a hybrid inverter will get any extra load it needs, from the grid, if its overloaded.
      Some suggest that even a hybrid inverter will fault/cut off if overloaded.
      When I say overloaded, meaning if its a 5kw inverter and my load exceeds that.

      Or is the truth somewhere in-between, certain makes/,models of inverters can and some can't?

      Thanks for your time.
      • 28 replies
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