Taiwanese inverter 48VDC 4kW

[stephendv]

Spanish distributor came back with prices, they don't have the 4kW in stock but should import it in "the next few months".  List price is around 1300 euros, ex VAT.

[clivejo]

wow they have some mark up on it then!

Its on eblag for £423 + £80 delivery + another £84 for customs. Total £587 about 700 yo-yos!!

[stephendv]

Even with the fact that they offer a 2 year warranty, still probably worth it to get the ebay job.  Could buy a spare with what you'd save from the spanish lot.

[billi]

700 yo-yos!!

  a light weight this currency is,  even lighter then a pound  ....?....

Anyway , as  i said , the ebay seller seemed to be  ok in my opinion  (ok its his job to sell) , it does make sense to just get the cheapest option , for a product we are not sure about how good it is .....

I bought one of those "fake" (Wellsee) Mppt controllers for friends of mine   2 years back and thought its a crime to buy this plastic china cr*p ....... installed it and went away , no complain since 2 years now .... hard to tell ....

[mickmm]

HI   my name is Mick   and i have just   purchased one of these inverters  but its a 2400 va   i am only using it as a stand alone inverter  as i allready use a trace 45 amp   controller
for my 24 v battery bank  charging which  consists of 6 110ah   agm  batteries,  i use   4 sharps 230 watt  pv  on my shed roof   and all works very well     i found these inverters  works very well   and copes  well with   electric kettles and tvs and computers etc,     
the main reason i bought it was because i was told that the output gave 230v on the live and  zero volts on the neutral   so i assumed  was the same as the house mains input  i was told that the neutral can be strapped with the earth    so it in fact   does the same as a PME system with earthing   i have yet to connect the earth as i only found out today that the earth and neutral can be connected together    so it looks like i will get an earth on my 13amp  sockets
I have just installed  a 500 watt Ista breeze wind turbine to my system   today  and i am waiting now for  some  wind  to test it out   
i am very pleased with the quallity of the inverter   and the helpline is very good  with instant answers  to any problems you ask     you can print out  the details  and instuctions  as a pdf file from the web site   go for  it    and it does have software   for programming and monitoring   with laptop etc  and they sy=upply an rs232 lead  with the kit    mick

[clivejo]

Do you know if the software is windows only?

[mickmm]

Hi   in answer to your question about the software,  you can find out about it by   googling   mppsolar   the click on   solar inverters  ups    and choose  from the list   PIP-HS this will give you some info  on the software and how it is available      you can also just  go to mmpsolar  website  and look at the   types of inveters  which includes the one you are looking at   and all the tech details    hope this helps    mick

[clivejo]

All the information on the site points to it being Windows only.  This is a real shame as I was hoping to use a Raspberry Pi for controlling the entire system.

[clivejo]

On further reading a found a link to an optional "MPI SNMP card"

The SNMP/WEB card provides you with a very easy to use network management capabilities by supporting both SNMP and HTTP protocols. The SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) will create a simple-to-access, but informative, website for your PV inverter with basic network controls; while the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) monitors your inverter and allows system to send updates on the status of the inverter to user through a web browser interface. Monitoring your MPI inverter will be as easy as surfing a website, from anywhere in the world.

It only seems to be for the grid-tied series and also is limited to monitoring.  I need the ability to configure the system and switch it on and off if required.