Maxed out inverter

[cbw]

I thought the 1700 maxed at 1845??????????????

Which would make it OK for the OPs system?????

Too many ciders tonight

 

[Gavin A]

that's the max dc input rather than the max ac output.

 

[cbw]

See too many ciders, I thought that we were talking about his 2K DC input!!!!

****ed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[scotth]

First you'll need to check whether you have a bluetooth piggy back card fitted on your inverter (The SB2000HF would have bluetooth built in but for the SB1700 bluetooth is provided by an optional add-on card) - the easiest way would be to ask your installer. Alternative you could install Sunny Explorer on a bluetooth enabled laptop/computer and see if you can find your inverter. If not you should be able to pick one up for under 100 (see SMA Sunny Beam Bluetooth Communication Piggyback Card - Saving Energy Online for instance). Fitting it involves taking the front panel off the inverter, and for that you need to isolate it from both the AC and DC first. The isolator switches should be sufficient but the manual says you should unplug the cables. It is probably prudent to do both (switches first, then disconnect cables). My recommendation would be to see if your installer to fit one you (they should be able to get the card at trade prices which would offset anything they charge for installation).

With that in place you have a number of options:

Sunny Explorer - SUNNY EXPLORER.*SMA Solar Technology AG this is some windows software which you can use if you have bluetooth on your laptop/computer. Laptop in built bluetooth tend to be low powered so may only pick up the inverter if the laptop is within 10m of the inverter! However, you can get long range bluetooth dongles very cheaply (look for class 1 dongles). The software allows you to see various values of the inverter (output, input voltage, input current etc.) and shows a daily graph. You can also export the data to a file which can be analysed or graph e.g. in excel.

Sunny Beam with bluetooth - SUNNY BEAM with Bluetooth®.*SMA Solar Technology AG A battery powered unit (which inbuilt solar charger) which displays daily graphs as well as current power etc. connecting to the inverter via bluetooth. You can extract the data via usb. You can find it online for about 150 but your installer may be able to supply it. There's apparently a new colour version due this summer.

Sunny Webbox with bluetooth - SUNNY WEBBOX with Bluetooth®.*SMA Solar Technology AG - This provides a similar interface to sunny explorer but in a web browser. It also allows upload to SMA own Sunny Portal or you could upload to other servers and/or save data to an SD Card. It is quite expensive (~500) and needs to be connected to a network router so may be overkill.

I use all three of these (Sunny Webbox to a web server with some web page graphing code I wrote for a historical record, Sunny Explorer as a backup for recording data, and Sunny Beam for just checking on the system - my inverter is up in the loft). For completeness there is also something called Solar-log (Homepage) which is similar to the Sunny Webbox but works with a range of inverters from different manufacters. There are also devices which involve placing a sensor around the AC cable from the inverter (e.g. OWL - http://www.theowl.com/index.php?page=using-owl-with-solar-power ). These are less accurate than devices which connect to the inverter directly but cheaper and less hassle to install (there are other threads on here about using those).

Thanks for that think will try owl monitor. seehow get on.