I still say one should never discount the effect of sheer dumb luck.
For me the event that taught me that was: Replacing an ignition harness, and having the fuel pump fuse blow on the first start… with zero rhyme or reason other than Murphy (or some other force of darkness) wanting to make you waste hours on chasing the wrong problem. It took until the next day before I realised… wait a second, I don’t hear the fuel pump buzzing?
Sometimes, it is just a stupid coincidence.
I hear you load and clear.
But then I burst out laughing when you said:
8:15am, the inverter goes On, Error, Off, On, Error, Off.
Then by “sheer dumb luck”, you switch off the array to the 250/85 … the inverter happily stays on.
Sorry, I just had to!
If it was not for that, back then, I would have replaced the inverter already.
My dreaded Error 8 resurfaced last night (I know stage 6 is coming, because it always starts playing up the day before 
)
Pretty certain it’s the light circuits (which are 40 year old cloth wires in metal pipes).
Time to do the rewiring I’ve been putting off…
That is an easy test … switch the light breakers off, ja?
Maybe, if you have, standing lamps, “bedkassie” lights, plugged into plug sockets to get some light?
Unfortunately not, since the breakers don’t break neutral, and it’s a neutral-earth fault
I would have tried that.
Oh I have, believe me 
My history:
Just a stupid question … have you replaced the MPII? Mine is during LS as you know, yours is when Eskom comes back. The error description says to take it back if memory serves.
I quote verbatim what I’ve been told that has been seen by a Victron repairer:
Have a connection for you, if you want to send the inverter in.
If I get to the lights, will disconnect L&N.
The multi was replaced 2 years ago by @JacoDeJongh and co.
If the light circuit fix (which needs doing anyway) doesn’t work then I’ll go down that route again.
Where is your contact based?
Of course, 8am this morning, LS ends, no issue.
Gotta love inconsistent faults…
Any thoughts on this somewhat related thread on the neighbourhood FB yesterday? (the term “neutral fault” triggered my spidey senses somewhat)
In PE… I mean Gqeberha… family of mine lost the neutral to cable theft. Entire street was affected, their RCD was tripping all the time, and they blew up a garage door opener (the MOV inside did it’s job, and blew itself up, sadly it was not backed up by a fuse).
If the three phases are more or less balanced, the voltage divides evenly over the phases and the missing neutral doesn’t cause a complete loss of power. But if the phases are unbalanced, one phase gets 200V, the other one gets 270V, the third one gets 190V. In their case, they had >270V, cause that’s usually where the MOVs are rated.
George, Omnisolar. They are also a repair center.
Yeah, it is “far”, The Courier Guy brings them next door. Mostly I get stuff delivered the next day, or two.
The guys there, they seriously care, are committed and man, they have been in business very long. Have sent them repairs where they could have just replaced with new, yet they fixed the units at times, other times they will say it is not worth it. Decent advices.
They have been so supportive of my issue as they also cannot fathom why, or how, yet have sent a replacement unit as a test, and a warranty unit, which I eventually sent back when the issue went away for months on my unit.
Contact Riaan.
Mine now again being as elusive with multiple AM LS and no error, I have pondered a time or two the same. What if something could not be right when there is LS at selected AM slots? Have switched off the main breaker, and sommer the entire main DB a few times.
And CoCT did do some maintenance recently too.
But then that train of thought, in my case, falls flat when I remind myself that when I switch the panels off during a bout of errors, the error goes away.
AAAAAH, I am so happy!
I got a reproducible fault! As any dev will tell you, bugs are fine, as long as they are reproducible.
This morning:
So now I’ve narrowed it down to the single circuit causing the issue 
And here’s the kicker: I have no clue what that circuit does. It’s not the light circuit I was sure was causing the issue. I cannot find what “light” is not turning on now, but that’s a problem for the electrician. (I have a suspicion it’s an outside security light that doesn’t have a switch, so I want to rewire that anyway.)
Will just leave it disconnected for now, since I clearly don’t notice/use that circuit anyway.
SANITY!
Jinne that is just awesome news!!!
What stands out here starkly for me … your unit was replaced.
Goes right back to my gut feeling… if Victron complains about something, better find the cause.
Prove irrevocably that it is indeed the relay … which I did, mine was sent in to be tested.
But the panels, when switched off, then no error, and that only with AM LS’ings, that just makes no sense at all.
Light circuits are my next step IF I can get again a reproducible fault. The last one, before I could even get up, came right by itself. Forgot to mention that.
Of course, he has the opposite error to yours. His PE2 measures closed when it should be open. Yours measure open when it should be closed.
The older Multis used a voltage measurement to check this, and a very small leak may well cause this to fail. But it seems this was a leak so small that the RCD didn’t detect it? Or is this a light circuit that’s not on an RCD?
But absolutely, reproducibility is key. Also:
Light circuit not on RCD
Well, as Eric O. of South Main Auto always says, there’s your problem lady! An RCD would have been nuisance-tripping, alerting you to the problem.
And that’s actually an important point, @JacoDeJongh, for my parents’ setup. If they ever add panels, and we enable the proper grid code so the relay test gets done, there might be some debugging required on the lights. You know me and my dad had that little discussion about using twinflex for lights, and I kinda relented on account of it being “plastic and high enough that it can’t be touched”
Because this gift just keeps on giving…
Electrician came today, to run new circuits to replace all the cloth wires. If you recall from the previous post, I’d found the dodgy neutral causing the errors and removed it from the neutral bar in the DB, but all my lights were still working.
So electrician runs the new circuits (swearing profusely about the state of the 80 year old wires…). When he’s done, kitchen lights don’t work. He checks his wires, all fine, still no kitchen lights.
Eventually, he reconnects the “dodgy neutral”, kitchen lights come on.
Jury is out at this point what the hell is/was going on. Suspect some neutrals crossed somewhere in the roof, but we’ll see tomorrow.
For now, everything is behaving, but it certainly is strange…
#pinelandsHouses
This reminds me of one time I was helping a electrician friend change out some light fittings and we isolated the circuit but didn’t realize that the neutral wire was coming from another circuit and when he disconnected the neutral it gave him such a shock. Dodgy neutral wires can be dangerous and make it very hard to isolate a problem.
