Hi Justin
I have to choose victron vs sunsync and noticed your comment about Ghecco’s not frying sunsync inverters.
This is very relevant to me as I happen to have a huge Ghecco problem with aircons and gatemotors regularly blowing pc boards due to Ghecco’s.
Can you please explain why the sunsync is “immune” to Ghecco’s?
Dirk Nell
Sunsynk is IP65 rated:
IP65 Protected from total dust ingress. Protected from low pressure water jets from any direction.
Look, I’ve got hordes of gaaitjies. My gate motor’s electronics is barely visible when I open it up to clean out the infestation (I clean it out regularly, because they’ve shorted the gate motor in the past. I’ve never had an issue with my Victron in almost 3 years. My installation is in my garage and perhaps there’s no real reason for them to nest there, I suppose. Regardless, I wouldn’t personally let this influence my decision.
I also know of someone in Kzn that had a fairly new multiplus damaged because a gecko went in and made it a cremation room. Insurance replaced it though.
Point is, it does happen even if it hasn’t happened to you, as yet
Yeah I’m not saying that people are lying, I believe them. I’m just not sure whether it should be the reason you would choose a Sunsynk over a Victron. If you get to the point where you are comparing the two, I’m assuming that the price differential isn’t an issue, so surely there’s more important things to consider (that got you to this point) than the likelihood a gaaitjie might short your MPII.
If Victron inverters are being taken out by gaaitjies in significant numbers, surely they’d be out of business.
My original post (although factually correct) was a joke referring to another thread that was active at the same time:
https://energytalk.co.za/t/victron-multiplus-11-catching-fire/617
While it probably isn’t an issue in most cases, IP65 is a good thing to have in harsh environmental conditions.
This comment on Victron community says it all … from falco:
I also live in Queensland, Australia, and recently I had a new air conditioner installed. At the time the installer said its a common problem for ghecko’s to destroy the main board of airconditioners, by living in there. So its not just Victron gear that has this problem
Of course I am biased, but I also would not base my decision on this alone, or even primarily. If geckos are a problem, fitting a smaller screen to the device is a cheap and effective solution.
But I also understand that when you are on the fence, a small item like this can tip the scales. As an example, I was on the fence between two cars some years ago, and the item that tipped the scale was a “full size spare wheel”. The trade-off was between an automatic with a moon roof, cruise control, and climate control, vs the lesser manual model that had none of that. I wanted the cruise control, but I hated the slushbox. Then I heard “space saver spare” and went with the manual instead 
So I’m currently weighing Victron or Sunsynk and after all I’ve read here I have one question.
Which works better with Home Assistant?
I know there is a thread regarding Home Assistant and inverters but I would like the most up to date answers from people regarding these 2 inverters. I don’t mind tinkering a little if I have to but I’d rather know which is best “out-of-the-box”.
Cheers,
Mark
Victron over modbus is flawless out the box. You can use mqtt as well, but I don’t. No configuration needed. Just download the list of addresses from their website to help you along.
Thank you so much. Very much appreciated.
Think I’m going to go Team Blue
Victron, almost certainly. Not quite there yet in terms of immediate integration, but pretty easy. The inclusion of NodeRED in the large image is also, like the flag of Switzerland, a big plus.
And if you have a Cerbo, and install the Venus Large OS (with NodeRED), you have NodeRED running with all the interfaces already installed for your convenience.
Thanks @plonkster and @TheTerribleTriplet. I knew you’d come through for me.
Can a SunSynk do a black start? IE completely discharged batteries, no grid and just using the MPPTs to bring the system back online?
Yes it can. Well I’m not sure about completely dead batteries but I set mine to shutdown at 10% and thr inverter shuts down.
I had to get in and change the shutdown to lower than 10 or just let it charge from PV and when it gets to the restart level, it comes up again.
If I remember correctly, it will not charge even if grid comes back though. Can only charge from PV
I would imagine that once there is PV, it will pull the high voltage DC rail up to a point where it can power itself. Since the HVDC rail is usually also tied to the grid in some manner, so that it can charge the battery from the grid, I would assume that it can do everything it needs to once there is incoming PV. It may not be able to power significant loads until the battery is happy again though.
A more interesting question, and this affects all inverters, is whether your battery can black start. Most batteries tell the inverter to stop discharging at some healthy point, eg I think most Pylontechs are around 10% to 12%, the last one I worked with was a 5kWh Pelio-L which stops you at 5%. That last bit of capacity is there to keep the battery and some basics powered, so that it can keep going until a power source returns. However, if you let the battery discharge below that and the BMS turns off, then some batteries will recover on their own (ie black start), while others require manual intervention. You don’t want to use the latter kind in an unattended installation.
Sunsynk has a shutdown level and a restart level. My shutdown is set at 10 and restart is set at 15. Once it shuts down due to low battery, it will not handle any loads until it gets to the restart level again.
I’ve got pylontech 3000c and up5000 in my bank and specs say it can go down to 5% but I prefer to play it safe. One would assume that the bms “should” have the intelligence to shutdown to protect itself but I’m just not willing to take the risk with the amount of loadshedding that we have or the shortages that we currently experience.
New version of venus GX V3.00 can do this now
Yup, and it came via the right channels too, via installers talking to the resellers, so everyone was on the same page. It just takes a really long time to get everyone on the same page
That other feature that SS has (where only PV is sent to loads on the input side) is also scheduled for a future release.