Looking for a supplier of DC switchgear. The websites i have looked at dont carry much in the way of DC switchgear.
There must be a good place for this stuff somewhere in SA ? I just dont know the right place.
Any heads up on this at all?
DC gear is scarce.
You need to be more specific. What are you looking for?
Breaker’s, contactors, isolators, T class fuses
Then in general, hydraulic crimper/die sets for crimping cables, 70mm2 +95mm2 multi strand cable preferably tinned, that sort of thing.
I would have thought there is a company who would offer all this sort of stuff for the solar/battery DIY crowd, but what I have found is low end Chinese stuff - which I dont want. Noark brand is ok - so that sort of stuff,
mantech.co.za used to have a fair selection of switch gear.
Any electrical supply store will have the cable. Although you won’t easily find tinned in that size, as the cable is made for crimping.
adendorff.co.za used to have the cheapest hydraulic crimps and dies.
2 Likes
Where are you located? Are you an installer??
The local DIY market is not as big as Europe/rest of the world + exchange rate does not help ZAR based buyers.
Some sources to explore (in no particular order)
Already mentioned mantech, communica.co.za, em.co.za and likely widest range at rs-online
I am in the Western Cape. Not an installer yet, but wanting to get into building batteries to sell as an ongoing business.
Immediate need is to build out a battery system for my boat - so all the gear needed for that (crimper/dies/meters etc) can be used later on.
Particularly I feel there is opportunity with the MB56 cells. 1 battery with 34kWh - that is a perfect size for a house to run on. No paralleling of batteries to get that much capacity greatly reduces complexity in terms of balancing and faults. I know not everyone thinks this and feel these MB56 cells are too big - so ymmv.
I still have a house North of the SA borders - I am using a FreedonWon 20/14 and I am not that impressed with it. Cost up North is $4680 USD. So roughly about the same as here in SA. I can build out a 34kWh battery for a bit less then $3K USD using those big MB56’s and be better built then the FW - I was really horrified to learn that inside that 20/14 the Sinopoly cells are paralleled to get the capacity up. I dont like LFP cells in parallel - I want to see the voltage of every cell, not a representation of the voltage of cells in a group.
I am currently having issues with the 20/14 battery. Cell group 16 keeps going badly out of balance when the battery gets to around or a little over 54v I am seeing a deviation of over 300mv between cell group 16 and the lowest cell group. Once The battery gets to around 53.5v the imbalance disappears. This is of course classic LFP behaviour - the cell imbalances only really show up when above 3.4v/cell and below 3.0v/cell. But the thing is with FW I cant touch it - plus the OrionJr2 is only a passive balancer. I really need to top balance the cells to fix it but with FW I am locked out (for good reason - they dont want anyone messing with the cells given the 10 yr warranty).
Thats all well and good but our agent doesn’t seem to be on the ball with it all and the household is struggling with the FW battery - under load once the battery gets to approx 40% the BMS trips the battery - I think its cell group 16 collapsing under load.
The house cant be without a battery due to harsh load shedding that is ongoing, but we cant get into it to do a top balance on it.
So with all that, I am going to build out a MB56 battery to be used as the primary battery and keep the FW 20/14 as a backup battery.
That then gave me the thought - an end user can buy a 20/16 FW for around 4.8K or a 34kWh battery for the same money.
I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have a big expensive battery (it was 10K USD in 2019 when we purchased) that is misbehaving and our agent we bought it from is not providing much in the way of backup and support and dealing with this issue for us. If it was my own battery I would have full control and could fix it as required. Not with a FW battery.
So really interested in building batteries.
1 Like
Thanks for the links - will take a look. I may have to import the bits and pieces I need. I am seeing there doesn’t seem to be a great deal available here in SA and if one has to resort to those sites that import it for you, then one may as well just import oneself.
Cable will have to be found locally however - too heavy to import - but cable should be readily available - when I find the sources. Does everyone here use welding cable for your battery connections to inverter ?
What is the best cable source for those big thick DC cables from battery to Inverter/bussbars etc?
Is the Addendorf stuff any good or is it low end Chinese that will just let me down?
I am prepared to invest in top end hydraulic crimpers - I need to make my own cables as its too time consuming to run around trying to find someone who can do a PROPER crimp at a reasonable price. Get the crimps wrong and it will be endless trouble. Best to have the right tools. Its just part of the cost of building your own battery banks.
ARB and AC/DC are both pretty much nationwide and should have your cables. Various types available. For flexible, generally use welding cable - just make sure the DC rating is sufficient for your use.
Adendorffs tools are mid-range. Probably still made in China, but decent quality for irregular use. Don’t know if they will stand up to the rigors of daily professional use.
1 Like
Oh man… I want to warn you against walking into an Addendorf. Because… you are going to lose a lot of money there. A lot. Because they have so much cool stuff you want… yes, all of it is Chinese, or almost all of it, and a lot of it is on the budget side, but all the tools I’ve bought from them I still have, and it’s good enough for what I use it for.
If you are thinking of turning this into a business, look at Rubicon. I don’t know about prices, but they sell a lot of the stuff you need for solar installations.
1 Like
Yep - i get you on that. I am a fairly regular visitor to Addendorf in CT. As you say, lots and lots of cool tools in there. I will probably go check out thier crimpers and die sets to get an idea of what the low to mid level cost in SA is.
At the end of the day if they do the job and the end result is a very tidy well done crimp then is most likely good enough. I dont ever see a small custom battery maker becoming another FW so mid level is likely good enough. I will let you know what I find as it may be useful for others who read this at some point in the future.
The Chinese tool trap is they are usually 30-40% less than a top tier brand and last for a while but not good enough for the long haul. Chinese tools do get the job done in the short term though.
I have a thing about these shops that simply buy Chinese and have them stick their company’s name on everything they sell. A classic example of this is Mecer, AC-DC, Ardendorf, Value.. the list goes on and on.
Rather go to a regular electrical wholesaler and sign up for an account with them. I’ve been impressed with Plumstead Electrical. They know their business I reckon.
As far as dedicated tools are concerned search in Marketplace. How about this crimper: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1679951966028860/
Yep that is the type of thing. There is so much riding on the quality of the crimps……no matter how lekker the rest of the system is, if the crimps are poor the system wont work so well. Trouble waiting to happen - so best be anal about thos crimps.
I have a slightly different take on that. Those companies usually send a “buyer” to China. He goes and he negotiates. The guys he is talking to may even have more than one line, from cheap, to expensive, made by the same company. They come to some kind of agreement, and negotiate some level of quality. He gets on a plane and comes back to South Africa. The product ships shortly after, sometimes already badged as negotiated.
Many boutique shops with women’s clothing work quite similar. Someone flies over, makes a deal, sometimes they even fly over with no luggage and come back with two suitcases… same deal 
Addendorf sells a brand called MAC AFRIC. It appears to be fairly decent. Your mileage may differ with others though.
Fair enough. What I object to is that the brand of a Chinese manufactured product doesn’t mean a lot. Essentially you are saying that it’s determined by the buyer. In the good old days it was the manufacturer that cultivated the brand so it meant a lot to them and then to their customers who had a loyalty to that company’s products and the ethos that went with it.
What I’ve learnt recently is that the Taiwanese have a more traditional sense of loyalty to brands. So now if I know the product I’m evaluating is made in Taiwan it counts a lot to me.
It is great fun and as you say, one has complete control.
BMS upgrade path.
From JBD-A20S003-L20S-200A-200A-B-C to AP20S004-P20S-200A-200A-B-U, both BIG shunts but passive balancers to JK B2A20S20P 8-20S 200A with active balancer.
SOC:
Smartshunt gives the system SOC.
Smartshunt and BMV SOC must “keep pace” from bottom to top - another “check” if you want.
Actual case: When BMS says SOC is 100% and Smartshunt says i.e. 25%, you’ve have a problem.
@Phil.g00 made me do it - 18 cell bank as Victron and BMS could handle it - made sure of that.
Nobody got fired for buying IBM!
I have heard this many times over the years - there is good Chinese and bad Chinese. One can get any quality they like in China - depends on the budget the manufacturer is given to produce the product.
We blame China for poor quality when a lot of it could be the buyers who go there demanding cheap so they can sell for a price that gives them a fat margin - then poor old China gets the bad rap for it.
An example of what seems to be good Chinese is Ingco power tools - 1/2 the price of the big names and so far in my experience they hold up really well.
2 Likes
Totally agree - if it is made in Taiwan it’s generally pretty good. But the cost jumps up too.