Deye vs LVtopsun - Copy, clone, badge-engineering or something else.

[houseofancients]

And that's the basis of the "designed by US veterans" sales spiel?

i've pretty much given my opinion on that statement already...

as to the proposal they made.. that was of marketing, creating demand and purchase numbers only, as i understood

 

[Kornbread]

sure, but they cost almost twice as much as any of the tier one units I listed above, and to be honest they are very, very basic. while no doubt they are probably bullet proof, they are not cheap, do not come in split phase, and the largest i have seen was 3000 watts in a 24 volt format. the Japanese market has just not kept up as there are not many diy types here in japan (in regards to whole house solar). Most folks are playing with one or two panels and a spare car battery... as such they buy whatever is available on alibabba.

I started with magnum inverters over a decade ago, and have found no reason to change. yeah they cost more.... I get it, but I am still running my first magnum a MS2012 12 years later... My first 48 volt unit a MS4448 PAE is at least six years old maybe seven, and other than a repair from a lightening strike has been bullet proof.

all electric motors start with no issues, a/c split pack while running every single electrical item in the house and half of my shop.

I used two 1800 watt hair dryers to load it up while the entire house was running just to see if I could get it to shut down.... no bueno. it said "have a nice day" as its cooling fans finally came on...

Seems to be some banter here about Magnum moving in a undesirable direction. https://diysolarforum.com/threads/i-fear-magnum-is-done.44947/ Have things changed recently with Magnum?

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

Seems to be some banter here about Magnum moving in an undesirable direction. https://diysolarforum.com/threads/i-fear-magnum-is-done.44947/ Have things changed recently with Magnum?

Not going to drag
Up my answers on this to others but yes. Prior to Covid sensata bought magnum and between stupid new owners and Covid it damn near killed magnum. New plant has opened and production has resumed. The old ones were assembled in the US made from parts made all over the world now they are assembled in Mexico from the same parts. The only difference is tech help is not as good as all of the original engineers have moved on to other companies

 

[Norwasian]

then stop buying 2nd and 3rd tier units. Schnieder, Victron, Magnum, Outback, Midnight Solar these are names you can rely upon to work for years and years.

Well, if you can believe it, I don't have the option to buy any of those in Thailand. Not one. Victron is completely unavailable here, and I've looked for the others, too, with no success so far. Now, if you can point me to a domestic source within Thailand, and/or one that is accessible via shopee.co.th or lazada.co.th, I would be very much obliged.

I know, you will suggest that I import one. However, you may not realize how difficult that is in this "Land of Smiles Scams". I have had first-hand experience with "importing" a second-hand, "for parts" (broken) electronic item from eBay (without batteries) and getting heaps of paperwork, fines and fees to fully equal the purchase price of the item, and weeks, literally, of daily phone calls to this office, to that official, etc. trying to get the item released from customs. Perhaps you can understand why I do not wish to go through this "lovely experience" again. One of the officials' claims was that we were supposed to have requested permission to import before doing so--but how were we to know this? This is why I must have a local source.

I have chosen the best available products, as in top-tier for what is available here. This included EPEVER charge controllers--which I was very thankful to find--for two of the three strings of Longi panels. Unfortunately, the inverter has had issues. But I think, if I am not mistaken, any product has a certain percentage of duds and/or users with less than satisfactory experiences--even so-called "top tier" ones. There are threads even on this forum which bash the Victron, despite its huge base of supporters.

I would buy the LVTOPSUN again if I had it to do over. I just wouldn't connect it to the battery. It was working fabulously, and until the RS485 connection burned it out, I was more than satisfied with it. It runs quietly most of the time, and only turned the fan on at occasional intervals when it was warm enough to require this. It charged from the panels. It produced a steady current--I don't remember even seeing a flicker in the lights when a fan was powered on. It simply did its job like any inverter should...until I tried connecting it to the JK BMS of the battery. I guess I was just too wet behind the ears to know how to do that part properly, using a standard Cat. 5e cable instead of whatever (I still don't know what) I was supposed to do.

 

[Kornbread]

Seems like I have some vague memory about +5v being on one of the jk comms outputs and not hooking that up ...

 

[Norwasian]

Seems like I have some vague memory about +5v being on one of the jk comms outputs and not hooking that up ...

Thanks for chiming in. I'd sure appreciate some documentation to back this up, if you or anyone else has the details. And would 5-volts on an RS485 port be expected to cause damage?