The kit with Now known as Harry Discussion

250buggys

Well-known member
Hi Alan, question for you.

What did Brit and Melvin weigh in at on the weighbridge at IVA pls.

The overall and front and rear axle weight are really good info as especially you are now doing it all again with Harry ๐Ÿ˜€

Keep up the progress, I always love reading your updates

Chris ๐Ÿ˜€
 

Phaeton

Moderator
Staff member
I seem to remember then being around 680Kgs not sure on the axles though, hopefully I have an image somewhere
 

250buggys

Well-known member
Sorry to hear that Alan, I always look forward to reading what you have been up to. I thought you didn't have too much left after the test drive video. Hopefully you should get your money back ok ๐Ÿ™‚ its always nice to have something to tinker with, won't be long before you have another project on the go. That mojo needs finishing off...
 

Phaeton

Moderator
Staff member
Just feel that I have too many things to do & not enough time, so was looking for the easy way out, TBH I've done 5/6 SVA/IVA & just not sure I want to go through the pettiness of another, I know somebody who failed the other day on the mirror LED indicators not being bright enough, even though my last 2 kits passed with exactly the same mirrors, plus lots of other kits have. It's almost like, they couldn't find something to fail it on so they made something up.
 

250buggys

Well-known member
It was a good experience IVA at Norwich, the testers genuinely wanted my buggy to pass. They said I could go to the motor spares shop over the road but I wouldn't have been able to get the bits I needed there and then. They let me tune my speedo on the rolling road and set up the headlights with thier test kit and made me tea and biscuits etc.

I understand though, like you said if you had a garage or somewhere you could safely store it that would be ideal to come back to at a later date.

Haven't seen any Freestyles pop up for a long time, getting quite rare now it seems ๐Ÿ˜€
 

Phaeton

Moderator
Staff member
Zero interest so far which surprises me, I figured on getting some will you take a pit bike & a curly wurly for it type of questions, so if I don''t get any response by the weekend I may just apply for IVA & push through it.
 

250buggys

Well-known member
Hi Alan, motivational speech I am afraid, you need one with all this talk of selling your project mid build....๐Ÿ˜€

You are the only guy I know who has passed the IVA 1st time.

I think a lot of it is the questions you are asked and the response you provide, they are trying to find out whether you built the car you are presenting and whether you know the IVA manual inside out or not.

I was lucky with mine as Justin and Alistair had put together really good posts on what they failed on. Copy and paste for me, sort of.

By reading the manual you are right a lot is left into your own interpretation which is frustrating but if you have a good counter argument then the IVA box is ticked I think.

The tester said to me when on the ramps you have an oil leak and I said to him that it hadn't leaked on my drive and the manual says as long as it doesn't leak on the test centre floor.... He then said what mini engines doesn't leak! FFS I replaced the oil seals...

With the amount of kits you have built and run up to the test centre you should really be offering IVA consultation services for good money!...

Keep going bud ๐Ÿ˜€ the end is in sight.
 

Phaeton

Moderator
Staff member
Rang them this morning, applied 24th, request accepted on the 2nd, expect 12 working days before they start to look at it.
 

250buggys

Well-known member
Oh no Alan you have started me off on a rant now...

You pay them half a bag of sand and that is their response...

With all the BH in May your 12 working days will be in June sometime when they process it with a test date in August. What a joke, it's almost like they receive your application then it sits in the tray until the 12th day then they think oh we to do something now...

The tester said to me you know you could have drove it to the test centre..... I said with a non refundable test fee it was good value booking a transporter at around half the cost.

I did it with my first kit and AFlux rang me every week to ask me what my reg was as I insured on the VIN. They must understand how long the paper work process takes ..

Most of the 7 guys on the zero forum build the kit and then get the factory to pick up from their house, IVA it and deliver it back with all the paperwork, F knows how much they charge for that!!

If I was a gambling man I would drive my 7 to the test centre but it is over 100 miles from Essex through Suffolk to Norfolk. Once a pon a time there was a test centre in Chelmsford and could have pushed it there...
 

Phaeton

Moderator
Staff member
Sorry Chris, it's a bit of a joke really, I honestly can't see them being that busy, but then again the powers that be don't really want any kit cars anyway so I feel they try to make it as hard as possible. All done on-line, so why did it take 5 working days to even be accepted.

Had a similar experience with the DNO for the solar export, they have 45 working days to respond to an application, when I spoke to them on the phone they admitted they don't even look at them until day 43 no matter how busy or slack they are.
 

250buggys

Well-known member
Oh no so when you put your solar installation in it was 6 weeks before they would pay you for any export... At least you could use it during the day and charge your batteries up etc. It is annoying that they charge you 50p per kWh of usage but pay you a tiny amount to feed into the grid which goes to your neighbour and then they charge them 50p per kWh that you produced.

The most annoying thing is that the standing charge is not regulated like the price cap. They just put it up and often double it each time, money for old rope, there is no way it should be allowed.

DNO's can be hard work, we have to deal with them at work when switching supplies over.
 

Phaeton

Moderator
Staff member
Longer than that in the end due to the installation company, it was installed in mid August but it was mid December before all the dust settled & we started to get paid, could have been worse it could have been 4 Summer months, but there were some good days in Oct/Nov
 

250buggys

Well-known member
It was a shame to miss out on that export, not a great start.

September was good, after October you really loose the elevation. The panels need to be vertical in the winter compared to summer when they need to be flat on their backs.

Screenshot_20230509-193655705 (1).jpg

April has been good, the increased daylight plus the cooler temps help the panels to be more efficient.

Screenshot_20230509-194321598 (1).jpg

What's your monitoring like, interesting to hear about your highest kWh day in April. You must have seen a new daily record. ๐Ÿ˜€
 

Phaeton

Moderator
Staff member
Monitoring isn't the best, I have 2 inverters, 1 which the panels are connected & the other which the batteries are connected, but they don't agree with each other as to what is happening, the top one is from the panel inverter which is a Solis, the bottom on the battery one which is a Growatt, which realistically is the one I access if I want to force charge or force export.

The Growatt is always the optimistic one, today Solis says the panels have generated 16.8kWh, Growatt says they have generated 17.9kWh. Not sure which to believe, the Solis is in direct conneciton, the Growatt only reads the output of the Solis via a CT clamp.

So far the Solis says the panels have generated 4.453MWh since installation.

Screenshot 2023-05-10 at 16.15.54.pngScreenshot 2023-05-10 at 16.16.58.png
 

250buggys

Well-known member
Thats pretty interesting Alan, just looking at your daily average 4453 kWh / 265 days since installation = 16.8 kWh per day.

I think I remember you saying that your array was 10kW and mine is 2.5 and today was a good day, double figures. If we had the same sun you could be looking at 4 times as much so possibly 40kWh and this month you have been around 33 on your best days so I reckon that is pretty good especially if your usage and or the battery charging is not summed in that total.

Looks like it is performing ok ๐Ÿ˜€

I'll let you know when mine peaks, looking at last years data if we get some blue sky days from dawn to dusk around mid to end of June I should hopefully see around 17kWh fingers crossed. We can then compare yearly totals, I am further South than you, Falmouth sees the best of it.

The trick is to use as much of it and keep the units off the meter, how long does your battery bank give you when the sun goes down?

Screenshot_20230510-180342265 (1).jpg
 
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