8 minutes in and I really like this guy! Electronics hobbyist and valve amp & guitar FX pedal builder... say no more. Dave, you've got to get him back again!

Learned two things from this video: a) Electricians looks and behave the same all over the world b) Aussie electrical panels looks terrible, like the ones from 60's we have here in Europe.

If I had a mains board like that here in Sweden and called an electrician. The words "Up to code" probably wouldn't be part of the conversation. I mean, that's just amazing.

That camera is astonishing. Never seen such a quick autofocus. 9:30 onwardsThanks for the video!!

such a flattering thumbnail for this video

Get the installer guy back on the show, he was cool. :)

pretty " how you doin' " on the back of that panel Dave

Whoa..that guys drill was going counterclockwise..I thought it was just the toilet that went backwords!!

that box needs some din rails :|

I really that they give you their real time stats. That's a really awesome way to show your customers how your product working in real world conditions.

Wow. Electrical boxes in Australia certainly are... different. I can't say I've ever seen an electrician drill a hole through a wooden board, mount a component onto it, and connect it to a big rat's nest of wires like that.

This video was amazing. I love seeing guest features, especially practical videos. You pair up very well with people.

Thumbs up for Mrs. eevblog's support at 25:04!

Dry and sunny Australia. You'd never get away with an outdoor fusebox here in Germany.

I didn't realize power panels in Australia were so different from what we have in the US.

Outstanding video review, Thank you Dave! As you pointed out, the software needs to offer more data resolution w/export and have an X/Y zoom feature added to their graphs. Oh, the H.A.L. computer voice is also conspicuously absent, but that might just cause unnecessary concern over the system becoming self-aware.

wow, that fuse box looks like from the stone age, it wouldn't pass an inspection in Austria

Holy shit , that cable management :( .

That's what I call through-hole mounting.

wow that mains board is pure horror... are all boards in Australia like that? A typical house in Belgium has around 10-15 circuit breakers and at leased 2 differential interrupters. Mine is probably overkill but this barely anything at all ? Funny to hear someone say December and summer in the same sentence :-)

This Alex block looks likes Dave's perfect sidekick. Further investigation is required in a dedicated episode titled : the secret world of Alex aka electronic at home, away from work...

You have very weird and old looking panel :D We in Finland use (and are replacing the old ones) with DIN rail systems and very clean plastic housings in pretty much everywhere. You buy the box ready fitted to your needs with room for expansion and it makes it really easy and tidy :)

O/T: I work in a Government department & our Computer server room is monitored by Planet Controls (QLD). It's a slightly different system to what you've got here, but it does 3G data logging & remote logon to see what conditions are in the Server room. Multi-phase voltage/amperage tracking, temperature, humidity, A/C, UPS/Battery... Just everything!

I dislike this because it depends on 3G and Solar Analytics infrastructure/website. I rather would have something that uses wireless lan to connect to the home network you have anyway and is fully operational stand-alone. You still may expose it to the internet by the router/modem you have anyway.

15:08 the aperture (gap) around the edge of the door of the enclosure will leak some RF. That's why EMC seals are used for critical enclosures to maintain proper shielding. The exact attenuation mainly depends on physical dimensions (gap, thickness of materials, length and orientation) of the of the aperture vs the frequency in use (actually the dimensions of the slot are usually referred to in wavelengths) Physically short slots can work quite well at higher frequencies. The use of slots to ensure some RF gets out of conductive enclosures were first apparent on consumer devices when fashionable metal cases for cellphones became popular around a decade ago. The cases had slots engineered in them, usually around the edges) to keep attenuation to a minimum. Some were obviously better than others, any many made the phones unusable in poor signal areas. A well-designed one only had around 2-3dB loss in most directions in my testing, some had 10 or 15dB with even deeper nulls in azimuth.

That's a "relatively new" distribution board? I'm afraid to ask what an older one looks like.

It sure is amazing the differences you see in electrical standards and practices from one country to the next. I am sure it is perfectly fine and acceptable but it sure is different from how you see electrical done in much of North America. Also seems quite a bit different than what you see in various European or Asian countries.

teardown with the actual designer? cool, really looking forward to that.

Long whiteboard section is incredibly exciting)

I use PVoutput with an Arduino/'Solar Meter' + kWh pulse meters on the switchboard to get my consumption data. Local log buffering would be handy though as I loose data if Internet drops out for whatever reason.

I cringe every time I see a fuse box like that because I'm used to European standards. In France or Germany, they would cut your power because it would be considered unsafe even though most countries are like this.

The term bootlace slash comes to mind seeing the inside of that panel.

*Pawsome video, as always!* 4:39 First time for everything ..... Made me smile .....

Dave, Here in the UK a number of us are detecting the point of export and diverting the surplus PV energy into our domestic hot water immersion heaters as an energy store

I live in Australia, renting in a block of units that were built in the 1950's, which still have the original old meters, with the spinning disc, and also all the fuses are pull out ceramic holders, where you have to replace the fuse wire if the fuse blows. I would consider any fuse box that has circuit breakers to be modern.

Only just found out about the tritium and/or radium? A few second Googling reveals it's been known about since at least August 2007. It's used in a 'glow tube' with sounds like it's a tritium light source - see the WP article on 'Tritium illumination'.

Are you kidding me? Is that a fuse box from the 30's ?? That looks very, very bad!

Hi Dave I have the Enphase system and it plugs straight into the internet and logs all that sort of data too.

Don't hook it up! Take it APART!! :D

Wow, heck of a strange looking electrical panel. I was a bit worried of that long drill bit poking some wires.

damn Dave now the Aussie gubbament can find out exactly what time you have your morning coffee!!!1

Boy that fuse box looked messy :) It will never pass Inspection in MD :) good stuff.

Essentially what it can do is what the SMA Energy Meter + SMA Home Manager does as well.

You should have that man on a show with ya in your lab ;)

Dave, I still have the question, how do you know if one of your modules is only putting out partial power? With 15 or 20 modules, one putting out half or two thirds power won't show much difference in the overall scheme. That's why I like microinverters, you always know exactly what you're getting.

Hi Dave, interesting to see your PV system stats in the land of sunshine as viewed from the UK :-). Anyway, wonder if you have checked out the Immersun multiple load diverter - ie self consume your excess PV generation automatically - it's a British product but available from Enasolar down under by the looks of it. I fitted one in March and it's been great - but you may have to pop an immersion heater in your hot water tank. Cheers.

Australian power panels are old school, eh! reminds me of the old slate wiring boards (like you see in ancient elevator controls). In America, we have standardized metal enclosures with popouts for standard sized breakers. No holes drilled, no wires passing outside the box, or through holes in the front panel of any kind. Wiring is meant to go into conduit to shield it, though some older installations may just have strain reliefs and un shielded wire runs.

My cable management OCD is kicking in....

The initial draw of the Aircon is probably the compressor building up power in the system again?

Maybe they dont ship all those features to most customers because it convolutes the webpage, making it less intuitive and more frightening to use for the 'regular' user. Then again, they could just put a little checkmark box to activate the 'advanced' user features...

Hey Dave, does your solar system cause radio interference? I'd like you to get a spectrum analyzer and a good short wave receiver and check your system for noise radiation into the HF spectrum. There was an article in QST magazine recently that exposed the problem of solar system caused QRN / QRM with S6 to S9 noise levels!

What are those companies doing with the data? How much money do they make with that data? Do they at least have some privacy charta?

Dear Hakko of St. Peterson, that electrical box looks weird and chaotic, the ones here in Canada to me at least seem more designed for purpose than the one on the video.

Nothing worse than noise from cars, planes, lawn mowers, or barking dogs when trying to film a video.

It can predict the the future! Does it know when the next mailbag segment will be ?

Drilling holes... the breaker panel looks so ancient to me...

Vishnu rocking that Nexus 6 lika-Bawwzz.

When your'e analysing your graphs at 20:00 plus, I think the peaks you were looking at coinciding with your wife's activity were probably the Kettle being put on for a drink (Tea or Coffee)

Im glad I waited to type why dont you get batteries, but I will say the Tesla one looks good but heard, thats the key word, that it is a rather small battery system in KW/H. But do look forward to seeing what you get.

Cool video, nice guy.

Your panel is interesting. Mine is a simple din rail type panel (in Western Australia though). And only one meter for PV and our Main feed.

Dave, they don't show the data because it caused way too many service calls on perfectly normal variations and having to explain to people. Typically you can ask nicely, and the installer will give you access. Tesla are pairing up with the distributors typically, they don't want to deal with local support.

Have you not dabbled with sub-miniature Vacuum tubes as I would love to get one to build a RF amp, BTW there are a few people near me with SOLAR power, I wonder if you installed a better 3G antenna in a higher location connected to that module you had installed might solve those errors that you where getting.

Dodgy Bunning Fuse to CB converts are only 1.5kA Fault Current rated, Alex should have picked up on that.

I am shocked by the behind the panel wiring thing ?! Do all Australian fuseboxes look like that ? A honest question no offense.

wow, never seen a panel look like that. I freaked at first when i saw him take a drill to it.

+EEVblog Dave, I have questions about your mains. I assume you have 230 VAC nominal single phase. Is the mains service a single conductor 230 VAC as referenced to the neutral? Is the larger white wire going into the top of the mains device marked 60/80A a single conductor? Are the red and white conductors coming off of the bottom of the mains the same phase with no difference of potential between them? If I am getting this correct you have a 60A 230VAC or 13.8KVA maximum service, is this correct? I am in the US and our residential single phase is in reality a split single phase that results in 3 mains conductors, a single neutral from the distribution service transformer center tap and 2 phase conductors that are derived from the ends of the same distribution service transformer winding resulting in the phase conductors being 180 degrees out of phase with each other. Nominal voltages are 240 VAC phase conductor to phase conductor and 120 VAC each phase conductor to neutral. Thank you for your sharing, your time, effort and expense publishing videos on KZfaq.

Dave, you were ripped off. Try Sense consumption/production monitor DIY setup, cheap and no subscription and limitation. It can detect and idenyify most loads (even fridge light bulb) by electrical patterns machine learning, no multi-channel rubbish. You can hook it up to IFTTT to do some nerdy stuff e.g. wife digging food in fridge during night you can kick off alarm or send notifications to smartphone. Limitless integration. A/C, pool pumps, lights, ovens, washers, dryers etc.. everything can be monitored separately thanks to magic of machine learning. This is not an ad. I just installed it myself DIY and impressed.

That DIN-box looks insane! I don't think screwing stuff to a thin piece of wood, and that rats nest behind it, would be legal here.

I would like to see a study which takes into account all of the embedded energy in a solar panel. It's extremely difficult to do for many obvious reasons, but if we are going to bet the future on PV, we need to know that there is a very high EROI. Conventional oil is right now about 30:1 (1 BOE for every 30 barrels of oil produced). Bitumen is about 7:1 at the higher end. Do you think solar thermal is a better solution? What about wind? It seems to me that solar thermal is the best approach because it can run 24 hours a day and you don't get into the intermittent nature of PV and wind.

Hi Dave. Thanks for everything. Try searching your videos for reactive energy/power but can't find any related that you speak directly on the subject. Is any video you talk about it?

Did Alex know he was doing installation work at the house of the guy who is behind the famous EEVBlog channel??

I love the cockatoos in the background. Very Stralian....

I've never seen a circuit breaker like this. Usually all the breakers installed in neat rows flesh with a metal panel, not spaced apart like this.

Australia. What a weird place. Summer in December. For a back woods Alaskan like me that does a job on my head. And yes, I am well aware of the Earth's Orbital Mechanics. It still sounds weird...

Oh, come on! Winter?!? What you Aussies call winter is a light spring for everyone else! You even haven't got any snow!!!

It's crazy to see breakers just randomly bolted to a piece of board instead of using an actual breaker panel.

Really like that guy. Can't understand how you're stuck with that abomination of a mains panel though. Dave?? What?? :D

Lovely stuff, solaranalytics miss the idea of providing services based on panels performance.

That is one interesting looking panel. I'm sure it's perfectly safe but far from what I've built. ex: Din rail, wire tracks, etc.

So the 5 year payment plan is $80 cheaper than the up front $860 cost, am I calculating that wrong? Doesn't seem to bad.

When I was a mechanic/auto electrician I used to hate the customer watching over me when doing a job on their car. Those guys being on camera and doing their job.. Argh!! Lmao You need to bill the neighbours for their house shadowing your solar panel, it's almost like stealing your sun! :)

new technology addressable electrons (from wind generator to Dave's home) :P

summer in december ... nice

Solar Freakin' Roadways. Edit:Wow, Dave, that 'stralia wildlife is noisy :D. Edit 2: Haven't watched the entire video yet but with the device using 3G, does that require you to pay a subscription.

ceramic fuse holders at least you have push in cb's I would have thought you'd have rcd's on each of your final sub circuits dave

Is the panel in which stuff are mounted to metal or something else like a thick plastic? I noticed wires go thru holes with no bushings/grommets.

Dave a suggestion / request for a related video ? Looking to replace my last battery system - 4 x Trojan L16 , wired 2 in series & 2 in parallel I used in my RV system , bus held solar system and after inverter , just ran a 10ga extension cord to Airstream trailer , ran AC , furnace , everything for 12 yrs mostly without grid . Now looking for new battery system and giving Lithium anther look , in the past , I figured that lithium had some advantages , but cost was an issue . Now seeing some possibilities some thing like these AMP20M1HD-A But by the time you build a box , charging system etc. not sure yet , so maybe sometime you could check battery options for med. to large solar battery systems ?

Wow, your electrical panels look *mes-sy!* We've got all components (like breakers, RCDs, special stuff) in a standardized measurement, installed onto a rail and then the wires are going in and out there, but the "outside" of the panel, which usually isn't opened except for installation stuff, look neat and tidy, everything besides the other in multiple rows. This Australian way of "just bolt your component in to where there's some room" on a completely unmarked flat board of something really cracks me up.

The Z-Energeia energy saving wipes will never be able to align the Electron Vibration Alignment Field of that breaker panel!

Alex needs a spirit level! Shocking!

Telsla powerwall is all gone, and only pre-order is possible. It already has a huge demand, even in Australia, so that partially explains why you didn't get much response from any of the distributors/installers. Put simply, nobody has a readily available powerwall to install in your home Dave :( not to mention they wouldn't even know when they would get the new stock.

That's a frightening looking load center compared to ours here in the states. I have one 200 Amp main panel and two 125 Amp sub panels. Something like 64 circuit breakers. I only have 3,100 square feet between the first floor and basement, plus a 528 square foot attached garage.

Hi Dave, this Kind of Sensortransformers are pretty unacurate. If your Aircon Compressor uses Filtercaps then a Pseudocurrent will flow and and your Measurments are not acurate. ( The Current bounces between the Caps in the Aircon and the Grid)

Does the software allow for progressive energy costs? That is X Per KWH up to 500 KWH, then X*1.5 for 501-1000 KWH, then X*2 for 1001 + KWH?

Assuming one has a 3 phase inverter would one need three arrays / strings to produce 3 phase or does the inverter synthesise tthe 3 phases? I could use a couple of 3ph machinws much cheaper than SP but wouldn't want a full blown 3ph grid supply. Say one wanted to pull DC voltages for a workshop, can that be taken off the invertor? supply side? For DC is DC to DC conversion more efficient then inversion, transforming, rectification etc.

The distribution board in the UK is a lot neater and organised than this example you have Dave, mainly DIN rail mounted stuff with resettable fuses. Yours looks like a horror, and archaic. Drilling holes (arbitrarily) to mount a fuse or sensor, I mean come on.. At least your mains voltage and frequency are the same, just need to change the plug style for the safer UK type and this monstrosity I just mentioned.

Whoever replaced or installed the new metering should have decommissioned and remover the old meters. Where there has been substantial metering board the standard requires that the whole installation is brought up the current AS3000 and require earth leakage/RCD devices to protect GPOs and lighting circuits. The 60/80Amp "Main Breaker" you describe is not a breaker Its is you consumer fuse (HRC). On the matter of the bakelite mounting panel, you might find it in fact contains asbestos fibers. www.asbestos.com/products/general/plastics.php We are all screwed.

That's how they do panels in Australia. heh

Here in Canada you would never be unable to finance a house with a mains panel like that. Not a single bank will accept to give you a loan. Not a single insurance company will accept to insure your house. I never taught building code was so different in Australia.