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EG4 48v 25a Battery Charger Update

Here's kind of what I expect. A shipping label email to me with RA number. I take it to shipping place. Have it sent out. About a week later. A product with the specifications that I bought comes in the mail.
Not my fault that it's the wrong product and don't live up to the expectations of the specifications. With that said why do I have to pay for it for somebody else's f up? I didn't screw up. If you want to blame me. I guess you can blame me for who I bought it from.
This is what the process should be. I am researching why that didn't happen in this case.
 
I am afraid that there is nothing that you can do. It seems that no matter how hard you're trying to help them look good, you're not in charge there, and everybody else does whatever they want, maybe even taking pleasure in sabotaging your efforts.
EDIT:
I am a happy person.
After I spent $15,000.00 on products from SS, $350 worth of chargers are a drop in the ocean .
I understand that the Chinese supplier is at fault, but what I can't understand is why every time I contacted SS Customer Service I got a lot of BS, and ridiculous explanations.
I'm sorry to hear this. I really do want you to be happy and it sounds like someone dropped the ball, but I'm here to pick it up. Let me know what the desired outcome is for you, and even if you aren't happy with the company I'll do my best to see it through.
 
I am afraid that there is nothing that you can do. It seems that no matter how hard you're trying to help them look good, you're not in charge there, and everybody else does whatever they want, maybe even taking pleasure in sabotaging your efforts.
EDIT:
I am a happy person.
After I spent $15,000.00 on products from SS, $350 worth of chargers are a drop in the ocean .
I understand that the Chinese supplier is at fault, but what I can't understand is why every time I contacted SS Customer Service I got a lot of BS, and ridiculous explanations.
Lot of ways to look at it. Signature solar's profit margin isn't enough to have that great customer service. If they had the customer service to pay for everybody's chargers to be shipped back to them and then ship them new proper chargers. Could break the company. If we all paid 20% more for our products they probably could afford to offer some awesome customer service. This would include paying and keeping qualified tech support people.
And another note the company signature solar bought the chargers from is at fault. But they're in China what you going to do about it. By the time somebody catches the problem. There's already a whole shipping container over here of defective parts. We have nobody over there watching them to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. The automotive market has this problem all the time. Trying to assemble cars and then find out they have nothing but bad parts from China. So they put them on the cars anyways because they're not going to stop the line.
 
Lot of ways to look at it. Signature solar's profit margin isn't enough to have that great customer service. If they had the customer service to pay for everybody's chargers to be shipped back to them and then ship them new proper chargers. Could break the company. If we all paid 20% more for our products they probably could afford to offer some awesome customer service. This would include paying and keeping qualified tech support people.
And another note the company signature solar bought the chargers from is at fault. But they're in China what you going to do about it. By the time somebody catches the problem. There's already a whole shipping container over here of defective parts. We have nobody over there watching them to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. The automotive market has this problem all the time. Trying to assemble cars and then find out they have nothing but bad parts from China. So they put them on the cars anyways because they're not going to stop the line.
I like to think we offer better customer service than most distributors. I'm trying to find out what happened in this case specifically. Might be just a mis-informed employee, I don't know. We'll make it right.
 
Hi Richard,

I received an email offering a partial refund or return, stating 25A units are not available.

Are the 25A units gone forever, or will there be a 25A unit available later?

I'd rather wait if possible, instead of a partial refund or a return to re-start the shopping process - I bought the 25A for a reason.
 
Hi Richard,

I received an email offering a partial refund or return, stating 25A units are not available.

Are the 25A units gone forever, or will there be a 25A unit available later?

I'd rather wait if possible, instead of a partial refund or a return to re-start the shopping process - I bought the 25A for a reason.
I am under the impression we have a shipment coming in March but will need to check. I’ll find out tomorrow.
 
Lot of ways to look at it. Signature solar's profit margin isn't enough to have that great customer service. If they had the customer service to pay for everybody's chargers to be shipped back to them and then ship them new proper chargers. Could break the company. If we all paid 20% more for our products they probably could afford to offer some awesome customer service. This would include paying and keeping qualified tech support people.
And another note the company signature solar bought the chargers from is at fault. But they're in China what you going to do about it. By the time somebody catches the problem. There's already a whole shipping container over here of defective parts. We have nobody over there watching them to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. The automotive market has this problem all the time. Trying to assemble cars and then find out they have nothing but bad parts from China. So they put them on the cars anyways because they're not going to stop the line.
Dealing with Signature Solar has had a couple small bumps for me but other then that so far I’m pretty satisfied.
1. there was a bit of a mess up with shipping where the web site over charged me about $375.00 shipping. this issue was resolved. They gave me a credit and I used it to purchase a 12k mini split.
2. The charger isn’t what was advertised and I think mines got a real problem because at times it just won’t turn on. It draws 350w from the generator but nothings going to the batteries. They are working on this still.

For me at least they are trying. Before I ordered from them I tried to work with 3 other solar suppliers. They all just jerked me around and wasted my time. One told me they didn’t have time to even deal with me.

But I to agree there are a few things they can work on between this thread and a couple others. Like where I use to work. LACK OF Communication!
 
I almost bought one of those SS chargers but opted for Meanwell Instead since it's a company I dealt with as an EE for commercial grade equipment. They make top notch stuff that is very good.

You can try this one, Pretty much the same price as SS. EG4
Meanwell 1600

Just buy some new Jumper cables and two nuts & bolts + Crimp connectors and wire on 6ft of one end of the jumper cable and it's good to go for about 46A @ 48V-58V adjustable with 3 stage charging. You might want to add a 30 Amps fuse into the wiring although I think the Mean-well will shutdown if there is a short.
 
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Dealing with Signature Solar has had a couple small bumps for me but other then that so far I’m pretty satisfied.
1. there was a bit of a mess up with shipping where the web site over charged me about $375.00 shipping. this issue was resolved. They gave me a credit and I used it to purchase a 12k mini split.
2. The charger isn’t what was advertised and I think mines got a real problem because at times it just won’t turn on. It draws 350w from the generator but nothings going to the batteries. They are working on this still.

For me at least they are trying. Before I ordered from them I tried to work with 3 other solar suppliers. They all just jerked me around and wasted my time. One told me they didn’t have time to even deal with me.

But I to agree there are a few things they can work on between this thread and a couple others. Like where I use to work. LACK OF Communication!
Ditto for me and for the most part happy with most items but this has been my honest experience:

Most issues were conflicting information on various things - examples are incorrect info on the correct battery communication port to use on the Growatt 5000es inverter - spent days trying to make it work with the BMS port when the RS485 was the correct one.

Proper address to use for master battery (one that communicates to inverter) for their different battery types - LiFepower 4 is different than the LL version - this is OK but there is conflicting info in various documentation or their various youtube videos.

LL version uses the RS485 port on the battery to communicate to inverter, LiFepower4 uses battery comm ports to communicate to inverter - this is ok to but I assumed the same ports would be used on the LL batttery because I didn't find specific instructions for the LL version stating to use the RS485 port.

I'm not entirely sure the LL version and Lifepower4 batteries are compatible in regards to BMS communications - so far my experience says they are not. Should have stuck with one version but when you need a battery and the availability is what it is-

The solar edge Autotransformer from them blew circuit breakers from day one - their tech support blamed everything else including my wiring job when I insisted it had an internal short to case from day one - I later proved it by opening the transformer and finding the winding shorted to the back of the case and clearly shows a winding high spot that pushed right through the insulation. I made it work by adding a sheet of silicon rubber to insulate the short. Being a brand new unit I asked for a warranty replacement a couple times - still have not seen that replacement and am still using the faulty one. I see now they sell a different auto transformer.

Tech support has been OK on easy issues - on more difficult issues I have waited days to weeks to get responses and I feel like the tech is learning stuff as we go.

My hunch is some of these issues are new batches of product comes in from china and it's a new revision where things have been changed - however tech documentation on the website is for older versions.

I've spent a bunch of money there - 2-5000es inverters, 38- 395w & 450W panels, 9 - 48v 5.12kwh batteries, 2 - 6 slot battery racks, bunch of other stuff to make it all work..
 
Ditto for me and for the most part happy with most items but this has been my honest experience:

Most issues were conflicting information on various things - examples are incorrect info on the correct battery communication port to use on the Growatt 5000es inverter - spent days trying to make it work with the BMS port when the RS485 was the correct one.

Proper address to use for master battery (one that communicates to inverter) for their different battery types - LiFepower 4 is different than the LL version - this is OK but there is conflicting info in various documentation or their various youtube videos.

LL version uses the RS485 port on the battery to communicate to inverter, LiFepower4 uses battery comm ports to communicate to inverter - this is ok to but I assumed the same ports would be used on the LL batttery because I didn't find specific instructions for the LL version stating to use the RS485 port.

I'm not entirely sure the LL version and Lifepower4 batteries are compatible in regards to BMS communications - so far my experience says they are not. Should have stuck with one version but when you need a battery and the availability is what it is-

The solar edge Autotransformer from them blew circuit breakers from day one - their tech support blamed everything else including my wiring job when I insisted it had an internal short to case from day one - I later proved it by opening the transformer and finding the winding shorted to the back of the case and clearly shows a winding high spot that pushed right through the insulation. I made it work by adding a sheet of silicon rubber to insulate the short. Being a brand new unit I asked for a warranty replacement a couple times - still have not seen that replacement and am still using the faulty one. I see now they sell a different auto transformer.

Tech support has been OK on easy issues - on more difficult issues I have waited days to weeks to get responses and I feel like the tech is learning stuff as we go.

My hunch is some of these issues are new batches of product comes in from china and it's a new revision where things have been changed - however tech documentation on the website is for older versions.

I've spent a bunch of money there - 2-5000es inverters, 38- 395w & 450W panels, 9 - 48v 5.12kwh batteries, 2 - 6 slot battery racks, bunch of other stuff to make it all work..
Awesome. Ya, we have grown quite a bit over the last 6 months so our team is training and learning fast - myself included. That being said, we are getting better every day.
 
I really dont like bashing a company for much, but I would like to add this;

I almost bought one of these chargers a few months ago, but after being passed back and forth with several different employees on the phone and over email to answer a simple question, "What is the max charge voltage it will go to? Your website says 58.4v, which is much too high for me", they finally got someone to try and tell me that it's not too high. After explaining that it would definitely cause a runaway cell, unless you have perfectly balanced to .001v, then it is TOO HIGH. They just repeated themselves and told me that it wasn't too high, and then wouldn't respond to any more of my emails. I'm sure the actual charge voltage is much lower, in the 56v range maybe? But nobody could tell me that.

I found better customer service on Alibaba with broken english and bought one of theirs. It looks like an exact replica, for a fraction of the cost, and actually outputs its rated current.

EDIT: I see on their website, the 18a model says this: "This 48V 18A charger will provide 1200W per hour of charging capacity per hour." Is this direct google translated from Chinese? Even 58.4v X 18a doesnt equal anything close to 1200w either. Is this for-real?
 
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Did you find anything out?
At this point, we are still attempting to work with the original manufacturer, but we are exploring our options. The shipment I believe we had for March was cancelled because we were worried about the quality, and we don't want to carry it if we are worried about the quality.
 
I really dont like bashing a company for much, but I would like to add this;

I almost bought one of these chargers a few months ago, but after being passed back and forth with several different employees on the phone and over email to answer a simple question, "What is the max charge voltage it will go to? Your website says 58.4v, which is much too high for me", they finally got someone to try and tell me that it's not too high. After explaining that it would definitely cause a runaway cell, unless you have perfectly balanced to .001v, then it is TOO HIGH. They just repeated themselves and told me that it wasn't too high, and then wouldn't respond to any more of my emails. I'm sure the actual charge voltage is much lower, in the 56v range maybe? But nobody could tell me that.

I found better customer service on Alibaba with broken english and bought one of theirs. It looks like an exact replica, for a fraction of the cost, and actually outputs its rated current.
I'll be 100% transparent - if you called us a few months ago, there is a good chance you experienced poor customer service. We grew extremely fast, and had a lot of training happening. Message me directly if you need anything, most anyone here can tell you I tend to get things done in a timely manner when I'm not held up by others.
 
I'll be 100% transparent - if you called us a few months ago, there is a good chance you experienced poor customer service. We grew extremely fast, and had a lot of training happening. Message me directly if you need anything, most anyone here can tell you I tend to get things done in a timely manner when I'm not held up by others.
I was Speaking with John Showalter back in august (a little more than a few months, my mistake) at the end who really didnt seem to care that I had a question, but I appreciate you attempting to make this right, even in the face of everybody who is upset, and not disappearing and hoping the problem goes away on its own.

Good on you (y)
 
I really dont like bashing a company for much, but I would like to add this;

I almost bought one of these chargers a few months ago, but after being passed back and forth with several different employees on the phone and over email to answer a simple question, "What is the max charge voltage it will go to? Your website says 58.4v, which is much too high for me", they finally got someone to try and tell me that it's not too high. After explaining that it would definitely cause a runaway cell, unless you have perfectly balanced to .001v, then it is TOO HIGH. They just repeated themselves and told me that it wasn't too high, and then wouldn't respond to any more of my emails. I'm sure the actual charge voltage is much lower, in the 56v range maybe? But nobody could tell me that.

I found better customer service on Alibaba with broken english and bought one of theirs. It looks like an exact replica, for a fraction of the cost, and actually outputs its rated current.

EDIT: I see on their website, the 18a model says this: "This 48V 18A charger will provide 1200W per hour of charging capacity per hour." Is this direct google translated from Chinese? Even 58.4v X 18a doesnt equal anything close to 1200w either. Is this for-real?
The best I’ve seen from my charger has been 54.4v flashes the green light for a bit then shuts off.
 
@RichardfromSignatureSolar, I know everyone seems to be pointing out some of shortcomings of SS we’ve experienced, I want to says thanks for coming on here and being willing to take some heat. I also have had a positive experience with SS customer service this last week. I called Alexis and explained to her that neither of my 5000es units came with parallel cables and I just discovered this as I’m trying to finalize my install. She said they were back ordered on a slow boat from China, but took the time to walk around the shop and swipe a pair from your test bench and send them to me!! I am very grateful for that kind of effort after spending 17k. Thanks
 
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