Greetings all.
I recently installed my own grid-connected system using 20x 390W Helene panels, Ironridge racking, and a Sol-Ark 12K inverter. The battery is a BigBattery Kong Elite Plus. System drawings are attached below (though they don't show the battery, which is of course connected to the Sol-Ark's battery posts).
Since it went online a few months ago, I have never gotten the Sol-Ark to a state where it can reliably transition power during a grid failure (since my house was under construction I had many opportunities to test this). Regardless of the settings, at least half of the grid failures result in either an F56 DC Volt Low or F20 DC Overcurrent error, at which time the inverter shuts down for a minute or two before successfully switching over to the battery.
I have been around and around on this with Sol-Ark, who while suggesting various settings changes have not been able to explain why any particular change would fix the issue (and they didn't, though they did affect the frequency of the various error types). I'm now wondering if I got a lemon of a unit. Sol-Ark support has not replied to any messages for 10 days now.
I would very much appreciate any feedback from forum members who may have had similar issues, found solutions, or gotten redress from Sol-Ark for faulty units.
More details below of the various settings changes and their results.
Thanks!
/afb
Sol-Ark 12K support dialogue timeline
I recently installed my own grid-connected system using 20x 390W Helene panels, Ironridge racking, and a Sol-Ark 12K inverter. The battery is a BigBattery Kong Elite Plus. System drawings are attached below (though they don't show the battery, which is of course connected to the Sol-Ark's battery posts).
Since it went online a few months ago, I have never gotten the Sol-Ark to a state where it can reliably transition power during a grid failure (since my house was under construction I had many opportunities to test this). Regardless of the settings, at least half of the grid failures result in either an F56 DC Volt Low or F20 DC Overcurrent error, at which time the inverter shuts down for a minute or two before successfully switching over to the battery.
I have been around and around on this with Sol-Ark, who while suggesting various settings changes have not been able to explain why any particular change would fix the issue (and they didn't, though they did affect the frequency of the various error types). I'm now wondering if I got a lemon of a unit. Sol-Ark support has not replied to any messages for 10 days now.
I would very much appreciate any feedback from forum members who may have had similar issues, found solutions, or gotten redress from Sol-Ark for faulty units.
More details below of the various settings changes and their results.
Thanks!
/afb
Sol-Ark 12K support dialogue timeline
- December 2022: Power up inverter and connect BigBattery using their recommend settings found in the spec sheet. Inverter always shutting down on grid failure.
- March 30, 2023: File initial request for aid
- April 4: After some back and forth, support notes that "You had the Batt Empty value greater than the Batt Shutdown and the Batt Low value, when the Batt Empty value should be less than the other values", and modifies the following values remotely:
- Batt Empty: 43V (43%)
- Batt shutdown: 45V (20%)
- Batt low: 47V (35%)
- April 17: Support remotely upgrades the firmware in the inverter
- April 17: I test shutting off the grid input breaker and find I am still getting the F56 DC Volt Low errors
- April 19: Support recommends the following settings changes (but requests that I confirm with BigBattery):
- Battery Capacity: 332Ah, recommend changing to 300Ah
- Batt Empty: 43V, recommend changing to 45V
- Batt Shutdown: 45V, recommend changing to 46V
- Batt Low: 47V, recommend changing to 47V
- Batt Restart: 52V, recommend changing to 49V
- April 23: I make the recommended settings changes. Still getting cutover failures, but now they are F20 (DC Overcurrent) rather than F56. I report this to support.
- April 25: Support recommends the following settings changes:
- Float: 58.8V changed to 55.8V
- Absorption: 58.8 changed to 56V
- Equalization: 58.8 changed to 56V
- May 1: I make the recommended settings changes and am back to getting F56 errors on grid failure. I report this to support. No response.
- May 4: I reach out again to support. No response.
- May 10: I reach out again to support. No response.