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Once you have a generator a 20 lb Cylinder will get you close to 30 KWHs of electricity. For most homes that will cover your daily consumption. Especially if you get at least a little solar charging. That for a cost of $70.00, about 50 for the cylinder and 20 for the refill. So adding one...

See South Africa and Venezuela. It doesn't take any external threat. If you have mismanagement and corruption for enough years eventually things fall apart. We are heading that way. The USA is far from the country I grew up in. How long do we have left? I have no clue, but in the country I...

These heat pump dryers are more efficient. They also cost twice as much and they are far more complex and hence more unreliable. The same can be said for heat pump hot water heaters. Also, for a family, it does mean that it will take at least twice as long to do each load of laundry since you...

So after 1.5 years I finally got my AC coupled IQ8s to produce power off grid. Yeah!!!

Do you remember punched cards? That's how I learned to program.

My little 2 ton AC draws 70 amps or 16,800 watts on start up. I have three batteries and they are rated for about 5000 watts continuous each. They will apparently peak a little higher. So when enough other stuff was running the dual Schneider Inverters actually faulted the batteries. I would...

With their newest firmware version 521-00005-r06-v02.61.01 the Enphase IQ8s are now able to AC couple with Schneider XW Pro inverters. I had a 35 panel IQ8 grid tied system installed in Aug of 2022. I added a battery backup to the system in Dec 2022. While the system did work fine as a UPS...

One other thing is that sol arc actually has essentially two 120 volt 7500 watt inverters internally one for L1 and one for L2. So a large load on one leg can trip the inverter. Because of its large transformer and low frequency operation, the Schneider is better able to handle unbalanced...

You can but a "Soft Starter". They are designed to reduce the surge cause when a motor is starting up. Of course there is no way to know in advance how much this will help, but in many cases they can cut the startup current to 33-50% of the normal value. It basically uses some electronics to...

You are correct. If you look at their wiring diagram they for AC coupling on the load side, they state "Do not use" for the generator input. The issue is that if PV inverters are outputting more power than your loads, the PV inverters will attempt to back feed the generator. The work around...

Some new Information I did some testing today and was able to sort out several issues. About a week ago I changed my settings to use the SOC control. At one point I was having problems with SOC not being reliable. This could have been due to a bad connector cable. My SOC does not seem to have...

When AC1 is connected to a working grid a relay is closed that connects AC1 and AC Out together. Since AC1 is 60 hz the GT inverters will run at 100% output (based on available sun of course). Unless you consume all of your PV power the system will export the excess back to the grid.

This is nit picky and you will find many panels where this is not done, but when using a 12-2 Romex cable for a 240 volt only circuit (no neutral needed), you really should "Redesignate" the white wires using red electrical tape. This makes clear in the panel (and even more important on the...

True, they are at least somewhat easy to diagnose because the blinky lights will point you in the right direction. Even without the blinky lights, you can get a pretty good clue what is wrong by just looking and listening to the furnace. Where does it stop in its sequence of operations. Even...

Yes, but the main purpose is shaving peak usage from the grid. They have something similar (and probably more useful) for "Generator Support". I think the main purpose of grid support is that there are apparently power companies that charge you more based on your peak usage.

I applied to write software for them at one time. Apparently it is all done in India. Not too surprised by that. The inverter hardware is actually very good. I think they would have sold a lot more of these inverters, if the software wasn't complete junk. This is not at all what people...

In looking at this, it looks like the questions are specific to a mini-PDP panel. I used the full PDP panel. When I wrote this I believe the issue had to do with what to do with the grid wires from the PDP to the inverter if you were not planning to actually connect the system to the grid. I...

If you look at the installation manual, they will tell you that if you AC couple on the load side, you cannot use the generator input. See their wiring diagrams and it will say "Do not use". There is no "magic traffic cop" that directs the electrons in these inverters from one place to...

What you are proposing here, is to put the Grid connection of your inverter onto both panels. If you connect your inverter to both panels, and the main breaker trips on one of the panels, you will have the grid connected to one panel, but not the other. If your inverter is hooked to both...

Not 120 volts AC. It could be more like a 5-12 volt AC signal. It might also just be a timing signal. Something like a pulse every time the wave crosses from minus to plus for each leg. In any case remember that these standards for how to synchronize inverters are old. So is the inverter...

A few things: Consider going with 2*6 construction on the outside walls. This allows for nearly twice as much insolation. The extra money you spend there will be more than made up for by not having to build as big of a solar / battery system. Switching to a gas drier now will also save you...

Unfortunately, AC installers generally charge enormous markups on their installations (and then add hourly installation labor on top of that). The manufacturers also charge premium prices for these variable speed units. Add that all up and it is hard to justify any kind of preemptive upgrade...

You might try checking the torque on the line side of the transformer. On both of my inverters, they failed to tighten the screws between the FETS and the transformer. In fact I would double check all the connections between the transformer and the circuit boards they are wired into. You will...

I tend to agree with you here. When there is not good power on the incoming grid connection, it should mechanically disconnect the grid from the AC bus in the inverter. Now even if the main part of the inverter is disconnected there still needs to be an electrical connection to the grid side...

Yes, it was.

I get the same deal too in PA. They settle up once a year. I just took a check to the bank last week. Because of historically cheap and reliable energy there was very little demand for solar here in PA until recently. The rates have increased quite a bit the last 2-3 years and we are seeing...

There are 26 inverters that were upgraded to the latest firmware. 9 are still on the older version. I have a ticket in to Enphase to upgrade the rest of the inverters. I did not actually check that all the upgraded inverters were producing power. Maybe once all the inverters have been...

My bad, I meant to say you CAN'T. Well you can, and it won't blow up. It just won't deliver any power.

I just wonder if anyone actually has one of these beasts installed in an RV? In the process of testing, I was running my AC with my wall oven and my toaster. When my AC starts up it has a 65 amp surge. The dual Schneiders were fine with all this, but it faulted my batteries. I have 3 and...

I have a grid tied system with full net metering. So for me, yes I do have an electric drier and I have no plans to replace it. Driers along with water heaters are energy pigs. Now your situation in Phoenix is better than mine. You are farther south and there are very few long periods of...

I did actually update the Schneider XW Pro to the latest version. I also updated the Insight to version 18. I had some troubles with 18. It seemed to keep locking up. I had been on version 16. I backed it off to version 17 and I will see I am still getting lock ups. On version 18, I also...

It can do this, but there are two problems here us IQ8 AC coupled people are facing. One is finding a "Grid Profile" that allows the inverters to turn on at all. This seems to be a big problem with IQ8s. The second is how to make sure you don't operate the AC Coupled PV when the batteries are...

Many small air conditioners now use an "Inverter" design. A more traditional AC systems have an induction motor wired directly to a contactor. The incoming 240 volt supply is connected directly to the motor windings. When starting up, it is basically a short circuit. The many loops of wire...

For most solar systems, summer is not the time you come up short. Yes, the A/C runs a lot, but PV production is very high. I am consistently exporting power in the summer. It is winter when my system produces less than I consume. So during winter a hot water heater and electric drier really...

I spent most of my money on women and wine. And like a fool, I squandered the rest...

That's 27,000 lbs for 8 yards without accounting for the water. I guess that explains why concrete trucks are big.

I think a desire to sell way overpriced batteries may be interfering with some companies making their PV inverters play nice, but I think there are also issues with hybrid inverter companies selling half baked poorly thought out solutions that work better on paper than in reality.

This is finally working after the latest IQ8 firmware upgrade.

I have an AC coupled system with Enphase Micros and Schneider Electric Inverters. A rule of thumb is that you need at least enough charging and battery capacity to handle the full output of your solar array. The reason why is that Grid tied PV micro inverters do not throttle their output to...

I know it is standard industry practice to use 12-2 nonmetallic cable (better known as romex) for 240 only circuits. So you get a white and a black. Using the "correct" color isn't really an option. Running 12-3 just to have the right color is not required by code. The code may require using...

I got the max power from the data sheets on the inverter. They say the Max DC input is 8000 watts divided into 2 MPPT inputs. So each MPPT can handle 4000 watts. Since the whole purpose of an MPPT controller is to vary the Voltage / Amperage to achieve the best power production based on...

Considering you are storing enough energy in there to power a small rail gun, you really need to make sure there is no chance you will ever short out your DC cables. I am careful around my DC cables anyway, but shorting these will be like a bomb going off. The rectangular metal boxes under my...

I went the other way. I got everything wall mounted. I guess it depends on what your garage space is like. For me having everything up off the floor is a big benefit. Getting those Schneider inverters up on the wall is a challenge even with two people. If I did that on a regular basis, I...

I can beat that. Some plumbing business in CA wanted to charge my Mom $13,000 to replace 2 * 50 gallon gas water heaters. While 87 years old, luckily she is not senile. To me, $1700 each sounds like a bargain. She ended up paying $1300 just to have the pilot light assembly replaced in one of...

With a dual inverter system, you should be able to supply 60 amps. The 48 amps is a 80% derating of a single 60 amp circuit. This derating is required when a circuit is used continuously. With dual inverters no derating should be required. However just like the case of the AC1, AC2 has a 60...

I also have this little guy coming in a few weeks. I couldn't see paying big bucks to get an $8.00 part faster. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TRMG9PP?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1 I think the Chinese Photographer didn't know the Hz was supposed to be right side up, not zH. If I...

You are are on the right track here. The "Gen Support" setting should help you manage the maximum current. Depending on your load vs battery capacity, topping the batteries off once or twice a day should work great. It is much more efficient than running a 20KW generator 24/7 to keep your...

I'm a big fan of Fargo the movie. A few of my northern relatives thought it made the locals out to be country bumkins, but hey in the end they figured out the crime. I like the scene where two locals in their hooded parkas are looking around and speculating about the coming weather. "Ya, Ya...

Well I did more testing today. Based on prior testing I adjusted the load shedding so that string 1 sheds at 92% SOC and reattaches at 90%. String 2 sheds at 97% and reattaches at 94%. String 3 is now always connected. The AC Coupled Frequency Shifting can manage the 3 KW output of string 3...

I believe the correct setting for grid support will be 30 amps. This is set at each inverter, giving you 60 amps total. To verify this set the value much lower and see at what point the system starts drawing from your battery. If you set the number to 5 on each inverter, it should limit the...

This is a trace from this weekend's test. From 10:00 to 1:30 the graph shows string 3 running and string 2 cycling on and off to supply the load from my dryer and other heavy loads. Even with this 5000 watt load running, it can keep the battery between 94 and 100% SOC. The dryer is not a steady...

At the time I built my system, I was planning to have a generator as a backup during a more extended outage. I installed an 80 amp 4 pole contactor with 2 NO and 2 NC contacts. This thing is pretty huge, but I sized it in case I ever added a 4th string of PV. It uses the voltage from the...

Yep, that how it is done properly.

I found this. It doesn't log, but it's a start. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08TRMG9PP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

It is a great deal. Due to Three Mile Island we have had cheap reliable power here in this part of PA. Because of that, there has been very little solar. They shut TMI down a couple of years ago and our rates have gone up. My annual net metering true up isn't huge. For 2023 I produced 2.5...

My Settings: Nothing Special here. AC Coupling On Recharge SOC 95 - Doesn't seem to make any difference Battery Type - Custom Charge Cycle - 2 SOC Control - Enabled works better with SOC Battery Bank Capacity - 300 Ah Maximum Charge Rate - 60% If the actual charge rate when AC coupling...

I reread this and realize I misinterpreted what you said. You are saying you overloaded the generator input by coupling there rather than in the loads panel. That makes total sense now. I thought you were saying you coupled your AC PV panels with a generator. On my Schneider system I...

Well, it's not like Deliverance was very kind in how it portrayed Southerners. The worst people in the Fargo movie were the criminals. They didn't have the regional accent. These regional accents can persist in a population for quite sometime even when people move to another area. Oroville...

I have this system all setup. In Grid tied mode everything works great. There is a problem getting the PV inverters to turn on after disconnecting from the grid. I saw a similar post from someone trying to make this work with a Solark. The system runs fine on batteries, but the whole point...

What you want: Your sol ark should connect to the incoming power from the meter. The main panel should then be powered by the output coming out of the sol ark. They have nothing hooked to the output of your sol ark making it basically useless. Meter <=> Sol Ark => Main Panel...

Just an FYI, Split phase power has three wires plus a ground. There is a L1, L2, and N. Voltages are: L1 => N 120. L2 => N 120. L1 => L2 240. L1 and L2 both have 120 volts to ground or neutral. They are 180 degrees out of phase (when one is plus 120 the other is minus 120). So when...

I'm not sure it's code, but I consider it a good safety practice.

I have two inverters. My power is very reliable here, so I don't have much switching between inverter and grid. I don't think I will ever exceed their 14,000 watt limit even momentarily. I got two inverters because I have more AC coupled power than a single inverter can handle.

That is good to hear. Some inverter companies require that you be certified to install their product or they won't let you commission the system. Also if you want the work done under a warrantee, there might be restrictions on who you are allowed to use (only authorized dealers). But since I...

I use a 120 volt lamp socket and an incandescent appliance bulb. I have not tested to know that a 12 volt bulb won't work. I was concerned that at least at the beginning the voltage across the gap would be 50 volts and it might burn out a 12 volt automotive bulb. I don't have it wired up...

They make phase converters that apparently work fine for running three phase motors of single phase 240. They are probably cheaper than trying to build an entire three phase electrical system. With the 208 three phase I believe you still get 120 volts to neutral.

Your proposed design looks fine to me. Hopefully you already got this installed. One thing to be aware of is that if you ever decide you want to add a generator to your system, you will need to make sure that the generator can never run at the same time as the grid tied PV. Can you let us...

Off-Grid vs Grid-Tied Off-Grid: You are Off-Grid if you are not connected to the grid or at least you are not running your inverter in parallel with the Grid. When you lose power and disconnect from the grid, then and only then can you turn your inverter on and start supplying power to the...

Sounds good. I wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to do. Maybe I at least go the conversation pushed in the right direct even if I didn't pick the correct check value. It's just one I used on my sump pump. They actually have a little tiny metal spring on them to insure positive closure.

I think there are at least three reasons. It is higher voltage (up to 600 volts). DC tends to sustain arcs better than AC. A short in a PV circuit is less likely to trip a circuit breaker or blow a fuse. So if these wires arc and burn up, the metal conduit is more likely to contain the fire...

That's great. I have fuses on my inverter supply lines too just past the battery combiner bus bars. It just seemed like a good fail safe in the event of either a breaker failing or a short somewhere in the wiring. Glad they worked. A fuse just seems more like it has a lower risk of...

Great idea, let my break out my oscilloscope, current and voltage meters, monitoring software and a couple of spreadsheets. I'll get back to you.:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

My two cents. If backup power is not a requirement, then hybrid inverters are not needed. Including them Hybrids will complicate the issue of making sure that your grid tied PV and Generator can not run at the same time. Other users here are correct when they say that the system must be...

Thanks for the information. This looks interesting. It is also way over kill for what I need.

I like the simplicity and efficiency of using micro-inverters. I actually have very reliable underground utility power here. So 99.9% of the time I expect to be grid tied. Unfortunately getting my PV to actually work during that 0.1% of the time when the grid is down, is proving troublesome...

So I guess if I want to AC couple successfully, I need to trade my in my IQ8+ inverters for something else. My roof layout is somewhat complex meaning micro inverters are really the way to go. I naively assumed that the "latest greatest" inverters would be better able to respond to changing...

I have a small 2 ton AC. The surge current even on this unit was 65 amps AC. Many meters are fast enough to capture the full surge current. This maps to 312 amps DC. If you have a large 4-5 ton AC it could have a 120-130 amp surge current. This could trip those batteries if you have other...

It is not complexity that kills electronics. With inverters it is heat that will kill them. Because string inverters deal with higher voltages and more current they are more likely to over heat. String inverters also have moving parts like fans that can fail (and yes lead to over heating)...

It's not free. If you double your batteries from 30 KWHs to 60 KWHs and use an electric Dryer you might reduce your generator days from 15 to 6. Instead you go with 30 KWHs and a gas dryer, so you save $9000 in batteries. Instead you will generate say 30 KWHs of additional electricity from...

Interesting, but I think my "mini-industrial control panel creation" or wiring up speaker crossovers is about as low level as I want to get with with electronics. Maybe when I retire I might play around with this kind of stuff. Years ago I tried "make your own pcb kit". It didn't go well. I...

My suggestion is go for something like this: https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-6000xp-off-grid-inverter-split-phase/ About $1500 for a 6000 watt inverter. $0.25 per watt https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-48v-100ah/ About $1250.00 for 5 KWHs. $250.00 per KWH. 4 *...

The AC coupled power can be used to recharge the batteries, but the system also has to prevent over charging. So start is how low do the batteries need to get before the AC coupled will turn on and start charging them. Stop is when to turn AC coupled off to prevent over charging. So before...

So, first of all, AC Coupling and DC Coupling refer to how does power flow from your PV panels to your batteries. When your system is connected to the grid and you are using grid tied inverters, you are simply operating the system in pass through mode. Your grid tied inverters are directly...

I think being able to have a fairly detailed view of 10-15 minutes would probably work for me.

I would suggest that you power your load panel directly from the inverter out terminals. Hook the generator into AC2 (Gen input). The Schneider can switch between inverter and AC2 fast enough that it is like you don't lose power. Also, you can run the generator into your loads panel in "Pass...

My dad had a 1969 280SL when I was growing up. He got rid of it 10 years ago or so. It was restored nicely on the outside. It was bright red. Beautiful car, but it DID drive like a 50 year old car. Not that fast, and when you hit the brakes hard, it would fish tail violently. The seat...

I have actually thought about this too. I think the issue here is that this requires 1 3T, one system controller, 2 load managers. I think it is about $7000.00 of equipment. Then wire, conduits, fitting, and supplies. Probably around $8000 and no guarantee it will actually work. Option 1...

I have three of them. I have not had any problems. Most inverters won't directly support the closed loop communications (as in they don't specifically list these batteries). The BMS is apparently compatible with phylon tech batteries. I had no problems getting SOC reporting to work. I like...

Perhaps, but I have more confidence that if I have a power failure in the middle of summer with the Air Conditioner cycling on and off, I'm not going to have any issues. I could have added 3 more batteries, but that's around $4500.00.

I looked into this. Generac make prioritized load shedding modules. They are simply wired inline with the appliance being controlled. Unfortunately it appears that the master controller that decides when load needs to be shed and how much is in the generator. There could also be some issues...

Yes, the wave form is very strange. It looks like something akin to a square wave hitting a filter. That decaying "Ringing" of the circuit is likely the response of a Inductor / Capacitor getting pinged over and over. Someone else mentioned that maybe it thought the voltage wasn't high enough...

Treated lumber is very corrosive. You need to use specially rated fasteners with it or they will quickly deteriorate. I wouldn't recommend treated lumber for anything electrical.

More than likely the furnace is checking that there is continuity between the neutral and ground wire. If you have a portable generator, it should have a bonded neutral, meaning it has a connection between the ground and neutral wire in the generator. Whole home standby generators will...

That is something I didn't realize when first setting my system up. There doesn't appear to be anyway to just trickle charge the batteries. Even when there is grid power, the inverters do draw there idle current from the batteries. On mine I set it up to recharge at around 95%. I kicks off a...

I did some more testing today. I learned some things, but it appears right now that Enphase IQ8s will not couple successfully with Schneider inverters out of the box. It appears to be an IQ8 issue, not a Schneider issue. The AC from the Schneider is a rock solid 60 HZ. The very first time...

I'm pretty sure I had to manually set this. Insight only talks to the primary battery. The 100 Amp Hour, may just be a constant default based on the battery type.

How does an a chunk of plastic, some springs, a needle and $0.50 of Epinephrine become a $1000.00 epi pen?

Just wondering how you went about controlling your strings? Did the lights flicker all the time or just here and there? The have definitely changed the way they handling the "Anti-Islanding" on the IQ8s. It used to be that they way they did this they would never allow the inverters to...

This is from Sol Arc: @Sol-Ark 1 year ago Hi Harvey, these are awesome questions for our solar engineering team, and I'd definitely start a conversation with them through this link: https://www.sol-ark.com/contact-us/ With that in mind, here's a couple of answers that may help clarify your...