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diy solar

Safe Grid Use of the 5000ES and transformer

Here's Poz to round out the discussion. I watched his video and @13:41 he was checking voltage on line to ground on his auto transformer with the 3 pole breaker he was using to break the neutral output on and the meter read 2.38 volts but he called it 0 volts. I thought that was interesting. That would be 2.38 volts bleeding to ground from the batteries I guess?

 
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robby said:
And was this removal done on the very first units that you sold or are there 5000ES units floating around that were sold by you that just have the screw removed? If so at what date did you start selling units with the new PCB design.
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We never made for sale units with the screw in the design. We tested these units thoroughly prior to importing salable units, identified the issue, and provided specs for the change OEM before ever selling the units. If you received a unit from Signature Solar, it was designed for the North American market, period.
 
signaturesolarrichard said:
Agreed, bad verbage but unfortunately this phrasing came up due to the original video this was all based on that advocated 'removing the screw'. Ours never had the screw to begin with.
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No problem but for future sales the eventual official documentation describing the difference between the European version vs the US version probably would be best described as "deleted". imho
While I have your attention could you give your best opinion about the POZ video concerning this @13:41 where he shows 2.38 volts line to ground? Thanks!
 
Ozark Tinkering said:
Here's Poz to round out the discussion. I watched his video and @13:41 he was checking voltage on line to ground on his auto transformer with the 3 pole breaker he was using to break the neutral output on and the meter read 2.38 volts but he called it 0 volts. I thought that was interesting. That would be 2.38 volts bleeding to ground from the batteries I guess?

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I believe later in the video he actually does a continuity test that shows OL. When dealing with these systems its pretty common to see a small amount of voltage when testing it this way, but if you KNOW you have a circuit with 240v and only seeing 2v between 2 locations it's likely an OL.
 
Ozark Tinkering said:
No problem but for future sales the eventual official documentation describing the difference between the European version vs the US version probably would be best described as "deleted". imho
While I have your attention could you give your best opinion about the POZ video concerning this @13:41 where he shows 2.38 volts line to ground? Thanks!
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I just replied but essentially, if I KNOW I've got 240v on a line and I touch 2 points in an electrical system and only see 2v, its probably an OL. If you watch the video later there is a point where he does an actual continuity test and gets OL.
 
signaturesolarrichard said:
I just replied but essentially, if I KNOW I've got 240v on a line and I touch 2 points in an electrical system and only see 2v, its probably an OL. If you watch the video later there is a point where he does an actual continuity test and gets OL.
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Well...the point in the video I referenced @13:41 he is checking 1 of the 120 lines on a 2pole breaker while his 3pole breaker that he chose to protect the feed the of the auto transformer and its neutral open. If you go back another 30 seconds you'll get better context. He turned on the dryer and turned off the 3pole breaker protecting the transformer. Then with the dryer running he verified 0 volts on the 2 pole breaker he used as a test point and when he checked 1 phase to ground his meter showed 2.38 volts. He was expecting 0 volts and called it 0 volts but the meter read 2.38 volts. Now, 2.38 volts isn't nothing and it is real and draining to ground. Could you recreate this scenario with an ammeter inline so we know how much 2.38 volts affect efficiency? Thanks.
 
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kjswiley said:
In my opinion staying off grid is not a solution when one spent their money on these units expecting to utilize the grid, I could have gone another direction why did I buy a unit some are saying not to connect to the grid due to safety concerns? I live in Mexico at the beach, and even there I will have 4-10 days straight without sun a couple times a year when the hurricanes roll by so not connecting to the grid does not make any sense in my scenario.
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Themselves and Poz have now shifted to talking about Off Grid use only. Your still going to have potential issues if you try to feed in the Grid.
kjswiley said:
Now the modified PCB is A VERY DIFFERENT SCENARIO to me than a screw removal which is what SS originally told us had happened. So while I am still deciding if I will tie to the grid, I feel much better about the situation. I suspect SS had no idea what Growatt did and got lucky when they went into the unit and saw that Growatt did it properly. If they had known this they would have said it, and telling us the board had been modified 2 weeks ago would have made 90% of the people feel much better about things, but instead they helped spread rumors of a screw removal. Even SS says the screw removal method is unsafe, so no one here was overreacting.
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Your statement above is logical. I can see no reason that they would endure 10 days of bad PR on what was behind the grounding screw unless it was because they needed an answer from China and had to wait. I could have ripped one down for them in an hour and sent them the pictures.
 
Struc said:
I believe there are design challenges with every single inverter on the market surrounding grid connection. Each one must be analyzed individually and compensated for.
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I don't have any issues at all with mine.
 
Hopefully this can of worms can be put to bed now…
 

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robby said:
Themselves and Poz have now shifted to talking about Off Grid use only. Your still going to have potential issues if you try to feed in the Grid.

Your statement above is logical. I can see no reason that they would endure 10 days of bad PR on what was behind the grounding screw unless it was because they needed an answer from China and had to wait. I could have ripped one down for them in an hour and sent them the pictures.
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I can tell you this isn't true. I personally was in the back testing dozens of these units under a number of different conditions to come up with a solution. As far as the picture, it was on a to-do list a mile long and honestly I am one man trying to answer tons of requests in here. I promise I got it as soon as I had 10 seconds to take them, upload them, and post. Sorry about the delay, that is 100% my fault.

Edit: Just wanted to say that even though some might look at this as bad PR, I hope everyone can appreciate how transparent we have been on this issue and I do want to say that I've worked my tail off trying to answer hundreds of messages, phone calls, and emails, all while testing dozens of scenarios, drilling a hole in the wall of our workshop and pounding pipes into the ground. I really do my best and hope to continue having positive interactions with you all, on here and anywhere else, even in the face of hurdles like this week.
 
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bgflyguy said:
Anyone want to complain that the screw isn't sufficient for ng bond in the international version?
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Maybe we should talk about that a minute? If you check voltage to ground on the Euro model what reading would you expect to see? If you check voltage across the output lines what voltage are you expecting to see. What voltage does Europe use on the typical household appliance?
 
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