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SunGold Power SP6548 Flickering lights after new install

Just noticed it was a 20A not a 30A. I ordered these versions since I prefer the protected terminals and leads vs posts on the others. Smaller amperage to test on the lighting circuit and larger 20A for a circuit with a UPS to see if it stops it from cycling between battery and line power. These can be put inside junction boxes so I would sleep better knowing nothing can short them out.
20A unit
10A unit with leads
 
Sky Noris said:
Nice! I'd have ordered some myself if i had any problems. Man I hope this ends with a solid solution.
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You and me both! This has been a shitty experience to put it mildly. 3 weeks, 2 inverters, 2 panels, 3 can lights, 4 edison bulbs, 3 dimmers, chokes, fans and now emi filters. Still with 0 feedback from the manufacturer.
 
Sky Noris said:
Nice! I'd have ordered some myself if i had any problems. Man I hope this ends with a solid solution.
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Tried the 10A on the kitchen lighting circuit no change. Put the 20A on the UPS circuit, also no change. Disconnected the inverter output and put the 20A filter inline with some 12/2 to a dual gang box. Plugged in each of the UPS units, still tripped. Removed that and tossed on 4 edison bases. Tried a Wifi Philips Hue flicker free LED, flickered especially when dimmed. Tried the LED with 3 incandescent 40w bulbs, still flickered. Hate to say it but I think this is going to end up being an issue the manufacturer sticks us with. Still waiting on 2 fans from Amazon. Might just reorder them since they appear to have gotten lost.
 
nofear72784 said:
Tried the 10A on the kitchen lighting circuit no change. Put the 20A on the UPS circuit, also no change. Disconnected the inverter output and put the 20A filter inline with some 12/2 to a dual gang box. Plugged in each of the UPS units, still tripped. Removed that and tossed on 4 edison bases. Tried a Wifi Philips Hue flicker free LED, flickered especially when dimmed. Tried the LED with 3 incandescent 40w bulbs, still flickered. Hate to say it but I think this is going to end up being an issue the manufacturer sticks us with. Still waiting on 2 fans from Amazon. Might just reorder them since they appear to have gotten lost.
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I suggest we find a member in your area with the capability to scope it out better to inform the manufacturer how shitty their product is. Good luck!
 
goldserve said:
I suggest we find a member in your area with the capability to scope it out better to inform the manufacturer how shitty their product is. Good luck!
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They have plenty of diagnostic information from me. If they will do anything is another story. Opening a case with VISA.
 
I didn't give the filter much of a chance for a problem that only happens when solar powered. Too bad you aren't close. I'd look at the LED intensity with a OP101 into a FFT to see the frequencies. I'd compare that with the AC signal of the PV array. I suspect there is some crossover noise from the charge controller hunting to find power point. This might even be seen on the battery.

If anyone has noise spike problems, consider making a tracking filter. Nothing more than a large capacitor bank powered from a full wave bridge connected to AC line. The capacitor bank charges to the peak AC voltage. A low current resistor drains off just enough current to keep the capacitor voltage from rising above the normal AC peak. Any spike on the power line 2V over the normal peak gets absorbed by the capacitor bank. This just sits there all day tracking normal AC voltage.

Someone mentioned before about placing a 5uF oil capacitor on the line. I do this on all my inverters except I place a 1 ohm resistor in series. This solves a lot of problems in factories. Used to be there were a lot of incandescent lamps and these would absorb noise on the line. Now the electrical system is high impendence to noise which just bounces around. A length of wire is just an inductance and a capacitor alone will just cause ringing. A resistor is needed to absorb the noise and turn it to heat.
 
Without a proper scope it really is hard to pinpoint. The frequency is not a steady 60hz and there is all kinds of variation and noise in the output. More leaning towards getting my money back at this point. No one wants to play games like this with new equipment. I am still open to suggestions though if anyone has them. At least ruling things out is helpful for other people.
 
This is all good info. I've got dozens of dimmers on my eddison leds around my house. I'd definatly think twice about certain inverters now :LOL:
 
Sky Noris said:
I was looking around again for cheaper filters for the heck of it today and did come across this guy https://www.ebay.com/itm/195257385850?_trkparms=amclksrc=ITM&aid=1110006&algo=HOMESPLICE.SIM&ao=1&asc=240678&meid=d1c1ba8fd1c04235bbf3f2a792a39d76&pid=101195&rk=3&rkt=12&sd=354175300775&itm=195257385850&pmt=1&noa=0&pg=2047675&algv=SimplAMLv9PairwiseWebMskuAspectsV202110NoVariantSeedKnnRecallV1WithNode2Vec&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum:195257385850d1c1ba8fd1c04235bbf3f2a792a39d76|enc:AQAHAAABIFVvFeUTQhL4KP79koL%2B4Ydgokeb2CQrAyC%2BOwbdpQetV2qAC7C3Vu0XLY04JD2l71qihjhRi6NHnF8%2BhgXS2aYrSe2gbn68aOiuHVBnxF63XbHYvJGIfK7nu%2FEvUnYycI%2BjMt5yWWCnVOg6S8jWUF76Xi7YNJzoo%2F5uoXW%2FpP6dxAkCeQh%2B69UvhVLBLDS%2BJl0mbyETVDLx2wyrUXBgcUmGR7KPH5M%2B7fh7M%2FEQhYz8Jr%2FtQTb9uiNiLwA7p2tuqZ%2FXvmZlfRXYbMEkHTy14OZ8kEhxIWXtVcoLbrwSeMgag9MC8qgS8HybKlbMeDNL%2BJxVzLxGmqhXtAV6rA4JydPxHwW3XvDX1%2F6d963N%2F8kZ%2BDZkMNF7DuKP%2BqN8Ki3lpQ%3D%3D|ampid:pL_CLK|clp:2047675&epid=1093169783
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This is the tracking filter I said could be built with a diode bridge and an electrolytic capacitor. It is to limit spikes above what anormal sine wave would have. Not really a filter, but a voltage limiter.
 
Haven't had much time to mess around but I did change out the fans. Not much to report, flickering is better on constant on bulbs but still an issue with anything that dims. Going to stop throwing parts at this and see what the manufacturer comes back with (if anything).
 
Makes sence, seems like you've already put alot of time and effort into this
 
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nofear72784 said:
I have an E2 and I am an electrical engineer by trade yet he refused to issue me a permit. I had all the required drawings and engineering reports but I am not an "experienced solar installer or a licensed company" so he refused. Long story, but after months of back and forth it was just easier to pay someone else. TBH I installed 98% of it and all I paid for was the final hookup and pulling of the permits. The city has a serious racquet with a few install companies that give a kickback to the city in the form of donations to parks etc so it is legal. If you use them you get an inspection within a week. My neighbor did not use one of those companies, been waiting since may for a final inspection to commission the system.
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Welcome to the Government.
Had the same exact problem here.

Tried to shake me down because it’s was all DIY even though I had all the documentation.

Eventually had to just get Transfer switch permitted and then instead of using generator used solar instead.

Major Racket..
 
Jazzmonger said:
I totally agree, but we should not be outsourcing so much of this stuff to China....but we do and we get questionable products and components as a result. So, we get cheap, sometimes malfunctioning products billed as quality. It's the price we currently pay.
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We have the ability to make them here.
Problem is China just buys them then Reverse engineers them. Makes a ton of clones and put company out of business.

Try to sue them for IP or patent or whatever and suddenly it’s Government company and you can’t sue a Government.
 
Biasjo said:
We have the ability to make them here.
Problem is China just buys them then Reverse engineers them. Makes a ton of clones and put company out of business.

Try to sue them for IP or patent or whatever and suddenly it’s Government company and you can’t sue a Government.
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This is exactly what happens and the only way around it is to have a large respected company in China make your product so that the other companies in China fear crossing them and facing the wrath of the CCP.
Of course this mafia style protection is going to cost you in terms of sharing IP with them and giving them some regions of the global market share that they are free to distribute their own branded copy of your product.
Your only leverage is making sure you have patents on your design in the major countries. They are able to sell it in those regions using your permission, which means if they screw you the permission is revoked.

For the CCP they are only interested in the foreign revenue so they are not happy if something cuts into that.
 
robby said:
This is exactly what happens and the only way around it is to have a large respected company in China make your product so that the other companies in China fear crossing them and facing the wrath of the CCP.
Of course this mafia style protection is going to cost you in terms of sharing IP with them and giving them some regions of the global market share that they are free to distribute their own branded copy of your product.
Your only leverage is making sure you have patents on your design in the major countries. They are able to sell it in those regions using your permission, which means if they screw you the permission is revoked.

For the CCP they are only interested in the foreign revenue so they are not happy if something cuts into that.
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Yup. That’s unfortunate.
Have seen other manufacturers of others things try to get satisfaction from Chinese Clones.
State Department just Says “Sorry” and international courts won’t even hear the case.

So basically they get to do whatever they want with zero accountability.
 
On a positive note they did reach out this morning asking me to describe the issues again. After 30 plus emails you would think they got it by now. I am assuming the US engineering team received the unit and are looking into the issue.
 
nofear72784 said:
On a positive note they did reach out this morning asking me to describe the issues again. After 30 plus emails you would think they got it by now. I am assuming the US engineering team received the unit and are looking into the issue.
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They are pretty good at manipulating you and playing with your emotions, I have to give them extra points for that. The way they convinced you to keep it instead of initiate the paypal dispute was masterful. They should use this thread at the factory in China to help explain how to string customers along with false promises.
 
Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries said:
They are pretty good at manipulating you and playing with your emotions, I have to give them extra points for that. The way they convinced you to keep it instead of initiate the paypal dispute was masterful. They should use this thread at the factory in China to help explain how to string customers along with false promises.
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Hahaha it's OK I opened a dispute with VISA which is where the Paypal payment came from. I have another 30 days or so. They requested all the correspondences from SunGold Power in the meantime just to show I gave them a "reasonable amount of time" to remedy the issue.
 
Lilikoi_Heavy_Industries said:
They are pretty good at manipulating you and playing with your emotions, I have to give them extra points for that. The way they convinced you to keep it instead of initiate the paypal dispute was masterful. They should use this thread at the factory in China to help explain how to string customers along with false promises.
Click to expand...
It's already a well known playbook in China. Pretend to care just long enough that the deal is sealed.
They also make sure that they have multiple active accounts on every platform and they all are selling the same product for slightly different prices. If they get into an issue with one account it's no big deal, they pocket the money and suffer the account getting closed down. Business is still running just fine on the other accounts.
 
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nofear72784 said:
So I pulled the circuits that have dimmers out of the panel and temporarily tired them into an Ego Nexus Power Station. That is a pure sine inverter as well, no flickering at all. I do not have a scope to check the wave on the 6548 but the voltage and hertz are correct and not jumping. Appears to be an inverter deficiency. What a disappointment. I have leviton and lutron led dimmers attached to philips and cree bulbs so not cheap hardware. Only other thing I can think of is it's some kind of noise on the DC side... shrugs
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I had a Renogy 12v/3000w PSW Inverter in my system to start out Battery back was 12v. Lights flickered. I replaced the 12v/3000w inverter with a 24v/4000w inverter. I also reconfigured the (8) 100Ah SEALED Batteries to a 24v bank (2p4s). The pulsing went away. I think the high current on the DC side of the inverter made it harder for the inverter to keep the voltage output precise. Also, sometimes I was running the inverter close to max.
 
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Don't forget SolArk, Apple, Dell all also made in China but are highly regarded.. Not all Chinese products are bad just because they are built there.
 
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