Sol-Ark not a good company to deal with 12k

73powerstroke said:

It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with its made very cheaply on the backs of Chinese workers. And it should be priced according. It like buying a pair of nikes. Your paying for a name. In return you get the same average quality. It's not on the same level as midnite solar or outback. If you like to waste money on a greedy company that doesn't care about anyone go for it.

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The radian 8048A was one of the inverters on my short list for whole home systems this year. I ended up going with the Sol-Ark 15k instead for a few reasons:

1. Efficiency: the radian CEC effeciency is only 92.5%. That means it wastes over twice as much power as the Sol-Ark.
2. Low pass-through current: I can't even tell by looking at the specs sheet right now what it is but it seems to be only either 30 or 50a. That's means I need a minimum of 4 units (or possibly 7) to get 200A of passthrough.
Price: an equivalent radian system costs much more than a sol-ark 15k based system.
4. Ease of installation: the sol-ark is much easier to install due to needing fewer units and having a lot of the breakers built in.
5. Warranty: The standard sol-ark 10 year warranty is free. With the radian you only get 5 years unless you pay extra.

Even if the radian system was half the price of the sol-ark I'd probably go with the Sol-ark.

mvonw said:

Well, I certainly agree the Chinese people are led poorly and corruptly.

My wife is in senior management at Nike, so I have a little bit of insight into their reality I'm afraid the globalization ship has sailed. Corruption and greed are not an eastern monopoly.

All I know about Sol Ark is that it was very DIY friendly. My place is remote, so it critical I can service it myself and get support. I'm sure other units are great too. I would have bought a Schneider if I thought the diy support was there. It's clear from their marketing, its not their target.

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Yep. Yeah a bit commercial maybe. If you're happy and you have the means then it works till it doesn't work.
I wish the mpp solar stuff or growatt and those types were more rugged with remote support better.

73powerstroke said:

I wish the mpp solar stuff or growatt and those types were more rugged with remote support better.

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Aren't those made in Taiwan?

Wet1 said:

Aren't those made in Taiwan?

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I'm not sure if they're made in Taiwan or if they're made in China but the company is in Taiwan but the company that makes the inverter also makes a bunch of other ones and I think that company is in China

73powerstroke said:

Yep. Yeah a bit commercial maybe. If you're happy and you have the means then it works till it doesn't work.
I wish the mpp solar stuff or growatt and those types were more rugged with remote support better.

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My Growatt has been running for 6 months without a single hiccup. Can't say anything about support, because I haven't needed any. I hope that it lasts longer than I do. Just have to wait and see.

Made in China, like everything else.

73powerstroke said:

China inverter with primo American price. Gee, sign me up.

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About like a truck, atv, RV, HVAC system or anything else we buy nowadays. Everyone's priorities are different. Mine just happens to be solar right now.

mvonw said:

Well, I certainly agree the Chinese people are led poorly and corruptly.

My wife is in senior management at Nike, so I have a little bit of insight into their reality I'm afraid the globalization ship has sailed. Corruption and greed are not an eastern monopoly.

All I know about Sol Ark is that it was very DIY friendly. My place is remote, so it critical I can service it myself and get support. I'm sure other units are great too. I would have bought a Schneider if I thought the diy support was there. It's clear from their marketing, its not their target.

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Schneider too came in second for me, due to their poor customer service.

RV10flyer said:

Schneider too came in second for me, due to their poor customer service.

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My ranking list ended up like:

1. Sol-Ark
2. Victron
3. Schneider
4. Outback

I hope Victron comes out with some beefy split phase models eventually.

niktak11 said:

My ranking list ended up like:

1. Sol-Ark
2. Victron
3. Schneider
4. Outback

I hope Victron comes out with some beefy split phase models eventually.

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And grid tie certs.

Could be they are copying Sol-Ark

QuadRAGIN said:

Could be they are coping Sol-Ark

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Yeah... Nope! new acc must be a sol-ark troll

David E said:

This statement is false. “ Sol-Ark currently sells three models of inverter, with names that correspond to the number of kilowatts (kW) of continuous power output. They are called the 5K, 8K, and 12K lines. Sol-Ark plans to begin selling a 15 kW inverter (called the “15K” of course) later in 2022.”

I have two 12k EMP sol-ark inverters and after all the money i spent on these pos i come to find out they can only deliver 9kw ea NOT 12kw that everyone believes! I installed a 25kw array and the only way to get it to put out the max of the array is to drain my battery down, then it will produce 23 to 24kw while it is charging the batteries however as soon as the batteries are charged it drops the system back to 18 to 19kw. I have contacted Sol-Ark and these people will not even respond. I sent a certified letter to CEO, no response. I joined linkedin and message him, no response. I wrote a review on google reviews and someone who claims to be owner will look into it and get back to me in a few days, guess what , no further contact from them. That was over 2 weeks ago. I emailed them , no response. This is not a reputable or legitimate company. They claim customer’s are important to them however their actions say that that is false. Ignoring me or any customer is not good practice. I asked them to swap out these falsely advertised inverters for 2 15k inverters. Is this how good, responsible companies act?

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Spec sheet say :

MurphyGuy said:

My guess is that in about 5 years, we'll start to see these Sol-Arks failing.. and once the warranty claims become too burdensome, the company will go out of business.

I'm curious, does anyone here own a high frequency battery inverter that has been used for more then 5 or 7 years and is still working? I'm not talking about a grid tied unit, I'm wondering about the off-grid battery inverters.

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had mpp solar MPI 10k's running for 5 years in my old house , which i sold 3 years ago..
talked to the new owner last week, still running flawless

granted , they are hybrids, but they use the grid only for backup

niktak11 said:

I've seen more issues with LF inverters. That might be because the HF AIOs haven't been out for as long though.

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Same here, I have seen several Low Frequency Inverters inside my dealers warehouse that are toast. Including Magnums which from everything I have heard are pretty robust. You won't know until the time has passed and HF AIO have been on the market for at least 12 years. I suspect that they will operate just fine. I have seen this doom and gloom philosophy emerge every time an older technology is replaced by something newer.

The latest one debunked was SSD drives. Back around 2012 people swore that they would all fail and everyone would lose their data. Well I have been using them on server running systems since about 2014 and I think most of those systems are still running. I cannot say the same for PC's with platter drives.

Seems as if someone should have read the spec sheet.

When I first got into solar / off-grid I was doing a LOT of research. One of the things I found is that people don't read spec sheets and then fault the manufacturer for what they "thought" was true. Victron gets a lot of abuse in this regard because the average American is an idiot. I read countless posts complaining that "I ordered a XXX unit and it is for 230 VAC and it only has 2,400 watts. Victron is using false marketing."

They placed their order because they looked at the photo of the unit online and thought the 12 | 3000 | 120 meant 12 VDC, 3000 Watts, 120 VAC. See below:



If you read the spec sheet you will see that the 12 VDC unit is rated for 3,000 VA and 120 amps of battery charging capacity, yet those idiots blamed Victron for false advertising. You can look at the front of the unit and see "Inverter 230 V" plain as day. If they had a brain they would realize that the countries where Victron is made are all 230 VAC and rating inverters in VA is the norm there.

A good friend of mine was a very early adopter of the 8 KW Sol-Ark unit. It sat in his garage for over two years before we finally installed his solar array and batteries. There was an issue with the unit backing off output power when solar input was at its highest level. He worked with Sol-Ark via the phone and email for several days until they determined the issue and sent him new firmware and a simple wiring modification to correct it. (The wiring mod is already incorporated in the newer units.) His experience with their tech support has been excellent and the unit has performed flawlessly since.

I imagine the tone of communication with tech support when having an issue will help determine how well your experience turns out, since we are dealing with humans and not robots.

Two well-reasoned, balanced posts in a row. Things are looking up!

B-ManFX4 said:

Seems as if someone should have read the spec sheet.

When I first got into solar / off-grid I was doing a LOT of research. One of the things I found is that people don't read spec sheets and then fault the manufacturer for what they "thought" was true. Victron gets a lot of abuse in this regard because the average American is an idiot. I read countless posts complaining that "I ordered a XXX unit and it is for 230VAC and it only has 2,400 watts. Victron is using false marketing."

They placed their order because they looked at the photo of the unit online and thought the 12|3000|120 meant 12VDC, 3000 Watts, 120VAC. See below:

View attachment 108818

If you read the spec sheet you will see that the 12VDC unit is rated for 3,000VA and 120 amps of battery charging capacity, yet those idiots blamed Victron for false advertising. You can look at the front of the unit and see "Inverter 230 V" plain as day. If they had a brain they would realize that the countries where Victron is made are all 230VAC and rating inverters in VA is the norm there.

A good friend of mine was a very early adopter of the 8KW Sol-Ark unit. It sat in his garage for over two years before we finally installed his solar array and batteries. There was an issue with the unit backing off output power when solar input was at its highest level. He worked with Sol-Ark via the phone and email for several days until they determined the issue and sent him new firmware and a simple wiring modification to correct it. (The wiring mod is already incorporated in the newer units.) His experience with their tech support has been excellent and the unit has performed flawlessly since.

I imagine the tone of communication with tech support when having an issue will help determine how well your experience turns out, since we are dealing with humans and not robots.

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I would imagine that any though Victron had of getting more involved in the USA market must be on hold now.
I Just heard the news of the whopping 80% price hike in power coming to UK home owners this year.
I also see them pushing Solar as a way to save yourself from the bill. I would imagine Victron must be gearing up for an ungodly amount of sales in the UK in the coming months. They make great equipment so I am sure they are going to do really well. I wish them well and look forward to all the new tech they will devope with this windfall of cash.

robby said:

I would imagine that any though Victron had of getting more involved in the USA market must be on hold now.
I Just heard the news of the whopping 80% price hike in power coming to UK home owners this year.
I also see them pushing Solar as a way to save yourself from the bill. I would imagine Victron must be gearing up for an ungodly amount of sales in the UK in the coming months. They make great equipment so I am sure they are going to do really well. I wish them well and look forward to all the new tech they will devope with this windfall of cash.

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Not just in the UK. Pretty much anywhere in Europe that solar is feasible.

The heat pump manufacturing/distribution channel is also likely to do quite well.

David E said:

This statement is false. “ Sol-Ark currently sells three models of inverter, with names that correspond to the number of kilowatts (kW) of continuous power output. They are called the 5K, 8K, and 12K lines. Sol-Ark plans to begin selling a 15 kW inverter (called the “15K” of course) later in 2022.”

I have two 12k EMP sol-ark inverters and after all the money i spent on these pos i come to find out they can only deliver 9kw ea NOT 12kw that everyone believes! I installed a 25kw array and the only way to get it to put out the max of the array is to drain my battery down, then it will produce 23 to 24kw while it is charging the batteries however as soon as the batteries are charged it drops the system back to 18 to 19kw. I have contacted Sol-Ark and these people will not even respond. I sent a certified letter to CEO, no response. I joined linkedin and message him, no response. I wrote a review on google reviews and someone who claims to be owner will look into it and get back to me in a few days, guess what , no further contact from them. That was over 2 weeks ago. I emailed them , no response. This is not a reputable or legitimate company. They claim customer’s are important to them however their actions say that that is false. Ignoring me or any customer is not good practice. I asked them to swap out these falsely advertised inverters for 2 15k inverters. Is this how good, responsible companies act?

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David, I had a problem with my 12k inverter, called and left a message. In less than 2 hrs I had a call back and the tech logged into my inverter and fixed the issue I was having. I've been very happy with my Sol-Ark. (No, I'm not working for them!) The number I called is 972-575-8875.

You coulda bought 5 or more chinese inverters with that money. 4 or more as backup too.

nc73 said:

You coulda bought 5 or more chinese inverters with that money. 4 or more as backup too.

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Sounds like 5 or more times as many problems

niktak11 said:

Sounds like 5 or more times as many problems

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not if you don't unbox the 4 or 5 backup ones ?

nc73 said:

not if you don't unbox the 4 or 5 backup ones ?

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By time 10 years has passed there might not be any backups left.

Ampster said:

It is marketing and I agree it is deceptive. If you dive into the details, my understanding is if you AC couple a 12k SolArk you can get a total of 12kW from a combination of the AC coupled pass through and the native 9kW from the internal inverter. I have a 5kW Outback Skybox and I can AC couple 7.5kW of solar but Outback did not call it a 12.5k.
The SolArk is actually a rebadged Deye inverter which is made in China, but they lead you to believe it was made by Veterans. My Skybox did cost a lot less than the SolArk. I guess marketing costs more.

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Holly crap, I thought they made their own!