jjfmetal123
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- Nov 9, 2022
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Dang man this sucks!! my GSL literally just got delivered 5 minutes ago
New Lux Power LXP-LB-US 12k / GSL-H-12KLV-US with 200A AC Passthrough Current (US Market)
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derekja
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Don't despair!
I'm still having a decent experience anyway. Very much more limited scenario than above, in my case being completely off-grid. I haven't learned to completely trust the inverter yet, but it has fewer weirdnesses than the MPP-Solar units it replaced.
I was disappointed, now that my GSL batteries arrived, to find that they are not the Anderson connectors mentioned in the manual, but a proprietary connector of some sort obtainable only through GSL. But aside from generally rectifiable communication issues and manual inaccuracies I'm still happy with their responsiveness and the product.
Almost ready for prime-time might still be my verdict?
I have a trip planned this week. And, I cannot go off and leave this inverter unattended. the fact that it did not shut off from the grid this morning during a utility power outage is a huge problem and safety concern. And, I have indoor pets who will be here while I'm gone while the temp is between 5 and 10 degrees, so the central heating system has to remain on while I'm gone. If there is another outage and it tried to feed back in power while the crew is working on the lines, that could be life threatening. This isn't a hobby for me. It is my sole source of energy. And, it isn't dependable unless it is very micromanaged. I will have to turn off the grid and leave some space heaters running (also not safe!!!) to keep my pets comfortable. Just very disappointed and frustrated.
derekja
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Oof. Totally understand. I can't leave the place unattended at the moment for similar reasons. Sorry to hear the inverter isn't working out for you currently, I hope it is able to be made right.
I applied for a refund through Alibaba. If that doesn't work, I'll do a chargeback through my CC.
jjfmetal123
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I think in general with many inverters there are a lot less problems when you are completely off-grid but I'm planning to connect to the grid like @Hrschk and not export. I'm wondering if anyone has this inverter on here that is connected to the grid and not exporting with success?
Luxpower_Gilbert
Luxpert @Luxpower USA Team
this happened to me before, I made them load the original firmware. you might wanna try shut down your system for 5 minutes and turn it on…
Thanks. I did shut it down for a while and turn it back on. Seems like every time I do that the inverter is confused for a while and takes a while to recover. The original firmware was sending back energy to the grid, which is a HUGE no-no for me here. I am going to send this back and get a refund. I can't continue to deal with them messing with the power company. I'll take some time and regroup to see what will be next.
Luxpower_Gilbert
Luxpert @Luxpower USA Team
mine is connected to the grid, but I only connected 2kw of solar panel, and ac couple with 800 watt panel with enphase micro inverter. My system is mainly use to charge the battery during the day and discharge at night. i haven’t experience the inverter to export to the grid with just the solar panel, but with ac couple when the battery is full and the production higher than the load it will send back to the grid. i have the lates firmware not long ago, the problem Im having is ac couple on the gen port, the inverter is not closing the relay even the setting is correctly.
Luxpower_Gilbert
Luxpert @Luxpower USA Team
I’m sorry to hear that. Did you get the display update too?or just remote update? Latest update needs the display version 2 which you have to do it.
No, I didn't get the display update. but, good to know that it is required. More ammo for them to take this thing back since they still didn't do the update correctly. I've had a lot of patience with them, but they always try to make all of this my fault. When they did the firmware update 3 nights ago, they changed a bunch of my settings too. I asked them not to ever do that. And, of course, it wasn't working the way I needed and I had to go back through everything and set it all up again. Just very frustrating. They assume that everyone wants to charge their batteries off of the utility grid. And, my main goal is to use the grid as little as possible. so, this latest update, which puts all of the load onto the utility grid is a big fail for me.
I'm grid-tied, and aside from some extremely non-intuitive settings I've had to discover, no problems to report.
Main use cases (all successful):
- Charge batteries from PV first, but only before 4PM (peak period starts). When batteries are full, send excess back to grid.
- Zero export between 4-9PM
- 100% usage from grid at night. Do not touch the battery, except for backup power via EPS port.
- Backup power for critical circuits if the grid goes out. Related side note - anyone know what the "seamless switch" option does?
- "Charge first" to set PV priority from midnight - 4PM, and 9PM to midnight. Why also at night? Because otherwise, the system defaults to self-consumption, which will randomly pull from battery to cover load. I do not want the battery to discharge to grid at all prior to 4PM, or after 9PM.
- Peak shaving enabled from 4-9PM, set at 0.1kW. This is to allow battery to cover excess load beyond 100W to the grid.
In regards to CT, I am likely the only person on here using RS485 (modbus RTU) for metering, with no clamps directly connected to the inverter. This allows for additional tuning and programmability I won't get into here, but it's possible this is saving me from some of the CT related headaches mentioned in the thread.
Quattrohead
Solar Wizard
Safty Standard | UL1741 |
EMC | IEEE1547, FCC, SDOC |
Time to throw some real fucks into them.
The thing that alarmed me this morning is when it remained connected to the grid after my utility grid went down! That is NOT supposed to happen. I don't know if anyone else has experience this or not. I did have a utility grid outage a month or so ago, but I had the grid breaker switched off, so I don't know if it would have behaved the same on the original firmware. But, this morning my whole system shut down when the grid went down and when it came back on, the inverter was still trying to pull from the grid and not from my batteries (which is what it should have done as I only had a 350w load at the time).
so it wasn't islanding (grid disconnected) ? a major safety boo-boo for sure
Are you able to confirm if voltage is present on the grid terminals when the grid is disconnected? Curious to how you determined the grid was still connected, as it would typically (not always) appear as a dead short during a grid down scenario.
This was the first thing I tested when I installed my inverter, which islanded just fine. Of course, a complete disconnect is just one test out of many possibilities of how a "dead grid" would appear to the inverter.
Now I'm wondering on exactly what is being measured prior to relay engagement, as it needs to detect both voltage and correct frequency for a minimum amount of time before reconnecting. Suggestion to test, if this option is not set already - Select Rule 21 in the inverter settings (Edit - found it: advanced >> grid regulation), as California has very strict requirements in regards to islanding and reconnect. This should enable additional checks.
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I am looking at inverter LEDs and the screen this morning when I could see that the inverter was still drawing small amounts of current from the utility grid. To be honest, when stuff like this happens, I'm not in the mode to grab the testers and put on it; I just want it shut down to make sure it doesn't do anything stupid. Especially since it has pumped 85kw of power already back into the grid previous to this new firmware update.
How did you test the grid going down? Because I can turn mine grid off at the breaker and I have no issues with my inverter still working as long as the batteries have a charge.
I don't know a way to test it to select rule 21 except for the grid actually going down. I suspect what happened this morning is pretty typical of our grid going down. It still has a trickle of power in the line, it just won't drive anything except maybe a small LED light. I've had it happen before where everything in my house dies except for the LED lights and they are like they are on dimmers set low and not full power. So, in that scenario, who knows what this inverter will do. I just know the green light just kept flashing, slowly, on and off and the inverter was clicking off and on.
I'm really not willing to experiment with this anymore. I'm a 68yr old woman, living alone in a super remote mountainous area. I need something dependable. And, this isn't it.
Yeah, I feel you. However, my immediate reaction is the exact opposite - if there is no obvious safety issue (smoke/fire/etc), I immediately want to understand what is happening to learn more about the problem, possible causes, and have data for comparison once a fix is in place. Disconnecting at the first sign of misbehaving "destroys the evidence", which leads to speculation of what actually caused the problem, or if there was truly one to begin with. I will say though, the CT clamps (including circuitry/software surrounding it) can quickly lead to misinformation, as they simply report what is measured. Even with the inverter completely disconnected from the grid, one (or both) clamps flipped will report selling back to the grid, when this is in fact, impossible with the breaker off. Of course, bad information in leads to bad information out, which could indeed let the inverter sell back when it should not. Since these events already occurred, does your power company show daily usage information?
Simple test - just turn off the grid-side breaker feeding the inverter. The key is testing for presence of voltage on the inverter "grid" terminals while the breaker is off. Voltage present means the grid relay is still connected, and islanding failed. Voltage absent means the inverter successfully isolated itself from the grid. It only takes a moment to test, and as mentioned above, simply rules out many possibilities (for example, stuck relay/contacts welded shut. No software update will fix this scenario).
Sounds like a brown-out, and it's possible the detected line frequency may still be considered valid enough for the inverter to reconnect. CA Rule 21 (UL1741SA) has enhanced checks over UL1741, which hopefully can better catch this scenario. Though, even non-Rule21 should be checking for this, so yeah, it is a bit concerning.
This definitely is not a turnkey solution, at least not yet. IMO most of the quirks are firmware related, and I'm not convinced that GSL/LP truly understand what us customers really want/need.
They most definitely don't know what we want. And, even when I tell them, they don't listen or don't remember or don't look at previous conversions, and again will assume. that's why I've asked them to not change the settings. But, of course, they don't look back at the conversation to see that request either.
jjfmetal123
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