Two days ago while I was working on my car in the garage, I heard a click and fan noise ramp down/up on my EG4 6500EX. I didn't think anything of it. Then a minute later, it did the same thing again. And then another minute, same thing. I stopped what I was doing to take a look at the EG4. It had an error "F90" on it, and it would just cycle off/on every minute or so. The inverter remained off as the EG4 kept on power cycling. I turned everything off and disconnected the battery and PV power.
I started looking up the F90 error and found a few threads talking about it here. It has to do with cloned inverters that is using software that it isn't authorized to use. Apparently it's sort of a software time bomb, where it doesn't affect the units until after 1440 hours (60 days). But the thing is, my EG4 is not cloned. It came directly from Signature Solar. For whatever reason, the serial number that is embedded into the unit was not correct and it triggered the software time bomb to fail after 60 days.
So what to do? Well, I called Signature Solar for help. I spoke with a support rep and she had me take a photo of the label on the side of the EG4 that contained the serial number. Then she said their tech group would make a patch file with the correct serial number for me to upload into the EG4. Two days later, she sent an email with the patch file and a software loader called Axpert Tools. Luckily I already had the USB to RS232 to Ethernet cable so I hooked up my computer to the EG4. Clicked a couple of buttons in the Axpert Tools software, and it came back with "Settings Successful." I powered down the EG4 and disconnected the battery. Pressed the power button to drain whatever is left in the capacitors. Reconnected the battery and powered on the EG4. The F90 error is gone. It was a simple fix. I'm glad Signature Solar was on top of it with creating and sending me the patch file. The patch file they sent me isn't something that is going to be useful to anyone else because it contains the serial number to my specific EG4 unit. It has to match the serial number of the EG4 unit. In other words, Signature Solar has to make the patch file for you.
It's kind of a rare error, so there isn't much information about it. Now the info is here, so if you ever get an F90 error you know what to do.
I started looking up the F90 error and found a few threads talking about it here. It has to do with cloned inverters that is using software that it isn't authorized to use. Apparently it's sort of a software time bomb, where it doesn't affect the units until after 1440 hours (60 days). But the thing is, my EG4 is not cloned. It came directly from Signature Solar. For whatever reason, the serial number that is embedded into the unit was not correct and it triggered the software time bomb to fail after 60 days.
So what to do? Well, I called Signature Solar for help. I spoke with a support rep and she had me take a photo of the label on the side of the EG4 that contained the serial number. Then she said their tech group would make a patch file with the correct serial number for me to upload into the EG4. Two days later, she sent an email with the patch file and a software loader called Axpert Tools. Luckily I already had the USB to RS232 to Ethernet cable so I hooked up my computer to the EG4. Clicked a couple of buttons in the Axpert Tools software, and it came back with "Settings Successful." I powered down the EG4 and disconnected the battery. Pressed the power button to drain whatever is left in the capacitors. Reconnected the battery and powered on the EG4. The F90 error is gone. It was a simple fix. I'm glad Signature Solar was on top of it with creating and sending me the patch file. The patch file they sent me isn't something that is going to be useful to anyone else because it contains the serial number to my specific EG4 unit. It has to match the serial number of the EG4 unit. In other words, Signature Solar has to make the patch file for you.
It's kind of a rare error, so there isn't much information about it. Now the info is here, so if you ever get an F90 error you know what to do.
