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The generator surges on both gasoline and propane. It only surges under load. I was not able to stop the surging by careful adjustment of the main propane tank valve or any other adjusting screws. Is it possible that there is a problem with the governor? If so, how can I trouble shoot the governor?

Went to the transmitter site today. I did not have time to work on this issue; the snow chased us off the mountain! I guess I will have to re-open the topic later when I have more time to chase it down. Thanks for standing by!

Watchpower (LV6548) only reports intermittently lately. Can anyone tell me why?

Still waiting for weather to improve to go to the transmitter site but I want to keep the topic open.

you bring up a good point; I don't think I disconnected the A123 bank from the system when I checked the voltages. I will try to absorb your input and check all my parameters on the controllers and BMS's before a trip to the transmitter site tomorrow.

Thanks, Vigo for your insights. I don't think a picture would help much in this situation because of the cramped nature of the equipment room but the 2 banks are wired in parallel to busbars ahead of the 2 LV6548's. The cables to the A123 bank of batteries is a couple feet longer though...

We have a system similar to yours. We elected to remove the N-G bond screw from only one of our LV6548's and from the A-C electrical panel. This is working for us and we are using 240 volts. We use this system to power an FM radio station and we do not notice any RFI interference in our...

So, we added a rack of 6 EG4 48v batteries in parallel to our A123 bank of batteries. The LV6548s only seem to be drawing power from the EG4 rack. The EG4 rack is at 52.27 V the A123 bank is at 52.21 V. Why is it only drawing from the EG4 batteries?

Yes, the warm water system uses power and that is a concern if we become snow-covered for several days or something like that. We are still working on making the system bullet-proof but it is getting more and more complex. We have 12 kW of solar panels and 32 kWH of battery capacity with 2...

to answer sunshine_eggo: at full power (1000 watts output from the transmitter plus a few other pieces of equipment) it draws about 1700 watts, 24/7. Our 30 kWH bank of batteries can't get through the night at 1000 watts transmit power so we have been lowering power to 200 watts at night. We...

Ellcon123 - please explain - what is "OP"?

Is Signature Solar a reliable source of lithium batteries? Does anyone have another suggestion?

Thank you for this advice. This is very helpful. I will try to apply this as soon as I can.

thank you so much for your advice. Without the help of this forum I don't think we could have gotten this far. When "those who know" sacrifice their time, energy and experience for "those who don't" it gives me hope for humanity! Our project is powering a small radio station on a mountain, 2...

Sorry, I dont know if I have a pre-charge circuit, do you mean for the BMS or the LV6548? The PV would charge but it does not "see" the batteries because the BMS has them cut off. Can I permanently attach a AA battery to the BMS so it never shuts itself down?

I hope someone can help with this quickly since I am on the mountain at the transmitter site with a BMS issue. When the batteries were depleted overnight the BMS shut down the power as expected but then the BMS unit itself shut off after a few minutes. Thus, when the sun came back to the panels...

so, Is it bad to mix a bank of Lithium-ion, with a bank of Lithium iron phosphate?

When I have tried to "run the numbers" I have found nothing and A123 was no help.

All I know is they were military. Is it bad to mix a bank of Lithium-ion, with a bank of Lithium iron phosphate?

I'm not 100% sure. Are you asking because the charge / discharge profiles would be different? I think LiFePo4. Here is the data plate:

So, our bank of Lithium batteries is proving to insufficient to carry us through the night. We are looking to add another bank in parallel. Currently we have 2 banks of about 16 KWH each (rated - but we bought them used). We want to add one more bank of 15-16 KWH batteries (48v). I know the...

Thank you Filterguy!

this is definitely a design flaw.

We will make connections as per this diagram: Question: The cases of the 2 controllers are "earth-grounded" (as indicated in the diagram). Is the case of the main distribution panel (breaker-box) also earth-grounded to the same wire? (yes, the N-G bond link has been removed in the breaker box)

ok. so this upper circuit board must be removed? or can you get to the screw without removing it? I can't work on this till next week.

I opened up one of the LV6548s to remove the N+G bonding screw. Could not find it. Is it allowable to follow this suggestion I found in another thread?: Simply run grounds to the input side to each inverter so each is properly earthed. Run a single ground from the AC output of 1 (and only 1) of...

This is extremely helpful. THANKYOU! I assume I need to make sure there is no neutral-ground bond inside the generator?

I have spent hours researching this subject and I think I am no closer to answers. One post says: "ground everything metal to earth", another says: "keep everything floating". I just want to keep my equipment and people safe and healthy. I appreciate how complex the topic is: - off-grid...

Thanks again for the input. I MAY have found a solution. Using a Kill-A-Watt I discovered that the genset was at 64 Hz. Manually lowering the RPM brought it down to 60 and the LV6548 controller then accepted the power. When it did, the load on the Generator brought the RPM down so the LV6548...

Thank you for these inputs and ideas. I will try them ASAP. I wonder if anyone anywhere ever has been able to make a non-inverter generator work with an MPP unit? That would be very welcome information. We are told often that "an inverter type genset will be more likely to work than a...

Gentlemen, if I have this symbol flashing while trying to charge from the generator, does it mean that the controller does not like the voltage coming from the generator? has anyone had any success in adjusting or tuning the generator (not an inverter type) to make the LV6548 happy?

So, the limiting factor is the max charging current of the batteries. Thank you!

The default max charge current is 60Amps. What is the limiting factor? How do I know if I need to change this from the default setting?

Is there not a booklet or a white paper, or a bag of notes on napkins or something available that covers grounding and bonding for solar system installation? It seems like such an important subject with lots of bad information floating around. Anyone?