4 x EG4 6500ex with 12 x EG4-LifePower4 issue.. Battery goes to immediate alarm.

[Jack likes Boxes]

Hey all first post ! Off of the always great Will reveal I went all in with the new great 6500ex inverters, 4 of them in a dual split phase tied to 12 LIfepower 48v batteries. Took forever to install with conduit etc... I also have it all running through a Victron Lynx distribution system mostly for monitoring but the smart busbars are just good in my opinion. Got it all finally installed yesterday then flipped the switch and darkness.. its been rabbit hole after rabbit hole for the last 24 hours

Anyways.. Everything hooked up when I turn the Eg4 batteries on either by breaker on battery or breaker on distribution junction they immediately will throw into alarm fault and not send power to anything. I ended up ripping everything down because i assumed i made a mistake somewhere in the chain but even just a single lifepower battery connected directly to the 6500ex throws the alarm error .

After hours and hours of subtraction and troubleshooting It seems the combination of these two eg4 products that are causing this, most likely a bad batch, just surprised that it is all 4. the lifepower battery starts up my 6548 mpp inverter or the growatt just fine. I searched here and it seems like some others are having the same issues with this alarm fault startup issue with a bit different scenarios. I have found a shortcut kind of way to get everything going, by using my other brand 48v battery to start everything up, then turn on the 12 x lifepower bank after its all been stabilized. But this isnt a good long term solution as if a failure or reset happens it will just goto fault. So hoping there is a hardware or software solution to this all, these units are brand new so i completely accept a bit of teething pains as Signature solar gets some experience with them, and returning isnt really an option because this stuff is just too heavy and way big to even think of taking back. By far this system together checks all the boxes for me, and looks incredibly great while its doing it.... just need to get past this compatibility issue.

O BTW i tried with communication cables to everything between the two and without, doesn't even get far enough so i don't think its that.

 

[Jack likes Boxes]

Did a bit more troubleshooting as I await a response from Signature solar. They put out a video on what sounds similar but is different... but the outcome is the same the batteries will fault to alarm and not power up. UNLESS I just power each one individually. That was a rabbit hole but basically what is happening if I hook up just a single inverter to the lifepower batteries, it will work fine. The moment I add another inverter, it throws out the alarm and wont power anything. I tried different combinations of the 4 6500ex but makes no difference, they each power up if powered off the battery bank individually, but as soon as I parallel 2 or 3 or 4 it throws the alarm and wont start up.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

Can you post a few pics of your set up, and go through the settings for everyone here?

 

[Jack likes Boxes]

Thanks Richard. It’s in a million pieces right now so photos will be little help unfortunately . For settings I havnt made it very far…. As a system it never turned on. Individually powered on I did set them to L1 and L2 dual L1 and L2s under setting 28 just in case that magically made a difference but it doesn’t even get far enough to send power so I’m not sure the setting matter at this point? That said… I can run each inverter individually, is there a setting that will force them to turn on ?

 

[Jack likes Boxes]

In case it matters I’m “ upgrading “ from dual 6548s , same batteries and everything else ( except i added 4 more batteries from this order ) and same utility connects. So it works fine with dual mpp 6548s, but not fine with anymore than a single eg4 6500ex.

 

[SignatureSolarJames]

did our precharge sequence video resolve this?

 

[Jack likes Boxes]

did our precharge sequence video resolve this?

No it did not it was literally the first video I sent your customer support team of me trying that as well as bypassing the breaker. I also tried the two pre-charge methods will demonstrated in one of his earlier videos.

 

[nwhara]

Did you get your system up and running? I’m currently Setting up the same system as you with 4 inverters and would love to see how you set yours up. I’m also using victron lynx as my busbars, so really a very similar setup.

You may already know this, but you can input Solar to turn on the settings screen while the inverters are still “off” and mess with the settings / do testing. Doesn’t actually solve your issue, but it might be allow you to troubleshoot multiple units in parallel without relying on the batteries for startup.

I got everything wired up in my system, but hit pause when I read about the G/N bonding issue. Curious to know if you removed the bonding screw in any of your inverters or if you are doing anything to mitigate current on ground?

 

[LithiumCanuck]

did our precharge sequence video resolve this?

Video?

 

[JCSchwarb]

Did you get your system up and running? I’m currently Setting up the same system as you with 4 inverters and would love to see how you set yours up. I’m also using victron lynx as my busbars, so really a very similar setup.

You may already know this, but you can input Solar to turn on the settings screen while the inverters are still “off” and mess with the settings / do testing. Doesn’t actually solve your issue, but it might be allow you to troubleshoot multiple units in parallel without relying on the batteries for startup.

I got everything wired up in my system, but hit pause when I read about the G/N bonding issue. Curious to know if you removed the bonding screw in any of your inverters or if you are doing anything to mitigate current on ground?

Appreciate more detail mentioned about G/N (NG) bonding issue. One of my inverters failed today and suspect it is due to a NG bonding issue as I am running four inverters and trying to get all six running,