I thought I would chime in with my reviews since signature solar hasn't posted my review. The review is below under eg4, but below is my whole journey to avoid my same pitfalls.
Why we charge:
My charger journey - In the spring about 4 years and 9 months ago we went 100% solar with 8000kw system and a 48v 28kwh battery on our off grid property. Starting in November to about January we would get a week or two at a time where it would be 100% clouds. Even if I had a few hours of sunshine every few days it would be enough, but when its a week or two eventually you use up the whole battery. This lead to generator charging. When I bought my MPP 6000w AIO very similar to the popular eg4 units today, but back then only two 6000w MPP AIOs could cheaply (under $3k or $4k) and easily do 240v split phase without adding a transformer, but I digress. I thought I could just use a generator and it would have a 20a charger built in, but it's not as simple as that. First MPP emails a reply to me and says I need an inverter generator to fix the ramping up and stopping it was experiencing.
2nd after buying a 3000/3500w inverter gen you can't charge and run a load where both load and charger are more than the generator. For example - Battery is 25% full and you want to charge at 20a but use a microwave and an instapot. Sure the battery would go down but my theory was why not add 20a while I am using the battery. Absolutely not, the charger and load defaults to the same gen circuit (grid). So then if I want to charge I have to pay attention to usage and good luck with the family paying attention to that. That lead to buying a separate charger, which is exactly what the EG4 chargeverter was made for, but I don't remember seeing it back then.
AIMS (3 stars):
I bought an AIMS charger and at the time it was a decent price at about $300 and seemed like a decent brand vs a chinese charger off amazon or ali. I could run it on my 3000/3500w gen but waste fuel (2 gallons for a night of charging) or turn it down just a little about 1/8th turn on the knob and use my 1800/2200w yamaha gen and get as much power as possible for 1 gallon of gas for a night. I would have about 200 to 300w running continuously all night and after running a 1 gallon tank of gas in the morning it would go up maybe 10% on average by morning. Even with it not turned down about 1/8th turn on the power usage and running 100% on my larger generator it wouldn't be a noticable difference. The 1800w gen would definitely overloaded if it was at 100% though. I believe it had a starting surge load and would overload the yamaha but was supposed to be inder the 2000w max. I can't remember but I think the voltage was low or something so overall you wouldn't get an efficient charge as well, esp with the bad efficiency it had. I went through 2 chargers in 3 years and used about 1.5 drums (75 gallons) of fuel per winter, basically I would have to run the gen 8 hours every 24 hrs.
Golf cart charger (2 stars):
My uncle found a few golf cart chargers over the years at garage sales for me. I primarily used a shumaker charger with the same charging results as the AIMS charger or worse. After the 1st Aims charger broke I used the golf cart charger and wasn't happy and ordered the 2nd aims charger. I think the voltage and charging profile was bad.
EG4 Chargeverter (4.8 stars)
Then came the day that the 2nd aims charger died. I decided to try the eg4 after many hours of research.
I will say it charges amazingly. It slowly ramps up and does not surge on the generator. I watched the wattage meter on the 3000w gen and kept increasing the amperage to eventually 46amps which was about 2700w and a little under the max vs running full bore.
I put about 1/2 a tank of fuel in the gen and that's enough to keep things topped off for 2 days. I haven't used 1/2 a drum of fuel this year and spring is just around the corner. Between voltage, amperage, charge profile, and efficiency it works great.
The only issue I had was the way the cords are setup vs direct wiring like a charge controller or inverter. I assume this is the UL listing requirements or something to meet regulations in the US. My opinion - If I can wire up AC, DC, and battery, then why not with a charger... You then are limiting us to your connector choices and leads. I'm not sure how 100a can go through such small leads, but I'm sure it meets specs. Personally I would prefer terminals for 2g 5/16 lug connectors. Then the nema connector is a pain on the AC side. You have 3 options 1.) Cut the cord and add the connector your generator uses (RV or twistlock) and have your generator and a few feet from your battery.while using the 3 ft cord supplied. Again, now the wire guage comes in to play for longer distances so hopefully your battery isn't far from your outside wall. Thus 2g or smaller 5/16 wire terminals would be great in many scenarios - Say a PTO tractor generator
. 3.) You have to get a connector for your generator, a lead to a AC cutoff box, through the wall, to an electrical box with the NEMA receptacle inside to then plug the charger into that.
The specialized connectors going into the chargeverter and the supplied wires just seem like wasted money.
So would I buy it again after using it for a month or two? Absolutely! I can wake up charged way more with a gallon of gas (half tank on the 3000w gen) than running 24 hrs non stop. You can even use cheaper open cage generators and I loved having remote start on my 4200w Cabelas Champion generator for $550. You can dial in your amperage draw to whatever wattage you want on any generator. The draw ramps up so you don't have a surge which lets you get a higher max load vs overloading the gen or lower amp draw for less wear and tear on the gen. It doesn't mean that they are not wasting money on wiring and specialized connectors which would make it more affordable, easier to wire, and allow for larger wires with less voltage drop, etc.
Why we charge:
My charger journey - In the spring about 4 years and 9 months ago we went 100% solar with 8000kw system and a 48v 28kwh battery on our off grid property. Starting in November to about January we would get a week or two at a time where it would be 100% clouds. Even if I had a few hours of sunshine every few days it would be enough, but when its a week or two eventually you use up the whole battery. This lead to generator charging. When I bought my MPP 6000w AIO very similar to the popular eg4 units today, but back then only two 6000w MPP AIOs could cheaply (under $3k or $4k) and easily do 240v split phase without adding a transformer, but I digress. I thought I could just use a generator and it would have a 20a charger built in, but it's not as simple as that. First MPP emails a reply to me and says I need an inverter generator to fix the ramping up and stopping it was experiencing.
2nd after buying a 3000/3500w inverter gen you can't charge and run a load where both load and charger are more than the generator. For example - Battery is 25% full and you want to charge at 20a but use a microwave and an instapot. Sure the battery would go down but my theory was why not add 20a while I am using the battery. Absolutely not, the charger and load defaults to the same gen circuit (grid). So then if I want to charge I have to pay attention to usage and good luck with the family paying attention to that. That lead to buying a separate charger, which is exactly what the EG4 chargeverter was made for, but I don't remember seeing it back then.
AIMS (3 stars):
I bought an AIMS charger and at the time it was a decent price at about $300 and seemed like a decent brand vs a chinese charger off amazon or ali. I could run it on my 3000/3500w gen but waste fuel (2 gallons for a night of charging) or turn it down just a little about 1/8th turn on the knob and use my 1800/2200w yamaha gen and get as much power as possible for 1 gallon of gas for a night. I would have about 200 to 300w running continuously all night and after running a 1 gallon tank of gas in the morning it would go up maybe 10% on average by morning. Even with it not turned down about 1/8th turn on the power usage and running 100% on my larger generator it wouldn't be a noticable difference. The 1800w gen would definitely overloaded if it was at 100% though. I believe it had a starting surge load and would overload the yamaha but was supposed to be inder the 2000w max. I can't remember but I think the voltage was low or something so overall you wouldn't get an efficient charge as well, esp with the bad efficiency it had. I went through 2 chargers in 3 years and used about 1.5 drums (75 gallons) of fuel per winter, basically I would have to run the gen 8 hours every 24 hrs.
Golf cart charger (2 stars):
My uncle found a few golf cart chargers over the years at garage sales for me. I primarily used a shumaker charger with the same charging results as the AIMS charger or worse. After the 1st Aims charger broke I used the golf cart charger and wasn't happy and ordered the 2nd aims charger. I think the voltage and charging profile was bad.
EG4 Chargeverter (4.8 stars)
Then came the day that the 2nd aims charger died. I decided to try the eg4 after many hours of research.
I will say it charges amazingly. It slowly ramps up and does not surge on the generator. I watched the wattage meter on the 3000w gen and kept increasing the amperage to eventually 46amps which was about 2700w and a little under the max vs running full bore.
I put about 1/2 a tank of fuel in the gen and that's enough to keep things topped off for 2 days. I haven't used 1/2 a drum of fuel this year and spring is just around the corner. Between voltage, amperage, charge profile, and efficiency it works great.
The only issue I had was the way the cords are setup vs direct wiring like a charge controller or inverter. I assume this is the UL listing requirements or something to meet regulations in the US. My opinion - If I can wire up AC, DC, and battery, then why not with a charger... You then are limiting us to your connector choices and leads. I'm not sure how 100a can go through such small leads, but I'm sure it meets specs. Personally I would prefer terminals for 2g 5/16 lug connectors. Then the nema connector is a pain on the AC side. You have 3 options 1.) Cut the cord and add the connector your generator uses (RV or twistlock) and have your generator and a few feet from your battery.while using the 3 ft cord supplied. Again, now the wire guage comes in to play for longer distances so hopefully your battery isn't far from your outside wall. Thus 2g or smaller 5/16 wire terminals would be great in many scenarios - Say a PTO tractor generator
. 3.) You have to get a connector for your generator, a lead to a AC cutoff box, through the wall, to an electrical box with the NEMA receptacle inside to then plug the charger into that.The specialized connectors going into the chargeverter and the supplied wires just seem like wasted money.
So would I buy it again after using it for a month or two? Absolutely! I can wake up charged way more with a gallon of gas (half tank on the 3000w gen) than running 24 hrs non stop. You can even use cheaper open cage generators and I loved having remote start on my 4200w Cabelas Champion generator for $550. You can dial in your amperage draw to whatever wattage you want on any generator. The draw ramps up so you don't have a surge which lets you get a higher max load vs overloading the gen or lower amp draw for less wear and tear on the gen. It doesn't mean that they are not wasting money on wiring and specialized connectors which would make it more affordable, easier to wire, and allow for larger wires with less voltage drop, etc.
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