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ATS switching from Grid to battery trips inverter

Dougyfish

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Jul 6, 2020
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I have a MOES Dual Power Controller 50A 5500 Watt Automatic Transfer Switch connected to the output of my Renogy 1000W inverter. The load on the inverter is about 200W mainly LED outdoor lighting. When the ATS switches from Grid to battery in the morning, about 80% of the time it causes the inverter overload protection to kick in. I'm wondering if I need some sort of soft start device between the ATS and the inverter? Or is there something else I can check/try?
 
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Well, this is my first post as a member. This is a relatively new post and I don't see any other replies. I just bought that MOES controller, and it will be arriving next week. I actually had designed and built a system to run my small off-grid system that performs this function (battery LV disconnect/reconnect/AC source switch). I have a Xantrex pure sine wave inverter and had a similar problem. The output AC on the inverter is a Ground Fault Interrupt (GFI) outlet. I believe the relays took too long to break/make (thereby tripping the GFI) and figure you might be having the same problem (or did you get it to work?). What I did was take out the GFI outlet and wire directly but added a GFI after the relay. I did look up a Renogy 1000W inverter and the one I saw did not have a GFI outlet but had an internal overload circuit of some kind (your "overload protection"). Unless you know exactly what to look for I would not recommend you getting into that inverter to "fix". If it was me (retired EE) I would open it up and have a look around to see if there's a work-around that circuit. If you do make sure you add a GFI after the relay of the MOES. Big Box stores carry stand-alone GFI devices. BTW, the reason I bought the MOES controller is the other day I went into my circuit and tried to adjust the LV disconnect level and I "broke" it. It was very much a bread boarded version with wires everywhere and I'd forgotten exactly what I'd done (about 5 years ago). I also may be heading to LiFePo battery as I'm on a trojan now with LV cutoff set to maybe 10% discharge but will be bumping that up to at least 30% discharge when I get the MOES.

One further question...I revisited the Renogy inverter and it does have a fault indicator (red) as well a ground fault indicator (yellow). I found a manual online and there seems to be about 7 fault modes for the red and 2 for the yellow. You should look at your manual to see if any of the faults make sense. Also, what are your high and low voltage settings on the MOES? I could help maybe more if you provide your exact model #.
 
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