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EG4 18k - Massive Off Grid Problems

AlexLTDLX said:
Apparently, 20 is the limit. Here are the last two batts.
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Ok, this is good. Cells are .007V delta between highest and lowest.

Hard to say how far off theyy are from each other until they either have a high load on them or get up around 3.45.
I don't see anywhere that they are .050V tho.

I would keep them running in lithium mode on inverter, run with Voltage and set inverter Voltage accordingly.

You are about 62-64%SOC.

They need aboit 23.3kWh to get to full charge. So if u can charge them for around 5kWh net per day, Sometime on the 5th day they should be fully charged.

Keep in mind though at these low rates of charge they are likely very close to 100% charged somewhere around 3.42-3.44V.
 
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It's supposed to be overcast the next few days and contractors are in using some power, but I'll report back when it's appropriate. Thanks!
 
Just wanted to update this thread. We moved in and spent the first night in the building on New Year's eve, and are currently living in here while moving in and finishing up various details. The problems still exist; I'll break them down with notes:

1. Lights flickering - I can't seem to figured why it's worse sometimes than others. Lights with individual supplies are not affected, and Philips dimmable "eye care" bulbs are most resistant to the flickering - though at times they flicker too. Other flicker-free fixtures were so bad they had to be replaced (like in the first video - those were Philips flicker-free fixtures, but replaced with variable color temp fixture that look almost exactly the same but seem more resistant to flickering).

2. Washing machine killing the inverter - This is the "vbus over voltage" error. We did some laundry a little while ago with no issues. However, today, while the machine was running, the dreaded error returned and killed the inverter (i.e. red error light and no power output). It seems that there are two factors at play - with the PV connected, the error occurs when there's a good amount of power coming in from the panels - still only have 1 array connected, and it's in mppt #1. The voltage on the array is around 400 volts and about 2kW. The other factor is when there is little load on the inverter. The weather today is great (mid 60's), so no ac or heat running. The refrigerator does seem to help stabilize the issue, but only when the compressor's running. I restarted the inverter and disconnected the PV and am running the washing machine while I write this - it seems to be ok so far.

3. Heavy loads (like a table saw powering up) will also cause the "vbus over voltage error." This can be avoided by simultaneously placing an additional heavy load on the inverter - 1kW or more - when starting the saw. Then the error doesn't occur.

My "tier 2" tech call last month netted nothing useful. I contend that there are major issues with firmware 1E1E.
 
I spoke too soon - even with the PV disconnected, the vbus overvoltage error just happened again. I turned on the heat in the garage to see if that helps. I'm on the phone with Sig Solar right now. I really need to be installing the other arrays while the weather's good...
 
Do you have any heat pump device running at all when the lights are flickering? Even if the outside inverter itself is not running is a mini split head still blowing?
 
Have sig solar replace with Eg4-6000xp's, I used to have major flicker problems with my Eg6-6500's but with the Eg4-6000xp's flicker is gone. It is also possible that you got a flaky 18K. Either way talk with sig solar and work something out. They are pretty good about resolving issues.
 
Quattrohead - no, the flicker seems to be independent of heatpumps running or not.

Epictony - I'm currently waiting on another tier 2 person to call me back. It seems a lot of these issues are related to low/no load use. I just (successfully) did another load of laundry, but am running a compressor-based dehumidifier and left lights on all over the place. About a 1.7kW load; and not evenly distributed between L1 and L2, I might add.
 
well I hope they can help you. If not you will need some professional to come out and dial in the system. fliking lights is a big no no.
 
I have seen at least one other person, on the EG4 support forum, who has a problem with flickering lights which only began after an upgrade to the 1E1E firmware.
 
AlexLTDLX said:
wpns - I could, but the two racks are paralleled internally. In fact, they're attached together, so they roll around as one unit. Once I move in, if I see battery voltages drifting apart under normal living conditions, then I might go ahead and do that. So far, even running a tankless 5.5kW water heater or a 7kW dryer I haven't seen that happen. The cables are 2/0 and the bus bars are pretty massive. I do have an external set of bus bars standing by if I need them. I'm not in closed loop mode because that's what SS told me to run.
Click to expand...

The single set of 2/0 battery cables isn't sufficient to handle your maximum load. You need a 4/0 cable or a pair of 2/0 cables.

The maximum DC current that can be pulled by the 18Kpv is 280 A DC.
(13,500 W / 94%) / 51.2V = 280A
 
Thanks for your input - I've seen a couple of people with the flickering issues. But I'm going to disagree on the cable sizing. At 280 amps, voltage drop through the cables is about 1/4 of a volt - 0.26 volts to be precise. Or half a percent. That's literally only 72 watts of heat dissipation into almost 5 lbs of copper. And that's at max load - which I've never hit. I'd gain virtually nothing by adding two bus bars and two additional cables (all of which I have, btw) - simply because I'd be adding 6 connections & crimps to accomplish it.
 
AlexLTDLX said:
Thanks for your input - I've seen a couple of people with the flickering issues. But I'm going to disagree on the cable sizing. At 280 amps, voltage drop through the cables is about 1/4 of a volt - 0.26 volts to be precise. Or half a percent. That's literally only 72 watts of heat dissipation into almost 5 lbs of copper. And that's at max load - which I've never hit. I'd gain virtually nothing by adding two bus bars and two additional cables (all of which I have, btw) - simply because I'd be adding 6 connections & crimps to accomplish it.
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Fair enough. I calculated 0.45V, but I don't know your cable length and guessed at 2 x 10ft. But if you care about NEC recommended conductor sizing, they're too small.
 
They're just under 6 feet long, fwiw. I have another project that pulls 678 amps through 2 gauge cable - for no more than 20 seconds at a time, and they're about 3-4' long, but those never even get warm. They feed an ESC which then feeds 6x6 gauge, 20' long cables to a 3 phase brushless motor that weighs a bit over 4 lbs, spins at up to 50,000 rpm (but hits 37,000 rpm under load) and is rated at 53 hp and actually generates 44 hp in the application at 63 (resting) volts.
 
I'm not sure why you're reluctant to install the inverter according to the manual and the NEC but from your photo the neutral looks a bit small. Maybe it's just the photo but what gauge is that?
 
I know it’s a long shot, but have you tried reloading the current firmware that you already have?
 
AntronX said:
Then it needs to be sent back and make EG4 pay for shipping or charge back on your CC. That's the only way these manufacturers will start to care about not breaking user's systems after the sale. Making irreversible remote updates is unacceptable. @James Showalter
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I have no idea why they would make the update non reversible, that is extremely risky!
I think the OP should run another battery cable up and put each rack on it's own cable. As stated it might solve the problem with the Washing Machine.
 
AlexLTDLX said:
I have another project that pulls 678 amps through 2 gauge cable - for no more than 20 seconds at a time, and they're about 3-4' long, but those never even get warm.
Click to expand...
It's not about heat, it's the available peak power availability and the quality of it. The 18kpv does not have double battery lugs to waste a few bucks...they are installed for a reason.
 
Quattrohead said:
Something to do with changing memory usage from 256kb to 512kb or sumting like that.
Click to expand...
This. It isn't necessarily bad to make a change(*), if it's in service of the new software paradigm, which needs a new memory map or something. In fact, if it's the first stages in a complete top-to-bottom software rewrite, then I'm all for it.

(*) It's not that the new software can't rewrite the NVRAM (or whatever) and use new/more variables, it's that the _OLD_ software, if re-installed, doesn't know how to configure things back to the way it used to be. There _could_ be an intermediate firmware that did know how to undo the changes, but then you'd have to:

Update to the latest old software
update to the intermediate software
update to the new software.

And then if you _did_ need to go back:

downgrade to the intermediate software
downgrade to the old software.

And who has any faith that the support folks AND the user would all get that right in the right order the few times it did actually need to be done.

Personally I'd rather let them update the new software to fix any problems, but then I'm also happy to let someone else be the pioneer. Fortunately I bought my 18Kpv inverters before they changed the warranty terms to require firmware was kept up to date.
 
wpns said:
Fortunately I bought my 18Kpv inverters before they changed the warranty terms to require firmware was kept up to date.
Click to expand...
Huh😬
They require owners to keep the Firmware up to date in order to Keep the warranty intact??
My Sol-Ark has been working perfectly for the last 19 Months. Not a single fault or issue, the power has never gone down or flickered an LED. For that Reason I have skipped all of the new Updates that Sol-Ark has put out over the last 19 Months.

So you are saying if I had an EG4 18Kpv/12K Inverter and my system was working perfectly I would have to update it to whatever Firmware they decide to release and possibly end up with power issues in my house or face losing my Warranty?
If this is true why do you people even buy these units? At some point the Firmware will work perfectly for your situation, why would you want to keep being a Beta tester for 10 Years?
 
robby said:
Huh😬
They require owners to keep the Firmware up to date in order to Keep the warranty intact??
My Sol-Ark has been working perfectly for the last 19 Months. Not a single fault or issue, the power has never gone down or flickered an LED. For that Reason I have skipped all of the new Updates that Sol-Ark has put out over the last 19 Months.

So you are saying if I had an EG4 18Kpv/12K Inverter and my system was working perfectly I would have to update it to whatever Firmware they decide to release and possibly end up with power issues in my house or face losing my Warranty?
If this is true why do you people even buy these units? At some point the Firmware will work perfectly for your situation, why would you want to keep being a Beta tester for 10 Years?
Click to expand...

2. Scope of Firmware Upgrades
This upgrade may involve the following aspects. However, if your system has been running stably for
a long time and meets your needs, you can ignore this change.
 
robby said:
They require owners to keep the Firmware up to date in order to Keep the warranty intact??
Click to expand...
They changed their terms recently to include that, but I'm grandfathered. 😇 You could probably make a case for delaying updates 'till they get it right', which as you will appreciate, might be forever.

Note I'm not actually against firmware that adds more features or fixes bugs, but clearly they are releasing firmware that doesn't work perfectly in all circumstances. That's the part that's hard to get right.

I'm going to stick with FAAB-1B1C till 1E1E or it's successors have been out for a year or there's a clearly compelling reason to upgrade.

https://resource.solarcloudsystem.c...date/FirmwareVersionUpgradePolicy_24_8_28.pdf has a few outs, including 'ignore this change', 'testing', 'Firmware Version Rollback'. [Too bad it's an image instead of text or I could copy/paste, but that's the professionalism we've come to expect from LUX/EG4/SS, and there are _way_ other things to worry about from The Cabal.]

To be fair, they've come a long way, and I'm mostly happy with my system (bang for the buck I don't know that _I_ could have done better), and things are pretty stable as long as I don't touch anything important. I mean it made it through the summer without anyone on-site, which can't be said of some of my other systems.
 
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