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EG4 18KPV - What not to do in parallel

automatikdonn said:
I mean that doesn't really matter though. How is a comms cable responsible to grid loss detection?

Here is a great read on unintentional islanding in which they call out human error.

Click to expand...

I just imagine if this had happened and the voltage had killed a lineman working on a line that was supposed to be down, eg4, not the owner, would be in a world of hurt
 
1201 said:
I just imagine if this had happened and the voltage had killed a lineman working on a line that was supposed to be down, eg4, not the owner, would be in a world of hurt
Click to expand...
That is why I am asking for an actual RCA. They owe me literally nothing - this isn't my gear or my install... However I am super curious, so I can't help but ask.
 
ksmithaz1 said:
I missed the part in UL 1741 where it mentions that the device must operated as designed no matter how some idiot wires it.
Click to expand...
It's covered under unintentional islanding.

A Primer on the Unintentional Islanding Protection Requirement in IEEE Std 1547-2018

Section 6.1
Abnormal conditions can arise on the Area EPS to which the DER shall appropriately respond. This response contributes to the stability of the Area EPS, safety of utility maintenance personnel and the general public, as well as the avoidance of damage to connected equipment, including the DER.
 
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ksmithaz1 said:
RJ-45 satin cable for phones, straight thru and flipped. Hand crimped T-1's, that's 1/2,4/5 swapped. Old cisco cards . . . I've had occasion to use a crossover ethernet from time to time. Some of the Cox handoffs required it 3 or 4 years ago coming off the fiber gear.
Click to expand...
I remember using them for actual networking, long ago.. might have been pc to pc. Playing Doom maybe? I've also used them and all kinds of weird pin outs for various non ethernet networking reasons such as you describe. I always hated that stupid blue cisco cable and having to lug a laptop with a serial port around.
 
1201 said:
Eg4 is trying to cover their asses and, I suspect ,not make the owner whole, when they should be thanking their lucky stars that no one got hurt.i wonder how cec would feel if they knew that a ul listed inverter was putting 576v on a line that was supposed to be dead
Click to expand...
If EG4 truly wants to be of help then they will provide the pinout of the RJ45 parallel jacks so we can see what was connected to what with the crossover cable.
 
This thread is getting off topic. It's supposed to be about dangerously high voltage that you don't even expect the inverter to be able to make appears on a line that isn't supposed to have any and how that's just what happens when you connect the wrong ethernet cable up.
 
1201 said:
At this point, especially with fried equipment( thank God no loss of life), your lawyer should already be talking to eg4 lawyers.
Click to expand...
I noticed this the other day, “Each party hereby irrevocably waived its rights to trail by jury in any action or proceeding arising out of this agreement or the transactions relating to its subject matter. ….. The customer agrees to full indemnification for EG4 henceforth from any legal recourse relating to and arising out of losses, direct or consensual, from the installation of the product purchased by the customer more than the value of the equipment purchase price.

So he might only be entitled to the equipment cost. Probably have better luck going after the installer.
 
marionw said:
If EG4 truly wants to be of help then they will provide the pinout of the RJ45 parallel jacks so we can see what was connected to what with the crossover cable.
Click to expand...
That's secret, you'll need to sign an NDA for that info.
 
cs1234 said:
This thread is getting off topic. It's supposed to be about dangerously high voltage that you don't even expect the inverter to be able to make appears on a line that isn't supposed to have any and how that's just what happens when you connect the wrong ethernet cable up.
Click to expand...
OMG, I almost fell out of my chair. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
BKY2003 said:
I noticed this the other day, “Each party hereby irrevocably waived its rights to trail by jury in any action or proceeding arising out of this agreement or the transactions relating to its subject matter. ….. The customer agrees to full indemnification for EG4 henceforth from any legal recourse relating to and arising out of losses, direct or consensual, from the installation of the product purchased by the customer more than the value of the equipment purchase price.

So he might only be entitled to the equipment cost. Probably have better luck going after the installer.
Click to expand...
Have we gotten to the point where you can literally waive your rights to a jury trial by boilerplate tucked away somewhere on a product you purchased? Is this something on the website you agree to when you purchase? In the box? What if you order by phone? I'm not sure this nonsense would hold up in court. But, being as nobody was actually hurt, I don't think there would be any real cause for a lawsuit to move forward regardless.
 
cs1234 said:
Have we gotten to the point where you can literally waive your rights to a jury trial by boilerplate tucked away somewhere on a product you purchased? Is this something on the website you agree to when you purchase? In the box? What if you order by phone? I'm not sure this nonsense would hold up in court. But, being as nobody was actually hurt, I don't think there would be any real cause for a lawsuit to move forward regardless.
Click to expand...
Just the loss of many thousands in appliances THANK GOD!
 
A scenario in which a cable gets pinched or fubared in some way while resting in the raceway is just as likely. Power goes out and a signal or two get crossed. A bunch of magic smoke is emanating from various appliances inside.

Whose fault is it? Honest mistake right? Right cable designation, but wrong cable. Checked manual, cable names match, but smoke still emanating...anyway seems as though this was overlooked from top to bottom, all the way down to the install and inevitable emanating magic of the whole thing.

Edit: oh wait it's in the manual now. This will NEVER happen again 🙄
 
automatikdonn said:
Just the loss of many thousands in appliances THANK GOD!
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, I just came in on the tale end of the thread and started making jokes. I missed that part. Yes, EG4 or the installers lawyer would probably advise them to settle / pay the damages in that case. Both EG4 and the installer would probably be named in a lawsuit, as lawyers like to sue up.
 
I posted this a couple pages back, but it's worth saying again.. If this can happen with a crossover cable.. can it happen with any type of cable that gets damaged over the 20 year span these things are likely to be installed for?

What happens when a mouse nibbles pin 4 in your ethernet cable or he mashes pin 5 to pin 6... Does that mean you now have a 400v suprise during your next power outage? I don't know, but we need to get to the bottom of that...
 
sunshine_eggo said:
Sorry. This really pisses me off. I'm calling bullshit on this dismissive comment. Shame on you. You're faulting an installer for a design flaw that can produce 400VAC where the unit is supposed to provide NO voltage to when grid is not present. Period. That's a UL requirement. It's not magically allowed if the communication cable is miswired.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with you here. When there is not good power on the incoming grid connection, it should mechanically disconnect the grid from the AC bus in the inverter. Now even if the main part of the inverter is disconnected there still needs to be an electrical connection to the grid side of the relay. This connection would be used to sense that incoming Grid AC was "Qualified" based on voltage and frequency. So there are two potential things wrong here:

  1. The miswired cable is causing the sensing circuit to apply voltage to the grid input.
  2. The miswired cable is causing the grid relay to improperly close and the voltage on the AC bus is also incorrect.
Is the AC out voltage correct? If it is that would imply that the fault must be in the sensing circuits. Now you are saying that customer appliances were destroyed. If that is the case, then it is not just the grid connection that has the wrong voltage, but the entire AC bus.

If the AC out voltage is incorrect then the miswired cable is causing inverter to not generate its output correctly. Part of what a high frequency inverter does is convert the incoming power to high voltage DC. Then it generates the AC by applying DC voltage first to one leg and then to the other leg in a series of pulses that get averaged out to make a sine wave. The bad cable is likely causing this DC to AC process to go haywire. My guess if I had to make one is that this is more likely the source of the problem than a malfunctioning sensor circuit. The bad thing here is that not only is the voltage generated not correct, but is is flowing back into the grid inputs when this happens.

Now in any case there was this guy named Murphy that came up with some immutable laws about how the universe actually works. Just when you think you have made your product idiot proof, the world will develop smarter idiots that will discover something you hadn't thought of. This is a serious flaw, but I don't have the knowledge to say if it is one that should have been tested for as part of QA. Hopefully, this is not inherent in the hardware and can be fixed through the firmware. Usually, hardware is going to assume it is wired together correctly. For example if someone mixes up the heat and A/C wires on your thermostat, your system just won't work right. It is not smart enough to know that it is not wired correctly. So depending on what these wires actually carry there may not be a way to detect that they are crossed. They may just have a 12 volt scaled down version the leg 1 and leg 2 voltages. If these wires get switched there might not be anyway for the inverter to detect that. It may just use these wires as an analog reference signal to sync to. In order words the inverters AC generation circuitry may use the voltage signal, but there is no way for the inverter's computer to "Read" values.

I read through my installation manuals (Schneider) very carefully to make sure that none of the cables had any special requirements. The manuals didn't mention anything other than the connection between the Insight (which is basically a hub that connects WIFI, batteries, and the Inverters) and the batteries. You have to build a special cable for that, and it is pretty obvious because the Insight doesn't use a standard connector for the battery input. So my assumption was that any standard ethernet cable would work. I wouldn't assume that the average solar installer would have knowledge of special ethernet cable type that hasn't been used in years. If this cable can have such a major effect on the inverters output, they should probably include the cable with the inverter, and warn users that an improper cable will cause the system to malfunction

Now with my Schneider inverters there was a commissioning process that I followed. There are AC breakers on all the inputs and outputs to the inverters in their PDP panel. So in a series of steps you verify that each inverter is generating the correct voltage and that there is NOT voltage between inverter 1 leg 1 and inverter 2 leg 1, inverter 1 leg 2 and inverter 2 leg 2. This should all occur before turning on the breakers that send the inverter power out to the main panel. Then at the main panel you validate again before turning that panel on and feeding the house. If the installer just wired everything up and flipped the switch on without checking everything out first, that is a problem.
 
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wheisenburg said:
I tend to agree with you here. When there is not good power on the incoming grid connection, it should mechanically disconnect the grid from the AC bus in the inverter. Now even if the main part of the inverter is disconnected there still needs to be an electrical connection to the grid side of the relay. This connection would be used to sense that incoming Grid AC was "Qualified" based on voltage and frequency. So there are two potential things wrong here:

  1. The miswired cable is causing the sensing circuit to apply voltage to the grid input.
  2. The miswired cable is causing the grid relay to improperly close and the voltage on the AC bus is also incorrect.
Is the AC out voltage correct? If it is that would imply that the fault must be in the sensing circuits. Now you are saying that customer appliances were destroyed. If that is the case, then it is not just the grid connection that has the wrong voltage, but the entire AC bus.

If the AC out voltage is incorrect then the miswired cable is causing inverter to not generate its output correctly. Part of what a high frequency inverter does is convert the incoming power to high voltage DC. Then it generates the AC by applying DC voltage first to one leg and then to the other leg in a series of pulses that get averaged out to make a sine wave. The bad cable is likely causing this DC to AC process to go haywire. My guess if I had to make one is that this is more likely the source of the problem than a malfunctioning sensor circuit. The bad thing here is that not only is the voltage generated not correct, but is is flowing back into the grid inputs when this happens.

Now in any case there was this guy named Murphy that came up with some immutable laws about how the universe actually works. Just when you think you have made your product idiot proof, the world will develop smarter idiots that will discover something you hadn't thought of. This is a serious flaw, but I don't have the knowledge to say if it is one that should have been tested for as part of QA. Hopefully, this is not inherent in the hardware and can be fixed through the firmware. Usually, hardware is going to assume it is wired together correctly. For example if someone mixes up the heat and A/C wires on your thermostat, your system just won't work right. It is not smart enough to know that it is not wired correctly. So depending on what these wires actually carry there may not be a way to detect that they are crossed. They may just have a 12 volt scaled down version the leg 1 and leg 2 voltages. If these wires get switched there might not be anyway for the inverter to detect that. It may just use these wires as an analog reference signal to sync to. In order words the inverters AC generation circuitry may use the voltage signal, but there is no way for the inverter's computer to "Read" values.

I read through my installation manuals (Schneider) very carefully to make sure that none of the cables had any special requirements. The manuals didn't mention anything other than the connection between the Insight (which is basically a hub that connects WIFI, batteries, and the Inverters) and the batteries. You have to build a special cable for that, and it is pretty obvious because the Insight doesn't use a standard connector for the battery input. So my assumption was that any standard ethernet cable would work. I wouldn't assume that the average solar installer would have knowledge of special ethernet cable type that hasn't been used in years.

Now with my Schneider inverters there was a commissioning process that I followed. There are AC breakers on all the inputs and outputs to the inverters. So in a series of steps you verify that each inverter is generating the correct voltage and that there is NOT voltage between inverter 1 leg 1 and inverter 2 leg 1, inverter 1 leg 2 and inverter 2 leg 2. This should all occur before turning on the breakers that send the inverter power out to the main panel. Then at the main panel you validate again before turning that panel on and feeding the house. If the installer just wired everything up and flipped the switch, that is a problem.
Click to expand...
The way his system is wired, the damage occured only from the grid input side. I think you missed the other thread that went into this in detail.
 
Brucey said:
Wouldn't be the first time that someone who was super negative and had horrible story of despair suddenly edited all his posts to basically say, "I love sig solar and eg4"...
Click to expand...
I was thinking about this, and it's really just about taking care of the customer. This would be considered a small claims situation. A lawyer isn't even needed. But that doesn't have to happen of course. Maybe just taking care of the customer.

"No battery installed yet? Sure we will throw in an extra battery for all the trouble so you'll have more power available to your now working system"
Or..
"After the trouble, we know you're uncertain of the system and it's reliability, but we know it's going to work great from here on out, and in case there ever was a problem, we are shipping you another 18kpv so a direct replacement is on hand at all times."
Sorry...
 
wheisenburg said:
They may just have a 12 volt scaled down version the leg 1 and leg 2 voltages. If these wires get switched there might not be anyway for the inverter to detect that. It may just use these wires as an analog reference signal to sync to. In order words the inverters AC generation circuitry may use the voltage signal, but there is no way for the inverter's computer to "Read" values.
Click to expand...
But they should know that there is no grid input regardless of the state of the comms cable. What happens when a pin goes bad in the connector 5 years from now.. Does that mean you get a 400v surprise?
 
Plum Crazy Rob said:
Looks like someone in software might think about turning auto Crossover sense back on for their chipset, likely something similar?? Then no need for the cable precautions (?)....
Click to expand...

I don't think the port is using an actual ethernet protocol, but just using the same connectors to avoid having to use some other type of less common connector/cable.
 
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