EG4 6000ex UPS mode question

[42OhmsPA]

Attached are my TP6048 settings, it's a cousin to the EG4 6000, they are are voltronic relatives....
Some may say my charge profile is aggressive, I like to cycle the cells.

Note that I think your charging voltages are way to low.

 

[DIYPV]

Grid charging does work; I've verified this. However, it only works in appliance mode. When set to UPS mode, it drains the battery all night and dies around 4-6 am without ever pulling from the grid. As soon as I set UPS mode, the AC input widget starts blinking.

I have it set to solar only as I've only got one battery and not many loads and am way over-paneled at the moment. Once I get it to work properly I'll be adding more loads and hopefully batteries, then we'll see if I need grid charging.

How did you confirm grid charging is working? To me, it appears that it’s not charging.

Also charger source set to solar only will prevent grid charging.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Attached are my TP6048 settings, it's a cousin to the EG4 6000, they are are voltronic relatives....
Some may say my charge profile is aggressive, I like to cycle the cells.

Note that I think your charging voltages are way to low.

I normally have back to grid set to 51v but I lowered it to 50 last night because I didn't want to go back to the grid after a beautiful day of rain yesterday.

I'd try the above settings and see how you make out.

 

[krispykritter]

How did you confirm grid charging is working? To me, it appears that it’s not charging.

Also charger source set to solar only will prevent grid charging.

By trying that setting out as part of my troubleshooting of these issues. If I set it to Solar First or Solar and Utility, it charges the battery just fine, as long as the inverter is in appliance mode. I've verified this multiple times - trust me, grid charging works. UPS mode just doesn't use it.

Attached are my TP6048 settings, it's a cousin to the EG4 6000, they are are voltronic relatives....
Some may say my charge profile is aggressive, I like to cycle the cells.

Note that I think your charging voltages are way to low.

Unfortunately, there's a ton of semi-conflicting information on the proper charge settings for these batteries. I just went with the specs from the manual and spec sheet on signature solar's page here: https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-48v-100ah/
Shows these values


I definitely appreciate the help, but I really don't think this is a battery issue. It is charging as it should, usually completely off solar. When needed, I can charge it from grid (like last week, one day, when we barely make 2 kwh all day thanks to solid overcast, so I turned on grid charging).

I did send a wall of text to Signature Solar today, along with a ton of screen shots and images of my setup. I'll update with any new info I get.

 

[krispykritter]

Here's the battery SOC over the course of a week or so. This includes every imaginable inverter mode and various different charge voltages and input/output priorities.



That one bit where it drops all the way to zero is when i left it in UPS mode even though it showed the flashing AC symbol - I was checking to see if it would charge from grid once the battery dropped below 51v. It didn't charge.

 

[DIYPV]

By trying that setting out as part of my troubleshooting of these issues. If I set it to Solar First or Solar and Utility, it charges the battery just fine, as long as the inverter is in appliance mode. I've verified this multiple times - trust me, grid charging works. UPS mode just doesn't use it.

Set grid charging to 30A and show us solar assistant graph of battery power where it’s charging. If there’s solar available then the sum of power should include solar power.

I don’t think your charging is working.

 

[krispykritter]

okay.







Any other proof needed to see that grid charging does, in fact, work just fine, and is not my issue in appliance mode?

 

[DIYPV]

You set charge source priority to solar and utility as I suggested.

Well, if you’re confident that everything is working then I guess your issue has been resolved.

Your prior graphs posted never showed the grid charging on. Why is that? ??

 

[krispykritter]

You set charge source priority to solar and utility as I suggested.

Well, if you’re confident that everything is working then I guess your issue has been resolved.

Yes, I changed the settings as you requested to prove that grid charging does work in appliance mode. Then I provided the proof you requested.

That was never the issue.

I don't want to charge from grid except in very rare circumstances, hence my default setting of solar only.

The issue is that grid charging does not work in UPS mode, regardless of charger source setting. No matter what is set, the inverter will drain the battery to zero without ever switching to grid.

There is another issue that is looking like EMI, but I haven't really gotten into that yet.

 

[DIYPV]

Ok. Well, I thought you were getting fault 52.

 

[krispykritter]

I am getting that as well.

That, I think, may be simply too much start up current for one battery to handle.

I have, unfortunately, a small stack of problems.

 

[DIYPV]

The issue is that grid charging does not work in UPS mode, regardless of charger source setting. No matter what is set, the inverter will drain the battery to zero without ever switching to grid.

Can you put to UPS mode and change setting 31 to 23, then try charging?

 

[krispykritter]

Can you put to UPS mode and change setting 31 to 23, then try charging?

Yeah I can give that a shot sometime. Unfortunately I'm having the error 52 issues now which I think are because I don't have enough battery to start my ac unit plus the other motor loads.

 

[nasadave]

Hello krispykritter, I'm curious why you want to use "UPS" mode? My understanding of this setting with my MPP LVX-6048 is that it is simply a matter of acceptable grid input voltage when charging. It isn't really like UPS in the sense of a computer battery backup UPS. Your goal is straight up "use the batteries till 51v, then use the grid" right? No matter what the grid voltage is, you would be all battery until drained then all grid. So if APL works, it wouldn't really have a practical effect unless you are charging from grid, which you said you rarely do anyway.

 

[krispykritter]

Hello nasadave!

The reason I'm trying to use UPS mode is the switchover is supposed to be faster if AC power is lost. There's been some discussions about how long that switch over takes, but I know in appliance mode, sometimes everything shuts down for a millisecond during the switch.

I was hoping to see if UPS mode solved that problem.

As with all these infini inverters, the actual specifications are rather lacking on the actual details of how different functionality is implemented. All I can see in theanual is that UPS mode has a stricter voltage requirement... Which obviously begs the question of why?

If I were engineering this, how I would implement UPS mode would be to separate input and output power, so that the output is always running off the battery, even when the charger was charging the battery. That way, if ac power dropped, the charger would go to zero but the output would stay nearly the same.

But, no one asked me to build this system. And whoever did clearly didn't document it as well as I'd like.

Also, if it's not working as designed, I'd like a replacement they does work as designed. Hence why I was asking how UPS mode is supposed to work... If this is 'normal' behavior then I'll live with it. But I hope that's not the case.

Edit: also, my goal is actually to use batteries between (at least) 1pm and 7pm to avoid the high price time of time of use pricing. I was/am hoping UPS mode is similar to a computer style UPS. Does no one use that mode?

 

[nasadave]

I share your frustrations with this 6000 platform. I understand EG4 has made some improvements, but the firmware limitations are annoying.

I agree I want a higher setting for "back to grid" than 51V. If it is any consolation, you can run longer power cables to help with this. I have 7 ft cables from my inverter to batteries, and I lose 0.3 volts. In LiFePO4 land, that makes a 4-5% difference in SOC at that voltage. So my inverter thinks 51.0 , while my batteries are more like 51.3.

I also understand that these AIOs cannot charge from grid and invert from batteries at the same time. So you either turn the inverter off and grid charge or you turn the inverter on and it goes in bypass and charges from grid (depending on settings). Of course, you can charge from solar and invert from battery at the same time, but no grid. I guess it is like the saying faster/better/cheaper ... pick two.

I've been trying to learn how I can remotely switch from SBU to SUB without the power blip penalty so I can charge up without have to flip transfer switches and turn the inverter off. It is still too great of a blip even with UPS mode. So I'm following your thread to see what you learn with other settings

 

[DIYPV]

Hello nasadave!

The reason I'm trying to use UPS mode is the switchover is supposed to be faster if AC power is lost. There's been some discussions about how long that switch over takes, but I know in appliance mode, sometimes everything shuts down for a millisecond during the switch.

I was hoping to see if UPS mode solved that problem.

As with all these infini inverters, the actual specifications are rather lacking on the actual details of how different functionality is implemented. All I can see in theanual is that UPS mode has a stricter voltage requirement... Which obviously begs the question of why?

If I were engineering this, how I would implement UPS mode would be to separate input and output power, so that the output is always running off the battery, even when the charger was charging the battery. That way, if ac power dropped, the charger would go to zero but the output would stay nearly the same.

But, no one asked me to build this system. And whoever did clearly didn't document it as well as I'd like.

Also, if it's not working as designed, I'd like a replacement they does work as designed. Hence why I was asking how UPS mode is supposed to work... If this is 'normal' behavior then I'll live with it. But I hope that's not the case.

Edit: also, my goal is actually to use batteries between (at least) 1pm and 7pm to avoid the high price time of time of use pricing. I was/am hoping UPS mode is similar to a computer style UPS. Does no one use that mode?

UPS mode does seem to have a faster switchover time from SUB to SBU and does not disrupt any of my appliances.
However, switchover from SBU to SUB is horrible and many of my electronics lose power during this switchover.

 

[42OhmsPA]

All UPS mode does is restricts the acceptable AC input voltages, it's not for uninterruptible power supply mode.
The only time I've used APL was when I charged from my generator...

Do you have any timers set in 30-33?
You may be able to use them as a workaround if not, only allow AC charging outside your peak rate hours.
Did you enable any of the options in solar assistant to shut down based on soc?
Have you metered both legs of your AC in and verified your incoming voltage is good?

My thoughts are you either have some really crappy grid power or a hardware issue.

 

[nasadave]

I'm proud to say I've learned something today. I just tested and Krispykritter is correct! The setting of #02 APL or UPS does in fact change the behavior of the inverter beyond the documentation about voltage ranges. If I am set to #01-SUB, #10-SNU, then setting #02 to APL causes the inverter to charge from grid. Change #02 to UPS and it DOES NOT charge. Feature? Bug? who knows, but I'm going to use this to my advantage, because the switchover from battery to bypass and back were much faster than switching SUB/SBU with APL mode.

And reminder fyi, I've got a MPP LVX-6048, so your EG4 mileage may vary.

 

[krispykritter]

All UPS mode does is restricts the acceptable AC input voltages, it's not for uninterruptible power supply mode.
The only time I've used APL was when I charged from my generator...

Do you have any timers set in 30-33?
You may be able to use them as a workaround if not, only allow AC charging outside your peak rate hours.
Did you enable any of the options in solar assistant to shut down based on soc?
Have you metered both legs of your AC in and verified your incoming voltage is good?

My thoughts are you either have some really crappy grid power or a hardware issue.

Good thought on the AC charging timers. I don't have them set at the moment so that's one way to work around it. I did check our AC today and it looks fine. I've never seen it dip outside of like...118v and 59.6sih hz. Sine wave looks okay as well, nothing particularly nasty.

As a precaution I've disabled the solarAssistant shutdown feature. I'd like to use it but need to get this working how I want first.

When your unit is in UPS mode, it charges from the grid just fine? Do you use grid input or fully offgrid?

I'm proud to say I've learned something today. I just tested and Krispykritter is correct! The setting of #02 APL or UPS does in fact change the behavior of the inverter beyond the documentation about voltage ranges. If I am set to #01-SUB, #10-SNU, then setting #02 to APL causes the inverter to charge from grid. Change #02 to UPS and it DOES NOT charge. Feature? Bug? who knows, but I'm going to use this to my advantage, because the switchover from battery to bypass and back were much faster than switching SUB/SBU with APL mode.

And reminder fyi, I've got a MPP LVX-6048, so your EG4 mileage may vary.

I'll be curious to see if it starts charging from the grid once your battery gets low enough. If it does, then mine has a defect. If it doesn't...either we both have the same defect or it's a 'feature.' Sounds different from what 42Ohm's sees but I'm not sure of his setup.

I'm sure we can all puzzle it out eventually. That's why the forum is here, after all.