EG4 6500EX 120/240 Setup, 48V 105kWh Battery & Overkill 100A BMS Install

[PreppenWolf]

So funny story. I broke our houses grid transformer. It must have been on its last legs and my 100A pull for 6hrs to charge killed it.

I got a low voltage warning from our UPS systems. I checked the house voltage. 107V at the plug. I check the inverters, they report AC In also at 107V. Very strange, it's usually 117V solid since I moved here.

I don't change anything because I figure if grid goes down, no big deal as my bank was around 75% charged and I just wanted to top it off before the snow started. So I go outside to salt and put the vehicles away.

And..... the half of house on grid goes down. Sigh. The 6500s flipped to battery immediately, no interruption. So very happy with the performance. Call power company assuming a tree was down. They show up within 30min and nope, my road is up but he says my transforming is humming. He pulls the fuse, pulls the meter and tests the transformer. Toast. Guess 36 years was that particular units number. Power company had a new unit up in under 3hrs from initial down.

 

[PreppenWolf]

It's good thing I altered my settings and full charged my bank because my power went down 3hrs after the post above and it's still out with no ETA. We had a bad ice/snow storm here. Trees down everywhere. I had to call out from my regular job and responded to 26 FD calls yesterday. I only went to 65 calls in 2022....

@BenFromSignatureSolar I'm going to find out how good those (5) EG4 chargers are tonight when I turn on the gen to recharge the bank.

 

[Adam De Lay]

Wow. Haven't had an ice storm like that in a long time...course last time I had trees coming through my roof!

I look forward to hearing how things go with your generator charging tonight. Stay safe and warm in the meantime!

 

[PreppenWolf]

Power is still out. No ETA. I got called out to several more trees down on lines last night as we had snow which switched to ice, then rain. I'm guessing 3 more days to fix.

There is a legit army of linemen and trucks in a 10mi radius of my house. My son even saw one of the high tension boom tanks yesterday because a section of the high tension wires from VT to NH is down.



I'm going to charge the batt bank today. Currently at 52.0V and haven't charged it since Sunday. Family has done a great job controlling power usage. Put these outlets in last night. Each on its own breaker connected to transfer switch.

 

[PreppenWolf]

Running (4) of the SS chargers now. Stats:

9.5A each @ 116.0V x 4 units = 4,408W input

74.4A @ 53.0V to busbars = 3,943W output

3943/4408 = 89.5% efficiency

House drawing roughly 750W at moment so little over 3kW per hour battery charging.

I do have a 5th unit i wanted to run, but I lent my 2200W gen to a friend who didn't have one. My main gen is 6500W surge and 5000W continuous, so (4) units is the limit for sustained charging.

 

[PreppenWolf]

Interesting. I just checked it again. The data above is from a little earlier. Now it's charging at 75.4A @ 53.4V = 4,026W -> same draw -> 91.3% efficiency.

 

[John Frum]

Interesting. I just checked it again. The data above is from a little earlier. Now it's charging at 75.4A @ 53.4V = 4,026W -> same draw -> 91.3% efficiency.

As the battery voltage rises so will the charge voltage, I would expect the efficiency to rise with the charge voltage.

 

[John Frum]

As the battery voltage rises so will the charge voltage, I would expect the efficiency to rise with the charge voltage.

Until it hits constant voltage.

 

[PreppenWolf]

Well I'm not going to get help from the sun much the next two weeks. Mostly cloudy next 6 days, then 5 days of snow forecasted. Ah NH winters...

 

[PreppenWolf]

Ran the (4) chargers for 8hrs. Solid performance throughout. Finally got power back today. Went 4.5 days on the battery bank. Very happy with this system.

 

[PreppenWolf]

I had my first break evenday today. Produced 18.1kWh and have only used 16kWh so far today. First full sun day we've had in probably 2 weeks. Sun is getting higher and days longer. I should have a good first full year and I've learned a lot about the winter.

 

[Adam De Lay]

Finally had some sun this week here as well. Seems like when the snow comes, it brings some sunlight as well!

 

[PreppenWolf]

Had our first completely cloudless day in a long time today. 33.1kWh produced even with my trees blocking AM sun in the east. Man I gotta get those things down!

 

[PreppenWolf]

Some pictures from the snow/ice storm two weeks ago as I was driving around closing roads for FD. This is SW NH.

 

[Quattrohead]

Was the England Wales border my best place to live, no.
Was Massachusetts my best place to live, no.
Is Florida the best place in the whole world to live, hell yes... But don't tell anyone else ?

 

[PreppenWolf]

I'm experiencing a peculiar behavior today. Morning production was great, but now cloud cover. My units flipped from solar to bypass mode when clouds hit despite my battery voltage being 51.7V as reported by the units and checked with multimeter. My utility threshold is 48V, so this should not be happening, the loads should be powered from battery while solar dips.

My settings are
01 - SBU
02 - 120A
03 - UPS
04 - USE
05 - LIC
06 - LRE
07 - TRE
09 - 60
10 - 120
11 - 60A
12 - 48
13 - 54
16 - SNU

If I turn off PV input, the bypass remains and charging starts. Turning PV back on stops charging, but bypass remains.

If I turn off AC In, the units flip to Battery output. If I turn AC In back on, unit immediately flips to bypass.

I have emailed SS to inquire. I have not powered the units down fully yet to see if that works. As a note I have not powered down the units at all since November commissioning. I wanted SS's input before I miss possibly capturing some info they might be able to use.

 

[Adam De Lay]

If I recall from previous images, you have 6500s, correct? If so, how do you have USE and LIC set at the same time? I don't see an option 04.

 

[Zwy]

I'm experiencing a peculiar behavior today. Morning production was great, but now cloud cover. My units flipped from solar to bypass mode when clouds hit despite my battery voltage being 51.7V as reported by the units and checked with multimeter. My utility threshold is 48V, so this should not be happening, the loads should be powered from battery while solar dips.

My settings are
01 - SBU
02 - 120A
03 - UPS
04 - USE
05 - LIC
06 - LRE
07 - TRE
09 - 60
10 - 120
11 - 60A
12 - 48
13 - 54

Here is a possible reason why this occurred. If your battery voltage had dropped to setting 12 (Setting voltage point back to utility source when selecting “SBU” (SBU priority) in program 01) of 48V, the EG4 switches to utility power. It will not switch back to battery power until the battery hits 54V in setting 13 (Setting voltage point back to battery mode when selecting “SBU” (SBU priority) in program 01)

If you switched the inverter off and rebooted, it will lose the memory of the 48V battery voltage triggering back to utility source and stay on battery power.

16 - SNU

If I turn off PV input, the bypass remains and charging starts.

It should as you hit the 48V limit and it will remain in bypass and charge the battery from available sources and with 16 at SNU, it will charge off both utility and PV if PV is available.

Turning PV back on stops charging, but bypass remains.

Read the note for setting 16- If this inverter/charger is working in Battery mode, only solar energy can charge battery. Solar energy will charge battery if it's available and sufficient.

As the 48V limit was hit, the unit should not be in Battery mode. It remains in bypass until the 54V is hit.

If I turn off AC In, the units flip to Battery output. If I turn AC In back on, unit immediately flips to bypass.

I have emailed SS to inquire. I have not powered the units down fully yet to see if that works. As a note I have not powered down the units at all since November commissioning. I wanted SS's input before I miss possibly capturing some info they might be able to use.

My thoughts are it's a settings issue. You have a few choices, return to the default setting for 12 to 46V and lower the setting for 13 so it returns back to battery power sooner. It would depend upon loads in between PV charging cycles.

 

[PreppenWolf]

Here is a possible reason why this occurred. If your battery voltage had dropped to setting 12 (Setting voltage point back to utility source when selecting “SBU” (SBU priority) in program 01) of 48V, the EG4 switches to utility power. It will not switch back to battery power until the battery hits 54V in setting 13 (Setting voltage point back to battery mode when selecting “SBU” (SBU priority) in program 01)

If you switched the inverter off and rebooted, it will lose the memory of the 48V battery voltage triggering back to utility source and stay on battery power.


It should as you hit the 48V limit and it will remain in bypass and charge the battery from available sources and with 16 at SNU, it will charge off both utility and PV if PV is available.



Read the note for setting 16- If this inverter/charger is working in Battery mode, only solar energy can charge battery. Solar energy will charge battery if it's available and sufficient.

As the 48V limit was hit, the unit should not be in Battery mode. It remains in bypass until the 54V is hit.

My thoughts are it's a settings issue. You have a few choices, return to the default setting for 12 to 46V and lower the setting for 13 so it returns back to battery power sooner. It would depend upon loads in between PV charging cycles.

I am glad I was not the only one to have this theory. I legit typed the same exact hypothesis to Ben. I agree I believe it "remembers" being below threshold and will not revert until setting 13 is hit. Because Solar interrupted that process, it was sending all the solar to the battery and remaining in bypass, but because Solar is priority for charging, the AC In was shutoff until Solar stopped producing.

Because I am very interested in testing this hypothesis, I am letting it grid charge to 54V. It's at 53.7 now so I should have my answer before I go to sleep.

 

[PreppenWolf]

If I recall from previous images, you have 6500s, correct? If so, how do you have USE and LIC set at the same time? I don't see an option 04.

Sorry yoy are correct it does not allow setting 04 to be altered. I recorded the full list of settings originally and then altered the ones I changed, so I still had LIC recorded.

As a note I tried setting 16 charging to CSO and tried altering the charge current to 70A in setting 11. Just to see if I could jar it to alter function. No change to behavior. It still charges with bypass while toggled to CSO. This supports what Zwy and I believe might be the cause.

Here is a video from earlier of me toggling the data and the settings while docking around before I had to run out.

A bit of camera shake as I didn't have time to setup a tripod.