EG4 6500EX and waterproof 48V batteries from Signature Solar

[bajarick]

Hi. This forum has been a great help to me! Thanks! I just tried to review my equipment I bought from SS and was kicked to a Judge.me app trying to sign me up for something! I'll review my purchase here I guess.
20 years way off grid in Mexico. This was my first Lithium purchase and I researched and talked to SS reps before I pulled the trigger. We got an EG4 6500EX and 2 of their waterproof 48 volt batteries. Small house with very conservative usage, lots of sun, and plenty of exposure to hurricanes. Hurricanes were the main reason for the sealed batteries.
Inverter and batteries were delivered to a friends house in Los Angeles. We drove up to get them and bring them back. Finally got up the nerve to pull the plug on the old system and hooked up the new. Batteries were in protect mode, which we knew nothing about. Went to a neighbors to call SS. Only solution they came up with was hook up a 48 volt charger. Closest pavement is over an hour away so we re installed the old system to get through the night. Found a 48 volt charger close to us and woke up the batteries. Installed the new again and after a couple glitches it was running the house again.
The batteries bluetooth connection is fine for voltage readings and individual cell readings but state of charge gets way off. Not reliable at all. Got a Smart Shunt and I'm happy with the batteries.
The inverter is doing what it's supposed to. No complaints other than the fan noise but it's in a garage. Wouldn't have it in the house.
My gripe is that the people I contacted regarding the inverter knew that I was off grid. The description says off grid. Nothing says I would need a 20 KW generator to use the charger. Plenty of sun here and I've got plenty of solar but I will have to use a generator to charge eventually. A week after I installed it SS comes out with a big announcement of their ChargeVerter for $400 saying it solved the generator charging problems people were having with the EG4 6500EX. That was the first time I was aware there might be an issue. I'm a bit concerned about starting up my EU3000i and feel a bit scammed. And, I don't want to sign up with something to review my purchase.

 

[PhantomF]

My gripe is that the people I contacted regarding the inverter knew that I was off grid. The description says off grid. Nothing says I would need a 20 KW generator to use the charger. Plenty of sun here and I've got plenty of solar but I will have to use a generator to charge eventually. A week after I installed it SS comes out with a big announcement of their ChargeVerter for $400 saying it solved the generator charging problems people were having with the EG4 6500EX. That was the first time I was aware there might be an issue. I'm a bit concerned about starting up my EU3000i and feel a bit scammed. And, I don't want to sign up with something to review my purchase.

Hello, I'm currently planning an off grid system using the EG4 6500EX inverter. I plan on running a line from my 120V 30A generator directly into the EG4 inverter AC in to charge my batteries when solar is not adequate. Are you saying this will not work and I'll need a 20kW generator minimum to run directly into the inverter to charge? Can you point me to more information about this issue?

 

[bajarick]

Hello Phantom. I would love hear something telling me I'm worried about nothing!! I saw Will Prowse's youtube on the chargeverter when it first came out. This was after I'd purchased the inverter. Watch that. It's what made me read more. There is a discussion on this forum somewhere about the charger that is in the 6500 being very sensitive to the generator output. I have a Honda EU3000i that has worked with my old Outback grid tie inverter that was supposed to be susceptible to the same problem but I haven't tried it yet.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Hi. This forum has been a great help to me! Thanks! I just tried to review my equipment I bought from SS and was kicked to a Judge.me app trying to sign me up for something! I'll review my purchase here I guess.
20 years way off grid in Mexico. This was my first Lithium purchase and I researched and talked to SS reps before I pulled the trigger. We got an EG4 6500EX and 2 of their waterproof 48 volt batteries. Small house with very conservative usage, lots of sun, and plenty of exposure to hurricanes. Hurricanes were the main reason for the sealed batteries.
Inverter and batteries were delivered to a friends house in Los Angeles. We drove up to get them and bring them back. Finally got up the nerve to pull the plug on the old system and hooked up the new. Batteries were in protect mode, which we knew nothing about. Went to a neighbors to call SS. Only solution they came up with was hook up a 48 volt charger. Closest pavement is over an hour away so we re installed the old system to get through the night. Found a 48 volt charger close to us and woke up the batteries. Installed the new again and after a couple glitches it was running the house again.
The batteries bluetooth connection is fine for voltage readings and individual cell readings but state of charge gets way off. Not reliable at all. Got a Smart Shunt and I'm happy with the batteries.
The inverter is doing what it's supposed to. No complaints other than the fan noise but it's in a garage. Wouldn't have it in the house.
My gripe is that the people I contacted regarding the inverter knew that I was off grid. The description says off grid. Nothing says I would need a 20 KW generator to use the charger. Plenty of sun here and I've got plenty of solar but I will have to use a generator to charge eventually. A week after I installed it SS comes out with a big announcement of their ChargeVerter for $400 saying it solved the generator charging problems people were having with the EG4 6500EX. That was the first time I was aware there might be an issue. I'm a bit concerned about starting up my EU3000i and feel a bit scammed. And, I don't want to sign up with something to review my purchase.

Not sure why you would take down a working system without at least running trials on the replacement system. It could have been hooked up and verified working or not on a kitchen table. This is not best practices for someone off-grid.

ALL MPP Solar, Growatt, EG4, etc., are notoriously finicky about generator power. This has been known for pretty much as long as this site has existed. This is an issue with cheap Chinese inverters.

You should have no fear of hooking up your generator, you should just keep your expectations low that it will work as desired, and if it does, you will also be extremely limited. Consider also that a EU3000i is grossly undersized for a 6500W inverter. This isn't an EG4 thing, this is ALL inverter/chargers. Most manufacturers/distributors (including signature solar) recommend generators at least 30-50% larger than the inverter rating. This is because the generator power is passed through to the loads and is used to run the charger, so the generator must be sized to handle both the charging and the loads. Inverter/chargers can only be one or the other - not both at the same time.

I'm usually first in line to poo-poo cheap Chinese stuff. I get that you are frustrated. Unfortunately, the issues you describe are failures of taking a sensible approach, education and research on your part.

 

[PhantomF]

bajarick, thanks for making me aware of this I had no idea it was an issue. Watched some youtube vids on the chargeverter. I just don't understand how this isn't clearly explained and stated in the manual for the 6500EX. I've read through it all and doesn't say anything about generator power requirements or limitations to using a generator. Just that it accepts up to 150V and 60A max for AC input and it can be either grid or generator.

sunshine_eggo, So what does the 6500EX AIO system do in the following scenarios and where exactly and how would it fail?

Using a clean sine wave high quality 120V 30A generator outputting 3500W to AC input on the AIO:
1) No load on inverter (3500W to charge batteries)?
2) 1000W load on inverter (1000W to supply load, 2500W to charge batteries)?
3) 5000W load on inverter (3500W to supply load, 1500W from batteries to load)?

 

[bajarick]

Sunshine_eggo! In hindsight you are absolutely right. I put in the original system 20 years ago when all the "solar experts" in the area didn't seem to know as much as I did. First lithium experience and I didn't know what protect mode was until they wouldn't power up the inverter. Never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it twice!
The Honda was biggest one at the time. I would love to have a 7000, and will if the small one doesn't work. I didn't need a 6500 watt inverter for my house and probably will never get the usage that high. With the flooded batteries I would use the generator maybe 10 times a year....and not for long. I don't see using it that much now.
If the generator will charge the batteries at all without screwing something up I'll be a happy camper. And, the system has made me happy. I just wish SS would have made me aware of the situation before coming out with something else to correct it!

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Sunshine_eggo! In hindsight you are absolutely right. I put in the original system 20 years ago when all the "solar experts" in the area didn't seem to know as much as I did. First lithium experience and I didn't know what protect mode was until they wouldn't power up the inverter. Never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it twice!
The Honda was biggest one at the time. I would love to have a 7000, and will if the small one doesn't work. I didn't need a 6500 watt inverter for my house and probably will never get the usage that high. With the flooded batteries I would use the generator maybe 10 times a year....and not for long. I don't see using it that much now.
If the generator will charge the batteries at all without screwing something up I'll be a happy camper. And, the system has made me happy. I just wish SS would have made me aware of the situation before coming out with something else to correct it!

I didn't realize it in my initial post, but the good news is that the Honda is an inverter generator. These units tend to behave well with inverter generators due to the relatively clean power they output. If you have trouble charging with it, or managing loads while charging, decreasing the charge current setting in the inverter helps. The charge current setting is the DC output current, not the AC input current.

Lastly, these and all similar units have a high idle power consumption. The idle power consumption (just having the inverter on even without powering loads) is about 20% of your battery capacity.

 

[littleharbor2]

I thought it was common knowledge that inverter/chargers, when charging from an ac power source will 1, cover all loads and then, 2, charge the battery with whatever is left. As previously noted. Inverter/chargers only work in one direction at a time. They either turn dc into ac or ac into dc, but not both at the same time.