EG4 6500EX Problem

[shopman]

More than one person has had an issue with these inverters, when hooked up in parallel, shorting out the battery input terminals. The easiest way to check this without destroying any more equipment is to disconnect everything(all wiring INCLUDING THE BATTERIES) from the inverter and then use the "ohms or continuity" function on your meter to check for a short across the battery input terminals of the inverter. You'll want to do this check by applying the meter leads in both directions(positive to positive, negative to negative first then swap the meter leads and go positive to negative, negative to positive). If you read a dead short in both directions then I'd say the inverter is fried. If what I've described isn't easily understood then I highly recommend bringing in a professional to diagnose your issue. Also, using pvc sprinkler pipe as conduit is a bad idea. The sprinkler fittings are not the same as the conduit fittings in that they have rough/sharp internal edges that will easily strip the sheath on the wire as it's pulled through the fittings. It's a great way to introduce an invisible short.

 

[vitalssigns]

Have a happy Thanksgiving @vitalssigns - and everyone, (Canadian T-G was back in October, home grown Turkey was so good). lol.
When you are ready this is my recommendation for initial testing:
Small steps approach:
Step one - disconnect everything from both inverters. EVERYTHING - remove the PV supply all wires from both inverters, switch off both.
Step two - disconnect all the server rack battery cables and switch them all off.
Step three - with nothing connected, turn on one rack battery - the top one. put a meter and see if you have 50-54 volts (like you did back at post #78 where you have the meter red to red, black to black on the top battery - it was showing proper voltage. Lets confirm it still does.
Step four - connect the neg from the top battery only to the neg of one inverter. Then connect a cable to the pos of the top battery.
Step five - Now attach one light bulb wire to this pos cable.
Step six - touch the other light bulb wire to the neg battery terminal for a few seconds - the light should come on dim, and stay dim.
Step seven - now touch that same light bulb wire to the pos terminal on the inverter for a few seconds. - the light should come on dim and fade out.

STOP HERE - report to the forum the follwing:
Did the light bulb glow dim when you touched the bulb wire to the battery neg terminal at step six. Yes or NO?
If YES - did the light bulb glow dim when you touched the wire to the inverter positive terminal in step seven. YES or NO?
If YES - did the light bulb glow dim and fade showly or did it glow dim and stay steady dim, STEADY OR FADED?
We will move to the next steps once we have your replies to the above.
Gobble - gobble!

I have not did the light bulb test yet, my bulbs came in yesterday, and today my sleeves will come in so I can do the test.

 

[vitalssigns]

In all honesty without doing the light bulb test, I believe that my 2 inverters are fried like burnt toast. I say this only for the fact of, 1) when I disconnect the power from the batteries to the inverters, I get a test reading of 52.7 with all 3 batteries functioning as they should. 2) when I hook up the positive and negative back up to the inverters , I get no reading on the breaker (top side) on the wall under the inverter, as well as 2 of the 3 batteries going into alarm mode. 3) with only solar hooked up to the inverters, the setting screen on the inverters will not come on. Just my observation.

 

[vitalssigns]

More than one person has had an issue with these inverters, when hooked up in parallel, shorting out the battery input terminals. The easiest way to check this without destroying any more equipment is to disconnect everything(all wiring INCLUDING THE BATTERIES) from the inverter and then use the "ohms or continuity" function on your meter to check for a short across the battery input terminals of the inverter. You'll want to do this check by applying the meter leads in both directions(positive to positive, negative to negative first then swap the meter leads and go positive to negative, negative to positive). If you read a dead short in both directions then I'd say the inverter is fried. If what I've described isn't easily understood then I highly recommend bringing in a professional to diagnose your issue. Also, using pvc sprinkler pipe as conduit is a bad idea. The sprinkler fittings are not the same as the conduit fittings in that they have rough/sharp internal edges that will easily strip the sheath on the wire as it's pulled through the fittings. It's a great way to introduce an invisible short.

I did as you recommended an I do have continuity in all directions. I went a step further and found out that on all 3 batteries when I go positive to negative with the leads, their is no continuity, dead silence.

 

[Gavin Stone]

Both inverters are probably blown. And your t class fuses may also be blown. The inverters could blow if you wire the PV into them the way you have. Or they could blow not using the precharge resistor like you described before. So you’ll have to contact Signature Solar and run some tests for their tech team to confirm the issue.

 

[shopman]

Sorry to say but I believe both inverters are shorted and dead. Do not make any more attempts to try and power them up. Do as Gavin said above and contact SS for further assistance.

In regard to pre-charging the inverter capacitors, the EG4 Lifepower4 batteries have a built-in pre-charge circuit. To use the built-in pre-charger, you make sure the batteries are OFF(breaker in off position) BEFORE connecting to your inverter. Once the battery is connected, turn on the battery breaker and as the battery powers up you might hear it making some snapping/pulsing noises. That is the pre-charge circuit pumping up the inverter capacitors. The battery may go into a fault state on the initial pre-charge and give you the red light with no power output in which case you turn off the battery, wait a second and turn it back on which will cause it to go through the pre-charge function again. They usually can complete the pre-charge in one or two cycles. There is no need to use a resistor or light bulb with these batteries.

 

[vitalssigns]

Both inverters are probably blown. And your t class fuses may also be blown. The inverters could blow if you wire the PV into them the way you have. Or they could blow not using the precharge resistor like you described before. So you’ll have to contact Signature Solar and run some tests for their tech team to confirm the issue.

Replace the t class fuses and now I’m getting power to the negative and positive leads to the inverses, but know action from the inverters themselves. Just got the sleeves for the light bulb, let me test that and see what I get. Thanks

 

[Samsonite801]

In regard to pre-charging the inverter capacitors, the EG4 Lifepower4 batteries have a built-in pre-charge circuit. To use the built-in pre-charger, you make sure the batteries are OFF(breaker in off position) BEFORE connecting to your inverter. Once the battery is connected, turn on the battery breaker and as the battery powers up you might hear it making some snapping/pulsing noises. That is the pre-charge circuit pumping up the inverter capacitors. The battery may go into a fault state on the initial pre-charge and give you the red light with no power output in which case you turn off the battery, wait a second and turn it back on which will cause it to go through the pre-charge function again. They usually can complete the pre-charge in one or two cycles. There is no need to use a resistor or light bulb with these batteries.

More info and a video:

EG4 Battery and Precharge Resistor Circuit How-to

Seems to be a lot of questions about the built in Pre-charge resistor in the EG4 LiFePower4 Batterys. Two things can clear this up for you. 1. From the Docs PDF file that you can find at the Signature Solar web site. Intitled EG4-LiFepower4 Manual-2.1.0.pdf. LINK...

diysolarforum.com

 

[42OhmsPA]

Replace the t class fuses and now I’m getting power to the negative and positive leads to the inverses, but know action from the inverters themselves. Just got the sleeves for the light bulb, let me test that and see what I get. Thanks

How did you make out?
I was betting the fuse was blown.
Hopefully the inverters are fine.

 

[vitalssigns]

Sorry to say but I believe both inverters are shorted and dead. Do not make any more attempts to try and power them up. Do as Gavin said above and contact SS for further assistance.

In regard to pre-charging the inverter capacitors, the EG4 Lifepower4 batteries have a built-in pre-charge circuit. To use the built-in pre-charger, you make sure the batteries are OFF(breaker in off position) BEFORE connecting to your inverter. Once the battery is connected, turn on the battery breaker and as the battery powers up you might hear it making some snapping/pulsing noises. That is the pre-charge circuit pumping up the inverter capacitors. The battery may go into a fault state on the initial pre-charge and give you the red light with no power output in which case you turn off the battery, wait a second and turn it back on which will cause it to go through the pre-charge function again. They usually can complete the pre-charge in one or two cycles. There is no need to use a resistor or light bulb with these batteries.

Out of the 3 batteries that I have hooked up, one Clears the pre-charge, the other two go into alarm stage. Turn both batteries off and redid the pre-charge 4 times, and the alarm still comes on in red.
Funny thing is, when I have both positive and negative off of the hot and neutral post, all 3 batteries bms stay green. I myself feel that the 2 inverters that I have had an issue when I went too parallel them to work together.

 

[vitalssigns]

How did you make out?
I was betting the fuse was blown.
Hopefully the inverters are fine.

Fuse where blown, added new ones and got power all the way up the line to the inverters, inverters still not working. When I originally set them to work in parallel with one another, my issues began with both inverters not working.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Fuse where blown, added new ones and got power all the way up the line to the inverters, inverters still not working. When I originally set them to work in parallel with one another, my issues began with both inverters not working.

Did you try to start them up individually or do you still have them in parallel?

 

[Gavin Stone]

The batteries go into alarm because there is a dead short inside the inverters.

And they may have fried when your paralleled them and ran the same PV strings to both inverters. SS will have you test things with your multi meters and send them photos.

 

[SignatureSolarJess]

In all honesty without doing the light bulb test, I believe that my 2 inverters are fried like burnt toast. I say this only for the fact of, 1) when I disconnect the power from the batteries to the inverters, I get a test reading of 52.7 with all 3 batteries functioning as they should. 2) when I hook up the positive and negative back up to the inverters , I get no reading on the breaker (top side) on the wall under the inverter, as well as 2 of the 3 batteries going into alarm mode. 3) with only solar hooked up to the inverters, the setting screen on the inverters will not come on. Just my observation.

I agree, I definitely recommend giving tech a call and have them troubleshoot with you. I also recommend preemptively take photos of the multimeter readings with the points of measurements in one photo (It can be difficult to take a photo and probe the terminals, sometimes asking someone for assistance here is necessary), a photo of each unit and whole the set up, a close up of the serial numbers, and sometimes even a short video of what is/or is not, happening can help speed up the process to get a solution. ?‍??

 

[hankinohio]

watching

 

[42OhmsPA]

@vitalssigns how are you making out? Everything up and running?

 

[@prepared_life]

When all just shut down, the only sound was 1 of the 3 battery breakers switching off.

Off topic. Is your PV wire 12/2 Romex? If, so are your polarities correct? The placement of the wires also appear to be at two different locations. Either way hope you get everything figured out. There is a proper sequence to firing everything up.

 

[Doug864]

I’ve been reading this post and I have to say I commend all the great members here trying to help this person out. It takes a lot more time and effort to troubleshoot something that’s not right in front of you than say a simple design question. Let alone the patience needed for dealing with less experienced diy’ers. That’s why this forum is so great. Thanks Will Prowse and all the other members here.

 

[hankinohio]

here here !!!!?

 

[vitalssigns]

@vitalssigns how are you making out? Everything up and running?

Did all the trouble shooting with SS, the 2 EG4 inverters are down for the count. SS are going to replace them, my only question is, should I stay with the replacement of the 2, or is there a better one that I should go with that will work with the parallel set up?

 

[42OhmsPA]

Did all the trouble shooting with SS, the 2 EG4 inverters are down for the count. SS are going to replace them, my only question is, should I stay with the replacement of the 2, or is there a better one that I should go with that will work with the parallel set up?

Personally I would only stick with that model if you can find the older 250V max PV input version, the original LV6548.
Otherwise I would look at the SRNE HYP.

Edit to add the 6000XP looks promising.
Edit again to fix the model. I'm glad Tim didn't catch it ?.

 

[Quattrohead]

See if you can get the 6000XP as some kind of trade up, it's in a whole different League.

 

[vitalssigns]

See if you can get the 6000XP as some kind of trade up, it's in a whole different League.

SS did say that they would replace the 2 EG4 6500EX with refurbish units only because they do not have any new ones on had. But they also said that they could give me store credit for the 2 I’m sending back, and I can upgrade to another inverter. The 6000XP you mentioned, sounds like it would be a better choice.