EG4 6500EX Transfer Time

[kburndred]

So, I have 2 X EG4 6000EX in parallel and I am having an issue with transfer time.
Whenever the mode changes from "Hybrid Mode" to/from "Battery Mode" the power goes off for around 2 or 3 seconds and everything shuts off.
This seems crazy to me so I'm wondering if I have setting(s) wrong.
Has anyone got any experience with this slow transfer time?

 

[PreppenWolf]

Something is wrong. My 6500EX in split phase barely causes a light flicker and nothing in my house resets/powers down.

My UPSs don't beep/click over either so it's fast enough to outsmart them.

 

[PreppenWolf]

So, I have 2 X EG4 6000EX in parallel and I am having an issue with transfer time.
Whenever the mode changes from "Hybrid Mode" to/from "Battery Mode" the power goes off for around 2 or 3 seconds and everything shuts off.
This seems crazy to me so I'm wondering if I have setting(s) wrong.
Has anyone got any experience with this slow transfer time?

First thought. You're battery setup isn't adequate or the BMSs are limiting in rush current to a degree it is inhibiting the inverters.

 

[Adam De Lay]

I did some basic testing on the 6500 transfer them. At the time of my testing, my inverters had setting 03 to Appliance mode, not UPS.

I’ve had it going for quite some time with most times not even noticing that my inverters had changed over to grid-bypass mode.

Unlike @PreppenWolf though, I can’t even run my actual UPSs because they keep switching from line to battery power over and over (but that’s completely unrelated to this discussion).

 

[PreppenWolf]

Here is what were are using for our work computers. My 6500s are set to 120V and UPS mode.

 

[kburndred]

So, at the moment I don't have all my PV up. My expectation is that the inverter would use the grid when the batteries got too low. It seems to me that when the inverter switches the grid 'in' is when the problem occurs.
Q: Should I bond the grid neutral to the inverter neutral?
Q: Should I bond the battery negative to the same neutral?
Q: could these be reasons why I'm having problems?

During the night my battery got down to the low voltage switch-over point and something went wrong. The master inverter shutoff it's AC output and the slave inverter had an error about communication and also shutoff it's AC output.
This meant that there was a small DC usage from the inverters idling and my batteries cutoff dc power.
I had to connect my battery charger using grid power, reload firmware into the master inverter, reconfigure all the parameters and eventually got things back up and running.
The inverters switched to hybrid mode and started charging my batteries at 90 amps mostly from grid. When my batteries reached 10% the inverters switched to battery mode and by then I had enough PV to continue charging.
I have disconnected the inverter AC output from my house loads and only have a couple of outlets connected so I can test.
At this point I feel like I need to resolve/understand what's happening and implement some solutions before I will trust the inverters not to shutoff power again at 2am.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[MachAF]

A modern Washing machine? If my GE Circa 2021 Washer and Dryer lose power for a few ms it just turns off. These are digital devices not those old analog mechanical timer type machines.
My OLED TV does the same thing.
My DirecTV DVR's will reboot and I will lose at least 5 minutes of any show that is recording at the time. If I am watching it live I have to wait for the 4-5 minute reboot process to take place.
My Panasonic Inverter ACs also shutdown if there is a power glitch. Non Inverter ones will start back up.
My Infofia PM1608 Hepa Air filter turns off if the power glitches.
MY GE stoves cooking timer resets the time to 12:00 flashing after a few ms of Glitch, losing the cooking time that has already happened.
MY PC's most certainly will turn off or reset depending on what the Bios setting is.
My Panasonic Microwave will stop cooking after the slightest glitch and will show 12:00 on the clock and not start working again until I put in a new timer cooking amount.


I could go on, if you need more.

Thats interesting. I can hook up my generator and manually switch my breaker over to generator power fast enough (not anywhere near 20ms fast) that nothing in my house loses power. That includes, computers, cable modem, switches, routers, OLED, and all appliances.

 

[Zwy]

So, I have 2 X EG4 6000EX in parallel and I am having an issue with transfer time.
Whenever the mode changes from "Hybrid Mode" to/from "Battery Mode" the power goes off for around 2 or 3 seconds and everything shuts off.
This seems crazy to me so I'm wondering if I have setting(s) wrong.
Has anyone got any experience with this slow transfer time?

The 6500EX will match incoming frequency and phase, this allows it to run USB mode.

Perhaps you need to change your settings or the unit is not capable of matching frequency and phase, thus the drop in power.

 

[robby]

Thats interesting. I can hook up my generator and manually switch my breaker over to generator power fast enough (not anywhere near 20ms fast) that nothing in my house loses power. That includes, computers, cable modem, switches, routers, OLED, and all appliances.

Apples to Oranges comparison.
You can switch a Manual Transfer switch within 5-10ms very easily.
The difference is that you already know the power is gone or maybe it's not gone and your just switching over. The point is that the Generator is running and ready to go. So the time is just based on how fast you can flick the switch and the travel throw of the switch.

With an Inverter it has to first detect that the power is gone and then you have a ramp up time as the Inverter pulls power from the Batteries during the switch over.
Most of the time I have zero glitch from the Inverter because it's already using PV or at night it's already on Batteries. Those are the times when we only realize there is an outage because we see our neighbors house in darkness or the Power companies App sends out a message.

 

[mlewus]

Minimum transfer time requirements are difficult to define as they are device, line voltage, and load dependent. Given that a 50 Hz AC signal crosses zero volts every 10 ms (8.3 ms for 60Hz) a power supply needs some amount of hold up time even when plugged in. 4ms transfer time (in phase) will not cause any device to fail because of it did, the device would fail on every half cycle. The 10ms Intel spec assumes you can lose one 50Hz half cycle, plus any phase difference between the AC line and the inverter output.

Most switching power supplies work pretty much the same way. They rectify the line voltage, store it in capacitors / inductors, and then use a (usually) buck converter to convert that to the desired voltage. Hold up time is defined by the amount of capacitance/inductance on that high voltage rail, the load on that rail, and to a lesser degree the capacitance on the output side. Since most power supplies are specified to work over a range of 90 to 265 VAC and 50/60 Hz, you need to enough energy storage (usually capacitance) to make it work at the minimum voltage and maximum load. That provides some overhead since power supplies are rarely run at their 100% design load, and a more normal operating voltage is 120 or 240V.

Let’s say you have a 800W computer power supply spec’d to run at a minimum of 90 V and hold up for 10ms. But when the power failure occurs, it was running at 120V and was loaded at 500 watts. In that case the power supply could easily hold up for more like 20 ms before the output sags. My experience is the most well designed power supplies can hold up for at least 20 ms though some are obviously more sensitive than others. The only real way to determine us is to test it to failure.

One other thing to consider is that when a UPS switches from line to inverter, it does not necessarily do so in phase. So you might lose the line voltage at the peak of a wave and when the inverter switches on 20 ms later it’s at its zero crossing point. Now you have to wait another quarter cycle before the sine wave peaks again. This phase disruption can cause as much or more disruption to the device than the actual time delay. It plays all heck with PFC circuits and induction motors, like those in some refrigerator compressors. This is in part why very sensitive equipment doesn’t use an off-line UPS is at all, rather, they use double conversion, or what is sometimes called an “online UPS.” These drive the load with the inverter 100% of the time, and the AC line is there to charge the battery and power the inverter. The advantage is that there is no transfer time. The disadvantage is that your inverter‘s thermal design must allow it to run continuously, and you pay a price in efficiency by running the load through the inverter.

 

[DIYPV]

So, I have 2 X EG4 6000EX in parallel and I am having an issue with transfer time.
Whenever the mode changes from "Hybrid Mode" to/from "Battery Mode" the power goes off for around 2 or 3 seconds and everything shuts off.
This seems crazy to me so I'm wondering if I have setting(s) wrong.
Has anyone got any experience with this slow transfer time?

I’m experiencing the same issue with my 6000ex. Hopefully they can address this in a future FW update.

 

[kburndred]

FYI, the latest firmware has fixed the restart issue I was having. I recommend you update your firmware.

 

[solarhombre]

I have some experience with the transfer time, granted I have the MPP LV6548's so it might be different, but I dont actually know the differences.

I originally only had 1x LV6548, and it advertised the same 20ms transfer time. I NEVER had any equipment shut off when going back and forth. Never a light flicker, never a computer reboot, no microwave shut downs, no washer/dryer glitches. Nothing. Never noticed anything happened.

But when I got 2x LV6548's, everything changed. Now in the manual it actually states the transfer time is 50ms when in parallel. I'd assume its the same with the EG4 model. I typically had some heavy loads on the 2 of them, averaging 4-5kw continuously. My smart OLED TV never shut off or glitched, neither did the microwave of washer/dryer, the only thing I ever noticed was the air conditioners in my RV, (3x 1500w models) would slow down, and occasionally the breaker would trip, i'm guessing the voltage drop causes a big amperage spike which trips the breaker. Also, my crypto miner would reboot (highly sensitive PSU's). Nothing EVER happened when it was just 1x inverter.

I asked Ian at Watts247, and basically got the typical, "I've never heard of that happening!". His response was to reset all the settings back to default and reconfigure it, which did nothing. Never got it figured out as to why, but thankfully I don't live in the RV full time anymore, so I don't deal with the problems anymore.

@robby if you have appliances shutting down when your equipment says 10ms, I would get it tested, because I don't think its correct. Even with 50ms (probably more? no idea), i still had no problems with most appliances.

As LtDan says, EG4 6500 in parallel mode:

It is 'max' though. In my case the UPSs I have for computers and wifi notice the transfer, and LED lights might dim for an instant, but nothing stops working (AC, heat pump water heater, TV, fridge confirmed)

 

[Zwy]

Parallel is different than in split phase.

With either the EG4 6500EX or the MPP LV6548 in split phase, any switch between grid and inverter was seamless. I saw longer blinks in my lights on grid power.