EG4 6k - need help with wiring diagram

[thanhrodke]

wow! Thanks for testing. I feel there are some other bugs as well

1) when you restart the inverter, the display does not show the correct setting/diagram until you take out the battery communication cable and put it back in(maybe it just take a long time to update)
2) The output wattage does not seem correct and does not change if I add/remove loads
3) is there a firmware update that I need to do? They sent inverter software CD which I could not install since I don't have CD player on my laptop. Where can I download the software from? SS does not seem to be responding to my questions.
4) I have a raspberry pi with a USB-A. I don't see a way to connect to inverter. Do I need a USB-A to micro-usb adapter?


would be good to copy SS on this thread..thought I saw someone copy them but not sure what the handle is.

1. My inverter displays will actually stay energized if the MicroUSB cable is plugged into them, even if both the solar switch is off and the battery breaker is off. IIRC, it shows a steady error 32.
2. Are you looking at the output wattage in Solar Assistant or on the inverter? If SA, there's a setting in SA that I recommend that you change from battery to inverter. It's in the Advanced menu, which is to the left of the Connect/Disconnect button on the settings tab. You'll need to disconnect SA first, then click the Advanced button. Towards the bottom, there's a Narada BMS section. Change that from Battery to Inverter. My EG4 LifePower4 batteries won't report any charge/discharge smaller than 100 watts each. But the inverter will report all the way down to 1 watt of charge or discharge. I am not claiming how accurate it is, but I am just saying that with multiple batteries, you can be drawing 100 watts times the number of batteries before the batteries report anything (give or take). So with my 12 batteries, all things equal, I can charge or discharge up to 1,200 watts before the batteries report anything to SA.
3. Here's the EG4 download page, but they don't currently list any firmware for the EG4 6000EX inverter: https://eg4electronics.com/downloads/
4. You will need a USB-A to MicroUSB cable to connect to your inverter. And if you get additional inverters in the future, it's best to connect SA to each one individually, as there is some information that SA can't get unless it's directly connected to each inverter. It's not critical data, but the missing data can mess up some of the totals and averages.

 

[ohsolar]

1. I just tested it. It looks the display does not change/update if you have the communication cable plugged in. If you take it out, it updates the wattage realtime but keeps beeping due to the cable being out(Error 61). Wondering if I can disable the beep without disabling beeps for critical errors

2. I currently don't have SA. Planning on adding it. Just looking at the display for now
3. yeah, saw that...no updates
4. cool. Good to know

5) I see the battery discharging. When does it get switched to grid power? Is it strictly based on battery voltage setting? SOC has 3 bars and I don't want the whole thing depleted :-(. Does the battery voltage go down when SOC goes down? Don't see it changing much..53 volts. SOC went down from 4 to 3 bars

 

[ohsolar]

poof..voltage fluctuation problems..

---posted here https://diysolarforum.com/threads/eg4s-in-split-phase-output.45981/post-632641 ---
I have the same problem with eg4 6k now. Started yesterday. If batteries are turned OFF, no issues from ac in to ac out. If batteries only, then I see the voltage fluctuations. Could it be related to bonding screw? Is there a video/instructions on how to change it?

I don't have pv. It was working perfectly yesterday morning. I have 4 wires coming from main panel to inverter and 4 going to sub-panel. I have double verified the wiring and it is correct as it was working yesterday. No response from SS

 

[ohsolar]

I had received this fuse with the eg4 6k inverter..not sure what if anything I should do with it..any ideas?

 

[thanhrodke]

1. I just tested it. It looks the display does not change/update if you have the communication cable plugged in. If you take it out, it updates the wattage realtime but keeps beeping due to the cable being out(Error 61). Wondering if I can disable the beep without disabling beeps for critical errors

2. I currently don't have SA. Planning on adding it. Just looking at the display for now
3. yeah, saw that...no updates
4. cool. Good to know

5) I see the battery discharging. When does it get switched to grid power? Is it strictly based on battery voltage setting? SOC has 3 bars and I don't want the whole thing depleted :-(. Does the battery voltage go down when SOC goes down? Don't see it changing much..53 volts. SOC went down from 4 to 3 bars

1. ah, oh yeah, I have seen that very slow display update issue before, but I never go to the root cause. when I had just two inverters, one would update much slower than the others. I never figured out why, but it's not that way any more. it just started updating quickly.
5. the batteries have a low voltage cutoff protection circuit at an individual cell voltage of 2.3 volts and a module voltage 42.3 volts, both with warnings at slightly higher than that. I could not tell you what state of charge this would actually be on the batteries. IIRC, I've seen the warning light on my batteries blink somewhere in the 20-25% charge range, but I've not examined them closely at that level.

from page 7 in the manual: https://signaturesolar.com/content/documents/EG4/EG4 Lifepower4 -manual 1.0.2.pdf

 

[thanhrodke]

I had received this fuse with the eg4 6k inverter..not sure what if anything I should do with it..any ideas?

That is suitable as a battery fuse. but if you have breakers, it's not necessary. with as many times as I have had to fully power off and reboot my inverters though, I don't know how people get by with just using a fuse, unless they are doing the power cycling with the batteries. but at that point, you can't just cycle one inverter. turn off all the batteries and all inverters drop. I can't imagine the power draw trying to pre-charge multiple inverters.

even when trying with six fully charged batteries, one single inverter can overrun the pre-charge circuits of all six batteries and they think it's a short and immediately disconnect. considering the batteries are rated at a 200 amp surge, that calculates out to over a 1200 amp inrush current to precharge a single inverter when coming up cold. I need to video the process sometime, as I am sure that many people won't believe it.

Unless you use a precharge resister every time you reboot, I don't know how you would successfully get an inverter booted up. and that requires disconnecting a battery cable every time? no way.

 

[ohsolar]

1. ah, oh yeah, I have seen that very slow display update issue before, but I never go to the root cause. when I had just two inverters, one would update much slower than the others. I never figured out why, but it's not that way any more. it just started updating quickly.
5. the batteries have a low voltage cutoff protection circuit at an individual cell voltage of 2.3 volts and a module voltage 42.3 volts, both with warnings at slightly higher than that. I could not tell you what state of charge this would actually be on the batteries. IIRC, I've seen the warning light on my batteries blink somewhere in the 20-25% charge range, but I've not examined them closely at that level.

from page 7 in the manual: https://signaturesolar.com/content/documents/EG4/EG4 Lifepower4 -manual 1.0.2.pdf

View attachment 118591

5. thanks for the link..will read up

 

[ohsolar]

Update : eg4 6k transformer got damaged so thought good time to switch . Got Victron 3k/48v. Very happy with it. The software alone will make up for the price difference. Thank you for all your help.