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EG4 multiple failures

E

EscapedAritst

New Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2021
Messages
63
Location
Costa Rica
I am about to pull the plug on my EG4 6500ex inverters. For each of two homes I bought 4 EG4 6500ex inverters and 8 EG4 Lifepower4 100ah 48v batteries. One home is backed up by the grid and one home is backed up by a Generac 24kw generator.

Since install I've had too many problems and failures. Six out of the 16 batteries failed over two years. Mid the repair of 5 of these (one is still out), I've had 3 failures of the 8 inverters. So, with 3 out of 8 inverters off-line, the remaining inverters are plagued by F60 errors - at both homes - that shut down the systems until a full reboot. After reboot, the systems might run for a week or so before a new F60 error. SS is suggesting I return all the inverters, but because they don't seem to know what the error is caused by, I'm not sure "refurbished" inverters will behave any differently. Since I live in Costa Rica, shipping will be stupidly expensive and too risky to assume success.

So enough crying. I'm going to scrap the EG4 inverters. Some questions:

1. I want to buy a pair of quality inverters for each of these two houses. They should be split phase, off-grid, utility or gen backup, and approximately 12kw per inverter. I would like these new inverters to work with the 8 EG4 LifePo4 batteries that I have, and be able to incorporate adding of other similar batteries in future expansion/replacement. Any brand/model suggestions?
2. I'm particularly worried about battery compatibility. As I've lost all faith in the EG4 brand, but can't afford to replace my current 16 batteries, I want to mix and match brands in order to weed out the EG4 LifePo4s as they fail. But I don't know the problems that mixing brands/specs will cause. Future batteries will be 48v lifepo of course, but I need to know how closely I have to match amp hour capacity, charge/discharge rates, etc.
3. I would like better control over SOC to know when to switch over to grid/gen power. With mixed battery brands/spec will it be possible for any inverter to make sense of when to turn on/off the backup or must I use the voltage of the full stack?

Thanks!
 
One possibility for reading battery SOC is buy a Victron Smart Shunt. Thru Solar Assistant you can read the SOC from anywhere in the world.
Solar Assistant can also make decisions on inverter operation (battery or grid). This is how I have mine setup and it works great.
 
I would consider Schneider XW's or Midnite Rosie. Solark is not my style but one thing they do well is support so you could see what their support network looks like in Costa Rica, I'm just guessing there's a chance that it's good.

Do you really need 12kW continuous? The XW and Rosie can surge to 12kW for a fraction of a second but if you like electric water heaters and ovens then you might need two of either of them, which I know for the XW at least adds a lot of installation complexity.

If you go open loop, signaling a generator with a Victron smart shunt is easily possible I think. For grid backup you sort of need the inverter to make that decision, so you either need comms or it's voltage control. I use a double conversion system for grid, so I just have my BMS signal the grid charger on and off based on SOC, which gets the inverter out of the equation. But double conversion comes with quite an efficiency penalty.

I'm sure you might not feel like spending more money with Signature after that, but they do have the XW on a deep discount right now.
 
You can get the EG4 HUB for the LivePower4 V1 and it will output RS485 and CAN in multiple formats. This also allows you to run external monitoring equipment like Solar Assistant on the batteries (and inverter) without data collisions sharing one data port.

That will give you all the options of what inverter you would like to use.
 
I'm not familiar with the EG4 batteries, but I wonder if those are in the "power wall" form. I had a cell fail from my powerwall battery (not an EG4) recently and had to ship it back for warranty service. I believe the cause to have been the weight of all the cells above it, as it was the bottom cell and was leaking fluid. The battery still worked, actually, but was making a mess and I feared it was becoming dangerous to continue such operation. It is repaired now, and replaced on its original rack, but I am seriously considering reengineering the rack to lay the battery down on its back and not have all the weight on the bottom row of cells.

If your battery failure was of a different nature, ignore this. On the other hand, I am curious if this is an inherent weakness in the LiFePO4 powerwall-type batteries, regardless of brand. Mine happened to have CALB cells in it, FWIW.
 
Couple of questions. How many watts do you need and what kind of operating environment do you have?
 
TM48 said:
Couple of questions. How many watts do you need and what kind of operating environment do you have?
Click to expand...
I have two somewhat similar demand situations. The grid backup home is 5 bedroom (each with electric split a/c in every bedroom). Solar hot water, gas stove, gas drier, and solar pool pump. The other house is only 3 bedrooms and has a LPG generator. It has the same: Solar hot water, gast stove, gas drier, and solar pool pump. All lights in both homes are LED but there are fans in every room, several in the living room, and bunches on the outdoor porch.

I made the original assumption of 40kwh/day for the 5 bedroom and 30kwh/day for the 3 bedroom. I think I got it about right. The 5 bedroom is a rental and so it gets radical use sometimes (all a/c on and they go out for the day with the doors open). We have to go on grid backup regularly when these type of guests get there. When I have "regular" guests it makes it through the night, but just barely. I have it set to kick in grid when voltage gets to 49v and then kicks back to batteries when it reaches 52v. I don't think I need to go that high, but I'm still playing with keeping it high enough to only turn on grid once a day.

Both homes are on 8 100ah batteries (5kwh). The 3 bedroom home almost never needs to go to GEN.
 
EPicTony said:
One possibility for reading battery SOC is buy a Victron Smart Shunt. Thru Solar Assistant you can read the SOC from anywhere in the world.
Solar Assistant can also make decisions on inverter operation (battery or grid). This is how I have mine setup and it works great.
Click to expand...
I just read on the shunt. I looked at it way back and decided not to get it. Now, on review, it seems like it would be great. I've never used Solar Assistant to set settings of the EG4 inverters because Signature Solar told me they don't support that. What inverters are you using?
 
EscapedAritst said:
I just read on the shunt. I looked at it way back and decided not to get it. Now, on review, it seems like it would be great. I've never used Solar Assistant to set settings of the EG4 inverters because Signature Solar told me they don't support that. What inverters are you using?
Click to expand...
Eg4-6000xp's very happy with them. Before that Eg4-6500EX's which I now refer to as turds. Solar Assistant supports them both.
 
EscapedAritst said:
I have two somewhat similar demand situations. The grid backup home is 5 bedroom (each with electric split a/c in every bedroom). Solar hot water, gas stove, gas drier, and solar pool pump. The other house is only 3 bedrooms and has a LPG generator. It has the same: Solar hot water, gast stove, gas drier, and solar pool pump. All lights in both homes are LED but there are fans in every room, several in the living room, and bunches on the outdoor porch.

I made the original assumption of 40kwh/day for the 5 bedroom and 30kwh/day for the 3 bedroom. I think I got it about right. The 5 bedroom is a rental and so it gets radical use sometimes (all a/c on and they go out for the day with the doors open). We have to go on grid backup regularly when these type of guests get there. When I have "regular" guests it makes it through the night, but just barely. I have it set to kick in grid when voltage gets to 49v and then kicks back to batteries when it reaches 52v. I don't think I need to go that high, but I'm still playing with keeping it high enough to only turn on grid once a day.

Both homes are on 8 100ah batteries (5kwh). The 3 bedroom home almost never needs to go to GEN.
Click to expand...
Is the equipment in a controlled environment or natural or fan cooled?
 
EscapedAritst said:
I am about to pull the plug on my EG4 6500ex inverters. For each of two homes I bought 4 EG4 6500ex inverters and 8 EG4 Lifepower4 100ah 48v batteries. One home is backed up by the grid and one home is backed up by a Generac 24kw generator.

Since install I've had too many problems and failures. Six out of the 16 batteries failed over two years. Mid the repair of 5 of these (one is still out), I've had 3 failures of the 8 inverters. So, with 3 out of 8 inverters off-line, the remaining inverters are plagued by F60 errors - at both homes - that shut down the systems until a full reboot. After reboot, the systems might run for a week or so before a new F60 error. SS is suggesting I return all the inverters, but because they don't seem to know what the error is caused by, I'm not sure "refurbished" inverters will behave any differently. Since I live in Costa Rica, shipping will be stupidly expensive and too risky to assume success.

So enough crying. I'm going to scrap the EG4 inverters. Some questions:

1. I want to buy a pair of quality inverters for each of these two houses. They should be split phase, off-grid, utility or gen backup, and approximately 12kw per inverter. I would like these new inverters to work with the 8 EG4 LifePo4 batteries that I have, and be able to incorporate adding of other similar batteries in future expansion/replacement. Any brand/model suggestions?
2. I'm particularly worried about battery compatibility. As I've lost all faith in the EG4 brand, but can't afford to replace my current 16 batteries, I want to mix and match brands in order to weed out the EG4 LifePo4s as they fail. But I don't know the problems that mixing brands/specs will cause. Future batteries will be 48v lifepo of course, but I need to know how closely I have to match amp hour capacity, charge/discharge rates, etc.
3. I would like better control over SOC to know when to switch over to grid/gen power. With mixed battery brands/spec will it be possible for any inverter to make sense of when to turn on/off the backup or must I use the voltage of the full stack?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
If you bought from Signature Solar, take a look and see if you qualify for their upgrade program on the old 6500s.

Upgrade Program

signaturesolar.com signaturesolar.com
 
The 6500ex were manufactured by Voltronics I believe which doesn't have the best reputation from what I've heard. EG4 switched to LuxPower as the manufacture now for their current inverters which so far seem to be solid. They have the 12000xp which both saves money over two 6000xp's. A pair in each location would provide 24000 watts. The advantage of staying with EG4 is the battery communications are supported. They did have a firmware issue recently but apparently has been resolved.
 
TM48 said:
The 6500ex were manufactured by Voltronics I believe which doesn't have the best reputation from what I've heard. EG4 switched to LuxPower as the manufacture now for their current inverters which so far seem to be solid. They have the 12000xp which both saves money over two 6000xp's. A pair in each location would provide 24000 watts. The advantage of staying with EG4 is the battery communications are supported. They did have a firmware issue recently but apparently has been resolved.
Click to expand...
I would be very reluctant to buy more eg4 anything, but I realize that the quality is based on the manufacturing not the labelling.
 
Norwasian said:
I'm not familiar with the EG4 batteries, but I wonder if those are in the "power wall" form. I had a cell fail from my powerwall battery (not an EG4) recently and had to ship it back for warranty service. I believe the cause to have been the weight of all the cells above it, as it was the bottom cell and was leaking fluid. The battery still worked, actually, but was making a mess and I feared it was becoming dangerous to continue such operation. It is repaired now, and replaced on its original rack, but I am seriously considering reengineering the rack to lay the battery down on its back and not have all the weight on the bottom row of cells.

If your battery failure was of a different nature, ignore this. On the other hand, I am curious if this is an inherent weakness in the LiFePO4 powerwall-type batteries, regardless of brand. Mine happened to have CALB cells in it, FWIW.
Click to expand...
Mine are rack mount and not a wall type unit. They are in proper racks so it wouldn't be a weight problem.
 
I had a number of issues with my Lifepower4's until I got the firmware up to date. They were hiding some of the firmware updates, but it made a significant difference in closed loop performance. I never owned the EX units, but if the 18KPv seems reasonably stable.
 
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