EG4 new AIO rated 12K output and 18kPV aka "EG4-18Kpv-12LV"

[fromport]

Good plan. Using a water heater?

probably charging his EV (or multiple) ;-)

 

[Sun in Lithium]

240V construction heaters, was suggestion from another forum member not posting here doing similar tests with 18K.

I've wanted to post hear, but my unit is directly from luxpowertek. And I'm not sure if there are any major differences.
So I didn't want to misrepresent the one from eg4.

 

[1201]

I've wanted to post hear, but my unit is directly from luxpowertek. And I'm not sure if there are any major differences.
So I didn't want to misrepresent the one from eg4.
View attachment 151937View attachment 151938

please share how you bought it and what the cost was. thanks

 

[Eddie_LuxPowerTek]

I've wanted to post hear, but my unit is directly from luxpowertek. And I'm not sure if there are any major differences.
So I didn't want to misrepresent the one from eg4.
View attachment 151937View attachment 151938

forgot replying you on the back. just thought out you have msg there. sorry.

 

[Quattrohead]

Gavin's overload test looked fine to me as it had been running for a few minutes very heavily loaded before it shut down. Whether this was protection from electrical overload or thermal overload, that is a question. Certainly the Solark runs the fans so little it seems to be thermally very capable but a little dicey on electrical overload.
Mind you the Schneider 6848 can run at twice its output capacity for several minutes before it scales back so that thing is built like a brick shit house both electronically and thermally.

 

[SignatureSolarJames]

I've wanted to post hear, but my unit is directly from luxpowertek. And I'm not sure if there are any major differences.
So I didn't want to misrepresent the one from eg4.
View attachment 151937View attachment 151938

we have the 3 hinge larger wire box, and our AC breaker is fully ganged. other than that same internals

 

[Sun in Lithium]

we have the 3 hinge larger wire box, and our AC breaker is fully ganged. other than that same internals

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Eddie_LuxPowerTek]

wrong msg

 

[Farm Boy]

Gavin's overload test looked fine to me as it had been running for a few minutes very heavily loaded before it shut down. Whether this was protection from electrical overload or thermal overload, that is a question. Certainly the Solark runs the fans so little it seems to be thermally very capable but a little dicey on electrical overload.
Mind you the Schneider 6848 can run at twice its output capacity for several minutes before it scales back so that thing is built like a brick shit house both electronically and thermally.

 

[Eddie_LuxPowerTek]

wrong msg here . Sorry

 

[Sun in Lithium]

Where the lv6548 is lacking.

1. Noise
2. Blow all the air/dust through the
electronics
3. Require a oversized generator.
4. 2 year warranty.
5. Require a fair amount of supporting breakers and pv disconnects.
6. Not rated for outdoors
7. Software is not very intuitive.
8. Monitoring apps, are limited when they work.
9. You need 2 inverters to make 240. And hence standby power is 140w

Where the Lxp 12k us doesn't currently measure up to the lv6548 (in off grid)

Is when it comes to voltage stability under changing loads.

I have a 120v well pump that pulls 38 start amps 13 running.

The Lxp 12k voltage drops down to 100v on one leg, and my LED lights almost go out.

the Same load on the lv6548
And the voltage actually goes up.
It is hard to see any change in the leds.

Same thing goes for my mig welder.
Lights are stable when running my welder on one lv6548/120. 6500w

On the other hand running my welder with the same settings, but on 240v supply frome the lxp 12k 12,000w the lights flicker like crazy.

I would much prefer the lxp 12k / Eg4 18k
Inverter, because of the 9 short comings of the lv6548.

But off griders who are often DIYers often have welders and air compressors.

And although the lxp 12/ eg4 18k pv
May run them to some extent, You might drive the rest of the family crazy with the flickering lights.

 

[Farm Boy]

skip this message

 

[Zwy]

Where the lv6548 are lacking.

1. Noise

I put mine in the basement, don't hear it.

2. Blow all the air/dust through the
electronics

Dust will enter if you pull it thru....... either way it will get dust. So does my laptop.

3. Require a oversized generator.
4. 2 year warranty.
5. Require a fair amount of supporting breakers and pv disconnects.

A plus actually, you get to choose what you want.

6. Not rated for outdoors

Not needed.

7. Software is not very intuitive.

Are you talking the settings? I never had a problem.

8. Monitoring apps, are limited when they work.

I have a Batrium BMS for monitoring plus Solar Assistant. Works well with the LV6548 and it did with the EG4 6500EX.

9. You need 2 inverters to make 240. And hence standby power is 140w

EG4 6500EX is there (140W) or higher but the LV6548 is about 120W (or less) for both that I can determine. I really don't see it as a problem with enough PV and battery.

Where the Lxp 12k us doesn't currently measure up to the lv6548 (in off grid)

Is when it comes to voltage stability under changing loads.

I have a 120v well pump that pulls 38 start amps 13 running.

The Lxp 12k voltage drops down to 100v on one leg, and my LED lights almost go out.

Not good.

the Same load on the lv6548
And the voltage actually goes up.
It is hard to see any change in the leds.

The LV6548 handles loads very well, better than the EG4 6500EX, but even the EG4 6500EX is a good product when it comes to power. The EG4 6500EX does have some problems though.

Same thing goes for my mig welder.
Lights are stable when running my welder on one lv6548/120. 6500w

On the other hand running my welder with the same settings, but on 240v supply frome the lxp 12k 12,000w the lights flicker like crazy.

I would much prefer the lxp 12k / Eg4 18k
Inverter, because of the 9 short comings of the lv6548.

But off griders who are often DIYers often have welders and air compressors.

And although the lxp 12/ eg4 18k pv
May run them to some extent, You might drive the rest of the family crazy with the flickering lights.

I've run the EG4 6500EX and the LV6548. The only thing about the LV6548 was the low PV VOC limit but can be worked around. The LV6548 has met every other expectation I have and provides solid clean power. The EG4 6500EX is not the same AIO as the LV6548, it suffers from some hardware problems.

With the LXP, I would only gain export that I can see. And I don't export. I've been watching these threads and I'm not convinced the LXP would be beneficial to many who run off grid with grid backup.

 

[Sun in Lithium]

I've installed over a Dozen lv6548 and have used 2 lvx6048 to power my own system for over 3 years now.
and I'm currently ordering in 4 more lv6548v inverters.

My point is, there is room for improvement.

I put mine in the basement, don't hear it.

not everyone has that option. (plus it's against code to have batteries below grade.)

Dust will enter if you pull it thru....... either way it will get dust. So does my laptop.

The lv6548 actually pulls air through it. the LXP 12k/ eg4 18k pv and other high equality inverters have aluminum fins on the back that are air cooled.
and hence the electronics are not exposed to dust and moisture.

Are you talking the settings? I never had a problem.

You need to have the manual in front of you to know what settings you are changing.
Not the biggest deal, but but the lxp 12k is much better, I think i looked at the manual once.

I have a Batrium BMS for monitoring plus Solar Assistant. Works well with the LV6548 and it did with the EG4 6500EX.

yes I've used solar assistant on three setups. it does work well but is just Another part.

 

[millsan1]

I'll chime in here.

I have an 18kpv set up as a UPS for the house until I get all permits, etc.

My house is 2000 sq ft, 500' deep well, 3 ton geo heat/AC, and electric DWH.

Yesterday, I ran all of this for 12 hours. Most of the time the load was around 2k, but there were times it was north of 13. Ran on solar and batteries the whole time, not connected to grid in any way.

Super small, unscientific sample, but it is what it is. No issues for me during this test.

 

[Sun in Lithium]

Here's some videos showing my findings.
I spoke with lux power and, unfortunately was told the inverter was mainly designed for on grid scenarios.
So the off grid surge issue is of low priority.

MIG Welding

120v well pump

chargeverters and Heater


Edit. since posting this I have been contacted by luxpower, to get this sorted out.

 

[Rusty959]

Since we're back on topic I'll throw my updates out as well. I'm quite pleased with the capabilities of this unit and it fits my use case very well.

Duke sucks, still waiting on permitting for full install. 3 weeks ago they said I had to wait 2 weeks, and today they told me starting today I'll need to wait 3 weeks. I'm probably just going to finish the install and hope for the best.

In my "temporary install" I've now got 1,166 kWh of solar through. The solar side has been flawless. I've done one string on each MPPT as well as 2 strings on MPPT 1 to test 20+ amps.

The screen is great in terms of display capabilities, I feel like that doesn't get said enough. I'm old school and hate using small touchscreens and I think there's a legitimate issue with double presses on the screen, regardless, the capability here is huge. At the moment there are some settings that can't be changed on the web connection that consumers have access to, but SS does. I don't understand this and hope they update it as it appears the non-Eg4 version has more setting available online.

The form factor is excellent as well. Honestly it's not that much bigger than my old SMA SB7.7, and the ability to use a 8" wiring trough (Sol ark needs a 12" I believe) is a massive perk.

I've been working with SS support for almost 2 weeks now on a couple concerns. None are really "issues" for me, but they may be to someone and regardless I'd like to see it fixed.

1: Peak shaving settings have no effect. Unless overridden by another setting such as "charge first", it always attempts to zero out my grid connection when there isn't enough solar to power my loads.

2: Battery use causes massive spikes. This might be normal across other inverters?

3: Fast zero export appears to have no effect. The way the system acts with fast zero export is seemingly no different than with only grid export turned off. I still get grid export, sometimes several hundred watts for multiple seconds when a reasonably large load turns off.

Below is a screenshot of my emporia which shows all of these issues together nicely. For anyone not familiar with Emporia Vue, this is the power at my mains. Blue is net import, green is net export. So the spikes where you see both blue and green it's quickly going from import to export and vice versa depending on situation. Also note this matches what the 18kpv shows as well - it shows export at the same time the emporia does in these circumstances.


Settings from this screenshot:
Fast zero export: enabled
Peak shaving: disabled
Batteries: 3x EG4 LL in closed loop

Stage A:
*More solar than load
*Batteries charging
*Spikes with grid import and export

Stage B:
*Batteries turned off
*Spikes gone with fairly consistent grid import

Stage C:
*Consumption further reduced
*period of grid export

Stage D:
*Turned on EV charger
*Load greater than solar

Stage E:
*Turned off EV charger
*Grid export that changed to near zero over several seconds

The response to this information from SS on 5/27 was "I spoke with some of our R&D guys and evidently, this is an issue that EG4 is currently working with the manufacturer to resolve (I believe through firmware).". I have no further updates.

Here is what it looks like with net export set to I think 7kWh and charging the batteries with any surplus. When the dips happen the power not being exported is going into the batteries.



I did have one other issue that they "fixed" where my batteries wouldn't charge with any combination of settings that I could find. It would de-rate solar input instead. SS was quite responsive in looking into it and getting it "working" but they have not responded to what they actually did to fix it because the settings they used are no different than ones I tried. Regardless, all to say I've had pretty good success with support from SS on problems that can be fixed via immediate and remote support, but my remaining concerns are either unreasonable expectations or require ongoing firmware updates.

 

[millsan1]

Oh boy, new rabbit hole.

I have an outbuilding that I can make into an off grid setup with my mpp lv6048.

If I am reading this stuff right, I could take the AC power from there and run it into the gen port on the 18kpv, enable AC coupling, and pull power from the outbuilding solar as AC.

Is that right?

 

[Eddie_LuxPowerTek]

Here's some videos showing my findings.
I spoke with lux power and, unfortunately was told the inverter was mainly designed for on grid scenarios.

We definitely need better training for the sales team. I will push to get all questions answered first, even though some points might not meet your expectation so far. thx @Sun in Lithium

 

[philatio]

What i would like to know from those currently using these is which wire diagram from the manual have you used. Specially interested in your setup @Rusty959 seeing as our systems are similar.

I would not wire this myself because the current grid tied system was installed by a solar company and I don't want to void any of my warranties. The system is just 2 years old.

 

[SignatureSolarJames]

We definitely need better training for the sales team. I will push to get all questions answered first, even though some points might not meet your expectation so far. thx @Sun in Lithium

We literally optimized this unit to be the best off grid inverter on the market, and we have every brand in our shop

 

[SignatureSolarJames]

kinda nice

 

[Rusty959]

What i would like to know from those currently using these is which wire diagram from the manual have you used. Specially interested in your setup @Rusty959 seeing as our systems are similar.

I would not wire this myself because the current grid tied system was installed by a solar company and I don't want to void any of my warranties. The system is just 2 years old.

The closest diagram from the manual to what I'm doing is "Whole home backup with feeder tap" on page 30.

At the moment and for the testing for my recent post I'm using it as a grid tie only with the grid input connected to a breaker in my main panel. I was planning on waiting for duke to pass technical review before pulling the meter and doing the tap.

 

[Farm Boy]

We literally optimized this unit to be the best off grid inverter on the market, and we have every brand in our shop

This is the only inverter you offer a 10 year warranty on. You should offer 10 yrs on the 6848 XW as well for off grid use, not just the BCS.

 

[SignatureSolarJames]

This is the only inverter you offer a 10 year warranty on. You should offer 10 yrs on the 6848 XW as well for off grid use, not just the BCS.

Schneider does