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EG4 Upgrade Program - Turn-in Sol-Ark 15K for EG4 18K

Still waiting for direct links to all these people abandoned by Solark support....should be easy enough....
How about a good story? Sol-Ark support took a while, and it wasn't exactly "smooth", but in the end, they upgraded me to a free 15k all because my 12k was getting hot, but still functioning as it should, I just wasnt perfectly happy with the unit.

This, at the time, was also when I only had DIY/Seplos batteries in closed loop. They never said a word about them voiding a warranty.

Post in thread 'Final steps of home install.' https://diysolarforum.com/threads/final-steps-of-home-install.39584/post-876228
 
If someone takes advantage of this gets taken advantage of, they have to pay return shipping to send their Solark back...
Who would even consider this? I can't figure it out and I've been trying to make sense of it for deyes. Seems like a money maker for EG4 to me, what's a used 15K go for...

View attachment 248156
The ad ( propaganda as someone called it, lol) is confusing. Is it a credit of 1k towards the purchase of an 18 or is it a total price of 1k for an 18?
In the Facebook posts, the owner of the install co said he installed a total of 2 SA’s. It sounded like 1 had communication probs w/ eg4 bats and installer employee was working with SA in previous days to resolve. I guess that’s where the confusion began.

In the call, the SA rep clearly outlined the difference between product support, warranty, open loop, closed loop etc wrt non-tested
3rd party ess. I’m guessing non tested means non ul also.

I wonder where the location is. As the professional installer of non ul products, he’s leaving himself open to some liabilities the least of which would be product warranty.
 
This feels like eg4 was baiting solark into confirming or rejecting the rumors of declined warranties for EG4, at I'm sure that was affecting the sales of EG4 batteries.

I'm active in the SolArk forms and there have been rumors only, I didn't see anyone complaining about it personally.

Anyways, point made I guess? Thanks SolArk for confirming warranties are intact?
 
I noticed you ended that with a question mark. Did they confirm the warranties are intact?

I would just like to know what significant issues they’ve had when people use EG4 batteries in Pylontech protocol. I’ll try shooting them an email.
 
Yeah, in the call the SA rep said eg4 bats with SA in closed loop by itself would not void warranty. But if it was determined that EG4 batteries, in closed loop ops, were the cause of the inverter malfunctioning, the warranty may be voided.

SA rep mentioned there were instance(s) eg4 bats wrote to SA registry. Since SA has not tested eg4 bats in closed loop, they can not 100%, unconditionally provide both support and warranty. Again, reasonable and as expected out of any manufacturer/distributer/retailer.
 
The original post has a link that says 1000 off the unit, but also says at a reduced cost of 1000. Completely 2 different meanings. So which one is a correct?, lol.
 
Yeah, in the call the SA rep said eg4 bats with SA in closed loop by itself would not void warranty. But if it was determined that EG4 batteries, in closed loop ops, were the cause of the inverter malfunctioning, the warranty may be voided.

SA rep mentioned there were instance(s) eg4 bats wrote to SA registry. Since SA has not tested eg4 bats in closed loop, they can not 100%, unconditionally provide both support and warranty. Again, reasonable and as expected out of any manufacturer/distributer/retailer.

Why would a manufacturer let a third party battery write anything to the "registry" directly?

Wouldn't anything going over the comm ports be vetted by the inverter firmware and written into the "registry" by the inverter itself, formatted into whatever fashion it considers safe?

What data would a third party battery be sending to the inverters comm port that would damage the inverter?

Is this another of those instances of claiming bad voltages / grounding on a comm port damaging an inverter, like the EG4 and Solar Assistant fiasco?

Physically, how would a third party battery damage an inverter by closed loop settings? Does the inverter blindly trust everything a battery says and do it with no sanity checking based on it's own limits? I suppose a third party battery could lie about it's true state of charge, telling an inverter it has plenty of available capacity, prompting an inverter with ac coupled solar to try to dump current into the battery.. then the battery says, "oopsie, I had no available capacity".. causing something to blow up if the inverter can't react fast enough to the new reality. What other scenarios are there? Let's brainstorm some.
 
I noticed you ended that with a question mark. Did they confirm the warranties are intact?

Yes, in this thread here: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/e...in-sol-ark-15k-for-eg4-18k.91873/post-1223121
I would just like to know what significant issues they’ve had when people use EG4 batteries in Pylontech protocol. I’ll try shooting them an email.

Good luck, I would love to know this as well. The rumors are totally out of control and nobody is doing any favors with secrecy. They could have put this to bed weeks ago with as little transparency.
 
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Why would a manufacturer let a third party battery write anything to the "registry" directly?

Wouldn't anything going over the comm ports be vetted by the inverter firmware and written into the "registry" by the inverter itself, formatted into whatever fashion it considers safe?

What data would a third party battery be sending to the inverters comm port that would damage the inverter?

Is this another of those instances of claiming bad voltages / grounding on a comm port damaging an inverter, like the EG4 and Solar Assistant fiasco?

Physically, how would a third party battery damage an inverter by closed loop settings? Does the inverter blindly trust everything a battery says and do it with no sanity checking based on it's own limits? I suppose a third party battery could lie about it's true state of charge, telling an inverter it has plenty of available capacity, prompting an inverter with ac coupled solar to try to dump current into the battery.. then the battery says, "oopsie, I had no available capacity".. causing something to blow up if the inverter can't react fast enough to the new reality. What other scenarios are there? Let's brainstorm some.
No idea what the SA rep meant when he said "registry". Could be any logging data.
But I can very well see how the BMS in the EG4 wallmount bats' default settings could conflict with most inverter settings.

At the extreme, but still within reality, the BMS could let the cells get to (true) 3.99V and 2.185V and/or total pack voltage at 43V-63V before bms would cut off. (3.8V or 60V * 1.05%.) . The one thing I don't see is at what Voltage will the bms start balancing. I'm assuming its near 3.45V, I really don't know.... anyone???

In an extremely unbalanced state a single cell could get to 3.8V and the low one could be <3.0V.

For a user to not intimately be aware of individual cell V, this could be a recipe for disaster. Frankly, I do not trust SOC nor total V readings w/o cell level V data. Imagine, 4 Packs running at near max power, and 2 packs cut off suddenly due to bms shutdown for inaccurate SOC/V total.

DC amps double, remaining packs may not deliver and shuts down, inverter needs to switch to AC to supplement, those relays are making full power connections. imaginethat cycle of on/off as resting Voltage recovers.

This is just a simple example I can think of off the top.
 

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No idea what the SA rep meant when he said "registry". Could be any logging data.
But I can very well see how the BMS in the EG4 wallmount bats' default settings could conflict with most inverter settings.

At the extreme, but still within reality, the BMS could let the cells get to (true) 3.99V and 2.185V and/or total pack voltage at 43V-63V before bms would cut off. (3.8V or 60V * 1.05%.) . The one thing I don't see is at what Voltage will the bms start balancing. I'm assuming its near 3.45V, I really don't know.... anyone???

In an extremely unbalanced state a single cell could get to 3.8V and the low one could be <3.0V.

For a user to not intimately be aware of individual cell V, this could be a recipe for disaster. Frankly, I do not trust SOC nor total V readings w/o cell level V data. Imagine, 4 Packs running at near max power, and 2 packs cut off suddenly due to bms shutdown for inaccurate SOC/V total.

DC amps double, remaining packs may not deliver and shuts down, inverter needs to switch to AC to supplement, those relays are making full power connections. imaginethat cycle of on/off as resting Voltage recovers.

This is just a simple example I can think of off the top.

The inverter has to be designed to deal with batteries acting flaky, because batteries can act flaky.

Individual cell voltages are the BMS' problem, right? Are there inverters that read individual cell voltages reported from the BMS and actually act on it in some way in closed loop system? Disabling inverting, throttling in some way or throwing a danger warning?

A battery whose cells have so much delta between the cells on the regular sounds like a bad untrustworthy battery, regardless of brand. The cells were not chosen / balanced well in the beginning or some of the cells have gone bad.

Regardless, any brand battery, including their own, could exhibit behavior like that at any time. The inverter has to be programmed to deal with such things and freak out and warn you if it occurs too often. I believe some inverters do so, they have time outs before they start inverting again after battery low voltage disconnects. I think my smaller Victron inverter does this.

It sounds to me like they are trying to say if they can prove your battery isn't as consistent as they like, they can void your warranty. Which is understandable, I suppose, but why does the brand of battery matter? Any battery, even ones they've "tested" and like to use with their inverter could do these things. I guess it's nice that they are willing to cover their inverter for damage caused by flaky batteries, so long as the batteries are on their list of approved batteries.
 
Does the inverter blindly trust everything a battery says and do it with no sanity checking based on it's own limits?
Exactly and I have said that on this subject before.

That could be dangerous and difficult to warranty from the inverter manufacturers perspective. That's putting an awful lot of faith in whomever makes the battery to have no glitches that cause problems.

With a system like that it seems best to simply make the whole kit themselves, so they can warranty it and assume full legal liability for everything. But then, they should probably install it themselves also.
 
I can see the comm port open to any command, otherwise solar assistant or home assistant couldn't control the sol-ark. SA has batteries they tested with the battery manufacturer to make sure the battery does not send bad commands (write to improper registers). The SA can limit allowable commands from the wifi board since it is connected to the internet. It does mean if solar assistant or home assistant is connected to the internet, you better have protection so someone doesn't hack the sol-ark.
 
Why would a manufacturer let a third party battery write anything to the "registry" directly?

Wouldn't anything going over the comm ports be vetted by the inverter firmware and written into the "registry" by the inverter itself, formatted into whatever fashion it considers safe?

What data would a third party battery be sending to the inverters comm port that would damage the inverter?

Is this another of those instances of claiming bad voltages / grounding on a comm port damaging an inverter, like the EG4 and Solar Assistant fiasco?

Physically, how would a third party battery damage an inverter by closed loop settings? Does the inverter blindly trust everything a battery says and do it with no sanity checking based on it's own limits? I suppose a third party battery could lie about it's true state of charge, telling an inverter it has plenty of available capacity, prompting an inverter with ac coupled solar to try to dump current into the battery.. then the battery says, "oopsie, I had no available capacity".. causing something to blow up if the inverter can't react fast enough to the new reality. What other scenarios are there? Let's brainstorm some.
Ruh ro Raggy I think the Jewish Space lasers exploding solar equipment thread got intermingled with this one! remember they are no longer called Hezbollah...only Hez as their bollah's got blown off by Kosher Pagers...
 
SOLARK -
"because of significant operational and functional issues that have arisen with non-approved battery vendors (including, among others, EG4 batteries)"

EG4 -
"people who want to swap for for an inverter that will be warrantied before their's fails"

"warranty has been fraudulently voided by their inverter company"

Both companies are acknowledging that something fails or doesn't work operationally and neither one wants to say what it is. Its apparently failing to the point where the unit needs repairs, otherwise warranty (or lack of) wouldn't be discussed, right? Good grief whats the big secret!?

Transparency is needed here; your customers have thousands of dollars in equipment on the line.
From what I have heard, the issues arriving with EG4 batteries and Sol-Ark Inverters is due to them (EG4) incorrectly using the SOK protocol that they emulate in order to talk closed loop with Sol-Ark. Pretty sure this would not happen with an open loop comms configuration. The crux of the issue being that EG4 batteries somehow modifies something in the Sol-Ark it is not supposed to, and thus, their memory or filesystem gets corrupted. Know a guy who is helping with my project and I told him I was planning on using EG4 and he said he no longer uses them due to multiple units that he manages failing when using EG4 batteries and sol-Ark. So, for me anyway, I am looking at the Pytes V5 or the Pytes E-Box 41800R Batteries for my system.
 
From what I have heard, the issues arriving with EG4 batteries and Sol-Ark Inverters is due to them (EG4) incorrectly using the SOK protocol that they emulate in order to talk closed loop with Sol-Ark. Pretty sure this would not happen with an open loop comms configuration. The crux of the issue being that EG4 batteries somehow modifies something in the Sol-Ark it is not supposed to, and thus, their memory or filesystem gets corrupted. Know a guy who is helping with my project and I told him I was planning on using EG4 and he said he no longer uses them due to multiple units that he manages failing when using EG4 batteries and sol-Ark. So, for me anyway, I am looking at the Pytes V5 or the Pytes E-Box 41800R Batteries for my system.
Sok doesn't have their own protocol, it uses pylontech, just like Eg4 and about 90% of all batteries..
Smells like bullsh*
 

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