EPever IPower Plus Inverter- any good?

[Aphers]

I'm looking for a pure sine wave inverter as part of my yacht electrical upgrade.
The loads I would be running include a 1600w induction hob and a laser printer.
I will be powering this from a bank of 4x280Ah LFP cells. I would like to configure the BMS to cut off the inverter's on/off switch using a low power relay- or possibly cut off the load on the AC side, to avoid high current relays.
I'm considering the 3000w EPever Ipower Plus.

3000W 12V EPever iPower Plus, Pure Sine Wave Inverter - 3Kw

www.bimblesolar.com

Three things I like the sound of with the inverter:
- the price is good, only a little higher than the generic/unbranded inverters
- I have heard enough about EPever to trust the brand
- the really nice thing is that the low voltage cutoff is user configurable from 10.5-14.2v. Which should let me set a nice conservative value (13v?) to stop me putting the cells at too much risk.

I'd be interested in any feedback on this particular model, or any alternatives I should be considering.

Thanks

 

[Aphers]

Update: decided to go ahead with this, arrived today and all looks good at first glance. Will get it hooked up and report back!

 

[MurphyGuy]

Update: decided to go ahead with this, arrived today and all looks good at first glance. Will get it hooked up and report back!

Were you expecting it to look like a pile of broken garbage?

You won't know if that inverter is any good for at least 3 to 5 years.. and my guess, since its made in China, it will barely outlast its own warranty.

 

[Aphers]

I'll be happy with five years.
A Victron one would have to last 15-20yrs by that measure to be a better buy.

 

[durval]

Hi @Aphers, how is the EPEver working out for you? I have my eyes on its younger brother (the 2000W model) but it's difficult to find reliable information online, it seems all people talk can about is Victron...

I'm specially interested in how the EPEver works re: peak loads -- datasheet says straight out the 2000W model can do 4000W (ie, 200%) for 5 seconds. It's much harder to find this information on the Victrons: the datasheet says nothing, and going through the Victron community forum I found the info the Victrons can only do 150% for 5 secs.

Thanks in advance for any info you can send my way.

 

[Aphers]

I'm afraid I can't really say much yet, all I've done is hook it up for a quick test. It ran my induction hob so obviously the output waveform is good.

I found it quite hard to choose an inverter. Victron was out of the question, Sterling the same. Will gives Giandel a good write up but he also likes Epever products, and the Epever inverter just seemed to be so much better than the generic ones. I really liked how much you could customise the LVD.

I'll be working on my system a bit more next week so hope to have it up and running and in daily use then, and will report back.

 

[durval]

Hi @Aphers , and thanks for the reply.

Here, I pulled the trigger on a Victron Phoenix Smart 12/2000 inverter, and boy am I having problems:

https://community.victronenergy.com...smart-inverter-very-inaccurate-va-values.html
https://community.victronenergy.com...mart-inverter-issues-with-dynamic-cutoff.html
https://community.victronenergy.com...rt-inverter-very-little-data-being-repo.html\

The local Victron vendor is great, and they are the main reason I ended up purchasing it instead of the EPEver despite the latter costing 35% less than the Victron. Along with my Victron forum posts, they are also contacting Victron's engineering team directly for a solution.

But if I don't get a real solution by tomorrow (instead of upgrading to the even more expensive Victron Multiplus Compact, which one user suggested in my first post in the Victron forum, above), I'm seriously considering returning the Victron and buying the EPEver instead. Less features, less famous brand, possibly smaller warranty (my Victron vendor gets me 5 years, not sure yet about the Epever) but over 1/3 of the total cost back in my own pockets sure sounds great, as long as it works as well or better than the Victron.

I would just love to be sure I'm not jumping from the frying pan into the fire... I have good experience with other EPEver equipment (namely, their Tracer 3210AN solar charge controller) but an inverter is a complete different piece of equipment.

So, can you share any more info on how the EPEver IP-Power-Plus is working for you?

TIA,
-- Durval.

 

[Aphers]

Running a bit behind schedule with the project, I'm afraid. Moving permanently on to the boat just now so the system is still not all hooked up. Waiting on the last few components arriving.
Will definitely report back, and sorry to hear that you've had trouble with the Victron.

 

[durval]

Thanks for the prompt reply, @Aphers, and sorry to hear your plans got delayed. Let's keep in touch here by all means, I will also report back when I have more info.

 

[durval]

Hello @Aphers, just an update: my vendor offered me a really really good price for swapping the Phoenix Smart for the equivalent Multiplus Compact, *and* they offered to bench-assemble everything so I could test it to my satisfaction before plunking down the money, so I took them on their offer.

The Multiplus proved to provide be much more precise measurements during my tests, and comes with a built-in automatic transfer switch and a battery charger, plus a 5-year warranty (vs only 6 months for the EPEver). In the end the Victron cost me less than twice the price of the EPEver, and for the added functionality, added warranty and the great vendor support, I opted for the Multiplus.

Looking forward anyway for your report on the IPower Plus, I like my EPEver solar charge controller and am curious as to their inverter's performance/functionality. I will be watching this thread.

Thanks again,
--
Durval.

 

[Aphers]

Nothing more to report yet, all the equipment is sitting patiently on the boat but I have a million others jobs to do which are higher priorities.

I have got a bit of a snag with my other Epever gear, though: my MPPTs, it turns out, can only be configured for lithium by using either a smartphone or PC, and in either case I need a dongle or cable, which I stupidly did not buy at the time. In very reluctant to stop somewhere for half a week waiting on post arriving, and in any case I don't have an address to have it sent to. It would be really helpful if it turned out that the USB-RJ45 cable was an off the shelf part which I could pick up in any electronics store...

 

[durval]

Hello @Aphers,

I have purchased the original EPEver/EPsolar cable and it worked without issue.

But I also connected a Raspberry Pi directly to my EPEver, and for this I made my own custom RS485 cable using this. It's a common part you can find almost everywhere, and apart from a RJ45 cable (to connect to the screw terminals above and plug into the inverter), you would only need a USB type B cable to connect it to your computer, both cables you should be able to buy *really* everywhere.

If you are not up to making your own cable, and assuming you are in the US, perhaps you can buy the one from EPEver in eBay or Amazon and have it shipped to a post office near you by General Delivery? I did this a number of times when I was travelling through the US a few years back, and it always worked for me.

Just my $0.02...

 

[Aphers]

Thought it was time for an update. I have been using the Epever inverter daily for all of my cooking and running the hoover and my laser printer. Everything working perfectly. However I have not truly put it through its paces because it's still in a temporary configuration where it goes through the 120A BMS. So I can only draw about half the rated power of the inverter.
Having said that, it hasn't missed a beat. We have been finding it hard to get cooking gas and we are now cooking almost entirely from solar, which is a revelation.
It's only a month or so since we started using it, so still early days. Will report back again in a few months, or earlier if something starts to misbehave...

 

[durval]

Thanks for the report @Aphers, glad to hear it's working well for you

Re: temporary installations, I hear you loud and clear... Only yesterday I've finished the last touches on my Inverter + solar charger + panels + batteries including integrating it all with the pre-existing electrical systems. Now all I need to finish is the final monitoring/alarming system, already got a couple of ESP MCUs for the distributed nodes and a Raspberry Pi for the central server plus cables and adapters, but still have to connect everything up and write/integrate/configure the software... Right now I only have simple separate monitoring via each equipment's own panel.

One more question: what induction hob exactly are you using? Cooking with no gas sure sounds interesting...

Cheers,
--
Durval

 

[Aphers]

The hob is called a Vango Sizzle. It's got two 800w burners. Fits perfectly on top of my existing gas hob, and even the pan clamps work with it (after a little bit of bending to raise them up).
It's obviously not the most powerful but you only really notice that when doing a stir fry or steak, the rest of the time it's absolutely fine. I thought we would get fed up of the limited power but it's been absolutely fine.
We did intend to get a single burner 1500w induction hob as well, and mix and match depending on what we needed, but I don't think we'll bother. The fact that the Vango just slots on place on top of the gas cooker means it is dead easy to live with. An additional hob would use up worktop space which we can't really lose.

 

[durval]

@Aphers Thanks for the info & tips re: the induction hob! I think I found it:

and boy, am I impressed!

Less than 10 seconds to boil a quarter-pan or so of water seems incredibly fast (that is, presuming the video wasn't accelerated or something). That would make it much more efficient than I was expecting, and even with our modest setup (3 x 100Ah LiFePO4 batteries fed by a fixed 400W plus a 120W mobile solar panels) perhaps there's one in my wife's future ;-)

Is it really that fast, specially for regular food preparation (ie, not just boiling water)? I mean, with food that has to be cooked more slowly, I guess its heat output would be reduced, which would also lower the power consumption...

 

[Aphers]

I'm a bit limited in bandwidth just now so can't watch video, but no the Vango definitely does not boil water in a matter of seconds! Must have been sped up. However like all induction hobs it is highly efficient, and because it produces almost no heat outside of the pan itself, nothing burns on making it dead easy to clean. Compared to gas it gives off less background heat and condensation.
I now measure meals in terms of how many Ah they take to cook- 30 to 50 being average.

 

[Aphers]

I promised to update after a few months of use, and forgot. So...

I'm afraid it's not good news. The Epever inverter worked perfectly in daily use for about nine months, driving loads up to about half its rated output.

Then one day the BMS shut down due to over-current (120A limit) and something inside the inverter failed. Very frustrating given the inverter itself was nowhere near its limit.

If I could have got it back to the supplier perhaps it could have been repaired, but I had sailed thousands of miles away from my home country at this point and the only option was replacement. And inevitably I went with a Victron this time... which cost more than the rest of the system put together...

 

[Oscarfish]

Same thing happened to me. Epever Ipower Plus 2000w/12v and JBD 200a Bms with 250A fuse + 4s 280AH lifepo4 cells. In the middle of the night, inverter starter beeping and it stopped working after few seconds. 250A fuse blew, inverter was on idle, almost no consumption. (50w max) Inverter is dead. Few months after warranty ended. Next one is definitely a Victron.