hmbay
New Member
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2021
- Messages
- 13
We just went through a reinstallation process and, well, it's an interesting story.
We removed and reinstalled the panels (the pro installers 15 years ago used the wrong mounts and the roof was leaking badly - that's another story). In the process, we discovered 2 places where the panel wires may have shorted to ground and fixed those. The new installation has the correct mounts and fully-grounded rails and clamps. And when we turned the IG 4000 back on, we got over 3kW which matched the specs. Happy day!
And it ran to peak 3kW+ for 2 days (I have an Emporia Vue power monitor connected to the smart meter that generates data logs that I'm looking at - the house was unoccupied so there's very little load).
But the next day I came to the house, the inverter was stuck in Startup and I can't recall the error codes (might have been a 101 or 107) - Zero kW. So at that point (that was late August) I thought the inverter was toast and I was going to have to call in a service person to sort it out.
Then the next day, I go to the house and flip the inverter on just for jollys, and the darn thing boots fine, no error codes, no 516, but there's a difference - it maxes out at 2kW. And it's been running the same ever since - no error codes but 1/3 less max power on a sunny Santa Cruz day.
The configuration is 3 strings of 9 x 175W Kyoceras so I'm thinking we've lost a string due to a loose connection (we were super careful when we put the panels back - there were 2 of us checking each others work). But my wife and I tested that hypothesis today and it looks like we're getting power from all 3 strings - when we covered each string, the power dipped appropriately. And no error codes.
There was a time before we did the panel removal and reinstall when the inverter was working but was sometimes making a lot of buzzing and clicking when the sun was right overhead but no error codes. I don't know whether this inverter has stages and we've lost an output stage or what - but we're definitely at a ceiling of around 2050W since we hit 3218W the day we turned it back on after the reinstall.
So to recap... we reinstalled the panels, saw about 3.2kW max for a couple of days, then the inverter went down with some error codes for a day (and I shut it down completely isolated), and then the next day the inverter came up again but now the max is about 2.05kW (like I got an IG 2000) and its been that way ever since for over a month now.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks, Joe
We removed and reinstalled the panels (the pro installers 15 years ago used the wrong mounts and the roof was leaking badly - that's another story). In the process, we discovered 2 places where the panel wires may have shorted to ground and fixed those. The new installation has the correct mounts and fully-grounded rails and clamps. And when we turned the IG 4000 back on, we got over 3kW which matched the specs. Happy day!
And it ran to peak 3kW+ for 2 days (I have an Emporia Vue power monitor connected to the smart meter that generates data logs that I'm looking at - the house was unoccupied so there's very little load).
But the next day I came to the house, the inverter was stuck in Startup and I can't recall the error codes (might have been a 101 or 107) - Zero kW. So at that point (that was late August) I thought the inverter was toast and I was going to have to call in a service person to sort it out.
Then the next day, I go to the house and flip the inverter on just for jollys, and the darn thing boots fine, no error codes, no 516, but there's a difference - it maxes out at 2kW. And it's been running the same ever since - no error codes but 1/3 less max power on a sunny Santa Cruz day.
The configuration is 3 strings of 9 x 175W Kyoceras so I'm thinking we've lost a string due to a loose connection (we were super careful when we put the panels back - there were 2 of us checking each others work). But my wife and I tested that hypothesis today and it looks like we're getting power from all 3 strings - when we covered each string, the power dipped appropriately. And no error codes.
There was a time before we did the panel removal and reinstall when the inverter was working but was sometimes making a lot of buzzing and clicking when the sun was right overhead but no error codes. I don't know whether this inverter has stages and we've lost an output stage or what - but we're definitely at a ceiling of around 2050W since we hit 3218W the day we turned it back on after the reinstall.
So to recap... we reinstalled the panels, saw about 3.2kW max for a couple of days, then the inverter went down with some error codes for a day (and I shut it down completely isolated), and then the next day the inverter came up again but now the max is about 2.05kW (like I got an IG 2000) and its been that way ever since for over a month now.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks, Joe