Gateway and production with chilicon Inverters

[Dakota Rose]

I purchased 7 used Chilicon cp720 inverters on Ebay. Got a fantastic price (less than $40 each). I then purchased a new cp100 gateway.
I've slowly built a solar rack with 12 310W panels, two feeding each of 6 inverters. One of the inverters is discovered as a "repeater". I can't find any documentation on how to reset it. My gateway is also showing I have a 5KW array, which is not true so I assume was programmed previously.
Secondly, every day at around 10 am I lose communication with the inverters and gateway. PLC survery shows no ping return from the inverters. They're still producing power, but have no communication with gateway.

I set up several arrays with cheap plug in grid tie inverters; just to see if solar was worth it. This is the first array I"ve set up with micro inverters like this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[CNuthing]

Here is a link to Chilicon manuals and datasheets, have you rectified your problem? How are the micro's working for you? I'm considering a non-enphase micro (Chilicon/Hoymiles/NEP/Aptos) if I can ever source any.

 

[Dakota Rose]

The problem is the cheap microinverters cause noise on the power lines, so the PLC disconnects the monitoring. The inverters still produce, I just can't monitor them throughout the day. If I unplug two of the 4 cheap inverters, I get the PLC back on the chilicon, so it's a problem that increases as I add the cheap ones back in. All in all, I'd say I'm quite happy with the Chilicon. If I could find more I would replace the cheap inverters, but they haven't come out with the new ones since Generic bought them. Supposedly they are to be released soon, but the tech I communicated with didn't know when.

 

[CNuthing]

On the Kinect Solar website, it shows a large order of Chilicon micros being delivered in July. However I don't think they sell to the general public.

 

[Dakota Rose]

I guess I'm lucky I found these at such a great price. It's tough to even find used Chilicon, which speaks to the quality.

I run a 4KW array with the chilicon, but since we're rural and all electric, I have other arrays spread over the property. Between shade and available space, I"ve had to put my arrays in two seperate places. One with cheap grid tie micro inverters (marsrock and y&H) and then the main array with chilicon. I also have a 1KW array on my well pump and water pressure pump with a Y&H 240V grid tie.
It would be nice to be able to monitor the chilicon, but that's just a geek thing as long as they're working. I can do immediate check with gateway able to show power production through power monitor of sub panel leads. It doesn't give individual production like the chilicon can do since PLC is disrupted, but I can check overal power being produced.
Between that and the SCE app that will show power use hr by hr, I'm doing ok.