Growatt SPF 3000TL LVM-ES is a piece of crap garbage

[anonymous]

Hi,

I've been using SPF 3000TL LVM-ES inverter for probably close to 3 years. I've had nothing but problems with it. For anyone who has this inverter, I would highly recommend not leaving it unattended. It has a tendency to randomly glitch in weird ways. The glitches don't appear to be an issue limited to my unit. I've heard of these problems from other owners. I've tried to work with Growatt to resolve my issues and they were responsive initially. However, it is clear that the firmware is a piece of crap. The hardware design is probably also garbage.

The first major problem was that it fried my appliances by sending too much voltage (300+V?) all the sudden randomly. This happened twice. I have two fried microwaves laying around to prove it. I had to install a voltage protection device to cut the output if it went out of expected range. Growatt did fix their firmware to prevent this and sent me update instructions. The overvoltage problem seemed to have been resolved by that. But, tell me, what kind of garbage hardware design allows software bugs to fry shit?

The other problem I've had is that it would randomly switch from 60hz to 50hz. Obviously, that also causes issues with my appliances. Other times I've noticed it would flip other settings randomly.

The inverter randomly freezes. Even the screen data is frozen in place. I believe when this happens the battery gets drained, even in full sunlight.

At some point, I set up solar assistant on a raspberry pi to get more visibility into what's going on.

USB communication board overheats in the summer and cuts out, so, I can't even get data from it during hot days. They need to install a heat sink on those chips.

The most recent issue is, it is trying to kill my batteries. I have no idea what happens, but the battery state of charge gets stuck at whatever point, meanwhile battery gets drained (rather quickly). My question would be, where is the energy going? It doesn't seem to be going into my appliances. This happens even in AC bypass mode. How can the battery be drained in AC bypass mode? I mean, there is some small "normal" drainage due to their stupid ass shitty design that drains the battery after it has been fully charged, even in full sunlight! However, this glitch is different. I have 10kwh battery bank that is at 24% when it switches to AC bypass. The usual small drainage (in AC bypass!) doesn't do much to the SOC. However during this particular glitch the battery gets drained to 0% SOC. During this glitch, some solar assistant graphs go out of whack, showing nonsensical values, such as battery being charged when it actually is getting drained. The BMS eventually disconnects the batteries and the inverter shows error code 19 (battery disconnect).

By the way, all these random glitches don't happen often, maybe once in a couple of months.

What an utter failure of a product.

 

[Checkthisout]

Throw it in the garbage and don't look back

 

[Mattb4]

I would have quit using it after the high AC voltage and 60hz-50hz occurrences.

However regarding the battery draining during AC bypass. Yes it does since the unit draws power from the battery to operate. If you do not have a minimum AC charge set that 50w idle draw will easily take a 10kWh battery down to nothing over a period of time.

 

[ksmithaz1]

Jeez,

If $1500 would get you a really nice replacement AIO with twice the capacity and better peace of mind I think I'd work it in my budget.

 

[LydMekk]

Growatt is pure shait.

 

[anonymous]

I would have quit using it after the high AC voltage and 60hz-50hz occurrences.

However regarding the battery draining during AC bypass. Yes it does since the unit draws power from the battery to operate. If you do not have a minimum AC charge set that 50w idle draw will easily take a 10kWh battery down to nothing over a period of time.

Math doesn't work with your explanation. 24% of 10kwh is 2400wh. The drain is less than 24 hours. Even rainy days provide enough solar output to recharge a bit. So, 24*50 is 1200wh, which means if there was no solar for a whole day, it wouldn't get drained. The actual drain period (based on my screenshots, time between solar charges) is 14 hours. Also, the true drain is more like 34w based on my measurements, so the battery should get drained 476wh in 14 hour period.

I attached a screenshot of charts showing the period where the strange things are happening. The period where SOC goes down from 24% to 0% is less than 15 minutes.

To be fair, the 24% SOC frozen at that value for 14 hours (12 actually today) is a bit questionable because (2400-476)/10000=0.1924. However, the SOC is coming from the inverter, so, it must be one of those software bugs of theirs.

 

[anonymous]

Jeez,

If $1500 would get you a really nice replacement AIO with twice the capacity and better peace of mind I think I'd work it in my budget.

Yes, I've been thinking about it.

 

[watchdoc]

I've made mine for a year with none of the issues you are running into. I use it almost exclusively to level 1 charge my EV. I ran 2Mw through it in a year and while it does have some odd behaviors occasionally, it has generally been decent. Where did you purchase yours from? Why didn't you return it under warranty based on these problems?

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

Why didn't you return it under warranty based on these problems?

Return it, as in refund?

 

[Mattb4]

Math doesn't work with your explanation. 24% of 10kwh is 2400wh. ...

To be fair, the 24% SOC frozen at that value for 14 hours (12 actually today) is a bit questionable because (2400-476)/10000=0.1924. However, the SOC is coming from the inverter, so, it must be one of those software bugs of theirs.

Your reported SOC is probably not exact. The math does work out that your AIO is draining the battery by operation. I explain the why, you explained the how once you examine what your batteries actually had left of capacity. Perhaps as little as 5%

I get it that you have a cruddy AIO. Buy a new one.

 

[watchdoc]

Return it, as in refund?

No, send it in for repair. I don't know where you purchased from but some companies offer warranties on them.

Also, what batteries are you using and are you using communications. I use an EG4 battery with communications and I simply set the lower limit to 15% to switch from battery to grid bypass and set my charging to OSO. This leaves plenty of headroom for overnight self consumption and will only charge from solar.

The being said, if the battery drops below 5%, it will force a grid recharge.

 

[Checkthisout]

No, send it in for repair. I don't know where you purchased from but some companies offer warranties on them.

Also, what batteries are you using and are you using communications. I use an EG4 battery with communications and I simply set the lower limit to 15% to switch from battery to grid bypass and set my charging to OSO. This leaves plenty of headroom for overnight self consumption and will only charge from solar.

The being said, if the battery drops below 5%, it will force a grid recharge.

Would be hard to trust it after that though.

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

No, send it in for repair. I don't know where you purchased from but some companies offer warranties on them.

I'm not the OP. Was just curious what you meant.
OP stated that Growatt was "initially" responsive which leads me to believe they no longer are. Growatt has a 5 year warranty from the manufacturer (if) they chose to support it.

Would be hard to trust it after that though.

Agree. Failure rates on these are too high to throw good money after bad.

 

[watchdoc]

I'm not the OP. Was just curious what you meant.
OP stated that Growatt was "initially" responsive which leads me to believe they no longer are. Growatt has a 5 year warranty from the manufacturer (if) they chose to support it.

Agree. Failure rates on these are too high to throw good money after bad.

If it's under warranty, the only money you would be throwing away is shipping right? I don't think anyone is argueing Growatt is a "mission critical" piece of hardware but you hate to see repairable electronics end up in the garbage. My next unit will likely be an EG4. Their support and warranty has been excellent.

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

If it's under warranty, the only money you would be throwing away is shipping right?

That would depend on the warranty language. Professional assistance to remove/replace the unit is not covered. Customer misuse is a sweeping category that may void warranty.
And there is the potential for further damage from future failures.

don't think anyone is argueing Growatt is a "mission critical" piece of hardware

Only if it is marketed and intended as such. In my case, the growatt was intended for off-grid use with generator back-up, and future expandability. Definitely mission critical.
I suppose if you just bought it because it's a cool toy like a skateboard, the growatt isn't mission critical.

 

[anonymous]

I've made mine for a year with none of the issues you are running into. I use it almost exclusively to level 1 charge my EV. I ran 2Mw through it in a year and while it does have some odd behaviors occasionally, it has generally been decent. Where did you purchase yours from? Why didn't you return it under warranty based on these problems?

I purchased it from watts247.com. Ian at watts247.com was always responsive and helpful. Unfortunately, I don't think he can do much. This is a product quality problem as far as I can tell.

I did actually pack it up to be returned at one point (after the whole frying my appliances thing). However, Growatt sent me the fixed firmware. I updated it and the problem went away. So, there was no need to return it. However, the process of detecting the glitches takes a while. These glitches don't occur very often. So, I have to catch enough information about the glitch multiple times before I am sure it is there and able to describe it. This takes place literally is on a year timescale.

I believe the warranty was 2 years. I'm already past that point. Still, I don't believe a replacement is going to do much. I suspect Growatt has to rewrite their firmware and redesign their hardware in order to fix these issues.

 

[anonymous]

Your reported SOC is probably not exact. The math does work out that your AIO is draining the battery by operation. I explain the why, you explained the how once you examine what your batteries actually had left of capacity. Perhaps as little as 5%

I get it that you have a cruddy AIO. Buy a new one.

See attachment. It shows that the battery draining was atypical for only a couple of nights based on the battery voltage chart. The SOC chart is out of whack though during the last night of the glitch.
Normally, the BMS cutoff doesn't happen ever.

 

[Checkthisout]

If it's under warranty, the only money you would be throwing away is shipping right?

Not worth the life-force energy it takes to repair it and it clearly has crap engineering if it can fail in such a way that it will double its output voltage.

That's dangerous as hell.

Into the garbage it goes.

 

[anonymous]

No, send it in for repair. I don't know where you purchased from but some companies offer warranties on them.

Also, what batteries are you using and are you using communications. I use an EG4 battery with communications and I simply set the lower limit to 15% to switch from battery to grid bypass and set my charging to OSO. This leaves plenty of headroom for overnight self consumption and will only charge from solar.

The being said, if the battery drops below 5%, it will force a grid recharge.

I don't think they'll repair firmware.

I'm using 2 x EG4 LiFePower4 48V batteries. I do have the communication set up. Initially, I didn't have communication set up and there was some other glitch. Growatt told me to enable communications, which resolved that particular glitch.

By the way, I forgot to tell you guys about yet ANOTHER glitch, lol. The glitch happened twice (I think). Basically, the inverter would all the sudden decide to switch to utility (when it most definitely shouldn't). I think the battery was at 100% SOC. When I would cut off the utility, it would be back to solar/battery. As soon as I turn utility input back on, it would immediately switch back to utility again. I would then reboot the whole system after which point it goes back to operating normally. I am not sure why this was happening. Maybe solar assistant had to do with it (because it had the feature where it control the inverter utility switching based on SOC of battery). I am waiting for the issue to happen again so I can disconnect solar assistant and play with utility input to see what would happen.

I have the inverter set to 20% for back to utility SOC value, however, attached is my screenshot from solar assistant. It has a slightly different setting based on time of day.

Regarding 5% forced grid recharge, I didn't know this. I guess that would explain the positive values on battery power chart. But why would it turn on and off like that (see second screenshot in main post)?

 

[Checkthisout]

I don't think they'll repair firmware.

I'm using 2 x EG4 LiFePower4 48V batteries. I do have the communication set up. Initially, I didn't have communication set up and there was some other glitch. Growatt told me to enable communications, which resolved that particular glitch.

By the way, I forgot to tell you guys about yet ANOTHER glitch, lol. The glitch happened twice (I think). Basically, the inverter would all the sudden decide to switch to utility (when it most definitely shouldn't). I think the battery was at 100% SOC. When I would cut off the utility, it would be back to solar/battery. As soon as I turn utility input back on, it would immediately switch back to utility again. I would then reboot the whole system after which point it goes back to operating normally. I am not sure why this was happening. Maybe solar assistant had to do with it (because it had the feature where it control the inverter utility switching based on SOC of battery). I am waiting for the issue to happen again so I can disconnect solar assistant and play with utility input to see what would happen.

I have the inverter set to 20% for back to utility SOC value, however, attached is my screenshot from solar assistant. It has a slightly different setting based on time of day.

Regarding 5% forced grid recharge, I didn't know this. I guess that would explain the positive values on battery power chart. But why would it turn on and off like that (see second screenshot in main post)?

I can feel your pain.

You're going in circles trying to fix something that never left the factory designed to work correctly in the first place.

These people then put you through the ringer doing grabass data collection, adjustments and software updates hoping you'll just get frustrated and go away.

Do as they wish, throw it in the garbage and save your sanity and get something from a company who cares.