Having trouble with Will's Eg4 48V Hand truck system too

[dmd3home]

I just finished building Will's hand truck system and put in 1200 watts of solar specifically for trickle charging an EV with a level 1 charger.
All seemed great when I fired it up....I could see the battery charging and the level 1 charger sending 1100W to the EV. Perfect! But, as I want it to be "off grid", I unplugged the AC (grid) power to the inverter expecting it to continue on the solar (and/or battery if dark). Unfortunately, the level 1 charger faulted out and shut down. I continued to experiment with a different level one charger....same thing. The system works well ONLY when the inverter's AC input is active. It doesn't work off-grid! However, I can run anything else on the powerstrip while offgrid, but each EV charger I plug in faults out immediately....even if the other end isn't even plugged into a car. The chargers I have don't seem to like the power out of the inverter....unless the inverter AC input is plugged in. Any thoughts? Has anyone else run into this? Thanks

 

[DIYrich]

Try turning off breaker to the plug where the hand truck system is plugged into. If it still works, then it is a grounding problem. Unplugging looses the ground.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Try turning off breaker to the plug where the hand truck system is plugged into. If it still works, then it is a grounding problem. Unplugging looses the ground.

This.
Specifically, the G-N bond loss is the likely culprit.

 

[Q-Dog]

Seems like this problem came up recently on here. The chargers won't run without a ground.

 

[dmd3home]

You guys are fantastic! Thanks! Actually I had already thought that it was a ground issue so had tried adding a jumper to keep the power strip always grounded.....I still had the problem! So when I saw your your responses (thanks) thought ....no, I already covered that. But, I hadn't thought of just opening the breaker....so what the heck, let me try that. Well, I opened the breaker and the charger kept working! It didn't fault out. So, it seems that in addition to the ground, the system also needs to see the original neutral! Since opening the breaker only kills the HOT and keeps the ground AND neutral....this seems to be the key. I'll add a new outlet wired with just a neutral and ground (no hot) and keep the inverter plugged into that. This also solves the other annoying problem of the fans always drawing 40 watts of power from the grid whenever the inverter is plugged in AND, this will also prevent the unit from going into bypass when there's no solar or the battery is low. I assumed there would be a setting in the inverter to prevent that....but never found it. I have some other issues too and may be back but this gets me past the biggest obstacle... THANKS!

 

[ULR]

Probably doesn't like the ground and neutral not to have a bond somewhere.

Try making a "portable bond": Take an outlet, just jumper the ground and neutral, and plug the hand truck system into that.

(You might want to run a wire from the jumper, or the cart's equipment ground wire, to a building ground for safety - to keep the cart electronics' cases and car body from becoming electrified in case of a fault from a hot to something external to them. Putting this wire on the "protable bond" rather than the cart wiring avoids accidentally having multiple ground paths when you're plugging the cart into a grounded charging outlet and have the grounding wire hooked up, although that's not strictly an issue if both ground paths are up to the rated current and to the same grounding system - and you're not dealing with a nearby lightning strike at the moment.)

Be sure to UNbond the cart's neutral and ground if you're feeding power from the cart to backup a house that already has a bond. Two bonds, one on the cart, one on the house, means the neutral current splits between the neutral and ground conductors in the cable. This brings the neutral voltage drop out on the cart's ground, electrifying the equipment cases (a lot if there's a bad ground/neutral connection). It will also trip a GFCI protector on the cable between the two bonds if the two 240V line currents aren't precisely balanced. (The GFCI will interpret the ground-wire part of the neutral current as a dangerous fault).

(That last, by the way, is why you can't just run the 30A 240V outlet of the Ford F-150 hybrid's 7.2kW inverter into a generator input plug to power your house, unless the transfer switch is wired to also shift the neutral and unbond it or some other workaround is in place. The Ford inverter also has a bond and a GFCI on the outlets. With a second bond in the house the Ford inverter's GFCI shuts it down as soon as you draw any less-than-perfectly-balanced currents on the two sides of the 240V feed (e.g. pull any power on a 120V house circuit.)

Edit: Missed your last message while composing.

Your "just ground and neutral" outlet is essentially the same thing as my suggested "portable bond (with grounding wire)" suggestion.
Glad things are working for you.

 

[dmd3home]

Probably doesn't like the ground and neutral not to have a bond somewhere.

Try making a "portable bond": Take an outlet, just jumper the ground and neutral, and plug the hand truck system into that.

(You might want to run a wire from the jumper, or the cart's equipment ground wire, to a building ground for safety - to keep the cart electronics' cases and car body from becoming electrified in case of a fault from a hot to something external to them. Putting this wire on the "protable bond" rather than the cart wiring avoids accidentally having multiple ground paths when you're plugging the cart into a grounded charging outlet and have the grounding wire hooked up, although that's not strictly an issue if both ground paths are up to the rated current and to the same grounding system - and you're not dealing with a nearby lightning strike at the moment.)

Be sure to UNbond the cart's neutral and ground if you're feeding power from the cart to backup a house that already has a bond. Two bonds, one on the cart, one on the house, means the neutral current splits between the neutral and ground conductors in the cable. This brings the neutral voltage drop out on the cart's ground, electrifying the equipment cases (a lot if there's a bad ground/neutral connection). It will also trip a GFCI protector on the cable between the two bonds if the two 240V line currents aren't precisely balanced. (The GFCI will interpret the ground-wire part of the neutral current as a dangerous fault).

(That last, by the way, is why you can't just run the 30A 240V outlet of the Ford F-150 hybrid's 7.2kW inverter into a generator input plug to power your house, unless the transfer switch is wired to also shift the neutral and unbond it or some other workaround is in place. The Ford inverter also has a bond and a GFCI on the outlets. With a second bond in the house the Ford inverter's GFCI shuts it down as soon as you draw any less-than-perfectly-balanced currents on the two sides of the 240V feed (e.g. pull any power on a 120V house circuit.)

Edit: Missed your last message while composing.

Your "just ground and neutral" outlet is essentially the same thing as my suggested "portable bond (with grounding wire)" suggestion.
Glad things are working for you.

Yeah, but great thoughts...thanks so much for sharing all this. Yes, I placed a new outlet just below and tied to my original power outlet, but left out the hot. I've labeled it "No Hot" "Inverter Only" ...it seems to work great now. BTW, since you mentioned it, the whole purpose of this setup is to keep my F-150 Lightning on trickle charge. Since I really only use it for "truck" things, it spends a lot of time sitting in my shop. This will keep it at 80%. And, BTW, yes, I use the truck as a B/U source to power my whole house. And yes, I've been through the neutral/ground GFIC trip scenario concerns that you mentioned. Actually PG&E, because I'm in a class 2 fire zone, and because I'm susceptible to their "safety power shutoffs", they provided me with a generator connection right behind my meter. This is essentially a fully automatic transfer switch (including neutral). But, instead of plugging into that, I keep the truck in my shop and just run power from the "Pro Power" outlet in the back of the truck (7.2kW) to my subpanel (through a 30A breaker) and use that 100A subpanel to feed back to my house. I do open my 200A service entrance main breaker though....even though the lines are protected via the auto transfer switch, to prevent the two power sources from being paralleled if the auto transfer switch swaps back to utility power. This setup seems to work great. I've used it 4 times now and am able to power essentially the whole house (no "critical loads panel"required) but, of course, I do open the breakers to heavy loads...AC, electric stove, EV charger etc. Works great. Thanks for your help.