Install and Operation of the SUNGOLD 10KW 48V SPLIT PHASE SOLAR INVERTER

[42OhmsPA]

The "manual" is such junk. Might be worth it to learn Chinese and get the original.

View attachment 195351

What exactly constitutes "sufficient" for *charging* purposes?

When there is hardly any power from solar utility with charge with more power, this only works when you are running in passthrough (UTI). Basically it will charge with whatever solar is available and whatever utility as long as no max amperage setpoints are exceeded.
I'm running in SBU with SNU charging and I see 0 utility usage unless I change to UTI.

Edit - wrong mode.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

hardly any power

Sigh

passthrough (USB)

I don't see USB in the manual. Is this a spell checker auto correction?

I'm running in SBU with SNU charging

I have it SbU / CUb

And I control the power source with the AC breaker inside the house.

 

[42OhmsPA]

I don't see USB in the manual. Is this a spell checker auto correction?

My bad, I was confused with my voltronic days. UTI is what I mean.

I have it SbU / CUb

And I control the power source with the AC breaker inside the house.

Why CUb?

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

My bad, I was confused with my voltronic days. UTI is what I mean.

Why CUb?

If it's not Cub, previously it was SNU. I would start charging from utility (or generator) and then after a while it would stop charging. This is on cloudy days, with a bit of pv every now and then. Specifically: 1kW.
Once I changed to Cub, it would ignore the occasional pv and just keep sucking from the utility. The switching back and forth between solar and utility was very disturbing. I mean.. it would switch every 3 to 5 seconds. I would measure the amps (going into the battery bank) going up to the limit e.g. 50A, and then pufff.. drop to 20A which was the solar component (1kW pv = ~20A). Then it would click again.. utility current coming in.. ramping up to 50A etc

Reducing the current to 30A made no difference

Switching it to Cub stopped the show and made it work

The whole situation is only observed if I stand at the AIO. I hear it chirping (indicates change of power source) and relais clicking.

Remote monitoring simply shows charging going on (but slow).

 

[42OhmsPA]

Interesting. I have some cloudy days coming up, if I need grid I plan to use the generator since I haven't exercised it in a a while. I'll play with settings.

 

[Kenny_]

Mine is in Sbu and CSO FWIW

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

Sbu and CSO

I am also back to [01] = Sbu and [08] = SNU

With Cub, I was not utilizing the 200W that solar produces today.

Yesterday, I had the problem that the inverter kept charging back and forth between utility and solar as input.

I did not understand yesterday what this means:


It is actually very easy. "Sufficient" to satisfy the charging current as requested in parameter [07].

I think yesterday, I had set that to 30A, which means about 1.5kW

The panels did produce that number on and off, that's probably why it kept switching around.

Now I keep it at Sbu & SNU and force utility charging with parameter [07], which is right now set to 80A. Of course, [28] is set to 80A as well.

When the dark days are over, I will just turn off the breaker that feeds utility power to the AIO, and it will try to get 80A = 4kW from the panels.

I have actually seen the panels put out 4.5kW, so maybe I should up parameter [07] to 100A. (Wasn't this controlled by the BMS??? Seems not today.)

I am on full communications and battery type is L16.

 

[Kenny_]

Yes, 07 will change/vary if in closed comm mode.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

Yes, 07 will change/vary if in closed comm mode

so then, if the battery bank's BMS decides to lower [07] to a value that is at the upper threshold of what my panels produce on that day, e.g. 20A and panels put out 1100W, then I will have that going back and forth again, right?

I just don't think the relais clicking all the time can be good for them.

I would think that [06] = CSO also has that effect.

If I see this effect again (I rather would not), I will make a video and put it on youtube.

 

[Kenny_]

I'm not certain why it changes but seems to be when in closed loop, but not in open loop.

at least that is my experience.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

Here is the video that shows how the inverter keeps switching back and forth between drawing from utility and then again not.

The relais' clicking is not very loud in the video:

At minute 2:59 I switch from SNU to Cub, and it seems to work .. for a bit. After I stopped the recording I walked away, came back 5 minutes later, and the relais were clicking again.

I did then experiment with turning off solar input, and FWIW, it was charging from utility plus by-pass from utility to house, but not long.
Over a period of ~1 hour I was able to raise SOC from 21% to 28%, that's 1.8kWh added.

Does anyone see anything wrong in my settings?

 

[42OhmsPA]

Isn't that the same screen that @Lighthouse Beacon had in his original version?

 

[Kenny_]

Isn't that the same screen that @Lighthouse Beacon had in his original version?

Don't think so... looks like the lower/rectangular screen like mine and @Lighthouse Beacon 's new one.

 

[42OhmsPA]

I did not see anything wrong with your settings, I'll watch again later. Have you verified the grid voltage is good?
These settings should let you charge from utility and solar.
01 - UTI
02 - 60
03 - UPS (have you tried this in APL?)
06 - SNU
07 (max charge current) & 28 (max utility charge current) - set to desired charging amperage. I would set 07 higher than 28 to allow solar charging headroom.

If that doesn't work something is wrong.

Here is the video that shows how the inverter keeps switching back and forth between drawing from utility and then again not.

The relais' clicking is not very loud in the video:

At minute 2:59 I switch from SNU to Cub, and it seems to work .. for a bit. After I stopped the recording I walked away, came back 5 minutes later, and the relais were clicking again.

I did then experiment with turning off solar input, and FWIW, it was charging from utility plus by-pass from utility to house, but not long.
Over a period of ~1 hour I was able to raise SOC from 21% to 28%, that's 1.8kWh added.

Does anyone see anything wrong in my settings?

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

01 - UTI
02 - 60
03 - UPS (have you tried this in APL?)
06 - SNU

The grid delivers about 122.3V, on each leg. 03 is UPS, l never touched that one.

I would set 07 higher than 28 to allow solar charging headroom.

Interesting thought. I had them at the same value, or even reverse. Thank you!!

I now set 07 to 80A and 28 to 60A, and it is working.. for now.

Will check back in 5 minutes.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

@Kenny_ @marionw @42OhmsPA
@Lighthouse Beacon

I really owe you guys. And others in this forum too. I did buy this SGP inverter because I saw this thread. I just had no idea that I would depend on this forum so much.

In comparison, my first system with a separate SCC, inverter, 15kWh bank, DC converter.. I just put it together and never had a single question, and it's been just working. Not powering a house though, just a car charger and shop.

I'm so glad I did not buy some exotic product!!

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

Will check back in 5 minutes

It's back to the beeping and clicking. I lowered the Amps but that didn't make a difference.

Then I changed from SNU to Cub, and it worked.

For about 15 seconds.

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

here's my update on my attempts at Utility charging. My battery bank has reached quite low levels under 20% SOC, due to increased consumption with decreased sunshine.

It seems that one major issue for other operators was the switching between solar/ battery/ utility when the voltage drops below [04]. I think it's why so many disabled BMS communication and changed the battery to type "user".

When BMS communication is enabled, that number is 49.2V set by the batteries. I think that's too low. If the system is at 49.25V and a big load comes in like the 4.5kW water heater, I think that could be bad. I would rather have this number higher like at 51V.

I turned off BMS communication but did not go into battery type "user".

I had [01] set to UTI, and indeed, it was charging from utility as it should.

As soon as I change [32] from SLA back to 485, the box beeps around, relais are clicking, and it won't charge from utility.

On a side note, my problems with the total amps going into the battery not matching the setting [07].. I had not realized that [28] also limits it. The total amps going into the batteries is the smaller of [07] and [28].

Because of my lack of knowledge & confidence, I still believe it's better for my system to use full BMS communications. So, I probably from time to time will force charge the battery bank as I see it necessary, by switching [01] from "SbU" to "UTI" while comms are disabled.


I also measured the continuity at the generator dry contact pins which had been suggested a few days ago. The manual's section on this gives me a headache. While at 51.6V, I think I measured continuity between 5,6 but not 6,7. I won't go back for a while.

This is why I stayed with 485 comms and now use Solar Assistant and the times/SOC to control my switching, solved my problems. I’ve ran better than I ever have since I did this

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

now use Solar Assistant

That's another issue. The SGP provided dongle solution hasn't worked well. The ESS server was down for 12h on Thursday and 16h today, Friday.
That's the nail in the coffin.

 

[Kenny_]

That's another issue. The SGP provided dongle solution hasn't worked well. The ESS server was down for 12h on Thursday and 16h today, Friday.
That's the nail in the coffin.

Yep. It never worked for me....

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

Here is the video that shows how the inverter keeps switching back and forth between drawing from utility and then again not.

The relais' clicking is not very loud in the video:

At minute 2:59 I switch from SNU to Cub, and it seems to work .. for a bit. After I stopped the recording I walked away, came back 5 minutes later, and the relais were clicking again.

I did then experiment with turning off solar input, and FWIW, it was charging from utility plus by-pass from utility to house, but not long.
Over a period of ~1 hour I was able to raise SOC from 21% to 28%, that's 1.8kWh added.

Does anyone see anything wrong in my settings?

I’ve seen this before. Are you still having problem? You’re welcome to call me. I can’t type it all.

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

We spoke on the phone and his unit is behaving just like mine did when I had an old breaker feeding my inverter. I believe the problem is on his utilities side and the inverter is detecting sinusoidal noise or resistance. He has a complex/dated main panel feeding lower panels/ multiple structures on property as well as rural utilities feeding his primary 200amp service. Due to people being on the service we could not jump the inverter to another breaker to test or eliminate his inverter loss completely, so as a test we switched his inverter over to APL mode to see if lowering the threshold/margin of input utility voltage would make the inverter keep from “noticing” the dirty utility side, when we ended the call it appears to have solved the constant falling out of bypass mode. He plans to update the forum soon if this did in fact solve his issue (for now) until he can work on removing some potential problem areas above his inverter on utility side feed

Link to my thread when this happened:
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/inverter-weirdness-with-220v.75531/

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

SOC is up at 35%, still in bypass

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

We spoke on the phone and his unit is behaving just like mine did when I had an old breaker feeding my inverter. I believe the problem is on his utilities side and the inverter is detecting sinusoidal noise or resistance. He has a complex/dated main panel feeding lower panels/ multiple structures on property as well as rural utilities feeding his primary 200amp service. Due to people being on the service we could not jump the inverter to another breaker to test or eliminate his inverter loss completely, so as a test we switched his inverter over to APL mode to see if lowering the threshold/margin of input utility voltage would make the inverter keep from “noticing” the dirty utility side, when we ended the call it appears to have solved the constant falling out of bypass mode. He plans to update the forum soon if this did in fact solve his issue (for now) until he can work on removing some potential problem areas above his inverter on utility side feed

Link to my thread when this happened:
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/inverter-weirdness-with-220v.75531/

Well @timselectric you helping/teaching me awhile back, may have helped/teach/fixed someone else look at us go!!

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

So I got a bit brave and enabled the water heater (4600W). That's 5kW on pass through plus 3kW into the batteries. I did reduce [28] a bit then, now it's 5kW pass through and 2.4kW into the batteries. (The AC-in wire is 8AWG.)

Here a picture of my charge curve today. You can see the difference that 03=APL made.


And here my monitor for the water heater. The element says 4500W, but it's really 2300W per leg: