Inverter flashing ac input light with generator

[Ruda]

Hi

I've a fairly new system with PVs, completely off the grid
Now that the weather is darker there's not enough charge during the day so I've bought a petrol generator, it's apparently 6.5kw, 110/230v, after connecting it to the inverter as the AC the AC input light and bypass light are flashing, it's not actually giving power to the system and not charging batteries, I believe settings on inverter are correct like"both solar and utility will charge batteries as first priority" and input is set at 230v and 50hz, tried different max input amps from 5 all the way to 60 and still nothing, now the inverter does see the generator, it fluctuates a tiny bit, the acceptable voltage of inverter is adjustment 170-280v, generator gives about 230-240( tried switching to the 110v as well on generator and inverter with no difference), yet I don't know what's acceptable frequency range, it says 50hz, generator, depending on speed setting, provides, 49-50.5Hz on low rpm to 51.5-53Hz on higher rpm setting, the inverter has a separate AC input setting marked as GNT I believe, in manual it states it's for generators 230v(170-280v range) due to them being more unstable, tried this too and still nothing, just blinking AC input icon with blinking bypass icon, any ideas how to get it to work? Should I get a voltage stabiliser? Will that stabilise frequency as well?

 

[HRTKD]

Is the battery full? If it's full then the inverter/charger won't do anything.

 

[GXMnow]

I had a similar issue trying to use my old generator into my Schneider XW-Pro inverter.

With a light load on the generator, it was stable, the AC2 input would flash and then go solid. I hear the contactor click in and it starts to transfer load from the batteries to the generator. But then the generator RPM would dip from the load and it would disconnect again. The RPM (frequency) was still in range, but the fact it changed caused the disconnect. I tried adjusting the AC2 input to allow a wider range, but the changing RPM is still a problem. In my case, the inverter needs to track and lock to the input AC frequency, and it just can't track too fast of a change. They recommend an inverter type generator, but those are a lot more expensive, especially for one that outputs 120/240 split phase that I need here in USA.

What many people seem to be doing is DC coupling the generator to the battery bank. I have a 600 watt charger, and that worked perfectly. So I may shell out the $400 or so for an EG4 "Chargeverter". That is adjustable up to 5,000 watts to take dirty unstable AC power and push clean DC directly into your batteries. It's a 48 volt device and can push up to 100 amps. That will max out my 5,000 watt generator.

 

[Ruda]

Is the battery full? If it's full then the inverter/charger won't do anything.

Batteries don't get to full currently, they're about 47-51v, I've set cut off at 46v to not drain them too much but fully charged would be in the ballpark of 54.2v so they're not completely discharged and not completely charged

 

[Ruda]

What many people seem to be doing is DC coupling the generator to the battery bank. I have a 600 watt charger, and that worked perfectly. So I may shell out the $400 or so for an EG4 "Chargeverter". That is adjustable up to 5,000 watts to take dirty unstable AC power and push clean DC directly into your batteries. It's a 48 volt device and can push up to 100 amps. That will max out my 5,000 watt generator.

Thank You for explaining, I'll look into that, I've ordered voltage stabiliser last night and I'll check if it's gonna do anything but next thing to look into will be this