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LV6548, Washing Machine and Flickering Lights

priorityelec

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Sep 11, 2020
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I have an LV6548 setup with a nice battery bank and have a sub panel with breakers etc etc. A dedicated line runs to the washing machine and dryer, a separate for lights, and so on. When the washer is running, most lights in this system flicker in line with the back and forth movement of the washer's motor. Even the fridge light (on a spearate breaker line) flickers to this same tune.

Any ideas? What can I do? Do you guys also see this issue? Some lights are better than others, but it does get annoying. All other electronics like tv's and computers, etc seem to work just fine and computer monitors or tv's do not flicker.
 
I guess the in-rush current of the washing machine creates this issue?
I would use an Amp meter to determine the value of the in-rush current.

Does this occur when you are under solar energy, and the inverter try getting additional power?
Can you try at night using only battery or only the grid?

Do you have a real-time wifi display on your computer to show the in-out energy consumption?

It would be helpful to give a more detail description of your system, such as the battery capacity and load you have.
 
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What is the wire gauge going from the batteries to the inverter? You might not be able to get amps into the inverter fast enough to satisfy the load being applied.
 
I have 3 of the EG4 batteries connected to each other with 2 gauge wire and a 2 gauge wire going to the inverter. 10 gauge wires for the breakers/loads.

It happens at all times no matter if the batteries are full and it's the only thing running or if i'm running lots of other things. One exception I noticed is that if I put an electric heater on high (1500 watts) on another breaker's outlet, the flickering stops.

I do have real-time energy display using the pc watch power app and the battery eg4 test app. I've tried all sorts of situations as far as power draw. This happens morning, noon and night, full sun, cloudy, low battery, charging battery, full power battery. Doesn't seem to matter.

Come to think of it, when the fridge compressor is running, only some of the lights flicker but not as much.
 
I’m assuming your inverter is a 6000 watt inverter. Also, 20 amp 120 volt circuit could pull 2400 watts on the washer, so i suspect with motor going back and forth the inverter won’t cover the surge, most inverter manuals list a rather broad multiple for motors to size your Innverter up to cover this inductance load.

would be nice if a 6000 watt AIO user would reply.
 
The washer motor can pull large amounts of current each time it changes direction and has to get that heavy load of clothes tumbling(assuming its a newer machine with some type of switched reluctance motor). High frequency inverters are more likely to flicker than low frequency units, but even I see some flicker with an 8kw low frequency inverter. Some LED bulbs are also more susceptible to the voltage dips than others.

Unfortunately, changing wire sizes(unless they're grossly undersized to begin with) won't do anything here as its a function of temporary surges being placed against the inverter and the inverter responding to the demand. There's no grid to act as a giant "pulse absorbing" battery.
 
I have the same issue here at our off grid cabin. Washing machine runs fine but the constantly reversing of the motor can’t be good for the inverters.

Can anyone suggest a washing machine still in production that uses a transmission vs the reversing motor?

CP
 
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