Any one familiar with the MPP LV5048. The batteries are not charging using AC power. I’ve reviewed the settings just don’t notice anything. I was looking at program/setting 16 “if this inverter/charger is working in line, standby or fault mode, charger source can be programmed as below” which I have “CSO” solar first. How do I know what mode (line, standby or fault) I’m in. Or I may be not looking at it correctly? Thanks any help is appreciated.
MPP LV5048 utility not charging.
- Thread starter lj1064
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Zwy
Solar Wizard
It is more helpful to list all of the settings. It is possible a setting for another function can be the cause.
Good point. For the most part I went with defaults. I do admit a limited understanding of most of this. Some of the settings that I would think would effect my issue are 1. Output Source - SBU, 5. Battery Type - USE, 12. Voltage setting - 45v, 13. Voltage 57v, 16 Charger source CSO, 26. Bulk Charging V - 57.3, 26. Float charge v - 57.3, 28. AC output mode 2AO (??). My panels are not in the best position and I got them used from SanTan solar so getting the resolved will fill in the gaps until the sun comes back around in the summer.
Zwy
Solar Wizard
Did you watch Will's video where he couldn't get the LV5048 to charge? Watch the whole thing for his settings. The key point why it wouldn't charge is around the 7:20 mark.
mesquito_creek
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You could send a pic of your display screen which would help. I have an MPP LV6048.
#1 SBU is only going to use solar until your battery drops below the low voltage cutoff. What setting is #29 for low voltage cutoff? What is the current voltage of you battery bank?
#12 this setting only really does anything after you go below low voltage.
#28 deals with split phase operation. and 2A0 is for 120V on separate legs, ie same phase. You will set this to 2A2 if you want to wire up a 240v circuit.
Utility charging on this unit is not going to just help out. It will need to have enough power to bypass the battery mode and run everything plus the amount of charging you set on #11
How are you feeding the AC input? connected to the grid or a generator?
mesquito_creek
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You would only use the jumper if you don't have a 240v input available. IE you are connected to a 120v generator or only a 120v utility circuit. If you are connected to the grid or a 240v split phase generator the jumper is not needed.
Thank you,
#1 SBU is only going to use solar until your battery drops below the low voltage cutoff. What setting is #29 for low voltage cutoff? What is the current voltage of you battery bank?
#29 is 42v. Battery is currently at 53.4v.
#28 deals with split phase operation. and 2A0 is for 120V on separate legs, ie same phase. You will set this to 2A2 if you want to wire up a 240v circuit.
No current plans to connect to 240v, so is2A0 ok?
Utility charging on this unit is not going to just help out. It will need to have enough power to bypass the battery mode and run everything plus the amount of charging you set on #11
#11 is 30a
How are you feeding the AC input? connected to the grid or a generator?
Grid, plugged into a standard wall plug (non-gfci)
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mesquito_creek
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So you will need the jumper because you are feeding the AC input with 120v and you will need to trick it into thinking its 240v.
Your utility charging is not turning on because you don't need it. Try changing #16 to CUT for utility first and turn off the PV switch to make it think its night time.
mesquito_creek
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BTW… you low voltage cut off set at 42 is really low. More common would be 46-48v. At 46v you are about 10% state of charge… not much left at that point.
Thanks, I’ll get that updated.
mesquito_creek
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Did you figure out how to get the utility to charge your battery? And I believe you are going to go into utility bypass mode at that point and be drawing the entire inverter load and the charging load through that single 20 amp wall outlet. I wouldn't expect the 5000 watt inverter load to be happy with that and best case trip the panel breaker supplying that outlet.
TomC4306
Solar Obsessive
If you are just trying to charge using the utility charger, setting one. Make utility first.
I tried your suggestion, #16 to CUT and that worked, it started charging with AC. I did change it back to CSO so hoping it will only use AC when needed. Just not sure when that is supposed to be. One thing I can't figure out is which mode it is in, Line, Stand by or Fault as referenced in the #16 description.
mesquito_creek
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this is straight from the manual: If this inverter/charger is working in Battery mode, only solar energy can charge battery. Solar energy will charge battery if it's available and sufficient.
This is what was hard for me to get my head around at first. I thought at some point as long as the batteries were not fully charged the utility would "help out". That is not the case. If you run it off of a battery bank your utility will not charge it until the low voltage disconnect is reached. It make sense that under normal conditions your battery will provide the power and the PV array will both provide power to the load and charging function. Once the low voltage disconnect is reached then the utility mode will kick on and charge and provide load until the battery bank is charged to the voltage in #13.
Your picture of the screen shows as standby mode.
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Thanks so much for the help. What I didn't understand was the modes automatically change. Sometimes I need it in layman's terms and so your explanation was very helpful.
Sycamore
New Member
I had the same issue of my LV5048 not charging when I fired up my generator. Called Ean at Watts247 and he said I had to go to "01" and configure as "Utility first" which did the trick. I had it on ""Solar First". The problem with "Utility first" is the dry contact (Gen start) will only close when you reach "Low DC Warning" which I believe the highest you can set it at is 48v which is to low for my LiPo battery's. On "Solar First" or "SBU" you can trigger on Program 12 as high as 51v which is fine for me.
So if I'm using my generator I have to change to "Utility first" to utilize the charger then I switch back to "Solar First" for normal operation. Kind of wonky I think. I'm used to having greater gen control with my Outback setup using the OpticsRE with the Mate3s. There I can fire up the gen remotely and it will always utilize the Inverter charger.
To control my generator I'm going to set up a relay (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product...title_srh_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2OVMUS055KMW5) triggered by my Wyze wifi plugs which I can turn off and on remotely. I would have to go in remotely to my LV5048 and change to "Utility first" also to enable charging. I use Solar Assistant thru a RaspberryPI to control and program my LV5048. Easy setup and way better than the WatchPower program that comes with the Inverter.
So if I'm using my generator I have to change to "Utility first" to utilize the charger then I switch back to "Solar First" for normal operation. Kind of wonky I think. I'm used to having greater gen control with my Outback setup using the OpticsRE with the Mate3s. There I can fire up the gen remotely and it will always utilize the Inverter charger.
To control my generator I'm going to set up a relay (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product...title_srh_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2OVMUS055KMW5) triggered by my Wyze wifi plugs which I can turn off and on remotely. I would have to go in remotely to my LV5048 and change to "Utility first" also to enable charging. I use Solar Assistant thru a RaspberryPI to control and program my LV5048. Easy setup and way better than the WatchPower program that comes with the Inverter.
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TomC4306
Solar Obsessive
Mpp solar vs Outback....
You get what you pay for.
You get what you pay for.
Sycamore
New Member
The problem is a lot of the Outback stuff has Chinesium in it too. I used my VFX3524 with 2 FM80's since 2008, worked great. But damn that's expensive stuff. Just the charge controller push $500 a pop and the FX3648 pushes $2000 to upgrade to 48v. I bought the LV5048 for $1500 and it has 2 80amp solar controllers. I picked up 2 LVX6048 inverters from Ean for $3000 to run at another location which gives me 12,000 watts low freq transformer power. Each has a 100A MPPT Charger and 100A Utility charger, hard to beat.
