MPP solar PIP4048 what should I get now

mbemy · Dec 21, 2021

Hello All.

I'm in the market for another inverter.

I currently have a MPP PIP-4048 with 16 X 130ah Winstone cells which has been running fine for 4 or 5 years now. Serving about half the house. For most of that time back to grid was set at 48V and charge stopped at 54.5V...The cells were in perfect balance, no BMS.
3kw of solar, North, East and west (120cell strings into the PWM controller) (West to be upgraded to 1200W and the existing 1000 moving East)
Added another 1600W of panels with a MPPT controller a few years ago. (That cheap makeskyblue MPPT has been going well )
There is also a 1500W grid tie inverter doing its thing and i'm in melb australia.
End up at 7.3Kw solar and no roof space.

Problems
The issue with a 3V cell cutoff on a small bank is voltage sag under load sometimes leaves quite a bit of capacity on the table.
So as cell prices have come down so much I felt emboldened to adjusted the low voltage on my existing cells to get a bit more capacity
I should have left it alone, as 44V (2.75V cell) has high lighted some cells which then causes issues with balance at the top.
(Dumb Active balance now on the cells.)
I now have an order in for 280ah cells with Amy Peng, (the other Amy wanting +%25) and ordered a JK 200amp BMS.

I'm eyeing off the 1500W of panels currently connected to the grid tie inverter, and the 4Kw inverter is not ideal for some lumpy circuits.

So an inverter with MPPT and more WATTS is on the shopping list.
So many choices and so much BS floating around.
I'm seeing inverters with 5500W and MPPT but which one?
MPP seems to top out at 5000W with the HV2-5048 before moving into a different price bracket.
Others similar to 5048 claim 5500W and a lower price than the HV2-5048. (I'm not interested in feeding back to the grid, the tariff is next to useless).
I see MPP claiming others are fake and copy's but my research years ago had Voltronic Power as the OEM of the MPP range.
I'm a out of touch with what is current and best value, what brands should not be touched ever. Hence putting up this thread to solicit opinions.

Samsonite801 · Dec 21, 2021

I might look for a 'stackable' inverter in case you decided to expand it later (to get more PV inputs, or inverter watt output capacity than single one).

Have you looked at the Growatt SPF 5000 ES (perhaps 2 of them stacked), or an MPP Solar LV6048, or a pair of MPP Solar LV6548 (the ladder needs a pair stacked to run 230v for Australia)?

Other consideration is inverter communication protocol if it supports your inverter. I have the LV6548's and also the JBD BMS's and they don't natively communicate on same protocol, but I found I can add a Raspberry Pi with 'Solar Assistant' software installed in the middle, and it can talk to JDB BMS, and MPP Solar communication protocols to bridge the gap and provide SoC information from the BMS to the inverter...

If you really did want to buy an MPP Solar inverter, just buy it direct from manufacturer and then you can know it is not a fake China copy, which do exist.

mbemy · Dec 21, 2021

The PIP-4048 was "parallel ready", and that's what I would have done, but I contacted MPP and they claim it is too old now.
The LV6... is for the US, no 110V required in australia.
I was wondering about the BMS protocol, it would be nice to find an inverter that integrated, but does the inverter need SoC? Low volt back to grid and it is done. (No chance of going off grid in Melbourne, 4months of the year you get little from solar.)
The manufacturer for MPP is Voltronic, but I don't know what the full story is with "clones" I'm aware of some inverters failing after 60 days due to firmware, lack of serial and no bootstrap to be able to get into the unit to reflash. ect (forums.aeva.asn.au) I'm seeing an 5500W EASUN for under $800 in melbourne on the bay, where as 5000W MPP is more like $1200.

Samsonite801 · Dec 21, 2021

On the LV6 for the US, you don't really have to use the neutral do you? One could just use the hots only (L1 and L2), and set the voltage in the settings to 230v or whatever your local spec is and don't use the split-phase on it.

On SoC, you don't really need it, it is mainly just to give a pretty battery bar in percentage to give you an exact SoC (more accurate than estimating it based on voltage. It's fine to not have it really...

On the MPP being made by only Voltronic, I wouldn't say that is a blanket statement that can apply to all of their inverter families. They have several different series, and they can all have various sources (could be some certain family is made by Voltronic, where others are made elsewhere)...

At least I know when I buy direct from them, then I know if I need warranty on it, they will swap it out and not tell me it's a fake later when they get my broken one back for inspection later hehe...

Have you looked into any of the MPP Solar PIP-MAX series all-in-ones? Seems like those are made for 230v native only (as they don't offer split-phase operation).

Maybe have a look and see if any of these might meet your needs (three models to choose from, up to 8048MAX, stackable up to six):