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New Sol-Ark True 18K Inverter Coming

koppted said:
Except you've already acknowledged that the DIY community is a miniscule percentage of Sol-Ark customers. Most Sol-Ark customer are customers of professional installers. When they have a problem, they don't come to the DIYSOLARFORUM, they contact their installers. Look Deye makes good inverters. Sol-Ark is a good albeit overpriced inverter that has its own problems. Stop with the Fanboyism.
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There are a lot of SolArk owners on this forum. Most of them did not DIY their system but they come here to find out how to do things that they cannot ask SolArk about.
Like getting Solar Assistant to work or using batteries that are not compliant.

You don’t see them posting a lot because this forum is down right hostile to anyone who owns a SolArk.
 
robby said:
There are a lot of SolArk owners on this forum. Most of them did not DIY their system but they come here to find out how to do things that they cannot ask SolArk about.
Like getting Solar Assistant to work or using batteries that are not compliant.

You don’t see them posting a lot because this forum is down right hostile to anyone who owns a SolArk.
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I beg to disagree.
This forum just proves that SolArk is NOT all it is advertised.

Don't take this statement the wrong way, it is a Great unit when it works as advertised, it is a Nightmare when it doesn't; this is all due to their support.

Let me give you an example of another feature that DOESN'T work: Keeping the batteries at a certain SOC other than 100%, it wrecks the entire logic of operation as soon as one activated TOU to achieve that. (is that an "exotic" use mode?)

If you are that convinced that people are hostile to SolArk just prove it. You can create a thread where people state their issues with features that are officially supported by SolArk and you post a solution; it shouldn't be so hard given that you are obviously connected to the company.
I'll bet you a 6 pack that you don't take this offer.
 
SparkyJJO said:
Didn't they nuke that feature (because, reasons?)
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Because people kept trying to use it and it was not working properly. They abandoned the feature and "I THINK" removed it from the firmware. I use 2 year old Firmware so no idea if the stories of it being removed are true.
 
Classic for a Solark supporter, to roll on the floor laughing when someone is having an issue with a Solark unit.

P.S. For anyone who bought the unit based on that advertised feature removing it is a Breach Of Contract.
 
I have had three straight weeks of rain.
I grid charge them up to 75% every evening with no problems.
TOU slots work perfectly for the rest of the night.

A Dare with a 6 pack reward :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
He must think he is smart and everyone else is a 12 Year old.
 
robby said:
Turn off Arc Fault.
You don't need it and it and it gets triggered for too many small incidents.

So is it really exporting it or is the Data in MySolArk just saying it did?
If it's just MySolArk saying it did then ignore it. It's probably an issue because they updated the Web software that day and something got messed up.
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Turn off Arc Fault? You don't need it? NEC 690.11 says it's a requirement.

Robby, you probably wired your system yourself and you are confident that it's sound and not going to fail, but others like myself don't even know what connectors the installer used. Then there's the potential of failure due to rodents.

I turned mine off because I rarely made it through a day without it tripping. IMO this is a liability for Sol-Ark, not just because the Arc fault is problematic, but the default when one does a system reset is AFCI OFF. Also, their tech support have been telling people for years to turn arc fault off.
 
Oldphile said:
Turn off Arc Fault? You don't need it? NEC 690.11 says it's a requirement.

Robby, you probably wired your system yourself and you are confident that it's sound and not going to fail, but others like myself don't even know what connectors the installer used. Then there's the potential of failure due to rodents.

I turned mine off because I rarely made it through a day without it tripping. IMO this is a liability for Sol-Ark, not just because the Arc fault is problematic, but the default when one does a system reset is AFCI OFF. Also, their tech support have been telling people for years to turn arc fault off.
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If an installer installed your system, they are required to make it work.
Surprised the default is off when doing a reset when it defaults to on during setup.
 
Oldphile said:
Turn off Arc Fault? You don't need it? NEC 690.11 says it's a requirement.

Robby, you probably wired your system yourself and you are confident that it's sound and not going to fail, but others like myself don't even know what connectors the installer used. Then there's the potential of failure due to rodents.

I turned mine off because I rarely made it through a day without it tripping. IMO this is a liability for Sol-Ark, not just because the Arc fault is problematic, but the default when one does a system reset is AFCI OFF. Also, their tech support have been telling people for years to turn arc fault off.
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LOL I think we have all turned it off.
I got a really good breakdown from the guy who worked on it and he told me that when they tried to dumb it down they found that a tiny Arc could happened and the system did not catch it. So they basically left it wide open to detect any anomalies in the Voltage and Current, especially fast transient events. The problem is that any close by lightning bolt creates a fast transient current surge on the PV.
 
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I think one of my trips was connecting more PV in the evening to a separate AIO that only shares the batteries. Sun was low but I still had voltage. I didn't see any spark when connecting...
 
So I've been building a new house, and plan to go solar. Had been planning on a few 15K's. Kind of a big house with a big workshop for my cars. Anyway, just found out about the 18K. Seems like a great option, instead. Wondering if I even need to parallel, or if I just put one into each of my 200A panels. Anyway, so looking up the 18K, and I see this thread.

And I'm now reminded of why I quit coming here. God some of y'all are insufferable. You don't like Sol-Ark? Fine, most of us live in free market economies, buy an alternative. Is Sol-Ark simply a rebranded Deye? Is an iPhone a rebranded Foxcon, or does Foxcon just manufacture to Apple's specs? I don't know, I know the bike industry better, and wtih those, places like Trek and Specialized design, test, and run QC while the frames are manufactured by contract companies in China.

Sol-Ark isn't hard core DIY enough? Yeah, well, I'm sure some guy has a smelting operation in his garage to make his own Si wafers and steel cases who scoffs at you calling your inverter DIY, too. Sheesh, man, my time is worth a lot. Renovating our current house, after doing all the tile work in 2 bathrooms, for the last one, I spent a lot more money using Schluter stuff......because it saved me time. I build my own engines for my cars, but I don't look down on people who buy crate engines for the same reason I buy Schluter or will be Sol-Ark. I'm darn good at some things, and good enough at others, but also value my time. I can do my own taxes, but I'd rather pay someoen else to do them. Opportunity cost is too high. Same here.

I think I know now, though, how my teenage kids feel when I complain about the current state of music.
 
67King said:
So I've been building a new house, and plan to go solar. Had been planning on a few 15K's. Kind of a big house with a big workshop for my cars. Anyway, just found out about the 18K. Seems like a great option, instead. Wondering if I even need to parallel, or if I just put one into each of my 200A panels. Anyway, so looking up the 18K, and I see this thread.
Click to expand...
Hi 67King. Totally agree about the snobbery on the forum. Don't let them run you off. If you stick around you help to level it out. Live and let live.

Anyways, to your point about running one 18k to each 200 amp panel, if you are still on the grid, and plan on using them more to offset your bill and run partial loads when the grid is down there isn't much of a drawback. I run one 15k on a 200 amp panel now, and it works well. I sell to the poco, use the solar I produce directly and at night with batteries, and just have to watch my max loads during a power outage. As long as I don't run the dryer, the AC, and cook a turkey at the same time during a power outage, all good. When the grid is up, you get your full 200 amps to the panel whether from solar, battery, or grid pass-through.

The drawback would be that if you are over loaded when the grid goes down, unless you can load shed somehow it will overload. If you have any insight into max draw now, and how often you hit that, you will know how often that will happen. It's possible your power co has the info.
 
67King said:
So I've been building a new house, and plan to go solar. Had been planning on a few 15K's. Kind of a big house with a big workshop for my cars. Anyway, just found out about the 18K. Seems like a great option, instead. Wondering if I even need to parallel, or if I just put one into each of my 200A panels. Anyway, so looking up the 18K, and I see this thread.

And I'm now reminded of why I quit coming here. God some of y'all are insufferable. You don't like Sol-Ark? Fine, most of us live in free market economies, buy an alternative. Is Sol-Ark simply a rebranded Deye? Is an iPhone a rebranded Foxcon, or does Foxcon just manufacture to Apple's specs? I don't know, I know the bike industry better, and wtih those, places like Trek and Specialized design, test, and run QC while the frames are manufactured by contract companies in China.

Sol-Ark isn't hard core DIY enough? Yeah, well, I'm sure some guy has a smelting operation in his garage to make his own Si wafers and steel cases who scoffs at you calling your inverter DIY, too. Sheesh, man, my time is worth a lot. Renovating our current house, after doing all the tile work in 2 bathrooms, for the last one, I spent a lot more money using Schluter stuff......because it saved me time. I build my own engines for my cars, but I don't look down on people who buy crate engines for the same reason I buy Schluter or will be Sol-Ark. I'm darn good at some things, and good enough at others, but also value my time. I can do my own taxes, but I'd rather pay someoen else to do them. Opportunity cost is too high. Same here.

I think I know now, though, how my teenage kids feel when I complain about the current state of music.
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You must be new around these parts. But I can tell you'll fit in just fine.

We are not shy about giving our opinions.

Solark sucks!
 
Opinions only have weight depending on who they come from. If you say someone must be new, when they joined the same time you did, well then... The weighting drops a bit. That and the brand snobbery of course. I imagine the comments with a nose upturned and a regal British voice.

"Oh no no... I would never buy a Honda my dear... A Honda... Honestly..."
 
SunDave said:
Opinions only have weight depending on who they come from. If you say someone must be new, when they joined the same time you did, well then... The weighting drops a bit. That and the brand snobbery of course. I imagine the comments with a nose upturned and a regal British voice.

"Oh no no... I would never buy a Honda my dear... A Honda... Honestly..."
Click to expand...

I would never buy a pair of audiophile cables for $4000 for a pair of 6 ft cables. But what do I know. I guess I'm just a snob.
 
SunDave said:
Not only would you not buy them. You would run around town telling strangers not to buy them :) In a British voice of course.
Click to expand...

Definitely in a british voice. I like the cockney accent myself.

But you know what they say- you can lead a horse to water...
 
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