Problem with EG4 3000 Off Grid and Incoming Voltages, Amps and Total KW

[Jsauerii]

I have had the EG4 3000 off grid for about a year with roughly 2k in 100 watt panels. I have always had a problem with voltage dropping quite a bit when it first starts converting power into Watts for the battery when PV first being turned on. Basically when i first turn on the PV through a breaker I might have 200 volts, the unit takes about 10-15 seconds to get up to full watts but by then it drops the voltage about 10%. I cannot find out anywhere if that is normal and I can only tell you that Signature Solar where I bought it is the most uninformed nightmare of customer service I have ever encountered. I would love to know how much your drop is.

So I recently bought 14 535W Canadian Solar Bi-facial. In trying to test them I currently had 10 100w panels left on my roof hooked to the system in series. According to the online calculators those 10 100W Panels would work near perfect with 5 of the new ones. A .053% loss for 3570 volts or so. Problem was after testing the 535W panels at near perfect test angle at about 560W each I placed 5 in series and ran them in parallel to the 100W set and could not get over about 2.5KW to 2.6KW so I switched to just the new panels and started adding more and could not get above 2.6KW until today with 8 panels and a swap of the input wired to the inverter I got as high as 2.7KW. I think they might have been aluminum sold as tinned copper, (go figure). So during today's testing I was up to 11 amps of the 13rated amps at 5 panels but on adding number 6 or forward it started dropping, This number seems to be what is keeping me from going about 2.6KW to 2.7 KW, that and the dropping voltage combined which seems to be 10 to 15% after it starts converting. What in the world is making the amps drop keeping me from getting above that number? Each panel tests at least 100% rated voltage, watts and amps until strung together into that inverter.

Any ideas? With my thermal camera I see no wires getting warmer than the 10 degree F increase that made me swap the PV input wires hoping that was the issue. I am at a loss.... I called SS thinking the inverter was bad, they sold me a refurb last year, weirder things have happened. I knew I was getting no where with them when they told me after an hour of talking to higher ups that my issue was that even though the EG$ 3000 off grid is rated for 5000W input it could only do that for a couple of seconds that it was only really rated at 3K PV input not the advertised 5k. It took me a long while to convince the rep that the info they were given was 100% wrong and that at best they were misreading the inverter output limitations.

 

[Jsauerii]

Not 100% sure I follow. But it's normal for panel voltages to sag when under load. I have an EG3 3000 as well, and I've observed 200+ volts after sunset. It's not really usable because any load puts them to 0. I also accidentally put it in over voltage once because the battery fully charged, load shutoff, and rain cooled panels to spike the 48v panels to around 54v each.

I thought it might sag some but even SS thought that was too much. The bigger issue though is that I cannot seem to get past about 2.5KW I am not sure how many KW worth of panels you have but I get 108W each (tested with tester) 950W from those dusty panels via the inverter readout from 10 of those 100W panels on the roof at peak sun and was testing these new 535W Bi-facial panels at 560W (tested with tester aimed direct at sun) and with 5 panels in series I was hitting 2.25KW via the inverter with panels simply leaned at a less than optimum angle on fence and adding the sixth panel added up to only 2.55KW via the inverter and from there adding another 2 panels one at a time the amps coming in would drop from 10 or 11 amps to 8 amps but the KW would simply not rise above 2.70KW max no matter how many I added . I can find no reason for this bottleneck...

 

[Jsauerii]

Ok, I found the issue, but not why I am having it. It would appear that the inverter or the battery is the issue. I have the inverter set to the max of 80 amps combined to go to the EG4 LL 48v 100AH battery but the amps will not go over 50A to the battery in charging, the inverter is throttling the PV input amperage to control it. The more voltage I added as I added the panels made the amperage input drop to keep from going over 50Amps.

I placed a 1500w heater on the inverter with its regular load and the PV input hit 3.35KW in a few seconds at 15 amps. That is about where it should be for the angle the 535W panels are at for testing purposes.

So in spite of being told by SS that if I bought used this battery with this inverter connected via the cable they also sold me that I could charge the battery at 100A rather than the 80A in the manual, as there is no way to change that setting past 80A ((and being told the warranty on the inverter went from 1 year to 5 when buying both an EG4 battery and the inverter at the same time (which no one can show me any evidence of after the fact))) I seem to be throttled at 50A by something. I was going to buy 5 more batteries for a full rack but apparently I would not be able to send many amps to them and would definitely not be able to benefit from all the solar panels I bought to charge such a battery bank if its only happening at 50A divided. So either the battery or the inverter is not doing near whats advertised and I dont know why. I had swapped out more wires and some other changes before I had thought to test it under load so I had already eliminated most other possibilities. I bought both the inverter and the battery as refurb's when I bought them because that's all they had available at that time. now I wonder if they didn't solve some inverter issue or a battery BMS issue by throttling a setting......

More and more I fear buying anything else from SS or EG4 which stinks because my plans were for ordering that EG4 6000 inverter in the next few weeks and grabbing a rack of Ruixu batteries to fuel the house.....

 

[EG4_Jared]

Ok, I found the issue, but not why I am having it. It would appear that the inverter or the battery is the issue. I have the inverter set to the max of 80 amps combined to go to the EG4 LL 48v 100AH battery but the amps will not go over 50A to the battery in charging, the inverter is throttling the PV input amperage to control it. The more voltage I added as I added the panels made the amperage input drop to keep from going over 50Amps.

I placed a 1500w heater on the inverter with its regular load and the PV input hit 3.35KW in a few seconds at 15 amps. That is about where it should be for the angle the 535W panels are at for testing purposes.

So in spite of being told by SS that if I bought used this battery with this inverter connected via the cable they also sold me that I could charge the battery at 100A rather than the 80A in the manual, as there is no way to change that setting past 80A ((and being told the warranty on the inverter went from 1 year to 5 when buying both an EG4 battery and the inverter at the same time (which no one can show me any evidence of after the fact))) I seem to be throttled at 50A by something. I was going to buy 5 more batteries for a full rack but apparently I would not be able to send many amps to them and would definitely not be able to benefit from all the solar panels I bought to charge such a battery bank if its only happening at 50A divided. So either the battery or the inverter is not doing near whats advertised and I dont know why. I had swapped out more wires and some other changes before I had thought to test it under load so I had already eliminated most other possibilities. I bought both the inverter and the battery as refurb's when I bought them because that's all they had available at that time. now I wonder if they didn't solve some inverter issue or a battery BMS issue by throttling a setting......

More and more I fear buying anything else from SS or EG4 which stinks because my plans were for ordering that EG4 6000 inverter in the next few weeks and grabbing a rack of Ruixu batteries to fuel the house.....

It seems there might have been some confusion on the sales rep's end regarding the charging specifications. The EG4LL allows for a max continuous charging current of 100A, whereas the 3000EHV's max charging current is 80A. It'd be interesting to test out setting this system in open-loop and adjusting the low DC cutoff, float, and bulk charging voltage to spec to see if these issues still occur.

 

[Jsauerii]

It seems there might have been some confusion on the sales rep's end regarding the charging specifications. The EG4LL allows for a max continuous charging current of 100A, whereas the 3000EHV's max charging current is 80A. It'd be interesting to test out setting this system in open-loop and adjusting the low DC cutoff, float, and bulk charging voltage to spec to see if these issues still occur.

Ok, I have only been at the solar game under a year so bear with any stupid questions. Open loop? You mean no cable with manual settings like if I were running a set of 4 12v batteries in series for my 48v battery? If that is what you mean i am going to try that later. I do already have an odd battery setup (which I bypassed to make sure it wasn't causing the issue I was having) where my EG4 LL is connected to a bus bar where I have also added a connection to 4 100AH 12v DJLBERMPW ( Dong Jin Lithium Battery Energy Related Power Module Watthour ) lipo4's that had the same voltage specs as the rack battery to double my capacity for half the price of the rack battery. I did try manual settings but swapped back to using the cable to just the LL and it just works, they both charge and discharge equally and my usage hours are doubled and I have seen no issues running then like that allowing the LL battery to control things.

I was going to swap back to manual settings and see if it charges faster because i know that is also the only way to now get to 5% discharge because the inverter with an EG4 battery will no longer allow you to set below 20% discharge before charging starts again like you could back when Will and others first reviewed these if you are in EG4 communications mode..

 

[EG4_Jared]

Ok, I have only been at the solar game under a year so bear with any stupid questions. Open loop? You mean no cable with manual settings like if I were running a set of 4 12v batteries in series for my 48v battery? If that is what you mean i am going to try that later. I do already have an odd battery setup (which I bypassed to make sure it wasn't causing the issue I was having) where my EG4 LL is connected to a bus bar where I have also added a connection to 4 100AH 12v DJLBERMPW ( Dong Jin Lithium Battery Energy Related Power Module Watthour ) lipo4's that had the same voltage specs as the rack battery to double my capacity for half the price of the rack battery. I did try manual settings but swapped back to using the cable to just the LL and it just works, they both charge and discharge equally and my usage hours are doubled and I have seen no issues running then like that allowing the LL battery to control things.

I was going to swap back to manual settings and see if it charges faster because i know that is also the only way to now get to 5% discharge because the inverter with an EG4 battery will no longer allow you to set below 20% discharge before charging starts again like you could back when Will and others first reviewed these if you are in EG4 communications mode..

Open-loop would be removing the BMS communication from the system and having the manually entered user-defined settings. Although, since these two different batteries cannot communicate, it would be recommended to have the 3000EHV in open-loop when both are attached to the system.

 

[SignatureSolarJess]

Hi @Jsauerii - I'm so sorry you're having these issues. I know @EG4_Jarrett here can certainly help you out, however, if you need anything further and would like to reach out to me at engagement@signaturesolar.com I can get you connected with a supervisor to get you taken care of!

 

[Jsauerii]

Hi @Jsauerii - I'm so sorry you're having these issues. I know @EG4_Jarrett here can certainly help you out, however, if you need anything further and would like to reach out to me at engagement@signaturesolar.com I can get you connected with a supervisor to get you taken care of!

I just realized he was EG4 related as I noticed you were Sig Solar, I guess i didn't look that close at the names....

FWIW in regards to the issues from SS that made my situation worse is that I think Signature Solar's biggest weakness is not even necessarily the lack of experience and knowledge of its CS staff but maybe the lack of knowledge in whoever the upper end staff are that the newer people are getting their info from when they do not have an answer. I realize its hard to keep or even find good people to hire in the first place but it really looks bad when they are being given bad info from their upper management or experts. It really shakes our faith in a company when we get completely bad info from a rep and try to tell them why it cannot be accurate info and they want to reject what we are saying because they themselves should be able to trust the info they are getting from their higher ups. *shrugs. But thanks for the offer of assistance
.

 

[Jsauerii]

Open-loop would be removing the BMS communication from the system and having the manually entered user-defined settings. Although, since these two different batteries cannot communicate, it would be recommended to have the 3000EHV in open-loop when both are attached to the system.

Ok, Thanks for the advice, I hadn't done more experimenting yet because I was going to switch out to the EG4 6000 soon and just use those 4 12v's for another project. Now that Jess mentioned you were tied to EG4 maybe you could answer whether there was any truth to the extended warranty on the inverter when I bought the battery at the same time? Again both were refurb's and if I recall I was told 1 year for the inverter and battery but 5 years each if bought them together. I could get no proof of that in writing or anywhere after the purchase was made based on that offer. That was the only reason I agreed to the go ahead with that purchase rather than wait for the others to return to stock.

Thanks

 

[EG4_Jared]

Ok, Thanks for the advice, I hadn't done more experimenting yet because I was going to switch out to the EG4 6000 soon and just use those 4 12v's for another project. Now that Jess mentioned you were tied to EG4 maybe you could answer whether there was any truth to the extended warranty on the inverter when I bought the battery at the same time? Again both were refurb's and if I recall I was told 1 year for the inverter and battery but 5 years each if bought them together. I could get no proof of that in writing or anywhere after the purchase was made based on that offer. That was the only reason I agreed to the go ahead with that purchase rather than wait for the others to return to stock.

Thanks

As far as I am aware, refurbished inverters have a 2-year warranty. However, I would definitely call your distributor to verify.

 

[SignatureSolarJess]

I just realized he was EG4 related as I noticed you were Sig Solar, I guess i didn't look that close at the names....

FWIW in regards to the issues from SS that made my situation worse is that I think Signature Solar's biggest weakness is not even necessarily the lack of experience and knowledge of its CS staff but maybe the lack of knowledge in whoever the upper end staff are that the newer people are getting their info from when they do not have an answer. I realize its hard to keep or even find good people to hire in the first place but it really looks bad when they are being given bad info from their upper management or experts. It really shakes our faith in a company when we get completely bad info from a rep and try to tell them why it cannot be accurate info and they want to reject what we are saying because they themselves should be able to trust the info they are getting from their higher ups. *shrugs. But thanks for the offer of assistance
.

We appreciate your feedback, @Jsauerii . I will definitely take your thoughts back to the team for review!

 

[Jsauerii]

As far as I am aware, refurbished inverters have a 2-year warranty. However, I would definitely call your distributor to verify.

I just figured you guys would offer the warranty rather than SS Maybe Jess could answer.

Warranty aside, short of trying open loop, any idea what else might be causing a 50A limit? And can you find out how much voltage is normal to lose when that inverter starts converting volts into battery energy? That 10% - 15% drop I get seems like its dipping too much.

Thanks Jared.

 

[SignatureSolarJess]

I just figured you guys would offer the warranty rather than SS Maybe Jess could answer.

If you'd like to give us a call, we can certainly look into your order and find out your options! 903-441-2090

 

[Jsauerii]

Open-loop would be removing the BMS communication from the system and having the manually entered user-defined settings. Although, since these two different batteries cannot communicate, it would be recommended to have the 3000EHV in open-loop when both are attached to the system.

Jared can you give me the user settings for this unit for a 51.2 batter (16 cell) so i can verify my settings for running in user mode? I have sun and time for a short while.... Just a reminder of any settings to change and their voltages.

 

[Jsauerii]

It seems there might have been some confusion on the sales rep's end regarding the charging specifications. The EG4LL allows for a max continuous charging current of 100A, whereas the 3000EHV's max charging current is 80A. It'd be interesting to test out setting this system in open-loop and adjusting the low DC cutoff, float, and bulk charging voltage to spec to see if these issues still occur.

So, It does open it up with user defined settings. I am not at my peak (3657.72 KW) as the panels are temp leaned and not at not optimum angle but I am at 3.25KW with some high clouds and 1 hour before peak south sun angle so its pretty close to where it should be. So it does appear as if the refurb battery I was sold still had issues or a bad setting...... Any Ideas? This does tell me that a test I did last summer left me believing I had some issues with some other panels when in fact the bad numbers were due to this unexpected limitation.

 

[EG4_Jared]

Jared can you give me the user settings for this unit for a 51.2 batter (16 cell) so i can verify my settings for running in user mode? I have sun and time for a short while.... Just a reminder of any settings to change and their voltages.

For the 3000EHV, choose USE for setting 5, with setting 26 adjusted to 56.2 volts, setting 27 to 54.0 volts, and setting 29 to a range of 44.8-47 volts (I suggest starting higher and adjusting downwards if necessary). Also, I would run this for 1-2 weeks and then change back to BMS communication to see if the problem reoccurs.

 

[Jsauerii]

For the 3000EHV, choose USE for setting 5, with setting 26 adjusted to 56.2 volts, setting 27 to 54.0 volts, and setting 29 to a range of 44.8-47 volts (I suggest starting higher and adjusting downwards if necessary). Also, I would run this for 1-2 weeks and then change back to BMS communication to see if the problem reoccurs.

I had already set very close to that via manual so that should be ok, thanks. Settings 12: = 50.0v - 26: = 56.4v - 27: = 54.0v - 29: = 46.0v - FWIW, I am pulling as high as 3.55KW of 3.66KW with some thin high clouds in the way so the problem has to be that BMS whether by fault or a bad setting .

 

[EG4_Jared]

I had already set very close to that via manual so that should be ok, thanks. Settings 12: = 50.0v - 26: = 56.4v - 27: = 54.0v - 29: = 46.0v - FWIW, I am pulling as high as 3.55KW of 3.66KW with some thin high clouds in the way so the problem has to be that BMS whether by fault or a bad setting .

The BMS may need to be recalibrated through the week process of charging on user defined. However, I would definitely try the BMS Tools to verify if the LL is on the most recent firmware.

Link to Firmware: https://eg4electronics.com/categories/batteries/eg4-ll-48v-100ah-lithium-iron-phosphate-battery

 

[Jsauerii]

The BMS may need to be recalibrated through the week process of charging on user defined. However, I would definitely try the BMS Tools to verify if the LL is on the most recent firmware.

Link to Firmware: https://eg4electronics.com/categories/batteries/eg4-ll-48v-100ah-lithium-iron-phosphate-battery

/RANT ON: The last time I tried looking at the BMS because I wanted to fix the incorrect time in that battery it wanted a password that SS refused to give me saying that you as a company had forbid it. Imagine how upset I was to find out I don't own the batteries I buy from EG4. Then I found out that actually likely violates some newer Texas laws. Now you know why I am looking at RUIXU batteries or nearly anyone else for batteries besides EG4 moving forward. /RANT OFF

I will try to look again and see what I can do without that PW. Some people told me what they thought it was in some forums but I havent tried it yet.

BTW, at one point in time even in one of Wills videos on the 3000 it seems that you could set the 3000 to switch back to utility to charge the battery at either 3% or 5% but now you can switch at no less than 20% unless you go into USER mode. Would we not be getting more accurate percentage of charge measurements if we could still do that since you still request we drop it to 5% every few months for that specific purpose. Is there any real negative to dropping down that low, I am sure you have seen Will and many other peoples opinions of the little difference a 5% vs 20% DOS would do on battery life vs calendar life. That 15% makes a big difference in actual capacity. Is there a reason that setting was pulled from the EG4 preset to where we can only drop that low in USER modes?

Thanks...

 

[EG4_Jared]

/RANT ON: The last time I tried looking at the BMS because I wanted to fix the incorrect time in that battery it wanted a password that SS refused to give me saying that you as a company had forbid it. Imagine how upset I was to find out I don't own the batteries I buy from EG4. Then I found out that actually likely violates some newer Texas laws. Now you know why I am looking at RUIXU batteries or nearly anyone else for batteries besides EG4 moving forward. /RANT OFF

I will try to look again and see what I can do without that PW. Some people told me what they thought it was in some forums but I havent tried it yet.

BTW, at one point in time even in one of Wills videos on the 3000 it seems that you could set the 3000 to switch back to utility to charge the battery at either 3% or 5% but now you can switch at no less than 20% unless you go into USER mode. Would we not be getting more accurate percentage of charge measurements if we could still do that since you still request we drop it to 5% every few months for that specific purpose. Is there any real negative to dropping down that low, I am sure you have seen Will and many other peoples opinions of the little difference a 5% vs 20% DOS would do on battery life vs calendar life. That 15% makes a big difference in actual capacity. Is there a reason that setting was pulled from the EG4 preset to where we can only drop that low in USER modes?

Thanks...

I believe the newest release of BMS Tools allows for altering the time and date without requiring a password, though you'll need an RS282 cable for this. Regarding the Depth of Discharge (DOD) setting from 20% to 5%, 20% is recommended. Yet, lowering it to 5% shouldn't pose any issues if preferred.