Problems with Eg4 6500ex buyer beware.

[Gavin Stone]

It would have been interesting to understand what was the cause. Switching from my growatt 12k to the 6500ex eliminated strobing. Blender and mini oven would cause the 12k a small amount of that. I have dimmers as well but nothing in the house affects the 6500ex even pushing them to 17kw for 5+ hours and they ran perfectly.

When did you purchase your units? I’m starting to see a pattern between upgrades they made and issues like I had.

 

[PreppenWolf]

When most people say "strobing" with EG4s they mean the light brightness changes. There were people who's lights weren't stable when things like the washing machine was running.

Yours are straight up turning off and on. That is a sketchy dimmer to me.

And how much is a dimmer compared to inverters? How much time was it to swap the inverters out rather than installing a few dimmers?

 

[PreppenWolf]

Do your dimmers work with generator power out of curiosity?

 

[Gavin Stone]

When most people say "strobing" with EG4s they mean the light brightness changes. There were people who's lights weren't stable when things like the washing machine was running.

Yours are straight up turning off and on. That is a sketchy dimmer to me.

And how much is a dimmer compared to inverters? How much time was it to swap the inverters out rather than installing a few dimmers?

The living room did it as well. I just don’t have a video of both of them doing it at once. So is it possible both dimmers healed themselves when I switched back to the other inverters? I didn't remove the dimmers because the lights seemed to be a symptom of what’s going on inside the inverters. I called tech support and they said their standard answer is to remove the switches because “these type of inverters always have this problem”. I called back days later and got the same answer from a second tech support agent. The lights shimmered on my other room as well. But that can be a problem with cheaper bulbs, granted I don’t have that problem with the LV’s either.

If I believed it was just an issue with the lights I would have changed them. Or perhaps if those were my first inverters I would have taken signature Solar’s word for it. But I think the inverters themselves have a real issue with sine wave, and I’ve used the mpp’s for the greater part of a year without any problems in output.

 

[Will Prowse]

I broke up the original post, so people can read it. And removed some not so helpful comments in the beginning, so this post will get more attention. What pisses me off is the response time. Can you post those emails? I thought they sorted out the customer tech support issues, but man, this post is making me angry. You should not have to wait that long to get a response. It is unacceptable.

Or that they did not know about it missing the bonding screw. Can you post that email? I need you to post all the evidence you have on this, so others can see. And that can change my recommendations on my site and videos as well. But I need your evidence.

 

[kromc5]

When did you purchase your units? I’m starting to see a pattern between upgrades they made and issues like I had.

I purchased my on November 7th 2022 have been on the older firmware. I updated mine yesterday to the newer firmware.

 

[Gavin Stone]

I broke up the original post, so people can read it. And removed some not so helpful comments in the beginning, so this post will get more attention. What pisses me off is the response time. Can you post those emails? I thought they sorted out the customer tech support issues, but man, this post is making me angry. You should not have to wait that long to get a response. It is unacceptable.

Or that they did not know about it missing the bonding screw. Can you post that email? I need you to post all the evidence you have on this, so others can see. And that can change my recommendations on my site and videos as well. But I need your evidence.

Man would I appreciate that. Most their advice was over the phone the 2 times I was able to talk to tech support. And phone calls with customer support. They never said in writing that their inverters “always have this issue”. Only over the phone. I do have the bonding screw email. The others are just emails I sent and they didn’t respond to. At the time I didn’t realize I should collecting actual information in writing. I just figured It would work out. I’m not super tech savvy when it comes to that stuff (which is ironic since I built a solar system) so let me work on it and try to post the whole thing.

 

[nc73]

Hate to tell you guys but SS is not about support. Buy at your own risk.

 

[Browse]

It would have been interesting to understand what was the cause. Switching from my growatt 12k to the 6500ex eliminated strobing. Blender and mini oven would cause the 12k a small amount of that. I have dimmers as well but nothing in the house affects the 6500ex even pushing them to 17kw for 5+ hours and they ran perfectly.

Hmmm...I have the Growatt 12k but haven't tried it with the oven yet. My expectation of a LF inverter is that it should be able to handle inrush and larger loads pretty well. Since my unit is for emergency backup only, I'm guessing I won't really be using it with the oven much but if it can power my 4 ton HVAC during a heat wave, that would be a bonus. I'm using it to feed my generator interlock breaker which is 30A at 240V, so I will never be pushing this unit beyond 7kw continuous.

 

[kromc5]

Hmmm...I have the Growatt 12k but haven't tried it with the oven yet. My expectation of a LF inverter is that it should be able to handle inrush and larger loads pretty well. Since my unit is for emergency backup only, I'm guessing I won't really be using it with the oven much but if it can power my 4 ton HVAC during a heat wave, that would be a bonus. I'm using it to feed my generator interlock breaker which is 30A at 240V, so I will never be pushing this unit beyond 7kw continuous.

Mine ran even the 5ton with no issues but the blender and the mini oven breville will cause it to pulse some.

 

[timselectric]

I show continuity from case to ground lugs. Not good and I read in the forum that it will violate my warranty if I screw with it... That's sad.

I would hope so. As that should always be the case.
All metal raceways and enclosues should be grounded at all times.

 

[Gavin Stone]

I broke up the original post, so people can read it. And removed some not so helpful comments in the beginning, so this post will get more attention. What pisses me off is the response time. Can you post those emails? I thought they sorted out the customer tech support issues, but man, this post is making me angry. You should not have to wait that long to get a response. It is unacceptable.

Or that they did not know about it missing the bonding screw. Can you post that email? I need you to post all the evidence you have on this, so others can see. And that can change my recommendations on my site and videos as well. But I need your evidence.

I’ll post the emails from the person I originally was in contact with first. He never responded other then the generic email. Still working on the second tech support one. Not sure if I’m finding all the emails but I’m working on it.

I apologize if I get something out of order. I’m sure this would be easier on a pc and not my phone.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Mine ran even the 5ton with no issues but the blender and the mini oven breville will cause it to pulse some.

Maybe because the 5 ton is loading both legs but the others are only loading one leg, and it doesn't handle induction loads on only one leg very well? Just guessing here, I really don't know.

 

[sunsurfer]

My lights on dimmers were strobing none stop. Some of the LED lights had a shimmer. I checked all my settings and they were the same as the LV’s. It also didn’t seem to matter whether the inverters were under load or not.

Back when I was in the city and on grid I had ALLOT of flicker with my LED lighting when they where dim. Some was local from my house but I also could see noise from other houses.

LEDs are really fast, they show everything. Not like an incadecent that needs time to change output since its heating a wire. When they are dimmed down, they display more subtle changes in power. Perhaps a really expensive dimmer or LED driver can clean allot of this up but my cheap homedepot setup showed me every slight change in the grid power.

 

[Gavin Stone]

I broke up the original post, so people can read it. And removed some not so helpful comments in the beginning, so this post will get more attention. What pisses me off is the response time. Can you post those emails? I thought they sorted out the customer tech support issues, but man, this post is making me angry. You should not have to wait that long to get a response. It is unacceptable.

Or that they did not know about it missing the bonding screw. Can you post that email? I need you to post all the evidence you have on this, so others can see. And that can change my recommendations on my site and videos as well. But I need your evidence.

So I didn’t receive any return emails from tech support after this point. I really wanted an actual solution or just to return the units. I called and talked with customer service quite a bit during this time. We shipped the inverters out on the 17nth.

So really the wait was a little over two weeks. My wife informed me that it may have felt like 3 weeks because I was so irritated. While I still think it was much longer then it should have been, considering they are often dealing with people that are using this equipment as their sole power source. I do need to apologize for my misstatement from my original post in the length of time this all took.

Also, I know I’m lacking some email content somewhere. And try as I might I cannot find them all right now. But this is the best I could do.

 

[Quattrohead]

As I have been reading through all these EG4 6500 threads it has occurred to me that possibly they became flaky when they switched to the high voltage PV input.
I also think their QC is just about non-existent and there seem to be a high percentage of somewhat faulty units trickling through.

 

[Gavin Stone]

As I have been reading through all these EG4 6500 threads it has occurred to me that possibly they became flaky when they switched to the high voltage PV input.
I also think their QC is just about non-existent and there seem to be a high percentage of somewhat faulty units trickling through.

I think it does have something to do with the voltage increase. Otherwise they aren’t voltronic and just clones. Either way I just don’t see the same volume of complaints with Mpp’s version. Granted, that may be because there was a larger amount of Eg4’s sold. But I don’t think that’s the reason. Mpp has increased their voltage to 370 voc on the newer versions. So I’m anxious to see some feedback as people start to use them.

 

[Browse]

Well, if nothing else...Will has a new solar topic he can cover and that is the use of various types of inverters and LED lights on dimmers. Would be interesting if he can replicate the issue with any of his different models of equipment. Just need to pick up a few dimmers and led lights from Home Depot and try it out in a test setup.

 

[Gavin Stone]

Well, if nothing else...Will has a new solar topic he can cover and that is the use of various types of inverters and LED lights on dimmers. Would be interesting if he can replicate the issue with any of his different models of equipment. Just need to pick up a few dimmers and led lights from Home Depot and try it out in a test setup.

This is exactly what I wanted to do! Have a board with orient power, sun gold, eg4, and mpp all attached to a dimmer switch each. Sounds like some of the older versions of the eg4 may have not had the problem though. So potentially Will’s 2 eg4’s might not have the problem.

 

[Gavin Stone]

Do your dimmers work with generator power out of curiosity?

Yes my dimmers work with generator power. I have a 7.5kw inverter generator. No issues with lights on that one.