Random power outage EG4 6500 split phase

[Desertdwllr]

I have 2 EG4 6500's running in split phase and 2 EG4 lifpower4 48volt 100ah batteries. I recently hooked up 6 540watt Znshine bi-facial solar panels, 3 in series to 2P1 PV1 and 3 in series to 2P2 PV1. I had the batteries hooked up to 2P1 via the included cables and 2P1 set to EG4 and 2P2 set to User. I didn't have error 61 issues however the inverters randomly drop power for 3 - 4 seconds then comes back on. I have noticed the alarm light will flash on the inverter for a second then turn off without any indication of a fault code. I updated the firmware to the EG4 6500's last night but 2P2 dropped power 2 times after the update. I am able to see the drops using solar assistant raspberry pi under the graphs for output voltage. I was hoping it was firmware issue and it still might be... I have not updated the firmware in the battery's. Power dropping seems to happen when the battery's are fully charged in Utility mode. Based on some other threads I have read, I set both my inverters to User mode, unplugged the communication between the inverter and battery's, set bulk charge to 57V and float to 56.5V. I suspect there might be an issue with the EG4 battery setting causing some kind of hiccup. Just a wild guess at the moment. Ignore the large dips in the second screen shot, I was hooking up different loads to the inverters and had things turned off. I'm wondering if anyone has experienced similar issues and what steps they have done to remedy it. I've also made a setting cheat sheet to make checking the settings a little easier and thought I would post a picture. I have it in excel and am happy to share with anyone or take tips on anything I should change.

 

[Desertdwllr]

In case anyone has a similar issue I'll follow up with where things are at. Setting up the batteries as user on both inverters and not using a com cable has worked for the past 24 hours. No random power outages! I was thinking that maybe the inverter was overvoltaging, or at least thinking it was and initiating a high voltage DC cutoff event? All speculation on my part. I'll update if my issue returns

 

[Adam De Lay]

I'm actually experiencing something similar today. 2 inverters in split phase, current priority is SUB and only charging from solar. I'm not using EG4 batteries. At random times throughout the day, the relays click in the inverters dropping out of bypass mode and switching to battery mode causing all the lights in the house to flicker, then a second or two later, the inverters switch back to bypass mode. It's probably happened over a dozen times this morning.

At first I thought it was brownouts, but the inverters aren't showing any loss of power from the AC input. I put a camera on the display of my phase 1 inverter to see if I can catch what's displayed when the problem occurs. Voltage remains the same, you just hear a click and see bypass mode stop and batteries take over.

 

[Desertdwllr]

Interesting, so I have 2 systems built the same. I have not had an outage since I updated firmware and changed the battery setting to use on system 1. The second system I updated the battery setting to use and it's still dropping ac output. Have you updated your firmware in your inverters? I love the camera idea, I'll do the same on my second system.

 

[Adam De Lay]

No I never updated the firmware because when I asked, I was told the only thing it fixed was the error 61 issue. I don't have that error since I'm not using the EG4 batteries. Both my inverters are set to USR for batteries.

 

[Desertdwllr]

Can you tell if it's just 1 inverter or both? What kind of loads do you have? I wasn't going to update the firmware on my second system but it's still dropping power so I figured I would go ahead and flash to the new one since my system one seems to be working now. I have 4 more inverters I have not installed yet, if my problem persists I'm going to try swapping inverters... My second system has a well pump and has a lot more load than my system 1. I have some power monitoring meters I'll be hooking up to my system 2 as well. I did reach out to SS and they asked for a ton of pictures of my entire setup I have not spent the time to gather yet.

 

[Adam De Lay]

Unfortunately you can't tell. Since they're in split phase, when something happens to one and has to react, I guess both are triggered to react the same way (so since one switches to battery, the other one has to).

My loads very throughout the morning but most of the time, it might only be a few hundred watts per inverter.

I already have another ticket open with SS and got them all the images they asked for. Been on hold now for over 30 min try to figure out how to even diagnose this new problem.

 

[Adam De Lay]

This is what I see on both inverters when it happens to me

 

[Desertdwllr]

Awesome you are able to capture it, my second system is 800 miles away from me... I'll start troubleshooting on Friday. Any 240 volt load?

 

[Adam De Lay]

I had to have the camera record for over 40 min in order to catch the 5 second issue...

No 240 loads hooked up at the moment, only 120. On the list of things to do, but would like to figure out some of the issues I'm having first.

 

[Desertdwllr]

I flashed the firmware in both inverters, removed one n/g bond and lifted the output grounds and this seems to have fixed my issues. No flickering lights, no F80 faults and no intermittent inverter shutdowns. When in grid mode and using comms I did get a power outage, but now that I'm using SBU I don't have the issue. This post helped me a lot. Hope this helps, I've been fault free for a week now

https://diysolarforum.com/resources/grounding-and-bonding-for-mpp-lv6548-and-eg4-6500ex-48.275/

 

[Adam De Lay]

Glad to hear you've been able to resolve the issue.

I actually did a lot more investigation on my end and narrowed the problem down to PV2 on my Phase 1 inverter. Everything was working fine in the days/weeks prior to me adding the PV2 connection. During the investigation I went through and re-crimped all my connections regarding PV2 wondering if there was some loose connections somewhere. After still having the issue, I actually moved PV2 from Inverter 1 to Inverter 2 in order to see if it was something regarding the array that was connected. Still had the same issue, so I turned off PV2 on Inverter 1 and didn't have the problem anymore. When I turned PV2 back on, within less than 5 min, started having the issue again. It seems to be related to PV2 and when a lot of solar is coming in. Unfortunately we're getting into winter in MI so I don't get a lot of sun anymore.

I had seen that article before during my own research regarding the ground/neutral bonds and I ended up removing both bonds in my inverters after a discussion with SS (because of how my environment is set up).

I never did do anything with the firmware because when I asked about it, the firmware was only supposed to be a fix for communication issues with the EG4 batteries and I don't have those.

It's been a few days for me and I haven't experienced the issue. Not sure if I can chalk that up to removing the bonds (cause that was done after my deep dive testing) or if it's just due to the lack of sun in my area. I have made SS aware of the issue though.

 

[vanblokland]

Experiencing the same issues

I flashed the firmware in both inverters, removed one n/g bond and lifted the output grounds and this seems to have fixed my issues. No flickering lights, no F80 faults and no intermittent inverter shutdowns. When in grid mode and using comms I did get a power outage, but now that I'm using SBU I don't have the issue. This post helped me a lot. Hope this helps, I've been fault free for a week now

https://diysolarforum.com/resources/grounding-and-bonding-for-mpp-lv6548-and-eg4-6500ex-48.275/

Experiencing the same issues. Have 2 6500 inverters and EG4 batteries and 12.800 watts of solar. Reading the above link was very helpful. To remove the bonding on the inverter, is the screw to remove as shown in attached?

 

[Desertdwllr]

Experiencing the same issues

Experiencing the same issues. Have 2 6500 inverters and EG4 batteries and 12.800 watts of solar. Reading the above link was very helpful. To remove the bonding on the inverter, is the screw to remove as shown in attached?

No, you have to take off case to get to it. There is a picture of the screw in the document. It looks like a motherboard standoffs screw

 

[Sundown]

I flashed the firmware in both inverters, removed one n/g bond and lifted the output grounds and this seems to have fixed my issues. No flickering lights, no F80 faults and no intermittent inverter shutdowns. When in grid mode and using comms I did get a power outage, but now that I'm using SBU I don't have the issue. This post helped me a lot. Hope this helps, I've been fault free for a week now

https://diysolarforum.com/resources/grounding-and-bonding-for-mpp-lv6548-and-eg4-6500ex-48.275/

What do you mean by "lifted" the output grounds?

I have same issue on 2P2. Only did the flash thus far. I have both internal inverter bonds active. Not using "user".

I'm not using utility at the moment, I have that breaker off.

My PI shows same data

 

[Desertdwllr]

What do you mean by "lifted" the output grounds?

I have same issue on 2P2. Only did the flash thus far.

I removed the ground completely from the output of the inverters

 

[Sundown]

I removed the ground completely from the output of the inverters

There are several variations out there. Maybe I should also try running a ground from main panel to critical load panel (in my case it would be from a subpanel) as well as removing the internal bond on 2P2 to see if those two items solve the flickering and random shutdown issues. Right now, I have the variation that has a ground wire ran from only one inverter.

Have you anymore shutdowns since removing 1 internal bond (was it 2P2?) and grounding CLB back to main panel?

Have you tried reverting back to EG4 mode (not user) to see if it occurs?

My most recent

 

[Skypower]

This is just a guess. You may be picking up grid anomaly/surge. Something like a big high start load in the neighborhood. The quality of the power was perhaps substandard and the inverter was hesitant/indecisive before switching away and back. My MPP LV6548 did this once and I installed two surge arrestors, one on grid side and the other one on the load side of the inverter. It’s been ten months and it’s been rock solid. Mine goes to utility early mornings off peak to supplement charge if needed up to 4 hrs, then back to SBU. Both of my inverters have the bonding screws removed before the event.

 

[Desertdwllr]

There are several variations out there. Maybe I should also try running a ground from main panel to critical load panel (in my case it would be from a subpanel) as well as removing the internal bond on 2P2 to see if those two items solve the flickering and random shutdown issues. Right now, I have the variation that has a ground wire ran from only one inverter.

Have you anymore shutdowns since removing 1 internal bond (was it 2P2?) and grounding CLB back to main panel?

Have you tried reverting back to EG4 mode (not user) to see if it occurs?

My most recent

View attachment 121934

I removed the n/g bond from 2P2, I did have 1 power outage event when I was using eg4 but I was set to grid mode and the battery was at 100% for a few days. I have been on SBU ever since without issue

 

[vanblokland]

Removed wrong screw. Thanks to Desertdwllr for showing me the proper one

 

[Desertdwllr]

Did you remove the N/G bond screw from 2p2?

 

[vanblokland]

Did you remove the N/G bond screw from 2p2?

I removed the strap as shown in my picture. Was that not right?

 

[Desertdwllr]

I removed the strap as shown in my picture. Was that not right?

No, there is a small screw that bonds the case to the neutral bus of the inverter

 

[vanblokland]

Well crap. Will try again. Really appreciate your help.

 

[vanblokland]

Removed the proper screw this time. Assume you have a schematic of the Inverter? I would never have figured out that was the bonding screw. Back on solar. Have already had two outages and all power being produced by solar. Batteries at 99%.
Sig Solar had me make these setting I am on SBU

1. Setting 12 SOC to go back to utility: 30%
2. Setting 13 SOC to go back to battery: 100%
3. Setting 29 SOC Low DC cut-off : 25%