Signature Solar EG4 6.5K Off-Grid Inverter | 6500EX-48

[ncsolarelectric]

The only problem is it's not UL from AliExpress. You can get these from TTI, and they are UL. I used them for years, they work well. You will need a nice flat heatsink made of aluminum and thermal grease to mount them to it. It is a good solution, but not cheap. Here is the link.

Crydom 2425

 

[Ietech]

Do you think two will run a deep well pump without any trouble?.

I am running a 140 ft deep well pump with mine. It pulls around 3200 watts. The two 6500’s handle it fine along with my hvac system

 

[EJansen]

The only problem is it's not UL from AliExpress. You can get these from TTI, and they are UL. I used them for years, they work well. You will need a nice flat heatsink made of aluminum and thermal grease to mount them to it. It is a good solution, but not cheap. Here is the link.

Crydom 2425

HAHA, but it says this in the description




Yeah, I was chatting with some folks at Crydom / Sensata yesterday asking for options and they were supposed to get back to me, but they haven't yet. I saw one of the SSC options (SSC1000-25-24) that would have worked but didn't find anything from the PM22 series (which was my preference) - but i'll take another look.

Would definitely rather get something that's more readily available, UL listed, and proven in the field.

 

[ChrisG]

I am running a 140 ft deep well pump with mine. It pulls around 3200 watts. The two 6500’s handle it fine along with my hvac system

@letech,
What is your surge or is the 3200 it? My surge is about 9000w to start my 240v 3/4hp deep well pump then settles into 1500w.

 

[ncsolarelectric]

HAHA, but it says this in the description

View attachment 106193


Yeah, I was chatting with some folks at Crydom / Sensata yesterday asking for options and they were supposed to get back to me, but they haven't yet. I saw one of the SSC options (SSC1000-25-24) that would have worked but didn't find anything from the PM22 series (which was my preference) - but i'll take another look.

Would definitely rather get something that's more readily available, UL listed, and proven in the field.

Doesn't count if it's not on the label. "inner components comply" is not UL tested as a package.

 

[Ietech]

@letech,
What is your surge or is the 3200 it? My surge is about 9000w to start my 240v 3/4hp deep well pump then settles into 1500w.

I have a 1hp submergable pump. It spikes at 3200 then settles down to 2700

 

[ChrisG]

I have a 1hp submergable pump. It spikes at 3200 then settles down to 2700

Man, my surge is killing me for my inverter selection at my cabin. I'm assuming a split phase eg4 6500 would have enough power to start it, but probably at the risk of lowering voltage in the rest of the system for a brief period.

 

[bones1]

Man, my surge is killing me for my inverter selection at my cabin. I'm assuming a split phase eg4 6500 would have enough power to start it, but probably at the risk of lowering voltage in the rest of the system for a brief period.

9000 is steep,what are you checking it with as I want to check my 1hp that is 550 ft down.

 

[Ietech]

Man, my surge is killing me for my inverter selection at my cabin. I'm assuming a split phase eg4 6500 would have enough power to start it, but probably at the risk of lowering voltage in the rest of the system for a brief period

 

[Ietech]

What is your system wattage capability? You would probably need at least 13kw of inverter power to accomplish that

 

[bones1]

Mine?. I have two EG4-6500 in split phase but not finished wiring them in.

 

[EJansen]

Also, I'm sure a number of other folks are setting their new 6500 inverters and battery banks up - curious if anyone else see's what I'm seeing?

Regarding inverter back feed, apparently, I'm not the only one - I'm assuming all of the Voltronic inverters are doing it. This guy has 6 of them, all of which back feed.

In watching some of the videos after that, it looks like he contacted the vendor, and they sent him some sort of capacitor to stop the back-feeding. That doesn't make any sense to me though, but I'm also not an electrical engineer. I figured it would be a diode of some sort and not a capacitor - something like this guy:



@RichardFromEG4 - What solution have you guys been providing customers to solve this?

 

[Zwy]

Regarding inverter back feed, apparently, I'm not the only one - I'm assuming all of the Voltronic inverters are doing it. This guy has 6 of them, all of which back feed.

Going thru many of his videos, he had multiple main board failures, replaced at least 3.

I looked around his videos for any indication of a wiring diagram. Just looking at a few videos, the setup and installation, I'm not certain this was a quality installation and the problems are possibly related to the installation. I see wires in some videos pulled banjo string tight. I would be skeptical of anything in those videos.

 

[EJansen]

Going thru many of his videos, he had multiple main board failures, replaced at least 3.

I looked around his videos for any indication of a wiring diagram. Just looking at a few videos, the setup and installation, I'm not certain this was a quality installation and the problems are possibly related to the installation. I see wires in some videos pulled banjo string tight. I would be skeptical of anything in those videos.

Yeah, it isn't the prettiest setup, but he showed with a meter that voltage was back feeding on all of the (functioning) inverters. Still don't understand what the capacitor was supposed to do / why they sent that to him to install.

I'm sure @RichardFromEG4 and the guys at Signature Solar have a ton of them sitting around in their lab and they could test this pretty easily.

 

[Zwy]

Yeah, it wasn't the prettiest setup, but he showed with a meter that voltage was back feeding on all of the (functioning) inverters. Still don't understand what the capacitor was supposed to do / why they sent that to him to install.

Without knowing how it is wired, one can't determine anything. He could have a parallel path created and thus why the voltage is seen backfeeding the PV open circuit. One can't make any determination without knowing the details of the install. Just ran across this post in another thread. From what I gather from the response by Northern AZ Wind and Solar, improper wiring can damage the high voltage bus.

 

[EJansen]

Without knowing how it is wired, one can't determine anything. He could have a parallel path created and thus why the voltage is seen backfeeding the PV open circuit. One can't make any determination without knowing the details of the install. Just ran across this post in another thread. From what I gather from the response by Northern AZ Wind and Solar, improper wiring can damage the high voltage bus.

Fair enough - I'll see if I can get him to reply and post a wiring diagram.

Though even better would be a lab-controlled setup via the engineers @ EG4.

 

[mec]

I am having chronic error 61 beeps. Today the EG6500 stopped working. I am on hold with SigSolar for 30 minutes now.
This worked for over a month with just annoying beeps but now the inverter just shuts off after 10 minutes.
I have the cable and connectors that were supposed to fix error 61 ...but they don't seem to.
I have the full 30kwh battery rack which seems to work but the inverters do not seem to have all the kinks worked out yet.

 

[EJansen]

I am having chronic error 61 beeps. Today the EG6500 stopped working. I am on hold with SigSolar for 30 minutes now.
This worked for over a month with just annoying beeps but now the inverter just shuts off after 10 minutes.
I have the cable and connectors that were supposed to fix error 61 ...but they don't seem to.
I have the full 30kwh battery rack which seems to work but the inverters do not seem to have all the kinks worked out yet.

The first thing that I would do is remove the cables and change the setting from EG4 to User - see if you can make it so the inverter stops shutting down.

 

[DanielS]

So I ran for over a week and a half with no problems. The app was awesome able to Monitor and adjust as I went. Surprisingly powered everything needed without an issue. The system is now sized perfectly to where I have not needed to hook up grid assist. So happy and then this.
Fast forward to last Wednesday. 2 eg4 6.5 + 6 eg4 . All of the batteries Show fault mode. I shut the system down. The battery Bank starts back up no problem without the breaker between inverter and Battery Bank on. So I know that the battery Bank to the bus bar wiring it's perfect. I then shut off the batteries I turn the breakers on going to the inverters then turn on battery Bank instantly puts my batteries in Fault mode. I shut batteries off turn on PV power only I am getting fault f09.
Now I am unable get 2p1 to turn on at all and 2p2 turns on but does not work. I spoke to Signature solar and sent photos over on Thursday. I called them Friday I was told they were going to call me. Unfortunately I guess they got busy because I did not get a return call.
Everything has been working so good I do not know what is going on. The only thing I could think of is the USE setting recommendations provided in the Quick Start had something to do with it. But I'm just shooting in the dark.

@Shannonsman229 I'm having the same issue on my LV6548's, did you ever figure out what caused this issue and what you had to do to fix it. You can see my post on this if you search F09. Thanks!

 

[BenFromSignatureSolar]

@Shannonsman229 I'm having the same issue on my LV6548's, did you ever figure out what caused this issue and what you had to do to fix it. You can see my post on this if you search F09. Thanks!

F09 is normally going to be a blown rectifier board. The board will need to be replaced. In shannonsman229's unit we had to replace the unit because we didn't have any boards available at the time.

 

[DanielS]

F09 is normally going to be a blown rectifier board. The board will need to be replaced. In shannonsman229's unit we had to replace the unit because we didn't have any boards available at the time.

What is the running theory on the source of the issue with the rectifier board? Individual component failure or external issue that caused the component failure? @BenFromSignatureSolar would you say that running 2xEG4 6500's with only 4xLifePower4s is sufficient?

 

[BenFromSignatureSolar]

As far as capacity goes that is absolutely sufficient. Can you tell me how long the unit was running before you got the 09 error?

Unfortunately it is a bit tricky. Issues can range from too much PV voltage, wiring issues (typically on the ac side), tightening wires with an uninsulated screwdriver and causing a short, and the list goes on. It can happen quickly and it doesnt take much to accidentally cause this. I've seen it be a faulty board maybe once or twice, but if that's the case you'll get the error right out of the box and the inverter will never run. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news here DanielS. It would be a good idea to give your wiring a complete once over to make sure there is nothing there. I always hate to see it happen because it doesn't take much.

 

[DanielS]

As far as capacity goes that is absolutely sufficient. Can you tell me how long the unit was running before you got the 09 error?

Unfortunately it is a bit tricky. Issues can range from too much PV voltage, wiring issues (typically on the ac side), tightening wires with an uninsulated screwdriver and causing a short, and the list goes on. It can happen quickly and it doesnt take much to accidentally cause this. I've seen it be a faulty board maybe once or twice, but if that's the case you'll get the error right out of the box and the inverter will never run. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news here DanielS. It would be a good idea to give your wiring a complete once over to make sure there is nothing there. I always hate to see it happen because it doesn't take much.

System has been up and running since end of June, so a month and a half or so. I wasn't doing anything around the system at all. I've inspected all wiring and haven't noticed any deficient connections. No breakers tripped. All four LiFePower4's went into alarm, but cleared when isolated. I guess I need to investigate more. I don't want to put these back into service if I can't trust them.

 

[BenFromSignatureSolar]

System has been up and running since end of June, so a month and a half or so. I wasn't doing anything around the system at all. I've inspected all wiring and haven't noticed any deficient connections. No breakers tripped. All four LiFePower4's went into alarm, but cleared when isolated. I guess I need to investigate more. I don't want to put these back into service if I can't trust them.

Very unlikely that the batteries caused the 09 error but can't rule it out completely, I've just never seen an 09 be a battery issue. But hey, we see new things pop up from time to time. We would need to know the voltages and amperages coming into the unit at all inputs to start trouble shooting. Normally 09 is A/C related.

Do you have breakers between the batteries and inverter? If you do then you can all but rule out the batteries in this case. The batteries went into alarm because they are seeing the short in the inverter. That's why they cleared when you isolated them. At this point I would be more worried about the inverter damaging the batteries.

Are you using the EG4 6.5kW inverter? If so, you need to reach out to us so we can get rolling on replacing that unit for you. If this is the first time anything like this has happened we'll take care of this at no cost to you. We will just need to try and get to the bottom of the issue.

 

[DanielS]

Very unlikely that the batteries caused the 09 error but can't rule it out completely, I've just never seen an 09 be a battery issue. But hey, we see new things pop up from time to time. We would need to know the voltages and amperages coming into the unit at all inputs to start trouble shooting. Normally 09 is A/C related.

Do you have breakers between the batteries and inverter? If you do then you can all but rule out the batteries in this case. The batteries went into alarm because they are seeing the short in the inverter. That's why they cleared when you isolated them. At this point I would be more worried about the inverter damaging the batteries.

Are you using the EG4 6.5kW inverter? If so, you need to reach out to us so we can get rolling on replacing that unit for you. If this is the first time anything like this has happened we'll take care of this at no cost to you. We will just need to try and get to the bottom of the issue.

No I've got the LV6548's. Ordered them 1 month before you guys started selling the 6500s. I just know those devices are very similar in construction and I've been reaching out to folks with this error to help figure out the root cause might be.

Yeah each inverter has a separate 300A Class T fuse and then a single 200A bussman breaker between the distribution bus and the battery lead.

Each inverter has a 60A AC breaker on the Input and Output. All AC wiring is #4. Input Ground and Neutral wires are all run back to grid supply panel. Output Neutral is connected to downstream panel, however, no Output grounds are connected since Input grounds are tied to Grid supply panel and that panel is grounded to the downstream panel. This was to avoid ground loops.