Sol-Ark 15K Setting Help Please

[ClydesRanch]

Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum and could use your advise. We have two Sol-Ark 15K inverters and 10 EG4 100Ah 5120Wh 51.2V batteries.

First, we shut off the grid power complete and PV was supplying all the power for the load until just a minute ago. Batteries were at 100%. In looking at the app right now PV is 4315W, batteries are at 99.5% and feeding load as well at 1355W. Total load is 5377W. O coming from grid as it is completely off. There is another icon called micro inverter that I have never seen. It is at 0W. My question is the power keeps going off and then back on. Does anyone know why this is happening?

Second, can you help me review my current setting (if the grid were on). I've attached photos of where we are at the moment. The plan is to have the PV feed the load enhanced by batteries when needed. The batteries should be charged with the PV first. Our hope is that will be all that is needed but grid charge as last resort. We also have a Generac Generator that should kick in when needed if grid power is not available. I'll love your thoughts. We've had the settings tinkered with and have seen no decline in the electric bill since we've had the system. My theory is the grid has been feeding the batteries and thus eating away at any PV savings. Not sure.

As an example before I turned off the grid PV was 7097W with Grid contributing 2404W for a load of 8882W. The batteries were at 100% and it looked like a trickle charge was heading to them. Once I turned of the grid power completely to the house the PV was 4000W, 0W from the grid of course, load was 3694. No change to batteries. Can't figure out the decline in load. House has been running off grid all day today.

 

[ClydesRanch]

Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum and could use your advise. We have two Sol-Ark 15K inverters and 10 EG4 100Ah 5120Wh 51.2V batteries.

First, we shut off the grid power complete and PV was supplying all the power for the load until just a minute ago. Batteries were at 100%. In looking at the app right now PV is 4315W, batteries are at 99.5% and feeding load as well at 1355W. Total load is 5377W. O coming from grid as it is completely off. There is another icon called micro inverter that I have never seen. It is at 0W. My question is the power keeps going off and then back on. Does anyone know why this is happening?

Second, can you help me review my current setting (if the grid were on). I've attached photos of where we are at the moment. The plan is to have the PV feed the load enhanced by batteries when needed. The batteries should be charged with the PV first. Our hope is that will be all that is needed but grid charge as last resort. We also have a Generac Generator that should kick in when needed if grid power is not available. I'll love your thoughts. We've had the settings tinkered with and have seen no decline in the electric bill since we've had the system. My theory is the grid has been feeding the batteries and thus eating away at any PV savings. Not sure.

As an example before I turned off the grid PV was 7097W with Grid contributing 2404W for a load of 8882W. The batteries were at 100% and it looked like a trickle charge was heading to them. Once I turned of the grid power completely to the house the PV was 4000W, 0W from the grid of course, load was 3694. No change to batteries. Can't figure out the decline in load. House has been running off grid all day today.

Update: we were running completely off grid. The batteries began handling load. By 9:30 pm the batteries were depleted to about 30% and the power went out. We turned the grid back on but the power won’t come back on. Panel says OFF and AC light is lit. How can we fix this? Why would the grid not reconnect when we flipped the switch back on?

 

[LydMekk]

Reclick the side button which turn the inverter on again.
Sounds to me like your BMS comms setup are spotty.
Suggest using just voltage and no BMS cable to manage your batteries.

Hm, probably got an F56 error?

 

[myles]

I disagree with everyone connecting bms to inverters for granular data. Let the batter bms do its job and set the bms just outside the inverter specs so the inverter is parameter failsafe 1. Bms failsafe 2 fallback type of idea.

 

[Tsolar]

Settings look ok from what I can see. I would turn off the time of use crap until you get the rest of it figured out. Kinda a long shot, but I have seen this behavior when someone forgets to turn the inverter on, blue ring side button, for some reason the inverter will act and look like its on, and then randomly shut down and turn back on, but this was with grid power hooked up. Also looks like you have battery comms all wired up but dont have the BMS Lithium option checked on the battery page, and are using Voltage Control? I prefer to use voltage control, but having all the comms wired up could maybe be causing problems.

Do you not have monitoring setup on this system? That could help you troubleshoot a lot and figure out where power is coming from and going to.

Not trying to be a dick, but your battery wiring sucks, sorry, hard truth. This could end up causing a huge problem, melted terminals, batteries, or worse, a fire. Id be curious to see how its hooked up to the inverters. But it looks like one set of maybe 4/0 cables coming from the bank, when you have the potential of 4 battery input breakers between the two solarks. If this is the case, then your main cables are good for about 200A, and you have the solark set to charge at 275a, then with the tiny 6awg cables between batteries, you will be melting those things in a hurry if you charge much over 100a for very long. If you charge the bank with 275a for 10 minutes, those 6awg cables will get boiling hot, along with the terminals on the batteries. Im not sure on the solarks, with 2 of them, if it would output 275a total, or 275a each, if each, then you are in for some real trouble!!! Those 6awg jumbers are designed to hook up to a bus bar, not jump a pack of 10 batteries together, they are supposed to handle the current of ONE battery, not NINE other batteries down the line. Im guessing you probably have the inverters daisy chained together too. I would run a seperate feed from each inverter to the bank. The rest of your install looks nice, atleast from the outside!

More description of your system will always help.

Also, turn your TEMPCO setting to 0, for lithium batteries.

 

[ClydesRanch]

Tsolar thank you for the advice on the battery wiring. I'm going to have that looked at this week. As to the original problem, I called SolArk the next day and actually got someone really good on the phone. The system tripped a toggle in the inverter. When we flipped it back up the system came back up with power. I appreciate everyone's advice. It's good to know there are folks out there who have my back.

 

[Tsolar]

Good to hear. What tripped in the inverter, one of the breakers?

 

[ClydesRanch]

Good to hear. What tripped in the inverter, one of the breakers?

I think the batteries got to the bottom of their charge and tripped it. I'm not sure really. Haven't had the problem again but haven't been totally off grid since.

 

[ClydesRanch]

Settings look ok from what I can see. I would turn off the time of use crap until you get the rest of it figured out. Kinda a long shot, but I have seen this behavior when someone forgets to turn the inverter on, blue ring side button, for some reason the inverter will act and look like its on, and then randomly shut down and turn back on, but this was with grid power hooked up. Also looks like you have battery comms all wired up but dont have the BMS Lithium option checked on the battery page, and are using Voltage Control? I prefer to use voltage control, but having all the comms wired up could maybe be causing problems.

Do you not have monitoring setup on this system? That could help you troubleshoot a lot and figure out where power is coming from and going to.

Not trying to be a dick, but your battery wiring sucks, sorry, hard truth. This could end up causing a huge problem, melted terminals, batteries, or worse, a fire. Id be curious to see how its hooked up to the inverters. But it looks like one set of maybe 4/0 cables coming from the bank, when you have the potential of 4 battery input breakers between the two solarks. If this is the case, then your main cables are good for about 200A, and you have the solark set to charge at 275a, then with the tiny 6awg cables between batteries, you will be melting those things in a hurry if you charge much over 100a for very long. If you charge the bank with 275a for 10 minutes, those 6awg cables will get boiling hot, along with the terminals on the batteries. Im not sure on the solarks, with 2 of them, if it would output 275a total, or 275a each, if each, then you are in for some real trouble!!! Those 6awg jumbers are designed to hook up to a bus bar, not jump a pack of 10 batteries together, they are supposed to handle the current of ONE battery, not NINE other batteries down the line. Im guessing you probably have the inverters daisy chained together too. I would run a seperate feed from each inverter to the bank. The rest of your install looks nice, atleast from the outside!

More description of your system will always help.

Also, turn your TEMPCO setting to 0, for lithium batteries.

Tsolar I’m attaching photos of the insides of the inverters. Talked to EG4 today and they recommended a 600A or 1000a Busbar and to turn down the charging amps to 100A until the busbar gets installed. The 6/0 cables were very hot when charging just like you said. The large cables are 2/0.

 

[ClydesRanch]

Any advice on a good busbar?

 

[NC_hydro]

Any advice on a good busbar?

Victron Lynx Class T power in

 

[niktak11]

Any advice on a good busbar?

Midnite solar 500A battery combiner box. Also you need to set the max charge/discharge to 160A when only using one of the battery inputs. You need to use both for the full 275A.

 

[ClydesRanch]

Midnite solar 500A battery combiner box. Also you need to set the max charge/discharge to 160A when only using one of the battery inputs. You need to use both for the full 275A.

Niktak11 are you commenting on my specific battery set up in photo? So are you saying since I have one 2/0 red coming into my battery stack that the inverter solark 15k should be set to 160A charging and discharging? And if I had two reds coming in I could do 275A. Sorry if this seems like a stupid question. I’m just super new to this and I’m tying to figure out if this is installed correctly.

 

[niktak11]

Niktak11 are you commenting on my specific battery set up in photo? So are you saying since I have one 2/0 red coming into my battery stack that the inverter solark 15k should be set to 160A charging and discharging? And if I had two reds coming in I could do 275A. Sorry if this seems like a stupid question. I’m just super new to this and I’m tying to figure out if this is installed correctly.

Yes. As you have it wired now the battery current is only going through a single 200A breaker. You can only use 80% of the breaker rating for continuous loads so they recommend setting the max charge and discharge rate to 160A with this setup.

 

[SunDave]

Hi ClydesRanch,
Look these up. They can help you use one cable, and get full power by using both inputs. Make sure your cables can handle it either way.

Indeed, if you read the manual, you will see that both battery terminals should be used ideally. I used these on my 15k, with 4/0 cable from battery cables usa.

HG BusBar for Sol-Ark SA-15K

These busbars are specifically designed to work with the Sol-Ark 15K inverter.

www.solar-electric.com

 

[ClydesRanch]

Hi ClydesRanch,
Look these up. They can help you use one cable, and get full power by using both inputs. Make sure your cables can handle it either way.

Indeed, if you read the manual, you will see that both battery terminals should be used ideally. I used these on my 15k, with 4/0 cable from battery cables usa.

HG BusBar for Sol-Ark SA-15K

These busbars are specifically designed to work with the Sol-Ark 15K inverter.

www.solar-electric.com

 

[ClydesRanch]

Sundave can you post a photo of these on your system?

 

[SunDave]

Sure. In 2-3 hours I'll be back on-site. I'll get that posted here.

 

[SunDave]

There is a picture of the battery busbar. It's a homegrid brand, linked above to NAZ solar, but any good solar vendor that has it in stock should charge around the same.

 

[ClydesRanch]

There is a picture of the battery busbar. It's a homegrid brand, linked above to NAZ solar, but any good solar vendor that has it in stock should charge around the same.

Perfect thank you! And I’m assuming with this I won’t need any other bus bar. Right?

 

[niktak11]

Perfect thank you! And I’m assuming with this I won’t need any other bus bar. Right?

You will need a separate busbar for combining multiple batteries

 

[SunDave]

If you have a bunch of batteries, you may need a battery busbar because they can't necessarily pass all that power through the battery in a parallel fashion. Hard to say exactly how you should do it since everyone's setup is slightly different, but check on the spec sheets for your equipment, and manuals, then make the call.

My Pytes battery cabinet came with some busbars, under those plastic covers. The actual battery cables loop and enter the bottom on this photo. The wires one step smaller are battery cables coming to the busbar (6 batteries paralleled in sets of two), and the very tiny wires, that look like a hair, are the power for my solar-assistant device.

 

[ClydesRanch]

You will need a separate busbar for combining multiple batteries

Thank you!

 

[ClydesRanch]

If you have a bunch of batteries, you may need a battery busbar because they can't necessarily pass all that power through the battery in a parallel fashion. Hard to say exactly how you should do it since everyone's setup is slightly different, but check on the spec sheets for your equipment, and manuals, then make the call.

My Pytes battery cabinet came with some busbars, under those plastic covers. The actual battery cables loop and enter the bottom on this photo. The wires one step smaller are battery cables coming to the busbar (6 batteries paralleled in sets of two), and the very tiny wires, that look like a hair, are the power for my solar-assistant device.

That helps a lot! Thank you. The EG4 support guy suggested a busbar so good to know I still need one for the battery’s. Getting closer. I appreciate all your help.

 

[ClydesRanch]

Thank you!

I appreciate all your help! Kept me from having a possible disaster on my hands!