[SOLVED] 18kpv loud bang on day 3 of operation

[455dan]

Even the skeptical amongst us are starting to realize these things are built like serious brick out houses. Very, very impressive hardware and still improving firmware.
I don't need convincing but the skeptical should feel warm and fuzzy about these units long-term.

Fully wired the 18 K into the Grid yesterday, in the 3rd hour hot tub pump /heat, dryer, Tesla charging at 12KW the display showed 18800 watts pass through with some assist.

I may have to do one of the updates , can't seem to enter a negative number on the No sell back to keep the grid supplying a few hundred watts, maybe I am doing the entry wrong. Or is / can this done through biasing the CT's to show a current to the meter so that the 0 point is offset?

 

[Deere103]

Fully wired the 18 K into the Grid yesterday, in the 3rd hour hot tub pump /heat, dryer, Tesla charging at 12KW the display showed 18800 watts pass through with some assist.

I may have to do one of the updates , can't seem to enter a negative number on the No sell back to keep the grid supplying a few hundred watts, maybe I am doing the entry wrong.

I updated to latest firmware as I'm preparing my new installation after a warranty claim, won't accept a negative number for me either, but I'd be curious what others have to say about this? I'm considering operating mine as a "micro-grid" to isolate the grid and inverter, but I'm not sure about the downsides to this other than more reliance on PV and battery as well as no "grid referencing or matching" which I've heard is more difficult on the inverter having to constantly control voltage and frequency but interested in what the brain trust here has to say?

 

[Deere103]

I updated to latest firmware as I'm preparing my new installation after a warranty claim, won't accept a negative number for me either, but I'd be curious what others have to say about this? I'm considering operating mine as a "micro-grid" to isolate the grid and inverter, but I'm not sure about the downsides to this other than more reliance on PV and battery as well as no "grid referencing or matching" which I've heard is more difficult on the inverter having to constantly control voltage and frequency but interested in what the brain trust here has to say?

however with this setting using Micro grid, my batteries started charging from the grid while at 38% SOC. I have the AC charge set not to begin until 10% SOC, so that's a bit confusing, Gen charge settings are all disabled:

I thought operating as a micro-grid with the grid input as backup would be a good compromise to minimize power output spikes from our oven to grid, but seems like maybe not since charging kicks in automatically. I will post my pdf of settings soon for review, I have no PV input connected yet, and I'm not powering any load yet, want to double check with you guys before I flip the switch since this is a warranty unit.

 

[Deere103]

and finally my settings for the replacement unit, no PV connection yet, and I've since turned off "micro-grid" mode as it immediately started charging my batteries. I don't think the small exports will be an issue as they don't show up on power company meter, but if they do fuss at me for the exports while we are using the oven, I can switch it to off-grid mode. thanks everyone for the help, I'll let everyone know how things go and what EG4 finds is wrong with my first unit.

 

[455dan]

and finally my settings for the replacement unit, no PV connection yet, and I've since turned off "micro-grid" mode as it immediately started charging my batteries. I don't think the small exports will be an issue as they don't show up on power company meter, but if they do fuss at me for the exports while we are using the oven, I can switch it to off-grid mode. thanks everyone for the help, I'll let everyone know how things go and what EG4 finds is wrong with my first unit.

Yep, No way I can micro grid, or anything similar for now, my loads are just to large, sometimes close to the 200 amp service limit. I really chose the 18K mainly for the pass through ability and to run basic loads when the Grid is down which thankfully is not often, but I may be slowly catching the Solar bug, that leads to being grid free if desired. but That will take a lot more $$$ and time.

 

[Deere103]

happy to report the new unit is installed and I've been testing in increments. Now fully online with PV/grid/batteries/chargeverter tested and everything has worked as expected. It's been super cloudy and rainy, but I hope to finish my 2nd string install tomorrow and then I will switch to PV1 to be paralleled in the unit. I appreciate everyone's help here and I will report back what failed on the previous 18kpv once I ship back and hear from EG4/SS.

 

[455dan]

I updated to latest firmware as I'm preparing my new installation after a warranty claim, won't accept a negative number for me either, but I'd be curious what others have to say about this? I'm considering operating mine as a "micro-grid" to isolate the grid and inverter, but I'm not sure about the downsides to this other than more reliance on PV and battery as well as no "grid referencing or matching" which I've heard is more difficult on the inverter having to constantly control voltage and frequency but interested in what the brain trust here has to say?

I have been checking the screen quite a bit and other than the .6 KWH in the first few hours of operation there has been No grid backfeed recorded since setting zero sell back and fast switching. Reading on this site, apparently some small back feed can happen over time with large load changes, no visit from the POCO so far, hope it stays that way.

Wish we would get at least one sunny day since hooking everything up, so far the 14KW array has been between .3-4 KW on these rainy overcast days.

No complaints on any of the 18K or Power Pro batteries output or management so far.

ps. Still on the shipped software , so have not updated anything, Not sure I want to unless something forces or requires me to do it.

 

[SparkyJJO]

If you're lucky you may have a unidirectional meter. If so, you'd never get a visit due to a backfeed blip because the meter can't report that.

 

[455dan]

If you're lucky you may have a unidirectional meter. If so, you'd never get a visit due to a backfeed blip because the meter can't report that.

All I know is it has a digital display and was installed in 2008, so I hope it is the unidirectional meter. We do have much older homes in the family that still have the mechanical wheel that rotates .

 

[Deere103]

All I know is it has a digital display and was installed in 2008, so I hope it is the unidirectional meter. We do have much older homes in the family that still have the mechanical wheel that rotates .

they just installed the 4g smart meter on my house in november, ironically about the time I was preparing to install solar..haha they knew! but my meter (duke energy) has 2 readings 1 is standard usage, 2 is export to grid.

I'm not sure of the sample rate and if it would catch the small blips, it's something I'm monitoring too as we get a few blips when using the oven. So far, it's not registering on my EG4 monitor as any export and the meter still shows all 00000 on the "02" meter. They will likely get curious when my bill drops so much, but we'll see, right now it seems the fast zero export should be sufficient and only have a few spikes here and there. I also don't know if the meters are set up out of the box for net metering, or if any export blips would just be absorbed into my bill (ie I don't know if the new meter, while capable is programmed for bidirectional detection.) it's also worth noting that the smart meters are not very accurate and showed energy usage ~15kw / day for the 8 days we had not power. I had the customer service guy note my concerns with meter accuracy just in case any "issues" came up later.

that is a link to the type of meter they installed at my house.

good luck to you and hope the power man stays away

 

[Deere103]

In other news, I finished mounting my pallet of panels today, wiring is already run 350 ft to house for both the lower arrays, the smaller array on top right is not currently connected, but it will power the shop lights, well pump, and maybe AC. Then grid will kick in when I'm running machinery or welding. But I'll have to get another inverter for this. I'm thinking dual 6000xp with ruixu server batts or 16k wall mount. But the house is the main bill so that was priority 1. Gotta rent a trencher too to bury conduit.



plenty of room for expansion too! I can fit 65 panels if I counted right, but shouldn't need that unless I get into hydroponics haha

 

[SparkyJJO]

All I know is it has a digital display and was installed in 2008, so I hope it is the unidirectional meter. We do have much older homes in the family that still have the mechanical wheel that rotates .

My first meter on the house we're in now was installed in 2018 and was a digital, remote readable unidirectional meter. When I got my net metering set up they replaced it with a digital bidirectional meter, that a cool old dude comes out and reads manually because it can't be read remotely. Figure that one out lol.

 

[wpns]

Wish we would get at least one sunny day since hooking everything up, so far the 14KW array has been between .3-4 KW on these rainy overcast days.

It’s amazing how these systems act as sun preventers.

 

[HRTKD]

happy to report the new unit is installed and I've been testing in increments. Now fully online with PV/grid/batteries/chargeverter tested and everything has worked as expected. It's been super cloudy and rainy, but I hope to finish my 2nd string install tomorrow and then I will switch to PV1 to be paralleled in the unit. I appreciate everyone's help here and I will report back what failed on the previous 18kpv once I ship back and hear from EG4/SS.

I just read the entire thread thinking I would get to move it to the "Up In Smoke" subforum. Glad you got this worked out. Did Signature Solar ever come back with a forensic conclusion on the "Loud Bang" unit?

 

[ksmithaz1]

Completely sunny day all day

View attachment 264909

I had this problem on a string of 250W CS panels, turned out to be a panel, which turned out to be a connector on the offending panel. Consistent jitter across all strings would indicate a common issue, usually a stray cloud in my case. I would try and isolate.

 

[Deere103]

I just read the entire thread thinking I would get to move it to the "Up In Smoke" subforum. Glad you got this worked out. Did Signature Solar ever come back with a forensic conclusion on the "Loud Bang" unit?

I'm still working on sending the old unit back, I have to arrange freight and palletize so it's a bit of a pain, after they get it they said to expect about a month before they look into it fully and diagnose. will keep everyone in the loop...thankfully I don't need to be banished to the "up in smoke" section this time!

 

[Deere103]

Hello friends, it's been a few weeks now and haven't heard from SS or Eg4 on what the issue was with my returned unit, but suspect I'll have to follow up to prompt any response. I'll likely reach out next week and see if they can provide an explanation.

However im slowly regaining trust in the durability of the 18k and have just today surpassed my first megawatt of solar power generation on the replacemwnt unit with no issues even in our colder than usual winter temps. I'm operating 2 strings of 12 panels still as with the original setup, FYI. The yield would be higher but I'm currently battery limited and I stop charging most days around 2pm when it's bright and sunny.

 

[quantum`]

First post, long time lurker. I have a 18kpv inverter, I have 1 pv array attached to pv input 2, the array outputs around 500v and has been working fine for 3 days. This morning, about the time the sun began hitting panels I heard loud popping in the inverter and smelled an electrical smell, no smoke though. When this happened, it switched back to grid power. After this I switched off pv input, but it would not switch back to battery discharge. I turned off power backup mode as I was testing off grid mode to reduce tiny grid export spikes. After this the batteries would charge using pv, but the voltage would drop and after 20 seconds or so it would be below the 100v and switch off relay it then reset and had 500v which then reduced again until relay cut off, so you have any idea what could cause this issue? The pop was very loud BTW, it was not just the standard relay clicking

Don't worry. It's just asking for more attention.

 

[SignatureSolarJess]

Hello friends, it's been a few weeks now and haven't heard from SS or Eg4 on what the issue was with my returned unit, but suspect I'll have to follow up to prompt any response. I'll likely reach out next week and see if they can provide an explanation.

However im slowly regaining trust in the durability of the 18k and have just today surpassed my first megawatt of solar power generation on the replacemwnt unit with no issues even in our colder than usual winter temps. I'm operating 2 strings of 12 panels still as with the original setup, FYI. The yield would be higher but I'm currently battery limited and I stop charging most days around 2pm when it's bright and sunny.

View attachment 275987

Hey! Yeah, they don't reach out to explain the reason for failure. If you'd like to follow up, you can just reach out to support@eg4electronics.com

 

[jorby]

Hey! Yeah, they don't reach out to explain the reason for failure. If you'd like to follow up, you can just reach out to support@eg4electronics.com

Everyone here, including me, who owns an 18kpv would like to know.

 

[TricityWuf]

Thank you for the response. I think yes it would probably be best to reduce the string size as a safety net. I didn't use the same calc, but I got similar values. the extreme min temp in SC I used called for -11 C in my area. Although like I mentioned, sub freezing temps are pretty rare. this temp would be 12 deg F, which I can only remember once or twice in my life. in any case, my calcs showed 593 at extreme min for Voc, obviously dangerously close to never exceed voltage, but in my mind I just can't see sizing with one less panel to account for extreme min temp, with full sunlight, and full voltage output from panels. Maybe I'm naive, but just my thinking, and if weather was ever marginal, the pv disconnect is always there.

in my case from morning of 12/1 that caused the issue, I know the voltage never exceeded the max both from data logging and physical measurement with a meter. I saw 515v pretty steady with the meter when troubleshooting after the "banging". Signature didn't offer me much as I mentioned bc I wasn't in front of the unit, but they suspect MPPT 2 may have shorted and that's the first thing I'll check when returning home.

This is the data from 11/30 when I was fat and happy and seeing my new install work flawlessly, the temps were almost identical (low of 29 F / -2 C )

View attachment 260238

and the data from the morning it went "bang", the spikes later in the day were me troubleshooting, and the final spike in pv2 voltage is with one panel removed from the string.

View attachment 260240

the morning of 11/30 was bright and sunny, the morning of the failure was a bit more haze, but still some sun, and pretty thick frost on panels.

I know it's an older thread, but I was wondering if you've tested for any leakage current between the positive and negative and ground of the array? Specifically when the panels are wet from frost or dew ext.
I had a 3000-EHV-48 blow on me with similar symptoms because I connected it to my PV that used to be a grounded negative system, me being new to solar didn't know that most MPPTs on all in one inverters are unisolated and need both ungrounded conductors.
It almost got me again with a 6000xp also, didn't realize that the circuit I was connecting into still had the negative-ground connection, and it was the one that I didn't test lol
But it didn't cause any issues with the 6000xp other than shutting off the other 6000xp it was in parallel with and cut off power to everyone lol

But yeah resistance to ground, just something to check on, on top of everything else.

 

[GRMRC]

Everyone here, including me, who owns an 18kpv would like to know.

 

[455dan]

Hang on. If/when enough of them let go maybe you can jump in on a class action.

Well I for one am hoping that does NOT happen to my 18K, So Far It has been Great.

If the AIO inverters follow the path of the H bridge AIO China welders, Things have improved Drastically as far as reliability and toughness of the ciircuitry in the last decade.
I believe the high power semiconductors and implementation of H bridge circuitry is finally there, but time will tell. Do I believe in 20 years and still going like some LF transformer based units will be the norm, no not yet, but 10+ years, yes,... I think it is possible.


Doing a lot of pass through and reducing the power bill, Just over a month in and well over 5 MW through it, and finally about to hit 1MW of solar the Sun has been cooperating , but the clouds have not- this old man started yelling at clouds recently.

 

[jorby]

Hang on. If/when enough of them let go maybe you can jump in on a class action.

Hoping that won't happen to mine. If it does, and they honor the warranty in a reasonable timeframe, then no need to sue. How many 18kpv inverters have blown up that anyone is aware of? Have any of them had the warranty denied? I know it is a pain in the butt to deal with a failure, but every product has them. I don't understand why people think everything should be resolved by lawsuits. That should be the last resort.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Hang on. If/when enough of them let go maybe you can jump in on a class action.

The heck. Why would there be one? It blew, yes. And they replaced it under warranty, as they should. Even if a batch did start to blow out the same way, if they cover them under warranty, what leg do you have to stand on for a lawsuit?

You sound like you're hoping they get sued for some bizarre reason.