SunGold Power SP6548 Flickering lights after new install

[nofear72784]

What did you replace the fans with? I usually put Noctua fans in everything but when I googled the part number on the oem fans I could not find cfm specs so I was just going to request one from the manufacturer. 80mm fans are noisy to begin with but they are likely high pressure to push air through all the heat sinks.

 

[jtwalters]

Please elaborate! You had flickering issues as well? I am relieved to hear this is not just me! Seemed like I was the only one on earth to have an issue with these units. Funny you said that about the fans. The left most fan cooling the mppt sounds like the bearings are gone and I was just going to replace it if I was stuck with it. The full list of things wrong are: left most fan bad bearing, PV2 input was intermittently not working and lighting flicker along with the unstable sine wave. I removed the cover and found a bad crimp at the MC4 and then traced it back and also found the ring terminal screw loose. Tightened and it's been OK since.

Yes, similar to what I understand with your situation, I had constant LED lamp flickering, but only when the inverter was active (not in line mode or bypass mode). It was constant, rapid flickering, and awful. I ended up buying a variety of bulbs and noticed that the Philips Hue bulbs are immune.

Anyway, I replaced all 3 fans with near silent fans. If you buy standard computer fans, you have to crimp your own JST 4-pin connector, swapping pins 2 & 3. After I swapped out the stock fans, the sound levels were drastically reduced, and the flicker in the LED lamps was completely gone.

Only issue with swapping the fans with low-rpm fans is your airflow is reduced, and the system will "catch on" after about a day and send an 01 fault error code, forcing the fans to full speed and prompting you to replace them. However, I actually don't mind the fans running full speed all the time because they're still quiet at full speed. And I disabled the alarm beeper so I can ignore the fault code.

I used the Noctua NF-A8 fans. The airflow is approximately 30-40% of the stock fans, however, I haven't noticed any excessive heat building up compared to usual.

The stock fans were ~100CFM from the googling I did.

 

[niktak11]

LED bulbs and flickering go hand in hand unfortunately. Even on grid I frequently get flickering with my cheap ($4-6) LED bulbs pretty regularly. The more expensive ones ($20-50) I have with massive drivers never flicker. The problem with the expensive ones is that they cause cheap dimmers to buzz at certain brightness levels ? It seems like you need expensive bulbs AND expensive dimmers.

 

[jtwalters]

LED bulbs and flickering go hand in hand unfortunately. Even on grid I frequently get flickering with my cheap ($4-6) LED bulbs pretty regularly. The more expensive ones ($20-50) I have with massive drivers never flicker. The problem with the expensive ones is that they cause cheap dimmers to buzz at certain brightness levels ? It seems like you need expensive bulbs AND expensive dimmers.

This is also true. Only the cheap LED bulbs with small form factors flickered for me. The Philips Hue (smart/bluetooth) lamp is also immune, probably because it has its own voltage-smoothing built in?

 

[niktak11]

This is also true. Only the cheap LED bulbs with small form factors flickered for me. The Philips Hue (smart/bluetooth) lamp is also immune, probably because it has its own voltage-smoothing built in?

I think because the cheap ones use tiny capacitors. The drivers in some of the expensive bulbs I have cost twice as much as entire cheap bulbs.

 

[nofear72784]

All the LEDs are high end dimmer bulbs and the dimmers are for LED's. They are flicker free on grid, generator, ecoflow delta pro and ego nexus inverters. This is the only time we ever had flickering issues in the house. The house was built in 2006 so the electrical is in good shape.

Yes, similar to what I understand with your situation, I had constant LED lamp flickering, but only when the inverter was active (not in line mode or bypass mode). It was constant, rapid flickering, and awful. I ended up buying a variety of bulbs and noticed that the Philips Hue bulbs are immune.

Anyway, I replaced all 3 fans with near silent fans. If you buy standard computer fans, you have to crimp your own JST 4-pin connector, swapping pins 2 & 3. After I swapped out the stock fans, the sound levels were drastically reduced, and the flicker in the LED lamps was completely gone.

Only issue with swapping the fans with low-rpm fans is your airflow is reduced, and the system will "catch on" after about a day and send an 01 fault error code, forcing the fans to full speed and prompting you to replace them. However, I actually don't mind the fans running full speed all the time because they're still quiet at full speed. And I disabled the alarm beeper so I can ignore the fault code.

I used the Noctua NF-A8 fans. The airflow is approximately 30-40% of the stock fans, however, I haven't noticed any excessive heat building up compared to usual.

The stock fans were ~100CFM from the googling I did.

Well that is disappointing. The NF-A8 is their highest speed/static fan. I will look at the amperage when the new one comes in and see if I can find a closer match. Did you try dimming the bulbs?

 

[SparkyJJO]

Seems like a really bad design if the cooling fans screw up the output waveform.

 

[nofear72784]

I think because the cheap ones use tiny capacitors. The drivers in some of the expensive bulbs I have cost twice as much as entire cheap bulbs.

Well in my case I have flickering in $280 Philip architectural fixtures and hue bulbs. The architectural fixtures have multiple caps on the drivers, If I remember right 8. They should 100% not flicker lol

 

[nofear72784]

Seems like a really bad design if the cooling fans screw up the output waveform.

100% agree. They should be isolated. All motors can induce noise, every engineer should account for this.

 

[jtwalters]

100% agree. They should be isolated. All motors can induce noise, every engineer should account for this.

Speaking of noise and accounting for it, the power supply for the LEDs on the front panel make an audible noise. When I turned off the front panel LEDs the audible noise went away. Both of these issues make me question the quality of the engineering in this unit.

 

[nofear72784]

I noticed the high pitch whine but didn't correlate that to the front panel led as much as just inverter noise. If that is just the rgb noise... what the hell were they thinking designing that driver

 

[jtwalters]

I noticed the high pitch whine but didn't correlate that to the front panel led as much as just inverter noise. If that is just the rgb noise... what the hell were they thinking designing that driver

Try turning off the front panel LED and let me know if you hear the whine go away Oh, btw, it's way more noisy if you turn the RGB effect to breathing or scrolling and set the brightness to low or medium.

 

[nofear72784]

Well, I did receive a tracking number for a supposed replacement inverter. I word it that way because the shipment is 18lbs less than the last one so I am worried they sent the wrong unit. I called to verify and was told she asked her supervisor to place the order. Coming from the person that said they did not have PC access today... shaking my head.

 

[Sky Noris]

Just for fun figured I'd scope my inverter (Growatt LF) and standard power grid wave.

Local Grid Power Sample

Growatt LF Inverter Sample

 

[nofear72784]

Well that looks much nicer than mine hahaha

 

[nofear72784]

After reading around and debating on setting up a pi for remote web monitoring I came across dessmonitor.com Amazing how there is no mention of it in the documentation. I logged in using my watchpower credentials and BINGO.. instant remote access from any browser! I also found this under the alarm info tab. Definitely something going on with this unit.

 

[nofear72784]

Replacement inverter is in, reliance transfer panel is out, SAME LED FLICKERING. Pretty disgusted with this unit at this point. So much time and money thrown at such a dumb problem that should not exist. As a last ditch effort I ran some 12/2 out of the new panel directly to the lighting circuit in the kitchen. Isolated the circuit and same flickering. 100% poorly designed inverter. Not sure what to do next.

 

[Sky Noris]

That really sucks. It is fairly disturbing that an inverter that has been promoted so heavily would perform this terribly. I'm thinking you really only have one option left. Grab an inverter with a clean sign wave or find some LED's that don't flicker with an ugly wave.

 

[nofear72784]

That really sucks. It is fairly disturbing that an inverter that has been promoted so heavily would perform this terribly. I'm thinking you really only have one option left. Grab an inverter with a clean sign wave or find some LED's that don't flicker with an ugly wave.

So I went on a LED spree last night. Picked up 1 pack of just about every LED can and edison base bulb at HD and Lowes. They are going to hate me when I attempt to return most of them. I tried 3 6" led can lights, all flickered.

 

[nofear72784]

I am more upset about the lack of real information from the manufacturer. All I get is "it shouldn't do that". Well, I have sent videos, pictures, measurements, circuit diagrams and received 0 back. At least they sent me another unit but same result. I built the system around this unit and already incurred an additional 700 in wasted costs due to removing the reliance panel and installing a true sub panel. Just very frustrated. Took the fun out of the project and made it stressful.
They requested I remove my negative review of the unit but I refuse. It does not work properly. I will update it to reflect them finally sending a replacement. But the unit itself... I would not recommend it.