Terrible Signature Solar / EG4 18Kpv Experience - Returning and Replaced with Sol-Ark 15k

[Crowz]

Any chance of the one showing the backfeed it was doing?

I wanted to show a friend what happened to you.

 

[Watts Happening]

Any chance of the one showing the backfeed it was doing?

I wanted to show a friend what happened to you.

The hard part there is in the science of "proving". It began back feeding and fortunately it wasn't a "lot", and the power was essentially absorbed before the next reading. My meter reads every 15 minutes, thus as long as I'm drawing more than the backfeed over that time it won't be "read" by the meter. Here is a screenshot of backfeed happening, which is reflected even by their logs.

 

[Watts Happening]

Log from the same time in the inverter

 

[Quattrohead]

Log from the same time in the inverter

Yeah that's about the same amount of power that mine was back feeding to the grid with possibly the same or similar firmware. It is not a lot and maybe most power companies wouldn't notice it but nevertheless you didn't like it and I don't like it. That's why signature solar continue to work on trying to get this fixed.
I think it's just the way you went about things that rubbed a few people's noses the wrong way and apparently gave the anti-signature solar fanboys some toys to play with too.

 

[Zwy]

Did you ask Markus for permission to share these private messages in a public forum? @Watts Happening

You want any future correspondence with SS with any member about problems always posted publicly then?

I'm sure many can make that happen but it probably wouldn't put SS in a good light.

Tread lightly.

 

[Watts Happening]

Yeah that's about the same amount of power that mine was back feeding to the grid with possibly the same or similar firmware. It is not a lot and maybe most power companies wouldn't notice it but nevertheless you didn't like it and I don't like it. That's why signature solar continue to work on trying to get this fixed.
I think it's just the way you went about things that rubbed a few people's noses the wrong way and apparently gave the anti-signature solar fanboys some toys to play with too.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I used their own communication as the supporting evidence of the claims I was making.

In my eyes, making unsubstantiated claims would have been even worse. If you're going to say a business did XYZ, go ahead and support that claim.

 

[Will Prowse]

You want any future correspondence with SS with any member about problems always posted publicly then?

I'm sure many can make that happen but it probably wouldn't put SS in a good light.

Tread lightly.

Considering how I respond to people on here in private messages, I would be pissed if someone shared them without my permission ? my messages are a million times worse than Markus. Just scares me that someone would post messages without the other person's permission.

 

[Will Prowse]

Does Markus have an expectation of privacy in B to C messages?

Yeah probably not I suppose. I just would hate for someone to do that to me because my messages are just awful. But they are considered a business, so I suppose there is no issue.

 

[Will Prowse]

Poor form? Maybe.

Legal? Perfectly legal.

Been down this road on forums I host a hundred times.

Thanks for the input. Good to know

 

[Zwy]

Considering how I respond to people on here in private messages, I would be pissed if someone shared them without my permission ? my messages are a million times worse than Markus. Just scares me that someone would post messages without the other person's permission.

Person to person or if someone has been naughty, I could see.

A customer to business that the customer shares is quite another matter. A financial transaction has taken place, the customer does have the right to relate the experience.

 

[Watts Happening]

Considering how I respond to people on here in private messages, I would be pissed if someone shared them without my permission ? my messages are a million times worse than Markus. Just scares me that someone would post messages without the other person's permission.

I assure you I considered all of that before posting, and I came up with this:

If I had posted with no supporting evidence (screenshots), the first question from you and any other member would be, "show us proof". At that point, I'm right back to square one. How does one prove the scenario without sharing the information I shared? I can't just continually say, "I promise". And even if I did do that, I'd have to type out the things that were said to me which ultimately is the exact same thing as sharing what they said.

*edit* - I also thought it was very important in supporting my review of said company. A review with proof carries much more weight than just some random person saying nonsense on the internet in my eyes.

At least that's how I saw it.

 

[Will Prowse]

Negative, and I think it would have been a ridiculous thing to ask him. "hey, you're totally cool with me sharing all this nonsense you wrote me with everyone, right?" - Then he OBVIOUSLY says no, and what, now I'm silenced and tell everyone, "I swear, he said things similar to this (but not actually write what he said because that would effectively be the same thing)".

I went well above and beyond what I feel was required of me as a customer, I gave him many chances to fix the issues I was having. At that point he started telling me I was asking for "things that don't even exist" and accusing me of just wanting a discount, but then the "actual engineer that designed the inverter" was going to program it. When that went south, I felt I had no choice.

The public deserves to know, thus I shared it. Whether "right or wrong" in the court of public opinion, I stand firmly behind what I did. His messages equated to emails, this was standard communication and nothing with any form of private information was shared. I'd have happily had the same conversation in a forum post.

Yeah I agree, I'm actually concerned more with my messages with members because they are so personal and I crack a lot of jokes. I should probably censor myself more and not be so personal here. Especially considering I don't have rules in place.

This has more to do with me than signature solar. I should have posted this as a new thread to discuss this. I've never even considered this before.

 

[Quattrohead]

Marcus messaged me that he loved me, I'm sure he wouldn't want that out in public ohhhh errrr missis.
Hey it made me feel good LOL.

And for context it was just reassuring him that I would never divulge our personal conversations or his phone number to anyone else.
So yeah I think it is piss poor form to be splatting private conversations all over the interwebs.

 

[Watts Happening]

Yeah I agree, I'm actually concerned more with my messages with members because they are so personal and I crack a lot of jokes. I should probably censor myself more and not be so personal here. Especially considering I don't have rules in place.

This has more to do with me than signature solar. I should have posted this as a new thread to discuss this. I've never even considered this before.

I get where you're coming from, and if someone was being personal and joking, I'm not here to pull some cancel culture nonsense. In my eyes this was just a black and white, this is what happened and let me show you guys how it happened so we're all on the same page.

And again for the zillionth time, I still wish them great success. They could absolutely work on their firmware and customer service, but that is well documented in a ton of threads.

Customer service isn't easy, it isn't for everyone and I'm ABSOLUTELY guilty of being a dick to people if they rub me wrong. Unfortunately in this situation, my very biased opinion is that they really went out of their way to step on their own toes.

Simple solution: learn from the mistake, treat people with a reasonable level of customer service and if that isn't your forte, hire customer service people that have to deal with the public for a living lol.

In due time the firmware will be spot on, and this will all have been a waste of our time. Hopefully it spurred them to speed up that process and everyone wins, except this loser who now has a Sol-Ark, yesteryears technology.

 

[Will Prowse]

I assure you I considered all of that before posting, and I came up with this:

If I had posted with no supporting evidence (screenshots), the first question from you and any other member would be, "show us proof". At that point, I'm right back to square one. How does one prove the scenario without sharing the information I shared? I can't just continually say, "I promise". And even if I did do that, I'd have to type out the things that were said to me which ultimately is the exact same thing as sharing what they said.

*edit* - I also thought it was very important in supporting my review of said company. A review with proof carries much more weight than just some random person saying nonsense on the internet in my eyes.

At least that's how I saw it.

I just think that customer support didn't do a good job and changing out firmware wasn't appropriate.

And can you post what that excel screenshot image is telling me? How much was exported? And what the sol ark is seeing?

My understanding is that there is a relay that disconnects the grid, and it's impossible to backfeed. So I'm trying to figure out what happened on your unit. I'm thinking the ct's are not reporting the proper figures or something.

I wonder how all of these certifying third parties would miss this issue, and wouldn't happen on my unit or anyone else.

 

[Watts Happening]

I just think that customer support didn't do a good job and changing out firmware wasn't appropriate.

And can you post what that excel screenshot image is telling me? How much was exported? And what the sol ark is seeing?

My understanding is that there is a relay that disconnects the grid, and it's impossible to backfeed. So I'm trying to figure out what happened on your unit. I'm thinking the ct's are not reporting the proper figures or something.

I wonder how all of these certifying third parties would miss this issue, and wouldn't happen on my unit or anyone else.

I've tried to post as an attachment, appears you've got the permitted file types to not accept a .csv (probably smart, great way to insert some nasty code by smart folk out there). I'll work on getting a link up this afternoon.

Sol-Ark has not shown or provided any evidence to me of exporting at all, I am by no means claiming it to be the end all be all and without any fault, but it's literally been an off the shelf set it and forget it thing. Support from them for a couple basic questions relating to the six TOU time periods of a day was simple and straightforward. I just wanted to make sure I was clear in how it worked.

From what I can see, the day of the exporting after Ty updated firmware was .2kw over about an hour (logs show exactly, I'm going off memory). It's beginning to be enough days ago that I can't remember what exactly I did to counteract it, I think I turned on the dryer or something. In the time since I've swapped out inverters, applied for new permits, replaced the electric dryer with gas, the list goes on and I'm starting to forget.

As for the relay, what you're saying makes total sense but I believe I was told by someone (SS or Gilbert) that it doesn't actually disconnect. The how and why of that I'm not sure of, and maybe newer firmware versions will do exactly that. That brings up another point, one of my other complaints was that during EVERY SINGLE peak shaving/TOU event with the EG4, the inverter would draw roughly 10% of its power from the grid. Basically Gilbert got the inverter pretty functional, and + or - 8 minutes it would switch over to supplying the load from batteries at 3pm and end at 9pm, but during that time if I were pulling 2kw from batteries, it would be pulling near 200w from the grid, so clearly not disconnected. He repeatedly told me this was due to power demand spikes which I thought was a terrible answer due to the fact that I had no such spikes and more importantly if I had shut off the breaker that feeds the inverter, it would have figured out a way to supply those spikes from batteries with no problem. We're not talking about 5 or 10kw spikes, we're talking about turning on a TV or a light, nothing I would think would have any effect on an inverter as capable as the 18k.

So that said, my unit certainly did not throw a relay to disconnect the grid, and it sounds like Quattrohead is seeing something that supports that if I'm reading it correctly. Relays or CT's would have been a great starting point, but at no point did anyone mention anything relating to physical aspects of my inverter, the entirety of our conversations were "settings and firmware". Maybe that's something they need to test/train employees on if it was indeed the cause of the issue. I was taking the approach of, "if they thought it was hardware, they'd let me know". Again, hardware wise, I love the thing.

 

[solardad]

I wonder how all of these certifying third parties would miss this issue, and wouldn't happen on my unit or anyone else.

@Will Prowse @Watts Happening read a good portion of the thread and did not see one mention of potentially defective unit and an offer from SS to replace. True.. Watts?

For reference Sol-Ark offered to replace my 3 year old 12k after a fatal issue with just one phone call. No 2nd or 3rd tier support calls that require weeks on end scheduling and then a week or two of ghosting like I experienced last summer trying to commission a DOA inverter supplied by SS.

 

[Watts Happening]

@Will Prowse @Watts Happening read a good portion of the thread and did not see one mention of potentially defective unit and an offer from SS to replace. True.. Watts?

For reference Sol-Ark offered to replace my 3 year old 12k after a fatal issue with just one phone call. No 2nd or 3rd tier support calls that require weeks on end scheduling and then a week or two of ghosting like I experienced last summer trying to commission a DOA inverter supplied by SS.

Correct, there was never a single mention, or even indication that anyone believed there was any form of hardware issue.

There was also no offer or mention of a replacement unit.

 

[solardad]

Correct, there was never a single mention, or even indication that anyone believed there was any form of hardware issue.

There was also no offer or mention of a replacement unit.

That is what I thought. Outside of @Shawn Hayes having a crappy experience, I believe most folks have had a decent customer exp. with Sol-Ark. This is the biggest hurdle that SS needs to tackle in order to be on par with Sol-Ark / Victron etc..

 

[Quattrohead]

And again for the zillionth time, I still wish them great success.

So passive agressive.

I'm ABSOLUTELY guilty of being a dick to people if they rub me wrong

I am too, it's called getting old LOL

except this loser who now has a Sol-Ark

You will be fine .

I wonder how all of these certifying third parties would miss this issue, and wouldn't happen on my unit or anyone else.

Heck of a question. What is your firmware version ?

Sol-Ark has not shown or provided any evidence to me of exporting at all

I just went a checked my Solark 12k data, not a single watt sent back in 8 months. Of course it is not the same unit, I think the 200A pass through is causing the problems.

the inverter would draw roughly 10% of its power from the grid, but during that time if I were pulling 2kw from batteries, it would be pulling near 200w from the grid

I think this is a function of the "grid assist" so that it is ready and fully synced for load changes. BTW grid assist is brilliant, great feature.

For an experiment, I checked "reverse CT's" and it soon started exporting 3kw back to grid....knocked that on the head sharpish !!!

 

[Brucey]

Sorry for the troubles you had to go through. I think being accused of fishing for a discount was uncalled for, as clearly you couldn't get the 18k to do basic functions (zero export and peak shaving). And you were going to spend the refund plus more to get the solark.

I think unfortunately your desire to help out the "little guy" aka 18k has caused you a huge amount of headache versus going for the solark 15k in the first place. I haven't been around that long but there seemed to be big problems with the 6000 series also, with a long time spent before firmware stabilised. So one could expect the same for the new 18k.

 

[Will Prowse]

I've tried to post as an attachment, appears you've got the permitted file types to not accept a .csv (probably smart, great way to insert some nasty code by smart folk out there). I'll work on getting a link up this afternoon.

Sol-Ark has not shown or provided any evidence to me of exporting at all, I am by no means claiming it to be the end all be all and without any fault, but it's literally been an off the shelf set it and forget it thing. Support from them for a couple basic questions relating to the six TOU time periods of a day was simple and straightforward. I just wanted to make sure I was clear in how it worked.

From what I can see, the day of the exporting after Ty updated firmware was .2kw over about an hour (logs show exactly, I'm going off memory). It's beginning to be enough days ago that I can't remember what exactly I did to counteract it, I think I turned on the dryer or something. In the time since I've swapped out inverters, applied for new permits, replaced the electric dryer with gas, the list goes on and I'm starting to forget.

As for the relay, what you're saying makes total sense but I believe I was told by someone (SS or Gilbert) that it doesn't actually disconnect. The how and why of that I'm not sure of, and maybe newer firmware versions will do exactly that. That brings up another point, one of my other complaints was that during EVERY SINGLE peak shaving/TOU event with the EG4, the inverter would draw roughly 10% of its power from the grid. Basically Gilbert got the inverter pretty functional, and + or - 8 minutes it would switch over to supplying the load from batteries at 3pm and end at 9pm, but during that time if I were pulling 2kw from batteries, it would be pulling near 200w from the grid, so clearly not disconnected. He repeatedly told me this was due to power demand spikes which I thought was a terrible answer due to the fact that I had no such spikes and more importantly if I had shut off the breaker that feeds the inverter, it would have figured out a way to supply those spikes from batteries with no problem. We're not talking about 5 or 10kw spikes, we're talking about turning on a TV or a light, nothing I would think would have any effect on an inverter as capable as the 18k.

So that said, my unit certainly did not throw a relay to disconnect the grid, and it sounds like Quattrohead is seeing something that supports that if I'm reading it correctly. Relays or CT's would have been a great starting point, but at no point did anyone mention anything relating to physical aspects of my inverter, the entirety of our conversations were "settings and firmware". Maybe that's something they need to test/train employees on if it was indeed the cause of the issue. I was taking the approach of, "if they thought it was hardware, they'd let me know". Again, hardware wise, I love the thing.

Are those the logs from the unit or from the utility? Can you hook it up again and put a meter on it and post a photo here. Or post a video would be even better.

 

[cs1234]

I think it's just the way you went about things that rubbed a few people's noses the wrong way and apparently gave the anti-signature solar fanboys some toys to play with too.

I'm not sure about the other fanboys, but I attack Sol-Ark and Fortress Power as well. I see something that stinks, I fan it around so everybody gets a whiff.

 

[Quattrohead]

Are those the logs from the unit or from the utility? Can you hook it up again and put a meter on it and post a photo here. Or post a video would be even better.

Going round and around....the data is in the logs that he can still get too, no need to fire up the unit.

 

[Watts Happening]

So passive agressive.


I think this is a function of the "grid assist" so that it is ready and fully synced for load changes. BTW grid assist is brilliant, great feature.

I really do mean it though, I'm not being passive aggressive at all. I think the solar space is vast and needs companies like Signature Solar. Without them you've essentially got top notch stuff like Victron and let's say Sol-Ark, then you have "shit you find on eBay/amazon". The middle ground is kinda a Wild West and nobody benefits from that. They're taking products that are nestling into the middle ground that I think a significant number of people love, and otherwise wouldn't be able to afford solar. Maybe they "could" afford it, but it feels much more approachable. Again, I'd argue that the 18k is physically of higher quality than the Sol-Ark, in hand it feels like the next generation, I'm sure Sol-Ark will respond with a similar/improved design and again, this is what drives innovation. So, I sincerely do wish them great success. I hope me posting what I've posted upsets someone and nudges them to get that firmware squared away and a few people to figure out the customer service side of things. It's not like they need to stop everything and start over, just make some adjustments and crush it.

*late edit*
I forgot to address the grid assist, I love that feature, in my years of RV systems it’s by far one of my favorite features of a multiplus. Having the ability to plug into any power source and use as you need is incredible vs more of a Growatt style “grid or battery” type thing. Agreed on that point completely