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

[42OhmsPA]

We are literally running them full load 24/7 lol

Post some load charts so we can all admire that energy use.

Did they go down for firmware updates?

 

[Shimmy]

From a load perspective the big EG4 unit handles everything I've thrown at the two I have in parallel. Until just recently I've had my total load routinely exceed 75A for intervals of an hour or so particularly when I am charging my EV. I built the system to meet my max demand. ...

Curious what your rationale was for a 30kWh battery with the two inverters; it seems like you are practically limited to ~9.3kW sustained load by the batteries.

 

[Markus_EG4]

Did they go down for firmware updates?

Here is one of them James asked me to post

 

[ksmithaz1]

Curious what your rationale was for a 30kWh battery with the two inverters; it seems like you are practically limited to ~9.3kW sustained load by the batteries.

Bare minimum, I want more batteries, its only money.

Max Constant Discharge per battery = 100A * 6 batteries = 600A * 50v = 30KWH ~= 240V/120A
Recommended is 1/2 that 50A / battery, so 15KWH is realistic for a longer term sustained load, roughly 60A.

The only time I draw > 60A for more than a few minutes is during the middle of the day in July when the sun is boiling, er shining and the HVAC is pretty much just on, and I'm charging the car, and .... At which point the Solar panels are generally kicking out 14KW or so. This is most noticeable in the late afternoon on the weekends doing laundry, and running the stove and oven (electric) and charging and HVAC, and the Lady decides to take a shower and blow dry the hair, because after all it's 1500 and we are all sweaty from working in the heat, ...
A quick peak in July shows the occasional weekend spikes:



You can see the elevation of the graph on the weekends and weekdays working from home, when I'm charging my cars, it was flat-lining at 7 (5.6 charge+~2 static) KW minimum. A Typical week interval in early August:



You can see we hit 17.4KW roughly 75A for 30 minutes or so here and there. You can see the mean load is under 5KWH. The problem when you are all electric (or the power company) is demand. You have to have enough output to meet demand. This data above gets aggregated in a timebase, so it smooths curves over 5-30min depending, but I did have a very short interval where I hit 95A in the middle of the day for about 30 seconds until my control system turned off the EVSE (You know darling, I would prefer if we did not boil water, turn on the broiler, start up the toaster oven and microwave, dry a load of clothes, and charge your car all at the same time at three in the afternoon when it's 115 degrees outside and the air is running constantly). I moved my EVSE to a charging pedestal I built in the driveway that I ran #4 wire to. I picked up an openEVSE box, and I'll be dynamically adjusting the charge rate from 7500 down depending on the load.

Bottom line is I may have occasional demand that exceeds 80A, but sustained is typically nowhere close to that. Unfortunately you have to account for it when sizing if you want to be 100% off the grid.

 

[G00SE]

@ksmithaz1 im interested in hearing about your dynamic load adjustment when ev charging. Is that a feature of the equipment you already own, or something you are still planning for implementing?

 

[42OhmsPA]

Here is one of them James asked me to post

Thanks for following up.
I thought it was full load 24/7, maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Markus_EG4]

Thanks for following up.
I thought it was full load 24/7, maybe I'm missing something.

They run 24/7 most of the time depends on what testing needs to be done at the time we only have so much space here. Sometimes we have to take a inverter or battery down and put another one up for testing. We have 13 test stations and all kinds of equipment to test New product, existing product. Soon we will have more space and testing stations but for now we are doing what we can to try and stay ahead.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Bare minimum, I want more batteries, its only money.

Max Constant Discharge per battery = 100A * 6 batteries = 600A * 50v = 30KWH ~= 240V/120A
Recommended is 1/2 that 50A / battery, so 15KWH is realistic for a longer term sustained load, roughly 60A.

The only time I draw > 60A for more than a few minutes is during the middle of the day in July when the sun is boiling, er shining and the HVAC is pretty much just on, and I'm charging the car, and .... At which point the Solar panels are generally kicking out 14KW or so. This is most noticeable in the late afternoon on the weekends doing laundry, and running the stove and oven (electric) and charging and HVAC, and the Lady decides to take a shower and blow dry the hair, because after all it's 1500 and we are all sweaty from working in the heat, ...
A quick peak in July shows the occasional weekend spikes:

View attachment 171985

You can see the elevation of the graph on the weekends and weekdays working from home, when I'm charging my cars, it was flat-lining at 7 (5.6 charge+~2 static) KW minimum. A Typical week interval in early August:

View attachment 171989

You can see we hit 17.4KW roughly 75A for 30 minutes or so here and there. You can see the mean load is under 5KWH. The problem when you are all electric (or the power company) is demand. You have to have enough output to meet demand. This data above gets aggregated in a timebase, so it smooths curves over 5-30min depending, but I did have a very short interval where I hit 95A in the middle of the day for about 30 seconds until my control system turned off the EVSE (You know darling, I would prefer if we did not boil water, turn on the broiler, start up the toaster oven and microwave, dry a load of clothes, and charge your car all at the same time at three in the afternoon when it's 115 degrees outside and the air is running constantly). I moved my EVSE to a charging pedestal I built in the driveway that I ran #4 wire to. I picked up an openEVSE box, and I'll be dynamically adjusting the charge rate from 7500 down depending on the load.

Bottom line is I may have occasional demand that exceeds 80A, but sustained is typically nowhere close to that. Unfortunately you have to account for it when sizing if you want to be 100% off the grid.

It’s great you got your family trained to do stuff during the day.
Still working on mine.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

It’s great you got your family trained to do stuff during the day.
Still working on mine.

Good luck!

 

[42OhmsPA]

They run 24/7 most of the time depends on what testing needs to be done at the time we only have so much space here. Sometimes we have to take a inverter or battery down and put another one up for testing. We have 13 test stations and all kinds of equipment to test New product, existing product. Soon we will have more space and testing stations but for now we are doing what we can to try and stay ahead.

Thanks again for following up and clarifying. It's nice to hear a US business is expanding and trying to stay ahead of the curve. Is it safe to assume EG4 is expanding and not SS?
Would it be fair to say James misspoke when he said full load 24/7 when he meant running with a load 24/7?

Do you see any low frequency inverters in EG4s future or feel it's not worth competing with Schneider and Victron in that market?

 

[Markus_EG4]

Thanks again for following up and clarifying. It's nice to hear a US business is expanding and trying to stay ahead of the curve. Is it safe to assume EG4 is expanding and not SS?
Would it be fair to say James misspoke when he said full load 24/7 when he meant running with a load 24/7?

Do you see any low frequency inverters in EG4s future or feel it's not worth competing with Schneider and Victron in that market?

To be fair to James he wants a load running 24/7 and i do not tell him when we are shutting stuff down or moving things every time.
We are both very busy and in separate locations.

I do see LF in the future it is deff being looked into to but with todays tech and the way HF performs its hard to say when.

SS and EG4 are 2 different companies and are both expanding.

 

[42OhmsPA]

To be fair to James he wants a load running 24/7 and i do not tell him when we are shutting stuff down or moving things every time.
We are both very busy and in separate locations.

Understood. Sorry if I come off as picking on James, a full load 24/7 would be difficult to attain, it was a bold statement; maybe that's why he put an lol at the end.

I do see LF in the future it is deff being looked into to but with todays tech and the way HF performs its hard to say when.

I'll be following along and I agree. I've been beyond impressed with my recent HF purchase but will end up with LF architecture for my lifetime system. Having a heavy transformer / tried and true tech gives me a greater warm and fuzzy feeling.

SS and EG4 are 2 different companies and are both expanding.

I'll continue to root for both so far, in my opinion, E is way ahead of S.
I'll stop cluttering this thread now.

Keep fighting the good fight Markus.

 

[altenergy20]

In my eyes this type of stuff is completely unacceptable. I have tried hard to make it work, it's been a runaround since day one and now I'm being accused of trying to get a discount, being told I'm trying to do things that don't exist and even being blatantly lied to that they have reached out. Simply crazy!

What did I do to fix it? I'll tell you! I was able to pick up a Sol-Ark 15k locally, take down the EG4 18Kpv, install the Sol-Ark, rewire it, set it up, turn it on and have it doing EVERYTHING I WANTED TO DO in an afternoon. It has worked PERFECTLY, no issues whatsoever. My only call to their support was to ensure I understood the six available time of use windows and their relation to each other to ensure proper discharge and recharge. When I told them what I had been going through they laughed and weren't surprised.

If you value your time and want to set a unit up and know that it is going to work, seriously, spend the extra money on the Sol-Ark. It isn't THAT much more expensive and the difference is night and day. Their support called me back quick, totally knew what they were doing and had a deep understanding of the unit. I don't have any questions of whether it will work or not and at the end of the day, it powers my home, I need to know it is going to do what it's supposed to. I'm also not worried about back feeding the grid, or having any settings I have to guess my way through, it's all straightforward and easy to program. It's like using Victron equipment, you KNOW it will work.

Conclusion (for now):
I won't be spending any more of my money with Signature Solar, and I wish that wasn't the case. While I know this is a giant rant and probably horrible for their sales, and even Will's affiliate income, that is NOT my goal. I sincerely hope they can learn from this experience, invest some time in the firmware and take what is physically an excellent product and turn it into a true rockstar. Software isn't easy to get perfect, I understand that, but this is absolutely in the Alpha/Beta phase and not anywhere near mass adoption. Given time, I imagine they will get there, but they are advertising a fully functional product that should ABSOLUTELY do all of the things I wanted it to. However they are delivering something they themselves can't truly control and acting like it's the customers fault.

Please, Signature Solar, get it together, sort out your issues and make this thing great. You guys have a real opportunity to make a massive impact in the solar industry but you're stepping on your own toes. I wanted so badly to support you, but now I find myself warning the forum members because many people don't have the means to buy multiple expensive units and fight over refunds. This is peoples hard earned money we're talking about here.

This unit may work great if you just plug it in and never connect it to the grid, or have a net metering agreement like Will. But, if you're like many people buying this unit, it really isn't ready to go.

Again, I'm just a guy from the internet, but I hope you'll consider what I've said before spending your money.

@Will Prowse - Sorry for the long rant, I hope it pushes them to get their software and support squared away so they can continue to be a solid affiliate for you. I'm just a guy who doesn't deal with nonsense and want to ensure everyone is held accountable (myself included).

Sorry about this clueless and lazy reply. Maybe they should get their heads together and voice conference you in. It may have gone over better if you see their smiles (video conferencing and sympathy that you invested so much into this).

Emails is old school, it's a conduit for email flames.

And this is the meat of the lazy reply - what about shipping a different 18kPV unit to you and you "snap" it in place? Then you can lazy shipping the other unit back?

PS: I'm a happy 18kPV owner myself, perhaps in the sense that "ignorance is bliss" because I don't know much about it and my setup is very simple. It feeds the house and battery if solar power is available. Without solar, battery feeds house and after that grid takes over. When battery is drained, both solar and grid teams up to supply and charge battery, with charging set at low rate because charging and discharging from grid incurs inefficiency round trip.

 

[Watts Happening]

Sorry about this clueless and lazy reply. Maybe they should get their heads together and voice conference you in. It may have gone over better if you see their smiles (video conferencing and sympathy that you invested so much into this).

Emails is old school, it's a conduit for email flames.

And this is the meat of the lazy reply - what about shipping a different 18kPV unit to you and you "snap" it in place? Then you can lazy shipping the other unit back?

That would have made a lot of sense, however there was nothing physically wrong with my unit. It was just janky software that was underdeveloped, and beyond horrible customer service which unfortunately we see continuing daily on the forums. Their complete lack of understanding how to handle customer interactions is evident, far too often.

I’m sure they do a good job often too, but that’s no excuse for the myriad of reasons people have to come here to get results.

It’s sad, but it’s the current state of affairs, no question about it.

 

[Kenny_]

That would have made a lot of sense, however there was nothing physically wrong with my unit. It was just janky software that was underdeveloped, and beyond horrible customer service which unfortunately we see continuing daily on the forums. Their complete lack of understanding how to handle customer interactions is evident, far too often.

I’m sure they do a good job often too, but that’s no excuse for the myriad of reasons people have to come here to get results.

It’s sad, but it’s the current state of affairs, no question about it.

Well after reading this entire thread I'm not so sure. People seem to be using the 18Kpv without issue in a variety of situations. Now maybe these had updated software or maybe not....it's difficult to tell without being there and a deep read of this thread but it definitely seems like there was more to it....I don't know what or why but it seems there's some work to be done wrt customer service, that's the part that makes me hesitant to order/purchase what appears to be the best solution to my needs. The slightly encouraging thing is that they are even right here in this thread responding and posting. I'm not sure what other 'channels' they are on (I'm not on any of the social media platforms) but that can't be a bad thing.

anyway....still considering purchasing the 18Kpv...

 

[Watts Happening]

Well after reading this entire thread I'm not so sure. People seem to be using the 18Kpv without issue in a variety of situations. Now maybe these had updated software or maybe not....it's difficult to tell without being there and a deep read of this thread but it definitely seems like there was more to it....I don't know what or why but it seems there's some work to be done wrt customer service, that's the part that makes me hesitant to order/purchase what appears to be the best solution to my needs. The slightly encouraging thing is that they are even right here in this thread responding and posting. I'm not sure what other 'channels' they are on (I'm not on any of the social media platforms) but that can't be a bad thing.

anyway....still considering purchasing the 18Kpv...

You’re not so sure about what?

As I’ve stated from day one, I think the unit is physically great. As software improves, I think it’ll be a very nice unit to own. If you’re not worried about the backfeed issues it was originally having, which seem to have since been solved, I believe you would be buying a nice inverter.

What is absolutely clear is that their customer service, and attitude as a whole has proven to be poor. You are correct, they actively respond on this forum, it is often referred to as the only way to get results. There are MANY threads full of customers whom have called repeatedly, crazy hold times, crazy responses from support etc. You’d have to refer to each of the complaints as they all have their own story.

The product I believe in, it seems like it has great potential. The company, I can’t say so much. Not only do they repeatedly drop the ball badly, but their attitude is beyond terrible.

I’d love to see that change, but I can’t say I’m overly optimistic as it starts from the top, the owner and lead engineer (I’m assuming that’s his position) are both quite guilty of this repeatedly.

You’ll probably love the inverter, it appears they’ve made some nice changes to the software and are much closer to where it should have been at release. Just be realistic with yourself and your expectations with support and customer service going into it.

 

[Quattrohead]

The product I believe in

No you don't, you sent it back.

 

[Watts Happening]

No you don't, you sent it back.

But I do, I just wasn’t willing to be the guinea pig for the software while simultaneously being told nonsense about how I’m asking for things that don’t exist.

I bought an item with promised specifications, it did not meet those specifications thus it went back.

As the software matures, I’m sure it will. The physical product itself remains unchanged. Well, aside from the fact that it didn’t have remote shut down when I bought it and that has since been changed.

 

[Kenny_]

No you don't, you sent it back.

Yeah, this....I mean this thread only started a couple of months ago. I'm not sure how much the software has been updated in that time and or if others are using / were using the same box and software and having apparently wonderful experiences....there's just something off here that is not coming out....IMO

I mean maybe it was defective hardware....it's very hard to say as an outside observer...

 

[Watts Happening]

Yeah, this....I mean this thread only started a couple of months ago. I'm not sure how much the software has been updated in that time and or if others are using / were using the same box and software and having apparently wonderful experiences....there's just something off here that is not coming out....IMO

I mean maybe it was defective hardware....it's very hard to say as an outside observer...

lol alright.

The software has seen quite a few improvements.

It was all a ploy to get them to do what they did.

Also, per their own answers, they use the unit for testing internally. So, if you thought there were hardware problems, you have your answer.

Sometimes everything is exactly as it seems folks. But again, buy whatever suits you best. I have one of their LLv2 batteries and it’s great, their Chargeverter is also awesome, I’m having a bit of trouble with it tripping a GFCI but that’s nothing I’d steer clear of.

I say buy it, it will likely do what you need it to. How’s that for “something off”?

 

[Kenny_]

You care to specify what software changes?

I don't think the fact that they test the unit internally has anything to do with anything. I would expect any manufacture to maintain a test setup to verify/validate problems and for long-duration testing. That's just normal.

What I'm saying is there is something fishy about this whole thing. But for now I'll see what others have to say.

Thanks.

 

[Kenny_]

....and P.S. I still get why you avatar says you are a Sol-Ark and Battle Born Dealer....

This was brought up in the thread and never addressed...it looks very suspicious as well...

 

[Watts Happening]

You care to specify what software changes?

I don't think the fact that they test the unit internally has anything to do with anything. I would expect any manufacture to maintain a test setup to verify/validate problems and for long-duration testing. That's just normal.

What I'm saying is there is something fishy about this whole thing. But for now I'll see what others have to say.

Thanks.

I think you must’ve misunderstood what I meant by saying they use it internally. I mean that to explain that there is clearly nothing physically wrong with it, otherwise it would not be used in house for testing and development. Furthering my belief all issues were software based.

I don’t follow their software development, as I no longer own their inverter. From what I’ve seen the backfeed issues are taken care of, I can’t remember what else but there have been multiple firmware updates.

What do you even begin to believe would be going on aside from the story shared? I had problems, they are well documented and even admitted to by the owner of the company. I can’t say much else, it just didn’t get fixed and I got blamed. You’ve read it all, take from it what you want.

At the end of the day, I don’t care where you spend your money.

 

[Kenny_]

I think that answers my question ... well other than the Sol-Ark Dealer thing.

 

[Crowz]

....and P.S. I still get why you avatar says you are a Sol-Ark and Battle Born Dealer....

This was brought up in the thread and never addressed...it looks very suspicious as well...

You haven't read the entire thread or missed it. The title change came about from them accusing him of being a sol ark dealer and all so he changed the title as a joke.