RudShep

Hi all,
I had quite an interesting but satisfying journey hunting down the cause of Error 02 on a Growatt inverter and share the story to spare you future pain.
It started with the inverter starting up with warning 02 (overheat) despite ambient showing 25 on the display.
I noticed that when it rains, or there is high humidity, the warning turned into an Error and the inverter would just cut out for safety reasons. It would then magically repair itself after a while and work again.
Until the other night the Error 02 kicked in with vengeance and no more Netflix during load shedding for me.
This is a second hand unit I picked up from someone that lives close to the sea and clearly got fed up with it.
The proximity to the ocean is a big clue. I noticed right off the bat the build-up around the fans and white spots on the PCB inside. I'm presuming these are salt deposits, but could also be some other acid carried on the ocean breeze.
This is AFTER cleaning!

To cut a long story short, the cause of the Error 02 was the thermistor connector on the MPPT board was eaten away and the pin crumbled into rusty dust when I touched it.
Here's a pic of the offending part...


And after a quick repair...

I was ecstatic to find the fault and quickly replaced the connector, put everything back together and fired the inverter back up.
Wha, wha, whaaaaa.... *FAIL*
Ag no man... what now?
After stripping the whole thing again, cleaning every piece of build-up off the boards with a toothbrush and alcohol, I noticed that in some places the track would just crumble and fall off the board! I should have noticed it in the pic above already, but was blinded by the first and obvious fault, like so often happens.
I noticed the big trace from the one connector to the other side of the board but when I tested it, it was not conducting. A little more cleaning revealed a the trace has disintegrated.


The fix was quick and easy... although the same cannot be said about finding the problem in the first place... I was so annoyed I forgot to take a picture of the fix, but all it is, is a jumper wire across the broken trace.
So all back together it goes and soak test on the bench.
I call that a win!

So back to the root cause...
The fans seem to pump an awful lot of caustic moisture over a sensitive part of the board. There is a plastic coating sprayed over the components but on this inverter, it wasn't done very well and the rust got in everywhere the barrier was weak. Growatt really needs to have a look at this.

So the moral of the story is, if you are going to install a budget inverter at your huisie by die see, put it where the salty breeze can't get to it, put a filter over the fans, or put in a waterproof inverter.
I hope this helps someone.
Epilogue... The story didn't end here.. Fixing this fault exposed yet another... have a look at the post about the 350V AC problem for more fault finding fables.

Hi all,
I had quite an interesting but satisfying journey hunting down the cause of Error 02 on a Growatt inverter and share the story to spare you future pain.
It started with the inverter starting up with warning 02 (overheat) despite ambient showing 25 on the display.
I noticed that when it rains, or there is high humidity, the warning turned into an Error and the inverter would just cut out for safety reasons. It would then magically repair itself after a while and work again.
Until the other night the Error 02 kicked in with vengeance and no more Netflix during load shedding for me.
This is a second hand unit I picked up from someone that lives close to the sea and clearly got fed up with it.
The proximity to the ocean is a big clue. I noticed right off the bat the build-up around the fans and white spots on the PCB inside. I'm presuming these are salt deposits, but could also be some other acid carried on the ocean breeze.
This is AFTER cleaning!

To cut a long story short, the cause of the Error 02 was the thermistor connector on the MPPT board was eaten away and the pin crumbled into rusty dust when I touched it.
Here's a pic of the offending part...


And after a quick repair...

I was ecstatic to find the fault and quickly replaced the connector, put everything back together and fired the inverter back up.
Wha, wha, whaaaaa.... *FAIL*
Ag no man... what now?
After stripping the whole thing again, cleaning every piece of build-up off the boards with a toothbrush and alcohol, I noticed that in some places the track would just crumble and fall off the board! I should have noticed it in the pic above already, but was blinded by the first and obvious fault, like so often happens.
I noticed the big trace from the one connector to the other side of the board but when I tested it, it was not conducting. A little more cleaning revealed a the trace has disintegrated.


The fix was quick and easy... although the same cannot be said about finding the problem in the first place... I was so annoyed I forgot to take a picture of the fix, but all it is, is a jumper wire across the broken trace.
So all back together it goes and soak test on the bench.
I call that a win!

So back to the root cause...
The fans seem to pump an awful lot of caustic moisture over a sensitive part of the board. There is a plastic coating sprayed over the components but on this inverter, it wasn't done very well and the rust got in everywhere the barrier was weak. Growatt really needs to have a look at this.

So the moral of the story is, if you are going to install a budget inverter at your huisie by die see, put it where the salty breeze can't get to it, put a filter over the fans, or put in a waterproof inverter.
I hope this helps someone.
Epilogue... The story didn't end here.. Fixing this fault exposed yet another... have a look at the post about the 350V AC problem for more fault finding fables.

I wouldn't think drawing from a battery bank in parallel should be a problem, but hitting it with two chargers in parallel might cause an issue if they don't know about each other and try to get "smart" with the charge curve.
If you can get away with it, charge with one charger and disable the other or use one charger for PV and the other for utility charging.
It might also be more efficient to put a DC element in the geyser and drive it directly from the panels but it is still not nearly as efficient as a direct solar water heater if that is an option. You get 1kw equivalent per square meter on a water heater, but a 1kw PV is probably 2 or 3 sqm or more roof space.
In my own setup I use the geyser (with a standard element) as an "excess energy battery". I monitor the PV supply and the load and if there is more supply than load, the excess is pumped into the geyser. This goes on the whole day, little by little, until it is hot. It is called an energy diverter... look at emonCMS energy diverter for ideas.
The algorithm also switches the geyser off if there is other demand to not overload the inverter. It's a bit finicky at times but interesting.
 

Hi all,
I had quite an interesting but satisfying journey hunting down the cause of Error 02 on a Growatt inverter and share the story to spare you future pain.
It started with the inverter starting up with warning 02 (overheat) despite ambient showing 25 on the display.
I noticed that when it rains, or there is high humidity, the warning turned into an Error and the inverter would just cut out for safety reasons. It would then magically repair itself after a while and work again.
Until the other night the Error 02 kicked in with vengeance and no more Netflix during load shedding for me.
This is a second hand unit I picked up from someone that lives close to the sea and clearly got fed up with it.
The proximity to the ocean is a big clue. I noticed right off the bat the build-up around the fans and white spots on the PCB inside. I'm presuming these are salt deposits, but could also be some other acid carried on the ocean breeze.
This is AFTER cleaning!

To cut a long story short, the cause of the Error 02 was the thermistor connector on the MPPT board was eaten away and the pin crumbled into rusty dust when I touched it.
Here's a pic of the offending part...


And after a quick repair...

I was ecstatic to find the fault and quickly replaced the connector, put everything back together and fired the inverter back up.
Wha, wha, whaaaaa.... *FAIL*
Ag no man... what now?
After stripping the whole thing again, cleaning every piece of build-up off the boards with a toothbrush and alcohol, I noticed that in some places the track would just crumble and fall off the board! I should have noticed it in the pic above already, but was blinded by the first and obvious fault, like so often happens.
I noticed the big trace from the one connector to the other side of the board but when I tested it, it was not conducting. A little more cleaning revealed a the trace has disintegrated.


The fix was quick and easy... although the same cannot be said about finding the problem in the first place... I was so annoyed I forgot to take a picture of the fix, but all it is, is a jumper wire across the broken trace.
So all back together it goes and soak test on the bench.
I call that a win!

So back to the root cause...
The fans seem to pump an awful lot of caustic moisture over a sensitive part of the board. There is a plastic coating sprayed over the components but on this inverter, it wasn't done very well and the rust got in everywhere the barrier was weak. Growatt really needs to have a look at this.

So the moral of the story is, if you are going to install a budget inverter at your huisie by die see, put it where the salty breeze can't get to it, put a filter over the fans, or put in a waterproof inverter.
I hope this helps someone.
Epilogue... The story didn't end here.. Fixing this fault exposed yet another... have a look at the post about the 350V AC problem for more fault finding fables.

Hi all,
I had quite an interesting but satisfying journey hunting down the cause of Error 02 on a Growatt inverter and share the story to spare you future pain.
It started with the inverter starting up with warning 02 (overheat) despite ambient showing 25 on the display.
I noticed that when it rains, or there is high humidity, the warning turned into an Error and the inverter would just cut out for safety reasons. It would then magically repair itself after a while and work again.
Until the other night the Error 02 kicked in with vengeance and no more Netflix during load shedding for me.
This is a second hand unit I picked up from someone that lives close to the sea and clearly got fed up with it.
The proximity to the ocean is a big clue. I noticed right off the bat the build-up around the fans and white spots on the PCB inside. I'm presuming these are salt deposits, but could also be some other acid carried on the ocean breeze.
This is AFTER cleaning!

To cut a long story short, the cause of the Error 02 was the thermistor connector on the MPPT board was eaten away and the pin crumbled into rusty dust when I touched it.
Here's a pic of the offending part...


And after a quick repair...

I was ecstatic to find the fault and quickly replaced the connector, put everything back together and fired the inverter back up.
Wha, wha, whaaaaa.... *FAIL*
Ag no man... what now?
After stripping the whole thing again, cleaning every piece of build-up off the boards with a toothbrush and alcohol, I noticed that in some places the track would just crumble and fall off the board! I should have noticed it in the pic above already, but was blinded by the first and obvious fault, like so often happens.
I noticed the big trace from the one connector to the other side of the board but when I tested it, it was not conducting. A little more cleaning revealed a the trace has disintegrated.


The fix was quick and easy... although the same cannot be said about finding the problem in the first place... I was so annoyed I forgot to take a picture of the fix, but all it is, is a jumper wire across the broken trace.
So all back together it goes and soak test on the bench.
I call that a win!

So back to the root cause...
The fans seem to pump an awful lot of caustic moisture over a sensitive part of the board. There is a plastic coating sprayed over the components but on this inverter, it wasn't done very well and the rust got in everywhere the barrier was weak. Growatt really needs to have a look at this.

So the moral of the story is, if you are going to install a budget inverter at your huisie by die see, put it where the salty breeze can't get to it, put a filter over the fans, or put in a waterproof inverter.
I hope this helps someone.
Epilogue... The story didn't end here.. Fixing this fault exposed yet another... have a look at the post about the 350V AC problem for more fault finding fables.

Yes.

Hi Conrad. DON'T use AGM... the voltages are wrong for Lithium.
As zsde said, use USE mode and set the parameters to what the battery manual says. Post a page or the entire manual here and I can try and help.
You can run on USEr defined mode but it is certainly better to get the inverter and battery to communicate with each other via the comms cable. Trouble is there are over 15 "profiles" on the Growatt and two ports - CAN and RS485 so it is hard to find a combination that works.
I am busy setting up a bit of a database of inverter and battery combinations and settings and will be happy to go through the pain to get yours working with you to get some data for the register.
Rudie

Hi Conrad. DON'T use AGM... the voltages are wrong for Lithium.
As zsde said, use USE mode and set the parameters to what the battery manual says. Post a page or the entire manual here and I can try and help.
You can run on USEr defined mode but it is certainly better to get the inverter and battery to communicate with each other via the comms cable. Trouble is there are over 15 "profiles" on the Growatt and two ports - CAN and RS485 so it is hard to find a combination that works.
I am busy setting up a bit of a database of inverter and battery combinations and settings and will be happy to go through the pain to get yours working with you to get some data for the register.
Rudie

Hi Conrad. DON'T use AGM... the voltages are wrong for Lithium.
As zsde said, use USE mode and set the parameters to what the battery manual says. Post a page or the entire manual here and I can try and help.
You can run on USEr defined mode but it is certainly better to get the inverter and battery to communicate with each other via the comms cable. Trouble is there are over 15 "profiles" on the Growatt and two ports - CAN and RS485 so it is hard to find a combination that works.
I am busy setting up a bit of a database of inverter and battery combinations and settings and will be happy to go through the pain to get yours working with you to get some data for the register.
Rudie