Nadeem Ahmed

Thanks for sharing your experienced views.

I have recently installed an Hybrid solar inverter. It is 6KW Inverter (IP65) with dual MPPT controllers. It supports 9KW panels on both MPPTs (combined, meaning 4.5KW on each MPPT). I have the following configurations of PV panels installed: - MPPT1: 325W x 9 + 320W x 4 = 4205Watts (All connected in series) MPPT2: 585W x 8 = 4680W One of my friend mentioned that we should use the exact same configuration with both MPPTs. Can someone please guide me on this? Thanks in advance. Nadeem Onyx PV9000.pdf

From your original post, I got that you also have Infinisolar V for which you have got the new firmware.

Jaco, Wasn't you talking about updating firmware of your Infinisolar V inverter? Or do you have another one? I apologize if I got it wrong. What I am looking for is ... updated firmware for my Infinisolar V 5KW and instructions on how to update it.

That's exactly what came to my mind as a first step to suggest. Hopefully it will resolve the problem. @Coulomb, I am not aware of any undocumented commands. What do these 30 sets of 4 digit numbers mean? What information does it represent actually? Where can I get further information on it? Thanks.

Basically, I am considering to upgrade my inverter from Infini V 5KW to Infini E 5.5KW. The primary reason is not that extra 0.5 KW that I will be getting but primarily the MPPT Operating range (120V to 450V) is much better than Infini V (60V to 115V) The other benefit I assume if the better mixing of Grid and PV where I feel Infini V is not very good at. That I assume should give me more cost savings without having to switch between SBU and SUB. Looking for expert's advice and opinion ... @Chris Hobson, @plonkster and others as well.

Can somebody explain the difference between these two models. Obviously, I need to know the other differences beside power rating difference i.e. 5KW vs 5.5KW. The other differences as obvious from their datasheet such as PV Operating Voltage Range etc. that I can get from their datasheets. I am more interested in know the capabilities to maximize the use of solar and saving on electricity costs specially when using source priority SUB vs. SBU. Looking forward to hear from experts. Thank you in advance.

@Coulomb, one more question, will inverter be doing the same with CRC while sending its response back? In other words, while validating the CRC I got with the message I should consider 0E actually means 0D, right? Thank you for your help.

It worked. THANKS A LOT.

You are HERO.

You are here. I was not considering this. Will try it.

I am currently working on a python script to monitor my Infini V 5KW inverter through USB. So far I have been successful in overcoming several issues however I am stuck at a point where when I attempt to set the 'Output Source Priority' to 'Solar-Battery-Utility' option, it refuses to accept command. It uses P18 protocol. On the other side if I try to set it to 'Solar-Utility-Battery' it works fine. In short I am able to set it to SUB but it refuses my command to set it to SBU. What could I be doing wrong?

@superdiy I have a question. Looking at Delphi code above, it looks that appending the final <CR> at the end of InpStr is the final step just before sending it to the inverter, right? Because I don't see this is being done at least in this code. Which also means that the CRC calculation should be done for every thing except the last <CR> character. As an example CRC should be calculated for ^P005PI and then after appending it as ^P005PI<CRC> then CR should be appended such as ^P005PI<CRC><CR>. Please confirm.

Excellent work!

SSRs usually have very small leakage currents (typically few micro-amperes) while they are off. I am not sure if it can effect any kind of sensing of GTI or any other devices, but it is just an aspect to consider before using them.

You mean that even if I am operating my Infini V in off-grid mode, it is still feeding back to grid? I understand what you are saying but I am ruling it out because I am off-grid. Please clarify.

I am using SolarPower application that comes with Inverter. When you run the application without have a USB cable connected to your inverter, "My Power Management" menu option shows up but when I connect the USB cable and this application detects it, the options goes away. But to your question, if you look at the screen shot attached above, yes I am using nightly charging option. Here is what my original thought was: - 1. I wanted to use my solar system to give me savings on electricity. I do not have any plan right now to selling anything back to the power company. So I am using off-grid mode. In future I may plan to be on-grid. 2. I choose Infini V because that had SUB mode that allows mixing of Solar and Utility (obviously that can save me on electricity bills). For SBU mode, I could have bought an Axpert VMII which was cheaper. Infinisolar Plus was way too expensive. 3. Reason for not using SBU mode so far is to avoid unnecessary using battery cycles which will shorten battery life and whatever you are saving on electricity will eventually gets drained from your pocket while replacing batteries. But my analysis so far is that I am unable to save what I was expecting reasonably when I use SUB mode (still haven't got the answer). I will try switching to SBU mode with controlled battery parameters to get some savings without much compromise on battery life.

I am already off-grid. I will try SBU for few days to see if that adds to my savings. Someone else suggested to raise up the battery cut-off voltage to 47 instead of 42. I will do that as well because I think it will work well in SBU mode and will not consume much on battery charge/discharge cycles.

Thanks for explaining. Now I think I have a better understanding of my device. It has another operating mode (which Axperts do not have) called SUB and I am currently using it also. It can combine power from PV and Utility and if both are not available then it comes to Battery. So probably this Inverter has a grid limiting device that tries to limit grid input (or perhaps put a brake on the grid supply) so that it can use PV power and whenever PV power is not enough it releases that brake to allow grid power to come it. And the power factor issue I discussed earlier is also because of this limiting device built into this device. One thing however is still a question, even if PV power is enough to power my load, it still use a small portion of grid too although the major chunk of power is coming from PV. Maybe the internal circuitary of this inverter still need to use some power from grid to operate.

I have heard both @plonkster and you talking about zeroing of phases. I have never heard about it. What do you mean by that?

On another thread, @plonkster gave very valuable information for my problem ... Thank you plonkster. I have 3-phase grid supply at my house where I am running Infini V 5kw on one of these phases. I have put all my inverter based load on this single phase whereas some of the other load is running on the other 2 phases. I am unable to fully understand full application of "output model" inverter setting as shown in attached picture. Will you please guide me which I option should I use in this scenario? Thank you in advance.

Yes it does match. They are just a few numbers apart due the accuracy difference maybe.

Your problem is almost similar to mine. What I have figured out so far is that when inverter starts to mix grid supply with either PV or battery, it does something strange to the grid supply that reduces the power factor at the inverter AC input significantly (<=0.5). I have got to know this as I have 2 energy meters installed both at inverter AC input and output. They measure Volts, Amps, Watts and KWh. I have attached a picture of those energy meters. The left one in the picture measures the AC input. Check the PF on both left and right meters and see the difference. At night, when PV stops working, the power factor gets normal (>=0.9). If you don't know how to calculate ... you can do it by dividing the real power (Watts) by apparent power (volts x amps). Can somebody on this forum shed some more light on to this?

Your problem is almost similar to mine. What I have figured out so far is that when inverter starts to mix grid supply with either PV or battery, it does something strange to the grid supply that reduces the power factor at the inverter AC input significantly (<=0.5). I have got to know this as I have 2 energy meters installed both at inverter AC input and output. They measure Volts, Amps, Watts and KWh. I have attached a picture of those energy meters. The left one in the picture measures the AC input. Check the PF on both left and right meters and see the difference. At night, when PV stops working, the power factor gets normal (>=0.9). If you don't know how to calculate ... you can do it by dividing the real power (Watts) by apparent power (volts x amps). Can somebody on this forum shed some more light on to this?

Not yet. Still Investigating. I have confirmed so far that I am not feeding back to grid however. I have not only confirmed the setting but using some power meter it has now been confirmed that power is not being fed back to grid. Now looking at other aspects. Do you have the same issue?