1 minute ago, zsde said:

I believe I did point that out in an earlier post. So he is aware of that.

"On the sellers website the data contradicts that which is on the battery, as yours is a 4800 and this one is advertised as a 5100"
 

Ok, was just pointing that out, because your suggested settings are outside of the "voltage range" printed on the battery.

The only voltage change I suggested is to reduce the 56.4V currently set on his inverter to 56V and to up the cut off voltage from 42V to 44V.

 

Edited April 6, 20224 yr by zsde

Guys, what setting can I use to use more solar and batteries. My batteries fill up fairly quick then the panels produce little power thereafter. I would like to stay off Eskom for a longer period during the day and run on batteries at night. My load is not that demanding anyways so it would be great to just use solar and if the demand gets to say 4 or 4.5kwh, then Eskom can kick in.

3 hours ago, Kamlesh said:

Guys, what setting can I use to use more solar and batteries. My batteries fill up fairly quick then the panels produce little power thereafter. I would like to stay off Eskom for a longer period during the day and run on batteries at night. My load is not that demanding anyways so it would be great to just use solar and if the demand gets to say 4 or 4.5kwh, then Eskom can kick in.

Do you have enough load on during the day to use power from PV and battery?

Do you find some grid is used during the day?

The grid kicks in sometimes when I use a kettle or heater etc. Other than that my load is pretty low. Advise me on this, I have a 5kw inverter, so I assume that max load can be 5, if so, what setting do I need to change to get Eskom to kick in at say 4.5. I have two 4.8 batteries.

1 hour ago, Kamlesh said:

The grid kicks in sometimes when I use a kettle or heater etc. Other than that my load is pretty low. Advise me on this, I have a 5kw inverter, so I assume that max load can be 5, if so, what setting do I need to change to get Eskom to kick in at say 4.5. I have two 4.8 batteries.

AFAIK there is no such setting. You can only use the Volts. I do find it strange that with a 10kwh battery back that it drops so low to kick in the grid.

As it is a off grid inverter such setting should not be needed. Just see what happens when you lower the back to grid setting. You can then change it back after a test.

Ok will try that, but what is then the grid setting.which do I need to change to test

1 hour ago, Kamlesh said:

Ok will try that, but what is then the grid setting.which do I need to change to test

I think it is setting 12 as was talked about in a previous posting.

Try 44V

Morning guys. Right now, 6:30am, I put a small load on the system and the power cut off completely, Eskom did not kick in and the batteries where dead. Battery wasn’t fully charging due to rain yesterday, but surely Eskom should have kicked in to help. I manually put the system to Eskom so I can have power. Code 52 showed up in the inverter. Any ideas on the settings?

4 hours ago, Kamlesh said:

Morning guys. Right now, 6:30am, I put a small load on the system and the power cut off completely, Eskom did not kick in and the batteries where dead. Battery wasn’t fully charging due to rain yesterday, but surely Eskom should have kicked in to help. I manually put the system to Eskom so I can have power. Code 52 showed up in the inverter. Any ideas on the settings?

Perhaps time to do the not normal thing by using manual settings to charge those flat batteries.

Error 52 just tells you the DC bus has low voltage. In the current rainy weather you cannot rely on PV to charge them. In a previous post you indicated you want to use more PV for load and you have used the setting CSO. Perhaps time to use SNU. Bear in mind if CSO is used and there is just a trickle of PV it will not use the grid. PV has to be zero to charge the batteries. This should have taken place during the night but did not. It might help to switch off the PV input in order to force grid charge.

So it is time to try something else. If it was me in you situation I would disconnect the comms cable between inverter and battery. Without know the detail settings of a Growatt I would apply general settings for 16 cell lithium batteries.

Here is a guideline for lithium and other members can give their input:

Back to grid:  48V

Disconnect battery: 46V

Bulk/boost charging: 53V

Float: 51V

Equalization: Set to off or a very short 15min

Low volt warning: 49V

Try these and see if you can get those batteries charged.

Due to the ongoing problems it might be a time to get those batteries charged and see if they can power a kettle without dropping a lot in voltage or connecting to the grid.

Should this fail to achieve positive results it's time to call in another installer to check out all the connections and settings. Not easy to give guidance without know how the panels (strings) are connected and if the work correctly.

@Scorp007, thanks for this. Since im a newbie to this, please advise in terms of 1-21 or any other which is to be changed according to your advice, like bulk, disconnect battery.

4 hours ago, Kamlesh said:

@Scorp007, thanks for this. Since im a newbie to this, please advise in terms of 1-21 or any other which is to be changed according to your advice, like bulk, disconnect battery.

From your earlier post.

1. sbu, 2. 20amps, 3. apl, 4.dis, 5.us2, 6.ena, 7.dis, 8.230v, 9. 50, 10.4, 11. 20, 12.46.0v, 13.54v, 14.cso, 15. Off, 16.on, 17. Off, 18. Ena, 19.56.4, 20. 54v, 21. 42v

First call is to see if the AC charger is working and batteries are OK. PV is bad in Gauteng so try the very basic operation using as a UPS.

1. Utl   2. 30A   3. UPS   4. DIS   5. US2   6. DIS   7. DIS   8. 230   9. 50   10. 4   11. 30A   12. 48V   13. 54V   14. SNU   15. ON   16. ON   17. ON   18. DIS   19. 56V   20. 54V

21. 46V   23. SIG   43. DIS   44. 56V   48. OFF   49. 1615   50. 2009

Float in these setting now 54V instead of 51V as per my previous post.

Bear in mind the last 2 settings are only for the test to charge from 16h today up to 15h tomorrow to charge batteries full. Inverter to only work from 20h today up to 09h tomorrow to do the basic test. After 21h00 today you can see how it behaves if you switch the grid off and it should power a kettle from batteries.

I hope this can be a starting point and ignoring PV for now.

 

Edited April 10, 20224 yr by Scorp007

Hi guys. I have been getting a fault code, every time there’s full sun I think the batteries are overcharging. Since the bms cable not working, what can I do

27 minutes ago, Kamlesh said:

Hi guys. I have been getting a fault code, every time there’s full sun I think the batteries are overcharging. Since the bms cable not working, what can I do

Get a reading to confirm it is over charging than to guess unless you have looked up the fault code to confirm

Once it came up as overcharging and another time code 52

3 hours ago, Kamlesh said:

Once it came up as overcharging and another time code 52

Just switch the grid input off to prevent damage and charge when you can keep a eye on te voltage.

Guys, this whole setup is frustrating. Saturday night about 10pm, the inverter and batteries shut down completely. Didn’t switch to mains. I manually switched over to mains on the board. Since then to now the inverter hasn’t come back on. Any ideas?

I have seen many people struggling with these Growatt inverters, my advice would be to sell it /ditch it and get a Sunsynk.

Hi guys. The person I bought the Gro watt from is offering to swop it for a luxpower inverter. Should I/shouldn’t I?

Hi guys. The following has happened nearly everyday  now. The batteries will run low within the night, then when a kettled is switched on, power cuts completely, mains does not assist. I have to reset the battery. Which setting should I be looking at. Also, can the firmware be updated in these machines.

On 2022/04/21 at 6:55 AM, Kamlesh said:

Hi guys. The person I bought the Gro watt from is offering to swop it for a luxpower inverter. Should I/shouldn’t I?

Ask him to swap it for a Sunsynk with a cash difference

On 2022/04/18 at 7:54 AM, Nexuss said:

I have seen many people struggling with these Growatt inverters, my advice would be to sell it /ditch it and get a Sunsynk.

One cannot help but feeling this way if we just go by the topics. But then as raised we mostly read about the problems but not those that are working as intended.

On 2022/04/07 at 3:29 AM, Kamlesh said:

Guys, what setting can I use to use more solar and batteries. My batteries fill up fairly quick then the panels produce little power thereafter. I would like to stay off Eskom for a longer period during the day and run on batteries at night. My load is not that demanding anyways so it would be great to just use solar and if the demand gets to say 4 or 4.5kwh, then Eskom can kick in.

This sounds like business as usual to me. I have a completely different setup from you, but I see the same behaviour. Once the batteries are fully charged then solar drops off to just service the loads in the house. When the batteries are full, they're full and there's no point in trying to put more into something that's full. At this point I am not buying any electricity from the municipality, and my batteries are fully charged - that's a good position to be in.

Another reason for expecting and wanting this behaviour is that if I have a big load during the day where load > PV, then the system will draw from the batteries and usually there is time enough to get the batteries charged up again.

If your batteries are charging really early in the day and your low is load then there's a couple of options I can think of
1) More battery. You clearly have charging capacity to spare
2) Increase the load during the day to take advantage of the surplus PV. Things like water heating and pool pumps can be put on timers. Run your dishwasher during the day instead of at night. Etc. This also reduces the draw from the batteries at night. See what big loads you have, and see what you can move into the sunny hours.

To get the most out of any non-grid source of power (unless you have a home made nuclear reactor in the man cave) you need to change your routines to fit in with the power source. You have to literally make hay whilst the sun shines.

3 hours ago, Bobster said:

On 2022/04/07 at 3:29 AM, Kamlesh said:

Guys, what setting can I use to use more solar and batteries. My batteries fill up fairly quick then the panels produce little power thereafter. I would like to stay off Eskom for a longer period during the day and run on batteries at night. My load is not that demanding anyways so it would be great to just use solar and if the demand gets to say 4 or 4.5kwh, then Eskom can kick in.

This sounds like business as usual to me. I have a completely different setup from you, but I see the same behaviour. Once the batteries are fully charged then solar drops off to just service the loads in the house. When the batteries are full, they're full and there's no point in trying to put more into something that's full. At this point I am not buying any electricity from the municipality, and my batteries are fully charged - that's a good position to be in.

Here's my graph so far today

Blue line is PV, green line is SOC. Purple line is current to (below axis) or from (above axis) batteries.

So when my batteries hit 100% SOC, the system draws just enough PV to service the load. 

You never get this perfect, and in fact you want to have some excess in the system. If there's an unexpected big load on the system, or if the weather isn't so great then there's still some time for charging the batteries. In fact you can see this happening here... there's a big spike, SOC drops a little, the inverter first draws from battery, then draws a little more PV to get the batteries charged up again.

Edited April 27, 20224 yr by Bobster
sppellin

Hi Guys. I have 4x540mono panels and 6 450w poly, connect in 2 series. 2x ultra energy batteries.

Do any of you have the Sunsynk inverter. Please tell me about it and what can it do. I want to power my home during the day via solar, once battery is full to then power my 2 geysers, not return power to the grid as i have heard that if its not done correct, then I pay double from eskom. What should i be aware of. Pros vs cons?