Etiennet Posted April 14, 2022 Posted April 14, 2022 (edited) Hi Gents, Trust you are all well. i have a very strange issue. Some days my solar is working 100% and other days the Watts on the Panels stays at 15 Watts. Below is a screenshot of it as it is today. Yesterday the Solar was working with out any issues. As I stated it seems to happen every other day. This morning everything started okay but after 10am it went down to 15 WATT and no amps I don't have a clue what the issue can be and its very trouble some with the Loadshedding back. Does any one perhaps have an idea what could be causing this? and how it can be resolved, feedback from the installer is it might be software related. But the system was working at my previous residense and since moving all the panels were moved and 2 were added. The current setup is 5KW King inverter, 6 x 405w Canadian Solar Panels and 2 x Pylontech US 2.4 Batteries. Any help would be appreciated. Edited April 14, 2022 by Etiennet Quote
TimCam Posted April 14, 2022 Posted April 14, 2022 For 6x405W panels, 85V is low. Possibly with the move, one or more connectors are not seated properly, or faulty. There appears to be a bad contact somewhere. Maybe measure the incoming voltage from the panels with a multimeter. (Careful, as it could be lethal.) Quote
GreenFields Posted April 14, 2022 Posted April 14, 2022 Pure speculation. The grid voltage seems a bit high, outside of the range of the inverter's ac voltage output. Suggestion would be to compare during times when the inverter is operating normally, whether the grid voltage is around 230V-240V. Your solar production seems to collapse around 10am, which would be during a loadshedding group changeover. Even if your own area is not in loadshedding, it might be that the grid voltage becomes unstable at that time, to the point that your inverter cannot match the high grid voltage. Does it ever happen that your solar is throttled at a time that the grid is out? If I'm right, it might be a solution to go off-grid for the time that Eskom is unstable, turn off mains, as long as there's enough sunshine or battery available to keep you going. Quote
Coulomb Posted April 15, 2022 Posted April 15, 2022 Though the King with double conversion (unless in bypass due to overload) should be fairly immune to the AC input voltage. That seems to be a bit of an advantage (if it works of course), with the way the South African grid seems to be performing of late. Quote
Etiennet Posted April 15, 2022 Author Posted April 15, 2022 Thanks for the replies guys. I have not seen any throttling at all. Very strange that voltage but it dropped back to 240v shortly after the screenshot. So the standing currently is that it might be connectors either faulty or not seated properly? this is what it is looking like today. Quote
Coulomb Posted April 16, 2022 Posted April 16, 2022 What firmware versions (U1 and U2, but mainly U1, the main DSP firmware) are you running? Some early King firmwares had bad PV problems. Perhaps at your old residence the bugs were never triggered, but in the present environment, they are getting triggered. Quote
Calvin Posted April 16, 2022 Posted April 16, 2022 (edited) Looking at your last post, the inverter is in Utility (Grid) mode and the battery is almost full. So, there is nowhere for any PV to go to. What are your ToUtil and ToBattery settings (12 & 13)? Or is ICC somehow switching it to grid mode? Edited April 16, 2022 by Calvin Quote
Coulomb Posted April 16, 2022 Posted April 16, 2022 6 hours ago, Calvin said: Looking at your last post, the inverter is in Utility (Grid) mode and the battery is almost full. So, there is nowhere for any PV to go to. But it's a King, so it should be blending PV and AC-in. So the PV should be powering the loads instead of, or taking over almost completely from, AC-in. Quote
Calvin Posted April 16, 2022 Posted April 16, 2022 5 minutes ago, Coulomb said: But it's a King, so it should be blending PV and AC-in. So the PV should be powering the loads instead of, or taking over almost completely from, AC-in. Quite right - blonde moment Quote
Etiennet Posted April 18, 2022 Author Posted April 18, 2022 (edited) On 2022/04/16 at 2:47 AM, Coulomb said: What firmware versions (U1 and U2, but mainly U1, the main DSP firmware) are you running? Some early King firmwares had bad PV problems. Perhaps at your old residence the bugs were never triggered, but in the present environment, they are getting triggered. HI Coulomb, Please see below for Firmware version as requested. Edited April 18, 2022 by Etiennet Quote
Calvin Posted April 18, 2022 Posted April 18, 2022 On 2022/04/16 at 3:09 PM, Coulomb said: But it's a King, so it should be blending PV and AC-in. So the PV should be powering the loads instead of, or taking over almost completely from, AC-in. Hi @Coulomb, I almost never run my Kings in Line mode (I disconnect the utility with a contactor except when SOC is too low) so I have not got much experience. Today I did an experiment and left the utility connected. What I saw is very strange. When in line mode (with setting 16 on SLB/UDC), the line mode will supply all output, and solar (if any) will only be used to charge the batteries. If there is more PV available than can be sent to the batteries the SCC with reduce it's output to match - it will not use the excess to reduce the grid consumption. The logic seems to be: use utility only to run the loads, use PV only to charge the battery. This behaviour is consistent with the problem that @Etiennet has seen. it makes no sense at all, but then Voltronic's programmers are not famous for their logic. The workaround seems to be to get out of line mode whenever possible - I still do not know what @Etiennet uses for setting 13. Quote
Etiennet Posted April 18, 2022 Author Posted April 18, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, Calvin said: Hi @Coulomb, I almost never run my Kings in Line mode (I disconnect the utility with a contactor except when SOC is too low) so I have not got much experience. Today I did an experiment and left the utility connected. What I saw is very strange. When in line mode (with setting 16 on SLB/UDC), the line mode will supply all output, and solar (if any) will only be used to charge the batteries. If there is more PV available than can be sent to the batteries the SCC with reduce it's output to match - it will not use the excess to reduce the grid consumption. The logic seems to be: use utility only to run the loads, use PV only to charge the battery. This behaviour is consistent with the problem that @Etiennet has seen. it makes no sense at all, but then Voltronic's programmers are not famous for their logic. The workaround seems to be to get out of line mode whenever possible - I still do not know what @Etiennet uses for setting 13. Hi Calvin, My setting 16 is also SLB/UDC and setting 13 is 51v Hope this helps, let me know if you need any other info? Edited April 18, 2022 by Etiennet Quote
Coulomb Posted April 18, 2022 Posted April 18, 2022 4 hours ago, Etiennet said: Please see below for Firmware version as requested. Main firmware 71.97 is good. Unfortunately, Main CPU2 isn't the same as the U2 firmware version (Voltronic not being consistent yet again). That's the Solar Charge Controller firmware version. Until recently, I had not even seen those; I have not had time to analyse them. There is a small possibility that the removable display isn't sending the right commands to the DSP when setting 16 is changed to / displayed as SLB/UDC. So if you can use the up or down buttons on your display to get to a screen showing U2 at the top, please tell us what the next 2 lines are. Actually, I've just checked, and it seems that the King firmware uses the same PCP command with just 3 options as the other models do. So I doubt that this is the issue now. Though that means that the meaning of the four options changes between Kings and other models, leaving plenty of room for confusion and bugs. Quote
Calvin Posted April 18, 2022 Posted April 18, 2022 52 minutes ago, Etiennet said: Hi Calvin, My setting 16 is also SLB/UDC and setting 13 is 51v Hope this helps, let me know if you need any other info? I think that your issue is that the inverter is in line mode when it should not be - the voltage is above 51V and yet ICC shows Utility (grid) mode. Now the question is: is the mode controlled by ICC, or simply reported by ICC. I am afraid that I do not know ICC well enough to answer that question. Perhaps you can try their support, or post the question here asking for ICC help. Quote
Etiennet Posted April 19, 2022 Author Posted April 19, 2022 (edited) 16 hours ago, Coulomb said: Main firmware 71.97 is good. Unfortunately, Main CPU2 isn't the same as the U2 firmware version (Voltronic not being consistent yet again). That's the Solar Charge Controller firmware version. Until recently, I had not even seen those; I have not had time to analyse them. There is a small possibility that the removable display isn't sending the right commands to the DSP when setting 16 is changed to / displayed as SLB/UDC. So if you can use the up or down buttons on your display to get to a screen showing U2 at the top, please tell us what the next 2 lines are. Actually, I've just checked, and it seems that the King firmware uses the same PCP command with just 3 options as the other models do. So I doubt that this is the issue now. Though that means that the meaning of the four options changes between Kings and other models, leaving plenty of room for confusion and bugs. Thanks Coulomb, I will check that setting and report back as soon as I am home. 16 hours ago, Calvin said: I think that your issue is that the inverter is in line mode when it should not be - the voltage is above 51V and yet ICC shows Utility (grid) mode. Now the question is: is the mode controlled by ICC, or simply reported by ICC. I am afraid that I do not know ICC well enough to answer that question. Perhaps you can try their support, or post the question here asking for ICC help. Very Strange also picked that up. i remember it showing SUB on ICC. Below is the settings on ICC it is set to SUB on ICC but looks like it is reporting Utility (Grid), now I am confused. Now this morning again I do have Watts showing. This is the problem, sometimes I see watts other times it just stays at 15watt At some point it was looking good at 514 watts. Edited April 19, 2022 by Etiennet Quote
Coulomb Posted April 19, 2022 Posted April 19, 2022 15W is very strange. If it was 51 W, I'd say the Solar Charge Controller is in one of the modes were it reports 1 amp (a lot of the solar calculations are in units of whole amps). But 15 W implies about ¼ of an amp. I guess it's possible though as the SCC also reports watts (in units of 1 watt), and the SCC does work in tenths of an amp. So it could be that the SCC is measuring 0.3 A, and the battery voltage is around 50 V; 50 x 0.3 = 15. There is also a figure of 10 W above, that would be 0.2 A. So that suggests that these figures of 10 and 15 W are coming from the SCC, rather than a calculation in the DSP. That doesn't seem to tell us much though... Quote
Etiennet Posted April 23, 2022 Author Posted April 23, 2022 On 2022/04/18 at 10:28 AM, Calvin said: Hi @Coulomb, I almost never run my Kings in Line mode (I disconnect the utility with a contactor except when SOC is too low) so I have not got much experience. Today I did an experiment and left the utility connected. What I saw is very strange. When in line mode (with setting 16 on SLB/UDC), the line mode will supply all output, and solar (if any) will only be used to charge the batteries. If there is more PV available than can be sent to the batteries the SCC with reduce it's output to match - it will not use the excess to reduce the grid consumption. The logic seems to be: use utility only to run the loads, use PV only to charge the battery. This behaviour is consistent with the problem that @Etiennet has seen. it makes no sense at all, but then Voltronic's programmers are not famous for their logic. The workaround seems to be to get out of line mode whenever possible - I still do not know what @Etiennet uses for setting 13. Hi Calvin, You are right with this statement, how do I get the King to use the excess PV for loads? Quote
Etiennet Posted April 27, 2022 Author Posted April 27, 2022 I got it to work. King using both Solar and Utility. Was working great for a couple of days. But now back to using 10-15 pv watts. I really don't know what happened. Coulomb 1 Quote
Coulomb Posted April 29, 2022 Posted April 29, 2022 On 2022/04/28 at 2:02 AM, Etiennet said: I really don't know what happened. Yet, showing that it's in some sense intermittent, may provide the clue that eventually gets it fixed. Or patched. So thanks for the update. Quote
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