Jaws Posted April 21, 2022 Posted April 21, 2022 (edited) Im not one for airing my dirty laundry in public- But I feel its my civil duty to let others know that if you do buy a Goodwe you will be left with no support - other than someone in China emailing you every second day with new questions, or a new firmware revision or a copy of the T&C. With Sunsynk and Dye on the market you will have to be crazy to even consider a Goodwe but maybe at some stage retailers will try and get rid of old stock at reduced pricing - DONT do it - shoud the unit fail you can basically scrap it . After a month of trying my upmost best to get my inverter sorted I realised I'm just wasting my time and effort and its time to cut my losses, the frustration and disappointment is not worth it. I just bought a brand new Dye . R20k that could have been used for something else. I really feel guilty and responsible as I recommended Goodwe to a number of my friends and family who went with Goodwe two years ago. Lets hope and pray theirs hold up a bit longer. If required Im more than willing to post my email trail here with the support in China. Locally I spoke to some lady in Cape Town who promised that my tickets gets escalated every week. Seems like there is only a single person I think Andre who must give the go ahead before I can hand the inverter at Segen Solar ( online retailer is not interested to assist). But seems like he is very busy ( or too busy to assist a once off customer - maybe installers and retailers gets preference. Its pretty sad because I think its a quality product but without any real support should you have a hardware failure its basically a piece of expense aluminum. Edited April 21, 2022 by Jaws Yellow Measure 1 Quote
Pietpower Posted April 21, 2022 Posted April 21, 2022 I am in the same boat with no support from Goodwe. The Sems portal also seems to have problem on it. Yellow Measure 1 Quote
Bobster. Posted April 23, 2022 Posted April 23, 2022 I think the problem is that the support is remote. There doesn't seem to be anybody who is going to come to your house, check the settings and the connections, plug a lap top in and read the log files etc etc. They will push a new firmware version onto your inverter remotely or suggest a setting to try. I doubt this problem is unique to Goodwe. A neighbour of mine has a rebranded Sunsynk inverter, and when he ran into trouble, within months of the installation, he could get no support. The best you can hope for is an installer who know what he installs, installs what he knows, and provides some decent post-installation support. I am not, BTW, suggesting that said support should be free forever. Sorting out initial snags should be free, but 2 or 3 years down the road it would not be unreasonable to quote you an hourly rate for support. WannabeSolarSparky, hoohloc and Pumba 3 Quote
Pietpower Posted April 24, 2022 Posted April 24, 2022 On 2022/04/23 at 11:28 AM, Bobster said: The best you can hope for is an installer who know what he installs, installs what he knows, and provides some decent post-installation support. That installer supplies a lot of different equipment and rely on the supplier to provide them with support. Yes the installer can determine that the problem is say not with the panels but with the inverter but he can't fix the inverter. The suppliers who sold Goodwe seems not to do so anymore and they are just quiet and don't respond to emails. So much for a warrantee. ??? Quote
Pietpower Posted April 24, 2022 Posted April 24, 2022 (edited) On 2022/04/23 at 11:28 AM, Bobster said: I think the problem is that the support is remote. Talking about remote problems. I recall you also have a Goodwe inverter. The sems portal is an online storage solution. I saved some graphs some time ago. When I call up the same day and same graph it does not look the same. Example: Old report say I used 4kW at 12:50 on a specific day. Same report now say I used 5kW at 12:50 on same day?? Do you also have the same? Edited April 24, 2022 by Pietpower Quote
Tinuva Posted April 25, 2022 Posted April 25, 2022 On 2022/04/21 at 7:18 AM, Jaws said: Im not one for airing my dirty laundry in public- But I feel its my civil duty to let others know that if you do buy a Goodwe you will be left with no support - other than someone in China emailing you every second day with new questions, or a new firmware revision or a copy of the T&C. With Sunsynk and Dye on the market you will have to be crazy to even consider a Goodwe but maybe at some stage retailers will try and get rid of old stock at reduced pricing - DONT do it - shoud the unit fail you can basically scrap it . After a month of trying my upmost best to get my inverter sorted I realised I'm just wasting my time and effort and its time to cut my losses, the frustration and disappointment is not worth it. I just bought a brand new Dye . R20k that could have been used for something else. I really feel guilty and responsible as I recommended Goodwe to a number of my friends and family who went with Goodwe two years ago. Lets hope and pray theirs hold up a bit longer. If required Im more than willing to post my email trail here with the support in China. Locally I spoke to some lady in Cape Town who promised that my tickets gets escalated every week. Seems like there is only a single person I think Andre who must give the go ahead before I can hand the inverter at Segen Solar ( online retailer is not interested to assist). But seems like he is very busy ( or too busy to assist a once off customer - maybe installers and retailers gets preference. Its pretty sad because I think its a quality product but without any real support should you have a hardware failure its basically a piece of expense aluminum. What exactly is your issue? Strange thing is, when I needed support it was actually pretty decent and quick. Sure it was through email/ticket but it was all I needed at the time. When I really had an issue, my installer was super quick to come out and look. Still, what is your issue with the inverter though? What is it doing or not doing? P1000 1 Quote
Bobster. Posted April 25, 2022 Posted April 25, 2022 19 hours ago, Pietpower said: Talking about remote problems. I recall you also have a Goodwe inverter. The sems portal is an online storage solution. I saved some graphs some time ago. When I call up the same day and same graph it does not look the same. Example: Old report say I used 4kW at 12:50 on a specific day. Same report now say I used 5kW at 12:50 on same day?? Do you also have the same? I can't say I've made that check. It is clear to me that some of the data on SEMS is actual data from the BMS and other is derived from manipulating the real data. So if there is a change to the code that does the manipulation, then the situation you describe could arise. Two things I have noted 1) SEMS usually agrees pretty much with the PV Master APP - allowing for the fact that PV Master gets data every few seconds, whilst SEMS gets it every 5 minutes and is thus running behind PV Master. It is possible the PV Master also extrapolates some numbers from a small set of raw data, but now we're talking about the same bug being in two completely different pieces of software, which is not impossible but still a longish shot 2) When the inverter can't get a good connnection to the wifi in my house, SEMS tends to misreport (understandable). When the wifi connection is good again, SEMS quickly gets updates and the data it reports corrects. Quote
Jaws Posted April 25, 2022 Author Posted April 25, 2022 11 hours ago, Tinuva said: What exactly is your issue? Strange thing is, when I needed support it was actually pretty decent and quick. Sure it was through email/ticket but it was all I needed at the time. When I really had an issue, my installer was super quick to come out and look. Still, what is your issue with the inverter though? What is it doing or not doing? The Grid light flashes. It doesnt charge the battery from the grid or discharge from the battery. The solar input works perfectly. But obviously with loadshedding I'm sitting in the dark. I bought a Deye last week and working a charm. All I needed from Goodwe was a go ahead to be able to drop it off at Segen. Even if they say uneconomical to repair. But even up to today . Obsoletly nothing from Goodwe. Great kit when it works but I would never again spend a considerable amount of money on a product with know I have some assistance should something go wrong. Quote
Tinuva Posted April 26, 2022 Posted April 26, 2022 (edited) 13 hours ago, Jaws said: The Grid light flashes. Is this a light on the input side or the grid led on the inverter? If the LED, it means the inverter is not happy with the frequency/voltage of the grid. What is the pv master app reporting here? This could be as simple as 1 of 2 things. 1. You need to set your inverter to the correct country, eg. South Africa 2. If on older firmware, South Africa setting was bad and you had to use custom. If you update to the latest firmware then this is fixed when using South Africa. Since your original post you mentioned they wanted you to do a firmware upgrade, I recommend you do this. If you don't run the latest firmware, I don't see why Goodwe would agree to you dropping of the inverter at Segen. You absolutely must test the latest firmware first. 13 hours ago, Jaws said: It doesnt charge the battery from the grid Seeing as you have solar, your installer probably put your inverter into General mode. So not charging from the grid is 100% expected. This inverter will only charge from the grid if set to Backup mode or Eco Charge mode. While I am using backup mode myself, the correct way probably is to use eco charge, bit more complex to set up. 13 hours ago, Jaws said: It doesnt discharge from the battery. Not sure what you mean here. So the battery is not used for providing backup power when there is loadshedding? If this is the case, its another setting not done correctly on your inverter. In pv master, in advanced settings, there is a setting "Backup supply" which MUST be turned on, if you want the inverter to supply power during power outages. Who is your installer? Sounds like the installer didn't configure your inverter correctly. You can do this if you want using pv master. Are you willing to try? I wonder if goodwe themselves even looked at the settings, they can see it remotely if your inverter is connected but they will probably leave it up to the installer to configure. I am lucky, my installer is a huge fan of goodwe and use the same inverter at his house, so he knew exactly how to configure mine and I suspect that is why mine works flawless. Edited April 26, 2022 by Tinuva P1000 and Jaws 2 Quote
Bobster. Posted April 26, 2022 Posted April 26, 2022 14 hours ago, Jaws said: It doesnt charge the battery from the grid or discharge from the battery. Again the failure to discharge may be due to settings. I'm thinking of the SOC protection settings. These are in place so that you can control how deeply the battery is discharged. On my system I have the following Depth of discharge (on grid mode) = 65% Depth of discharge (backup mode) = 90% It's important to understand that DOD is inverse to SOC. If SOC is 40%, then you have used 60% of your battery and so 60% is your DOD. So in my case the battery will discharge to 65% DOD (35% SOC) if there is grid, and to 90% DOC (10% SOC) if there is no grid. The way that I have it set means that in the event of a sudden outage, I will always have 35% of the battery left. One implication of these settings is that the system can be run so that you will always have 100% of battery available in the case of a power outage. If you system is set like that then it will never discharge the batteries whilst there is grid power available. So please check the following, 1) What mode is the inverter running in? There are four of them. The most commonly used is "general". (the operation mode is the 2nd page of the basic settings in the app) 2) Is the SOC protection turned on, and if so then what are the settings for on grid and back up modes? (this is in advanced settings, scroll down to SOC protection) Jaws 1 Quote
Jaws Posted April 26, 2022 Author Posted April 26, 2022 Firstly Tinuva and Bobster thank you for taking your time to give such detailed responses. I really appreciate it. The inverter was working perfectly up to the point where it stopped. I have had so many firmware updates done and the remote support guys have tried every combination of settings under the sun ( so have I). Not that there are that many. The inverter is faulty I can promise you that. But they are blaming the battery bank ,( Pylonteck UP5000 ) the same back working flawlessly on my new Inverter. All I wanted was to be able to drop it somewhere so that I could get an assessment of how much a repair would be. No I have expensive paper weight. Luckily I'm over it now. Just wanted to warn others not to make the same mistake I made. Quote
Bobster. Posted April 27, 2022 Posted April 27, 2022 Pylontech up5000 is not supported on my goodwe ES, only the smaller 1000 & 2000 models and multiples thereof. So that's an issue. It should be possible to run it using self-define battery options, but that's not ideal as you forgo comms between BMS and inverter. Quote
Agostino Posted October 30, 2022 Posted October 30, 2022 Io, invece, ho comprato inverter e 2 batterie goodway. Una delle due batterie non ha più funzionato dall'inizio del montaggio e abbiamo bisogno di una sostituzione. Dopo un anno non abbiamo ancora avuto la batteria di ricambio. Inoltre dopo soli 7 mesi, linverter si è rotto e hanno provveduto a sostituircelo dopo 3 mesi. Insomma, uno sfacelo. Quote
Yellow Measure Posted October 30, 2022 Posted October 30, 2022 4 hours ago, Agostino said: Io, invece, ho comprato inverter e 2 batterie goodway. Una delle due batterie non ha più funzionato dall'inizio del montaggio e abbiamo bisogno di una sostituzione. Dopo un anno non abbiamo ancora avuto la batteria di ricambio. Inoltre dopo soli 7 mesi, linverter si è rotto e hanno provveduto a sostituircelo dopo 3 mesi. Insomma, uno sfacelo. È molto triste sapere che il supporto di Goodwe è scarso a livello globale. Antonio de Sa 1 Quote
tm001 Posted November 18, 2022 Posted November 18, 2022 I had very bad experience with their support initially, but ended up quite well. The issue I got is the wifi module, it is very unreliable. Quote
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