Howdy people.

 

Hopefully there's a guru on here that can help me out here. I'm frustrated and confused and not sure if the issue is with me, the settings on my inverter...or possibly an installation fault.

 

SYSTEM:

• 1x Sunsynk 5kW Hybrid Inverter 
• 1x Hubble AM-2 48V 5.5KWh battery
• 12x JaSolar 545 panels

 

HISTORY:

Chapter 1: Fancy UPS

Had the inverter and Battery installed in August 2022 as a load shedding UPS.

Worked like a charm.

 

• Non-Essential circuit: Geyser, Stove, Oven
• Essential circuit: Everything else

 

A bit risky with only a 5kW inverter, but we managed it carefully and tried not to generate peak loads of more that 5kW during load shedding and 6.5kW outside of load shedding.

 

Battery was charging fine when grid power came back and life was lekker. No complicated settings on the inverter, nothing. Everything just worked, unless we accidentally generated a load that was too big.

 

Chapter 2: Going Solar

In order to try and recoup some of the costs of the inverter and battery I decided to invest in some solar panels. I also figured it would be good for battery health in the long term as the UPS implementation only got the SOC down to 70-80% in a 2 hour loadshed during the day or at worst 45% during a 4 hour Stage 6 stint.

 

So, panels were installed, CT coil was installed (I hope correctly) and hooked up to the inverter. The setup I requested was for excess PV production to be sent to the essential circuit in the house as well as the non-essential circuit to heat the geyser during the day and everything worked initially.

 

THE PROBLEM:

But then some bugs emerged. I’m not sure how to describe it, but in certain conditions (that I am struggling to narrow down) the grid disconnects for a minute or two and reconnects for a couple of seconds and disconnects again for a minute or two. The essential circuit is fine (lights flicker now and then) but the non-essential circuit goes nuts and my oven beeps every time the grid connection comes back and then goes off again a couple of seconds later. I can also hear the inverter clicking on and off during these cycles. None of this can be good for the system so I’m desperate to figure it out and fix the problem. 

 

THEORIES

1. Synsynk and my installer say it's due to issues with grid stability, so that is theory. I’m not sure I buy that, because I’m able to get things working when I tinker with the System Mode functions. More on that later.
2. I think the issue is down to something causing a conflict in the inverter settings...but I'm a noob and don't understand half of the options in the inverter menu. But by playing with the settings I can get things to kind-off work again…even if not the way I want it to work.
3. There is another theory. I’m reluctant to mention it just yet, but my inverter is significantly further from the mains than the recommended 10m…it’s about 25 away. So I guess this could also be part of the problem, although the installer claims he’s installed other systems more than 10m away without issues.

 

PHOTOS AND SETTINGS:

Battery:

Battery Type settings:

I changed the charge amps to 30A myself. Installer had both at 100A, but saw on this forum and then checked on the Hubble site where it said 30A charge is recommended.

Battery Charge setting:

Not sure what all these settings mean. I just disabled Grid Charge while I was fiddling.

Since I'm charging from PV I don't think it should make a difference? If I were to want to grid charge because of a cloudy day's low production I'd just tick that box.

 

And here is my Use Timer settings for reference.

I'll post the settings in another post as the images are limited.

 

Edited December 17, 20222 yr by BlakeSA

UNSTABLE STATE: Disconnect / Reconnect Cycle

These images show the settings that results in the disconnect / reconnect cycle. Maybe they are wrong or I am missing something.

This setting results in the following diagram on the main menu. Not sure if it is expected or not?

 

CT Coil visible in the diagram and I believe the House is the non-essential load, right? So this is the setting I want.

PV producing, UPS load gets priority, then battery, then non-essentials...topped up by grid if production is short.

But then the grid disconnects after 10 seconds...and I don't know why.

Grid will typically reconnect a minute or 2 later, for 10 seconds or so, before disconnecting again.

STABLE STATE: Workaround

The following settings seems to get things stable again, but they confuse me. The diagram doesn't make sense to me and I'm not sure I'm getting the benefit of using PV power on my non-essentials (Geyser)

Does "Limit to Load Only" mean "Essential Load / UPS" only, or both essential and non-essential load?

When this single tick box is selected, the disconnects stop, but now the diagram confuses me.

I don't see the CT Coil at all, and also not the house, which leads me to believe that the geyser can no longer be powered by the panels in this (stable) configuration.

Is that correct?

Given the information in these posts, is it possible that the CT distance is the culprit? Or might it be something else? Or am I just misunderstanding how this fancy, complicated piece of kit works? If more images or info is needed, just let me know.

What does your grid settings pages look like? It could be that the grid volts or frequency is going lower than the setting on the inverter and disconnecting

11 minutes ago, mzezman said:

What does your grid settings pages look like? It could be that the grid volts or frequency is going lower than the setting on the inverter and disconnecting

I haven't fiddled with any of those settings but here are the settings anyway.

For a time I also suspected that this might be the cause.

When I saw the ramp up rate of 60s and the reconnect time of 60s in the menus I thought maybe that was related to the reconnect and disconnect cycles I was experiencing. But it was too complicated for me to try and figure out what all of this means.

Just my 2c, what I would try. I would try to set that reconnect time much lower. Mine is on 10 seconds. Then tick "Solar Export" and remove the tick on load priority.

Other than that, you could try to set your high and low voltage spec to 230V +/- 10%. Basically low voltage 207V and high voltage 253V.

2 hours ago, GreenFields said:

Just my 2c, what I would try. I would try to set that reconnect time much lower. Mine is on 10 seconds. Then tick "Solar Export" and remove the tick on load priority.

1. SOLAR EXPORT

The Sunsynk user manaul says this about the "Solar Export" option:

"Tick this box if you wish to export your solar power back to the grid."

Which is very confusing if "Zero Export" is described as:
"Tick this box to not export power back to the grid (the CT coil will detect power flowing back to the grid
and will reduce the power of the inverter only to supply the local load)."

The 2 options seem to be contradictory? Or am I missing something elementary?

2. PRIORITY LOAD

"Tick this box if you wish to set the solar panels to give power to the ‘Load’. If you untick this box, the solar
will send power to charge the batteries."

I want to power my essentials (and if possible my non-essentials) from the solar production. Why do you recommend unticking this option?

3. VOLTAGE SPEC

Regarding reducing the allowable voltage band from 185V - 265V to 207V - 253V...wouldn't narrowing the band make things more unstable?

I've only gotten the F56 DC_VoltLow_Fault error once before and I don't typically get that error at all when the Disconnect/Reconnect loop is occurring.

Edited December 17, 20222 yr by BlakeSA

Haven't yet implemented @GreenFields' recommendations. Would like some clarity in the impact first.

BUT just switched off "Limit to Load Only" on the System Mode 2 menu again.

This is what would usually usually cause the grid disconnect / reconnect cycle to start. Nothing this time.

I also then switched on the oven (non-essential load) and PV production spiked and I could see the power to the house increase in the diagram...just as expected.

So ja, now I'm even more stumped. I'm starting to think it might have something to do with low PV production and low SOC% on the battery that's also playing into the behavior; because right now SOC is at 100% and PV can easily product 3000W if there is sufficient load. Of maybe this observation is a complete red herring... ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

 

6 hours ago, BlakeSA said:

Howdy people.

 

Hopefully there's a guru on here that can help me out here. I'm frustrated and confused and not sure if the issue is with me, the settings on my inverter...or possibly an installation fault.

 

SYSTEM:

• 1x Sunsynk 5kW Hybrid Inverter 
• 1x Hubble AM-2 48V 5.5KWh battery
• 12x JaSolar 545 panels

 

HISTORY:

Chapter 1: Fancy UPS

Had the inverter and Battery installed in August 2022 as a load shedding UPS.

Worked like a charm.

 

• Non-Essential circuit: Geyser, Stove, Oven
• Essential circuit: Everything else

 

A bit risky with only a 5kW inverter, but we managed it carefully and tried not to generate peak loads of more that 5kW during load shedding and 6.5kW outside of load shedding.

 

Battery was charging fine when grid power came back and life was lekker. No complicated settings on the inverter, nothing. Everything just worked, unless we accidentally generated a load that was too big.

 

Chapter 2: Going Solar

In order to try and recoup some of the costs of the inverter and battery I decided to invest in some solar panels. I also figured it would be good for battery health in the long term as the UPS implementation only got the SOC down to 70-80% in a 2 hour loadshed during the day or at worst 45% during a 4 hour Stage 6 stint.

 

So, panels were installed, CT coil was installed (I hope correctly) and hooked up to the inverter. The setup I requested was for excess PV production to be sent to the essential circuit in the house as well as the non-essential circuit to heat the geyser during the day and everything worked initially.

 

THE PROBLEM:

But then some bugs emerged. I’m not sure how to describe it, but in certain conditions (that I am struggling to narrow down) the grid disconnects for a minute or two and reconnects for a couple of seconds and disconnects again for a minute or two. The essential circuit is fine (lights flicker now and then) but the non-essential circuit goes nuts and my oven beeps every time the grid connection comes back and then goes off again a couple of seconds later. I can also hear the inverter clicking on and off during these cycles. None of this can be good for the system so I’m desperate to figure it out and fix the problem. 

 

THEORIES

1. Synsynk and my installer say it's due to issues with grid stability, so that is theory. I’m not sure I buy that, because I’m able to get things working when I tinker with the System Mode functions. More on that later.
2. I think the issue is down to something causing a conflict in the inverter settings...but I'm a noob and don't understand half of the options in the inverter menu. But by playing with the settings I can get things to kind-off work again…even if not the way I want it to work.
3. There is another theory. I’m reluctant to mention it just yet, but my inverter is significantly further from the mains than the recommended 10m…it’s about 25 away. So I guess this could also be part of the problem, although the installer claims he’s installed other systems more than 10m away without issues.

 

PHOTOS AND SETTINGS:

Battery:

Battery Type settings:

I changed the charge amps to 30A myself. Installer had both at 100A, but saw on this forum and then checked on the Hubble site where it said 30A charge is recommended.

Battery Charge setting:

Not sure what all these settings mean. I just disabled Grid Charge while I was fiddling.

Since I'm charging from PV I don't think it should make a difference? If I were to want to grid charge because of a cloudy day's low production I'd just tick that box.

 

And here is my Use Timer settings for reference.

I'll post the settings in another post as the images are limited.

 

Does the AC light (above the display on the Inverter) stay on when the AC disconnect or does it turn off?

1 hour ago, BlakeSA said:

Haven't yet implemented @GreenFields' recommendations. Would like some clarity in the impact first.

BUT just switched off "Limit to Load Only" on the System Mode 2 menu again.

This is what would usually usually cause the grid disconnect / reconnect cycle to start. Nothing this time.

I also then switched on the oven (non-essential load) and PV production spiked and I could see the power to the house increase in the diagram...just as expected.

So ja, now I'm even more stumped. I'm starting to think it might have something to do with low PV production and low SOC% on the battery that's also playing into the behavior; because right now SOC is at 100% and PV can easily product 3000W if there is sufficient load. Of maybe this observation is a complete red herring... ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

 

A mea culpa If I erred on the setting. Was looking for the equivalent of the Deye setting for "Zero Export to CT" and thought I read it that way in the manual.

Point here is, though, in your time of use settings you've mostly got battery minimum levels of 45% and above except for one time slot. And in the images above your battery had been depleted to 40%, so according to that setting the load should switch to grid, and the battery should switch to charging. If the grid has got a 60-second ramp-up, I thought it could be that there is not enough capacity at that point to drive the geyser and/or oven, possibly sparking an A/C fault and a sixty-second re-set. Pure speculation though. Other suggestions on the load priority and frequency limits, thought that if you divert solar power to battery as a priority over the load, that you may get to a stage sooner where the battery and PV are able to take over from grid operation. And just noticed that your frequency limits are wider than the Eskom grid spec, and thought you could improve on the quality of supply your appliances receive, since you indicated your lights are flickering constantly. Maybe not critical either way though.

19 minutes ago, I84RiS said:

Does the AC light (above the display on the Inverter) stay on when the AC disconnect or does it turn off?

If I recall correctly it stays on; but I'll have to check. I didn't pay particular attention to it.

I have load shedding right now, but it should be over in 30 mins or so. That's usually when the hiccups begin which is why the installer and Sunsynk have attributed it "grid instability" but I've since managed to initiate the hiccups in non-load shedding times and also stopped them by just ticking that "Zero Export - Limit to Load" box.

I'll report back as soon as the hiccups start again...if they start again.

2 minutes ago, GreenFields said:

A mea culpa If I erred on the setting. Was looking for the equivalent of the Deye setting for "Zero Export to CT" and thought I read it that way in the manual.

Point here is, though, in your time of use settings you've mostly got battery minimum levels of 45% and above except for one time slot. And in the images above your battery had been depleted to 40%, so according to that setting the load should switch to grid, and the battery should switch to charging. If the grid has got a 60-second ramp-up, I thought it could be that there is not enough capacity at that point to drive the geyser and/or oven, possibly sparking an A/C fault and a sixty-second re-set. Pure speculation though. Other suggestions on the load priority and frequency limits, thought that if you divert solar power to battery as a priority over the load, that you may get to a stage sooner where the battery and PV are able to take over from grid operation. And just noticed that your frequency limits are wider than the Eskom grid spec, and thought you could improve on the quality of supply your appliances receive, since you indicated your lights are flickering constantly. Maybe not critical either way though.

All good. I appreciate all the suggestions. The lights only flicker momentarily when the grid disconnects...even though they are on the UPS circuit. PCs and TV on the same circuit ride out the disconnect with no drama. It's just the LED down-lights, but I'll narrow voltage range in the Grid settings anyway. Can't hurt right?

I also think it might be something to do with the SOC%. Some conflict in the priority somewhere.

The issue seems to be more prominent in the morning when the battery has been depleted overnight. I figured 30-40% SOC and whatever PV can be generated in the  morning hours when the sun comes out is enough to carry me through loadshedding if I manage my loads. And if there isn't LS and if there is grid, even better. It can just top up any shortfall. But right now "hiccups" as I'll call these disconnect-reconnect cycles, have started in the morning on 3 or 4 occasions so there might be something here. Maybe triggered by a peak load or something, but so far I haven't found a trend. Nor what is causing it to auto-correct after a while. I'll keep an eye on the SOC next time.

There was an exception though. One night my SOC was at under 60% at 22:00 after 2 hours of loadshedding and we were heading into another 4 hour stint 00:00-04:30. This made me nervous as I know from experience that my battery isn't big enough to get me through the night so I do have some grid use of 300W continiously. So I did a grid charge to get me through the load shedding. Decided to stop it manually around 23:20 when I went to bed (SOC was around 05% which I thought was enough) and the moment I ticked the "Use Timer" on, the hiccups started again. PV was 0W obviously, SOC as 95% as stated and grid was active as load shedding hadn't started yet. It had me baffled.

35 minutes ago, BlakeSA said:

If I recall correctly it stays on; but I'll have to check. I didn't pay particular attention to it.

I have load shedding right now, but it should be over in 30 mins or so. That's usually when the hiccups begin which is why the installer and Sunsynk have attributed it "grid instability" but I've since managed to initiate the hiccups in non-load shedding times and also stopped them by just ticking that "Zero Export - Limit to Load" box.

I'll report back as soon as the hiccups start again...if they start again.

If it happens in the period after load shedding ends I tend to agree that it would be due to grid instability.

What data do you have to look at historic grid voltage and frequency?

Not much unfortunately. Wouldn’t know where to start. I do have access to the SunSynk app and website for data logging but wouldn’t know what to look for. 

Loadshedding just ended here with no farfare. No hiccups. Everything working as expected. Switched on a stove and kettle just to stress test and power flowed exactly as I wanted it to. 

SOC was high, but PV was low (sun is setting) so the load was pulled from the inverter and battery mostly. 
 

I guess I’ll have to wait for the hiccups to start again to post some answers to the questions. 

1 hour ago, BlakeSA said:

Not much unfortunately. Wouldn’t know where to start. I do have access to the SunSynk app and website for data logging but wouldn’t know what to look for. 

Loadshedding just ended here with no farfare. No hiccups. Everything working as expected. Switched on a stove and kettle just to stress test and power flowed exactly as I wanted it to. 

SOC was high, but PV was low (sun is setting) so the load was pulled from the inverter and battery mostly. 
 

I guess I’ll have to wait for the hiccups to start again to post some answers to the questions. 

Do you have a solarman dongle?

If you do, grid voltage and grid frequency history should be available in the data.

Edited December 17, 20222 yr by I84RiS

for your setup to work like you want “Priority load” must be ticked. “Zero export” ticked. “Solar export” unticked and “limit to load” unticked.

Too me it sounds like grid instability.  The Sunsynk inverter can’t actually disconnect the non essentials from the grid. Non essential side is connected directly to the grid with Sunsynk connected in parallel so it can “blend” the power into you non essential circuit. So if your oven is freaking out then it’s a grid issue. 
 

The LED downlights will flicker when the Sunsynk switches over to UPS mode because the relay inside takes a few milliseconds to switch over. Ours do too. This happens when any of the grid settings go out of range. So if the frequency or voltage from the grid go out the set ranges your inverter will switch to ups mode. At this point the Sunsynk will disconnect the non essentials(grid) from its self. 

1 hour ago, I84RiS said:

Do you have a solarman dongle?

If you do, grid voltage and grid frequency history should be available in the data.

I have the Sunsynk dongle and get some data on their app or online on their site.

If I know where to look I can post some of the appropriate graphs. These seem to be the grid parameters that can be graphed out for a specific day.

55 minutes ago, BrettB said:

for your setup to work like you want “Priority load” must be ticked. “Zero export” ticked. “Solar export” unticked and “limit to load” unticked.

Thank you for confirming! This was my understanding as well...but this is the exact setting that sometimes triggers the "hiccups".

 

I think I've made a breakthrough though. I suspect the issue might be related to the "Grid Charge" checkbox that was disabled on the battery screen. I've enabled it again now.

When my load shedding ended 18:00 the hiccups didn't happen as expected. However at around 19:20 when my SOC hit 70% (as per the Use Timer setting) I had one hiccup only and now things are running on the grid. Load should switch back to battery at 21:00 so I'll see what happens.

I suspect that if the SOC is lower than the User Timer limit when load shedding ends something goes wonky. It's not an issue during the day when the PV keeps the SOC above the limit, but during the night, if load shedding hits the SOC dips below the limit and when load shedding ends, the hiccups begin. I'm going to test it tomorrow morning.

I have a 4-hour 22:00 - 02:30 scheduled, so battery SOC should be at 30% by 07:00 tomorrow. And then some more Load Shedding at 08:00-10:00 should make things spicy, but the PV should carry me through if it's not too cloudy.

 

Some interesting developments. I thought I had to wait for load shedding or a low SOC to test something, but that wasn't required afterall.

I have these use timer settings:

At 19:21 my SOC hit 70% which is the threshold so power switched to gird. As expected. The lights flickered for a millisecond but then I had ONE grid disconnect. System reconnected to the grid a couple of seconds later. Annoying, but no biggie.

Then at 21:00 on the dot, when a new Time window opened and the system could dip back into battery, the hiccups started.

Photo of Grid Disconnected

4 hours ago, I84RiS said:

Does the AC light (above the display on the Inverter) stay on when the AC disconnect or does it turn off?

It seems to depend on when I look if the light is on or not. Could just be a timing issue.

 

 

Photo of Grid Connected (unstable)

The "hiccups" continued for about 25 mins until I grew tired of struggling at which point I just unchecked the "Limit to Load Only" option and things calmed down. The hiccups stopped.

It's not the setting I want as I will now be using grid to heat my geyser in the morning instead of PV, but for now it's the lesser of evil as the constant disconnect-reconnect can't be good for the inverter or my appliances on the non-essential circuit

I'm starting to lose hope.

Edited December 17, 20222 yr by BlakeSA

6 minutes ago, BlakeSA said:

Some interesting developments. I thought I had to wait for load shedding or a low SOC to test something, but that wasn't required afterall.

I have these use timer settings:

At 19:21 my SOC hit 70% which is the threshold so power switched to gird. As expected. The lights flickered for a millisecond but then I had ONE grid disconnect. System reconnected to the grid a couple of seconds later. Annoying, but no biggie.

Then at 21:00 on the dot, when a new Time window opened and the system could dip back into battery, the hiccups started.

Photo of Grid Disconnected

It seems to depend on when I look if the light is on or not. Could just be a timing issue.

 

 

The AC light should stay on permanently when there is no loadshedding.

Edited December 17, 20222 yr by I84RiS

Just now, I84RiS said:

The AC light should stay on permanently when there is loadshedding.

There isn't load shedding. Or there wasn't. My prepaid meter was also still on. My inverter just disconnects from the grid or thinks there isn't grid present. My appliances on the non-essential circuit also switch off.

I can't explain it; but my understanding of how this stuff is supposed to work is also very limited.

1 hour ago, BlakeSA said:

I have the Sunsynk dongle and get some data on their app or online on their site.

If I know where to look I can post some of the appropriate graphs. These seem to be the grid parameters that can be graphed out for a specific day.

On the Solarman Smart app there should be a graph for "Grid Frequency" and "Grid Voltage" or "Grid Voltage L/N" which should give a good idea of what is happening on the AC grid side.

This will be under the Device tab, then select inverter and then statistics on the App.

Edited December 17, 20222 yr by I84RiS

Picture of my grid voltage and Frequency from Solarman Smart App (on Andriod), big drops are thanks to loadshedding. What you want to determine is if it stays stable. 

Edited December 17, 20222 yr by I84RiS

13 minutes ago, BlakeSA said:

There isn't load shedding. Or there wasn't. My prepaid meter was also still on. My inverter just disconnects from the grid or thinks there isn't grid present. My appliances on the non-essential circuit also switch off.

I can't explain it; but my understanding of how this stuff is supposed to work is also very limited.

Those two issues are linked, if the grid drops the NE load/ non essential appliances will also go down. 

How far is the CT coil from the inverter. The CT coil will likely be in or close to the DB board.  It should be connected with a SINGLE TWISTED PAIR cable.