January 26, 20233 yr I need the wording quite urgently. I am trying to help a friend and his sparky who installed a Deye without N to E relay and does not know the inverter is trying to convince him that 50V is pretty save between N and E. He also face a COC even with the N E at 130V and feels the install is fine. The same sparky also wired inverter in such a way when the Main switch is switched off then no output from the inverter or grid. Any comments on this?
January 26, 20233 yr Tell that sparky to switch off the grid to inverter via a double pole or in laodshedding go and push the button on that earth Leakage... He/she/it will notice it does not trip and therefore CoC invalid... Literally at the bottom it says operation of earth Leakage button and it requires a tick... So that is a quick way to make that sparky wake up and maybe learn something... I am busy these days from installs from other people let alone my own installs haha. Anyway you are correct and that spark needs to rectify.
January 26, 20233 yr 2 hours ago, Dylboy said: push the button on that earth Leakage... He/she/it will notice it does not trip and therefore CoC invalid... Actually it will trip .Recently i learned that's not the correct way to test . Check out this thread.
January 26, 20233 yr Author 22 minutes ago, Nexuss said: Actually it will trip .Recently i learned that's not the correct way to test . Check out this thread. A big thanks for the quick responses. This might be the true test. I have tested a lot of E/L on the bench with only a 2 core cable and the moment L & N differs by the value it should trip it has always tripped. Also by giving an unbalance with the button. Thanks for the link provided The 1st test by the sparky who did the COC was if you don't get shocked in the shower things are not that bad. @Dylboy All I could do is to ask the friend to try the test button. Not easy to guide a not electrical minded person when he thinks the sparky must know what is going on with the install. Edited January 26, 20233 yr by Scorp007
January 26, 20233 yr 1 hour ago, Scorp007 said: The 1st test by the sparky who did the COC was if you don't get shocked in the shower things are not that bad. 🤣
January 26, 20233 yr 1 hour ago, Nexuss said: Actually it will trip .Recently i learned that's not the correct way to test . Check out this thread. Ah that is intresting ! I thought it went through a resistor of sorts but now I was not sure to create the imbalance. None the less we use a plug tester and to check the it trips but at time of writing was doing a CoC and thought easiest for someone with no equipment is to hit the button, but now I have learnt that is not the case. learning every day is one of life's greatest gifts
January 26, 20233 yr 5 hours ago, Scorp007 said: need the wording quite urgently. I am trying to help a friend and his sparky who installed a Deye without N to E relay and does not know the inverter is trying to convince him that 50V is pretty save between N and E. He also face a COC even with the N E at 130V and feels the install is fine. The same sparky also wired inverter in such a way when the Main switch is switched off then no output from the inverter or grid. Any comments on this? Very typical of what is going on at the moment. Everyone jumping into the industry & the bad thing is that the inverter will still operate but not safely. Had a very interesting discussion with some guys at one of the major suppliers & they pointed out that Sunsynk is becoming very sticky with who will be able to buy & install their machines because of improper installations that are causing a high number of equipment damage. The HV 50kW Sunsynk is something that the will not sold to just anyone because of the obviously high voltage DC. We in a big mess at the moment wrt to your original post. We honestly don't have enough Solar specialist installers. Unfortunately, even some of the Sparky levels of quality are just not there. We facing a battle to get ppl trained & competent in a market in high demand & ppl that are desperate to pay bottom prices. A lot to ponder.
January 26, 20233 yr Author 22 minutes ago, Steve87 said: Very typical of what is going on at the moment. Everyone jumping into the industry & the bad thing is that the inverter will still operate but not safely. Had a very interesting discussion with some guys at one of the major suppliers & they pointed out that Sunsynk is becoming very sticky with who will be able to buy & install their machines because of improper installations that are causing a high number of equipment damage. The HV 50kW Sunsynk is something that the will not sold to just anyone because of the obviously high voltage DC. We in a big mess at the moment wrt to your original post. We honestly don't have enough Solar specialist installers. Unfortunately, even some of the Sparky levels of quality are just not there. We facing a battle to get ppl trained & competent in a market in high demand & ppl that are desperate to pay bottom prices. A lot to ponder. There must be thousands of snr citizens that became installation electricians in the 1980's when Eskom insisted factories had to have such a person. It is really bad to think how many inverters are installed unsafe. My 1st clue with this friend was when I mentioned to force the Deye to be on battery power when you switch the grid off when he replied "but then my grid and inverter will be switched off" Edited January 26, 20233 yr by Scorp007
January 26, 20233 yr I am not a fan of an earthing relay. Shorting earth and neutral on the inverter output is much more robust in my mind.
January 26, 20233 yr Author Just now, frivan said: I am not a fan of an earthing relay. Shorting earth and neutral on the inverter output is much more robust in my mind. But then this link must be removed when operating with grid connection?
January 26, 20233 yr 3 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: But then this link must be removed when operating with grid connection? No. The municipality usually has earth and neutral connected outside your supply point. As long as you are on the supply side of earth leakage units, all will work.
January 27, 20233 yr 9 hours ago, frivan said: The municipality usually has earth and neutral connected outside your supply point A very Interesting observation: what happens when you have the grid present & you test this with a EL plug tester? My humble opinion is that this is against the OEM. You will void the Sunsynk Warranty with an installation like this. Because there is absolutely no wiring diagram in their text library confirming that they intended the bonding to be achieved this way. They make use themselves of the ATS240 signal which will send out a 240V signal intended for relay action. A very interesting discussion nonetheless.
January 27, 20233 yr 10 hours ago, frivan said: I am not a fan of an earthing relay. Shorting earth and neutral on the inverter output is much more robust in my mind. You cannot do that with the Sunsynk type inverters ,you will have nuisance trips galore.Its also against SANS code afaik.
January 27, 20233 yr 13 minutes ago, Nexuss said: You cannot do that with the Sunsynk type inverters ,you will have nuisance trips galore.Its also against SANS code afaik. Yes the bonding relay is not a debatable option, its a functional and very important requirement. But it must be as safety critical as possible. Therefore i am in direct favor of controlling such relay ditectly via grid, and using the resting contact for bonding. EDIT : the internal Voltronics arrangement goes further. The bond relay employs a change over contact where the resting contact bonds the earth to neatral AND the front contact simultaneously disconnects the output neatral from grid neatral. Edited January 27, 20233 yr by BritishRacingGreen
January 27, 20233 yr 11 hours ago, frivan said: I am not a fan of an earthing relay. Shorting earth and neutral on the inverter output is much more robust in my mind. Unfortunately, that is not compliant. You may only have a single neutral-earth bond (there is an exception, but it almost never applies).
January 27, 20233 yr 11 hours ago, Steve87 said: A very Interesting observation: what happens when you have the grid present & you test this with a EL plug tester? My humble opinion is that this is against the OEM. You will void the Sunsynk Warranty with an installation like this. Because there is absolutely no wiring diagram in their text library confirming that they intended the bonding to be achieved this way. They make use themselves of the ATS240 signal which will send out a 240V signal intended for relay action. A very interesting discussion nonetheless. The earth leakage trips with and without grid. 11 hours ago, Nexuss said: You cannot do that with the Sunsynk type inverters ,you will have nuisance trips galore.Its also against SANS code afaik. There are no nuisance trips. 10 hours ago, P1000 said: Unfortunately, that is not compliant. You may only have a single neutral-earth bond (there is an exception, but it almost never applies). My municipality is not compliant. They have neutral-earth bonds at every house.
January 28, 20233 yr 11 hours ago, frivan said: My municipality is not compliant. They have neutral-earth bonds at every house. I think you might be misunderstanding. I said YOU may only have one neutral-earth bond. 🤪 (I'm pretty sure you know what I actually meant)
January 28, 20233 yr 13 hours ago, P1000 said: I think you might be misunderstanding. I said YOU may only have one neutral-earth bond. 🤪 (I'm pretty sure you know what I actually meant) I am playing devil's advocate. But I am not one for compliance. Rules are designed with certain risks in mind. If you don't know what the risks are, compliance could get you killed. The only risk that I can think of with "two" earthing points, is that lightning can induce voltage in the earth-neutral loop. I have steel conduit and Surfix wire to my inverter. So, I don't see much risk for voltage spikes in my case. I know that relays fail from time to time and I don't like the idea of the inverter neutral floating for a few milliseconds between the power going off and the relay operating. These could either cause the earth leakage not to trip when it should or it can cause nuisance trips.
January 28, 20233 yr The issue comes, and I am no means an expert and my drawings do seem to prove it to my understanding, but a lot depends on inverter make up in my mind, but if you have a permanent bond and everything running with the grid on, then if the PEN conductor becomes high resistance i.e broken or big fault then the current will return via the earth... It will do so until it finds your Neautral earth bridge and then go along the neutral as that is less resistance. So then the whole street or part where that PEN or TNCS cable was broken the Neautral current will flow through your bridge wire and turn it into a toaster wire. Edited January 28, 20233 yr by Dylboy
May 4, 20233 yr Would a fuse between E/N bond be a good idea in that case? Even in the event of contactor failure?
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