Hi All

I was wondering if anyone would have some advice on a behaviour change I started experiancing on my inverter.
As stated I have one of those Axpert TheSunpays 4kw inverters and it has been running no issue for the last year (perhaps a little longer).

4 Months ago I got 6 * 550W Jasolar panels and connected them up.

Now typical behavour was that if the battery was below 100 % and the inverter was running in Grid mode, the solar would charge the battery. (usefull for those cloudy day, where you can put some sun to use)
3 days ago this stopped, now it will only pull current from the MPPT when the inverter is running on SUB or SBU modes.

Could something have broken in the inverter that it will no longer charge the battery while running in Grid mode?

Any advice would be welcome.

That sounds like the Only Solar Charge option is enabled (operates independently to the SBU/SUB mode)

Thjs seems wehrd as the PV charging if selected to be used will at all times charge the battery is it is not at the levels to stop charging. This takes place even if the inverter is switched off. 

The same applies if grid charge is allowed and there is no PV the grid will also charge if present even if the inverter is off. 

On 2023/10/23 at 6:10 PM, uDuWaR said:

one of those Axpert TheSunpays 4kw inverters

Is this a 5 kVA 4 kW model?

Is the maximum PV voltage 145 V?

Yep that's the exact model

It's also switching between grid and battery mode when the battery get's below 50%. Neither of these are severe enought to replace the inverter just annoying.

Did they maybe copy / supply only very old firmware? E.g. what is the U1 (main) firmware version?

I vaguely recall some PV glitches with the early 52.xx firmwares. Do not reflash with factory firmware version 73.00, for fear of fault code 90 in 60 days of runtime. Patched firmware version 73.00e is the latest and is my recommendation if the clone can be firmware updated at all, and if the existing firmware has normal sounding version numbers, i.e. 52,xx, 72,xx, or perhaps 73.yy (yy very low like 00 or 02).

Hi @Coulomb

It looks like I am running firmware LC1 72 70C as per below. Is there possibly a writeup on how I could update this firmware and where to download it from? I would really appreciate it

17 minutes ago, uDuWaR said:

It looks like I am running firmware LC1 72 70C as per below.

Heh. So you have patched firmware version 72.70c, lead acid flavour, patched by yours truly and colleague Weber. This was popular with some earlyish clones. Sadly, most of the clones that come with that firmware from the clone factory aren't able to update firmware at all, usually because they have no bootstrap loader at all. That's the program that runs while the main firmware is erased and is being gradually flash programmed.

You can try to update it using the standard firmware upload instructions. The latest patched firmware for your model is patched firmware version 73.00e. Choose either lead acid or LFP flavour according to your battery chemistry.

@Coulomb Thanks so much, I'll give it a bash

Feedback on the attempt to update my TheSunPays 4KW inverter using the recources that @Coulomb Suggested.

I disconnected my inverter from the Grid, output load and solar therefore only running on battery. Connected the inverter with the RS232 cable, started up the Reflash tool, selected the approriate COM port and clicked update, I heard a click from the inverter, after about 2 /3 mins the reflash tool reported a connect failed.
The inverter was non responsive from the front panel, after a complete powerdown and start up, it was back to working. I tried a few different com ports (1/2/7) with the same result. I am guessing this failure is due to there being no bootloader as Coulomb suggested.

That is all