October 3, 20187 yr Hi all. I’ve just joined the forum this week and must say the knowledge bank seems awesome. I have recently installed a second hand set-up of a Tasol-branded Infini. Tasol 3.6 UNA. I do not have baterries yet. It works though from my settings I cannot yet see what is generated by PV, only what is used in total. Only one isue though is that it trips every morning just after 7. During the night it draws from the grid so I would think it phases in the PV power as this becomes available after sun-up but it would seem as though it switches and relies solely on PV from sometime early in the morning as the error code (02) says the PV not generating sufficient power. I would be very grateful if someone has come across something similar and can share the solution. Regards Jaco
October 3, 20187 yr 3 hours ago, Jakeser said: can share the solution. Hi Jakeser, welcome. Can you please share some more info on your installation. PV size, How many panels and how it is connected, series or parallel or series/parallel. It will all help in getting to the solution.
October 3, 20187 yr Author Hi Jaco I have 11x245W panels connected in series. Details of the panels and inverter as per fotos attached. Given the time of the morning when the inverter trips, i.e hardly any sun on the panels, do you think maybe it could be more to do with my settings and/or the fact that I do not have batteries? Wife and kids are on holiday and has the laptop so I can’t play around with settings 😄. It is currently set to grid-tied with backup and there is a setting that says 30 seconds for grid to kick in but this can only be changed with factory password. But I’m confused because it is full grid supplied during the evening so not sure when this is released. Regards Jaco
October 6, 20187 yr Firstly, let me apologize for making you wait 2 days. I am running around like crazy and when I get change for the forum, I only scan, I dont read all the threads. Only saw your post now. On 2018/10/03 at 3:50 PM, Jakeser said: do you think maybe it could be more to do with my settings and/or the fact that I do not have batteries? Yes it seems so. Something tells your inverter to use PV only when PV becomes available, but early morning you only have a few watts available and your load most probably exceed your PV and the unit trips. On 2018/10/03 at 3:50 PM, Jakeser said: It is currently set to grid-tied with backup This doesn't seem correct, can you please link us to the Manuel, i just want to see what all your options are.
October 6, 20187 yr Author Thanks for the reply Jaco, I understand people have day jobs too😀. This is the manual I’m using. http://www.giantpower.com.au/assets/files/SolarPower_1.09_manual.pdf Software is SolarPower 1.14 If there is better software please let me know. I’m thinking I’ll play with settings today and perhaps also see if I can set PV to only be used certain hours of the day. Have a great weekend! Jaco
October 6, 20187 yr 4 hours ago, Jakeser said: I’m thinking I’ll play with settings today and perhaps also see if I can set PV to only be used certain hours of the day. I looked at the manual. please try the following. Grid tie with backup 1, set battery Charging source to "None", set Load supply source to PV 1st, Grid 2nd, Battery Third. That should do the trick.
October 8, 20187 yr Author Hi Jaco Attached the new settings, but it still trips. Second screenshot has an option to set time before grid kicks in. I will try and set that to zero and see how it goes. Regards Jaco
October 8, 20187 yr 18 minutes ago, Jakeser said: but it still trips. Please try grid tie with back up 2 and the rest the same as here. Lets see if that works. If it doesn't, I wonder if my Infinis will run without batteries, maybe i can test this on my system.
October 9, 20187 yr Author Jaco thanks for all uour advice, it is really appreciated). Changed to option II but it still trips. I have a setting that says “Waiting time before grid connection” which is set at 30 seconds (under parameters). I’m not sure if this is for feeding back to the grid or pulling from the grid, but this can be set to min 5 seconds and only with the factory pasword which I do not have. Screen shot of parameter attached. Does your infinni have the same?
October 9, 20187 yr 12 minutes ago, Jakeser said: Does your infinni have the same? You have a strange situation there. I would like to find out the cause of the trip. No my inveter doesn't have a setting like that. I will read up a bit and see if i can find anything else.
October 9, 20187 yr On 2018/10/03 at 11:53 AM, Jakeser said: Only one issue though is that it trips every morning just after 7. No idea how a Infini works, but seeing as the Blue team has a similar problem AND we also have 24v systems, maybe there is a common thread here? Our DB's are tripping because of the collective mA's on the circuit that are exceeding the Earth Leakage limits. Maybe you are in the same boat? What comes on after 7am? Can you stop that, wait till say 7h15, then switch on what normally goes on at 7am?
October 10, 20187 yr Author Hi TTT Thing is, its not the DB tripping but the inverter, and the error code shows the PV not sufficient fir demand, which it could nit be that early in the morning. But why does it not continue pulling from the grid as it dies all night? Sonething telling it to stop using grid and rely only on PV although grid then kicks innlater. Terribly confusing 😐
October 10, 20187 yr 12 minutes ago, Jakeser said: ... its not the DB tripping but the inverter, ... I missed that, apologies. Is it a daily morning routine, the tripping? Assuming the inverter is not faulty and settings are right, what are the chances that Eskom is causing the inverter to trip at that time due to voltage dips or some such? Could be an idea to put testing equipment on the inverter input / Eskom and see if you can eliminate the incoming power as the cause? (the technical guys can suggest what to use)
October 10, 20187 yr Author Thank you for the suggestion. I’ve only had the inverter running for the past few weeks and that is when the tripping started. And it happens every morning without fail. Most times the inverter resets itself but sometimes I have to reset it.
October 10, 20187 yr 8 minutes ago, Jakeser said: Thank you for the suggestion. I’ve only had the inverter running for the past few weeks and that is when the tripping started. And it happens every morning without fail. Most times the inverter resets itself but sometimes I have to reset it. I would then look at the incoming power. Something in the area comes on, power dips at your house and your inverter reacts as designed. Your case, my case the other night and the thread about Axpert 5KV+, Error 51, overload/surge - could maybe all be related to Eskom. Mine was definitely Eskom. Maybe. Edited October 10, 20187 yr by Guest
October 10, 20187 yr Author @Jaco de Jongh I am in Benoni, Brentwood Park suburb @The Terrible Triplett thank you for the advice. I’m not too sure yet how but will try to monitor the incoming power. Would a cheap battery setup help in the interim in your guys’ view?
October 10, 20187 yr 22 minutes ago, Jakeser said: Would a cheap battery setup help in the interim in your guys’ view? I think so. I wanted to suggest you fool the input with 4 cheap battery's just to test. Edit: if you can get hold of 4 car batteries, wire them in series to your battery input as a test, before you spend money on buying a bank. Please do not see the car battery's as a cheap option because you will mess them up completely in that setup. Just use them as a test.
October 10, 20187 yr 11 minutes ago, Jakeser said: I’m not too sure yet how but will try to monitor the incoming power. As you thought, put a UPS before the Axpert that the power goes Eskom / UPS / Axpert and see if that sort the problem. A UPS can handle much larger range of Eskom woes. If the UPS starts clicking at that time, or even takes the load over, then you know there is something "off" - pun intended. ;-) Just make sure that the UPS you do use, can handle the load at the time.
October 10, 20187 yr My theory. Sun comes up and voltages rises high enough for inverter to start. Inverter starts, but panel voltage pulls down immediately and inverter has to switch off. Some kind of "off grid with backup" or whatever config causes the whole thing to come tumbling, ie it probably wouldn't do this if it was configured to remain connected to the grid and feed everything in, and it also wouldn't do it if it had batteries to deal with the event. Look if the trip coincides with a drop in PV voltage in the morning (ie you need something that logs PV voltage). As the inverter starts up in the morning it will pull the PV voltage down by 20%.
October 15, 20187 yr Author @SolarNoob I cant find any logs on my system using solarpower1.14. Not sure if it's the set-up of the programme or the inverter. It also does not show power generated by PV, just shows all power going through the inverter. @Jaco de Jongh @plonkster @The Terrible Triplett spending money on a UPS large enough will be costly so I suspect I need to add batteries. Question now is which batteries are best? I've seen a Lithium-Ion 3.7kWh for just over R 30k. Or should I just get 4 deep cycle batteries of 102A and 12V each at around R 10k altogether? Or is there an in-between option? It would seem the Lithium Ion will last much longer, but will be limited to 25A and is, of course, much more expensive - and have not been budgeted for 😞 As before, your advise is very much appreciated!
October 15, 20187 yr 31 minutes ago, Jakeser said: Or is there an in-between option There is, I will pm a bit later. Where are you based?
October 15, 20187 yr 34 minutes ago, Jakeser said: which batteries What about a single pylontech rack? Around 15k a pop.
October 15, 20187 yr Author 39 minutes ago, Jaco de Jongh said: There is, I will pm a bit later. Where are you based? I'm in Benoni Jaco
October 15, 20187 yr Author @plonkster learning at the rate of knots 😣 .Will a single pylontech rack not be limited to 1.2 kWh? Quote from website: Deliver up to 5KW* with single module (2.4KWh) - * please note this value is inverter/charger dependant, typically the maximum achieved value is 1.2kW per battery". At the same price, 4X 200A 12v can deliver 4.8 kW? Agreed though that the lifespan on a pylon will be much longer.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.