EE123 Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 (edited) Hi all, I'm new to this forum, so please let me know if I am doing things incorrectly (posting in the wrong place, etc.) I recently purchased this Axpert King 5kW model to replace another 4kW/5kVA solar inverter I bought over a year ago. I installed it recently and everything was wonderful. I have a 3700W PV array with a 600ah@48v battery pack. After about 5 days of use I noticed it wasn't charging my batteries with mains electricity as well, but only with PV. I was 100% sure I had seen it charging them with both after I installed it, but just to make sure I went into the settings to see if I had correctly set setting #16 to allow for both utility and solar charging at the same time, and I had. I checked every setting and all were what I would have expected. I then re-installed the old inverter and the batteries charged up just fine. When I went to inspect the Axpert King again I can't even enter the settings menu again! It seems that the control board functions in every way except to let me enter the settings. I can scroll through the display, but when I press the enter key (short press, long press, doesn't matter) nothing happens. Any ideas as to what this could be, or what I can do to fix it? Bluetooth still works fine to enter in and change settings, BTW. Edited February 9, 2019 by EE123 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tejota Posted February 12, 2019 Share Posted February 12, 2019 LCD panel is locked. To unlock press three left function keys simultaneously for 3-5 seconds. Coulomb, EE123 and Youda 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EE123 Posted February 19, 2019 Author Share Posted February 19, 2019 Thank you for your reply @Tejota. About an hour before your post I sent off the inverter back to the distributor to have them look at it. I just got it back yesterday. I asked them what they did to fix the display and they said exactly this, they reset it by pressing the left three function keys for 5 seconds. My display is now working again, thankfully! However, the strange issue of not charging with both mains and PV still exists. Only when the unit is reset to factory defaults it will charge with both mains and PV, (30A mains + 30A PV = 60A max) but as soon as I change either value from the default, say I increase the mains value to 60A, and increase the total charging current to 140A, the unit will not charge at all with mains, but only with PV. Even if my batteries are at say 75%, there is mains, it may only charge them with 200-300 Watts if it's a cloudy day. If I turn off my PV breaker it almost instantly starts charging with the set max level of mains, but it will not do them together (except when it is set to default). I can't imagine it's a setting issue since all I have to do is change one current value and it starts this behavior. Any thoughts anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EE123 Posted February 28, 2019 Author Share Posted February 28, 2019 Just an update, I have been in contact with the distributor. I sent them a video of the issue, and they then contacted the manufacturer in Taiwan. The manufacturer says that this is a firmware issue that is not isolated to my unit, and that they are either going to send me updated firmware to install or a new control board with the updated firmware already installed. We'll see what happens. Youda 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichieRich Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 Hi EE123 did you manage to get your issue sorted? I have the opposite issue. It won’t charge from solar only. It uses utility power to charge the batteries even though it’s set not too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coulomb Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 There seems to be a few issues with the King's firmware. See PIP-5048MK topic. Hopefully there will be new firmware available in a few weeks to address these issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichieRich Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 On 2019/04/19 at 3:04 AM, Coulomb said: Hopefully there will be new firmware available in a few weeks to address these issues. I hope so. Also if you set it to Solar-Utility-battery it seems to only draw from utility even though solar is available. As soon as you turn off the utility supply, it goes onto solar and runs quite happily on solar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greglsh Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 EE123 I wanted to ask you if your Axpert King 5Kw inverter is able to operate (and turn on) without any batteries connected? I would also like to know if your inverter supplements grid power if the PV power is not enough, so house is drawing 4kw, PV is supplying 1.2kw then 2.8kw comes form the grid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blinkwater9 Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 50 minutes ago, Greglsh said: EE123 I wanted to ask you if your Axpert King 5Kw inverter is able to operate (and turn on) without any batteries connected? I would also like to know if your inverter supplements grid power if the PV power is not enough, so house is drawing 4kw, PV is supplying 1.2kw then 2.8kw comes form the grid. Hi Gregish? It seems we need to start a new topic raising just this question? MPP SOLAR has answered this question I had on the AXPERT KING? With PIP 5048MK the answer is yes , it can be program to use mostly solar power and when solar is low battery or grid can be used For the MPI model and Hybrid V model. they are the inverters work like PIP MK, but with Grid feed in feature ( solar feeding back to city grid ) In case you don’t plan to feed solar into grid, PIP is still a better choice as price wise MPI is the most expensive model. then Hybrid V and then PIP MPP SOLAR is TAIWAN based I think. They sell the VOLTRONIC inverters, under their own brand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coulomb Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 13 hours ago, Blinkwater9 said: inverter is able to operate (and turn on) without any batteries connected? My understanding is that only the models with the 450V SCCs (MPPTs) can operate batteryless. The King has a 145 V SCC. So I believe that only the Axpert MKS II (must have the II at the end of the model name), the Axpert VM II, and the Axpert VM III can operate without a battery, so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EE123 Posted May 12, 2019 Author Share Posted May 12, 2019 On 2019/04/18 at 7:41 PM, RichieRich said: Hi EE123 did you manage to get your issue sorted? I have the opposite issue. It won’t charge from solar only. It uses utility power to charge the batteries even though it’s set not too. Sorry, been really busy lately... I did get it sorted out. It wasn't a firmware issue. It was actually a setting issue. We heard back from the manufacturer on this issue and here is there reply: My previous settings: Output source priority Pro. 01 SUB Solar Energy priority Pro. 16 SBL,UCB. << With your current setting, when the solar is connected, utility will not charge battery due to Pro. 01 SUB. And, based on Pro. 16 SBL,UCB, the solar charge battery first, utility only provides to load when Solar is connected. When solar is disconnected, output priority is change to UB , thus, utility will charge battery. So, the condition you found is correct due to the settings. If the customer want to use utility to charge battery at all time, then the Pro. 01 need to be “USB”. >> I claim that this is misleading. To me, if I set Pro. 01 to "USB" that means the priority is Utility -> Solar -> Battery. But I have verified that what actually happens in this mode is solar is used first for load and battery charging and then if solar is not sufficient utility adds in the extra that is needed. Exactly what I want, but I would never have thought that those settings would have produced this. Hopefully this helps. Current Firmware: U1: 71.41 U2: 01.21 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EE123 Posted May 12, 2019 Author Share Posted May 12, 2019 On 2019/04/22 at 5:22 PM, Greglsh said: EE123 I wanted to ask you if your Axpert King 5Kw inverter is able to operate (and turn on) without any batteries connected? I would also like to know if your inverter supplements grid power if the PV power is not enough, so house is drawing 4kw, PV is supplying 1.2kw then 2.8kw comes form the grid. Hi, Greglsh, I tried that when I first installed it and my memory is no, it would not turn on without batteries attached. In regards to the grid supplement question, yes! it will do exactly that. I have noticed that mine draws a slight minimum (~1A) from mains no matter how much PV is available. I find that a little strange, but haven't had the energy to investigate it much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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