Hello. Being a little new to this site, and always learning about solar, I present my problem

 

I have an MPPSolar Charger controller inverter . apparently it is an Axpert clone or similar. It is a PIP-2424MSE1 24 VOLT MPPT INVERTER

I also bought ICCSolar software to manage it and use the Axpert 3kva profile to viw the data.

My issue at the moment is that for some reason, at 6am, it switches from Solar/Battery to grid and stays on grid all day until 6pm when it drops back to battery/solar.

Despite the battery being in good health charge wise and the panels producing 700 watts and 20amps, during the day, the grid still pumps power into the circuit

Any load running is matched by grid watts being used.

it makes no sense and has been happening for a couple of days now.

Does anyone have any ideas, any settings in the ICC software to changge. I can't see any. my SOC is set to 50%/100% at the moment.

The inverter is in SBU mode

See attached photo of a screen capture showing the graphs

 

Any help would be super appreciated.

David

49 minutes ago, Gerryatric said:

I have an MPPSolar Charger controller inverter . apparently it is an Axpert clone or similar. It is a PIP-2424MSE1

MPPSolar is a genuine Voltronic Power reseller. Of course, the branding could be faked, but if you bought it from a reputable Ebay seller such as MaximumSolar, then it will be genuine.

51 minutes ago, Gerryatric said:

My issue at the moment is that for some reason, at 6am, it switches from Solar/Battery to grid and stays on grid all day until 6pm when it drops back to battery/solar.

That's really strange. Has it been working properly and now suddenly does this? Or has it never been controlled by ICC?

What battery? Are you sure the battery is performing OK?

Do you have a BMV?

I'm not familiar with ICC or 24 V inverters, so I can't help more there. Maybe the 3 kVA "profile" is for a 48 V model?

Hi. I bought it directly from the MPP Solar people in Australia. Yes as I understand they are Voltronic units rebranded.

It was working fine I think from the graphs and then couple days ago it changed and now from 6am to 6pm it stays on grid regardless of the amount of incoming PV

I dont have a BMV yet but am going to get one as the SOC does not report properly without it.

https://iccsoftware.co.za/ has a package for $60 that connects to the inverter. in fact a few different profiles are stored in it and more each update.

Great bit of software that links and runs on a raspberry PI and has emoncms built in as well.

24V is no different to 12 or 48 or 96. just a different amount of volts. same principle though.

The profile Manie from ICC tells me will work with this inverter. at 24v

1 hour ago, Gerryatric said:

I understand they are Voltronic units rebranded.

Ok. A rebranded inverter is very different to a clone inverter. The rebranded ones are manufactured by Voltronic Power; the clones are made by other manufacturers, who don't have the original design documents, and you just don't know if it will work the same, respond to the same commands, use decent quality components, etc.

1 hour ago, Gerryatric said:

24V is no different to 12 or 48... same principle though.

Same principle, yes, but if you send 48 V commands to a 24 V inverter, things might not work so well.

1 hour ago, Gerryatric said:

Manie from ICC tells me will work with this inverter. at 24v

Ok, good, plus it's been working before. It sounds like you'll have to work with the people at ICC, if you're confident that your battery is fine. The battery seems the most likely component to suddenly change characteristics. Does it seem to run the loads OK through the night?

I would also check settings 12 and 13 on the PIP, to see if it somehow got changed by a corrupted command or something (that should be highly unlikely, with the commands being protected by a 2-byte CRC). Check that the values are the ones that ICC is expecting. Also check that setting 01 (output source priority) really is SUB according to the inverter's menu (not just that ICC says it is). Though that behaviour doesn't correspond to any normal setting 01 value that I can think of.

Is it possible that the ICC software time control feature is used and possibly causing the issue? Like in the screenshot below? and maybe the time on the RPi is incorrect?

 

Wild speculation. Looks like you've got a solar charge priority setting somewhere that replenishes the overnight battery drain from any available solar energy only, not from grid, from as soon as the sun comes up until sunset, and during that time runs the rest of the loads mainly from the grid. Maybe check for some settings under the power usage/production tab.

Bear in mind that you've only generated 2.47 kWh during the day on a 600W panel set, of which 1.43 kWh is already the draw-down on the battery. That leaves just 1kWh to have been taken from solar for the day, and only whenever your batteries have the minimum SOC, compared to the balance of 2.34kWh you've had to make up from the grid because production is insufficient to cover all needs. The daily efficiency of 4.12kWh/kW suggests some less than ideal weather, and that you've just had less energy available than normal to charge batteries and run loads from solar, possibly over a couple of days.

1 hour ago, GreenFields said:

you've only generated 2.47 kWh during the day

This could be a big part of the problem, thanks for pointing that out @GreenFields. I'm used to a much bigger system. In the northern hemisphere, the long days of summer are wearing off quickly at this time of year, so even in India production will be waning. My guess is that ICC can't force the PIP into battery mode between 6am and 6pm when the battery voltage is low. Just lowering setting 29 (battery low cutoff voltage) might well fix it. When the battery voltage gets within 2.0 V of that voltage, it thinks that the battery is too weak to run loads. This is of course lead acid thinking, but that's the way the firmware works.

Hi there.

Well I found the problem.

Even though the unit was set to SBU from the software, on the display settings you showed me on the controller it was in utility mode. so I changed setting 1 to SBU and then went back to the software and restarted it and now it was showing utility mode.

So I am thinking it is back to front., However alsoThe unit was in bypass mode.

This I don't know how it happened.

I powered the unit off accidentally and then back on and it came out of bypass and now is using the solar to charge the batteries. I realise I don't have a lot of solar yet as this is my pilot rig. I have 2 250 watt panels in series x 2. then the 2 series units are paralleled in a combiner.

So it has been charging upwards of 20amps on a good day for a period of time.

I know this is not enough to charge the 24V 300amp batteries which is why it should supplement from AC charger. but for it to flick at 6 during the day and off again at 6, said something is not right. Then the bypass discovery. I wish the ICC software mentioned that somewhere in the settings.  "alert" your unit is in AC bypass supply mode" Would be helpful.

also what mode the unit is in so you don't haver to stop the software and find out. Will mention it to Manie

 

bonjour comment pouvez-vous avoir 16A avec 51.1v?

16 * 51,1 = 817 w

20 minutes ago, fred59 said:

bonjour comment pouvez-vous avoir 16A avec 51.1v?

hello how can you have 16A with 51.1v?

Translated: 

21 minutes ago, fred59 said:

bonjour comment pouvez-vous avoir 16A avec 51.1v?

16 * 51,1 = 817 w

Good question, I never saw that before...

oui j'ai le meme probleme que vous.

 

Translated: 

yes i have the same problem as you.

 

34 minutes ago, Jaco de Jongh said:

Translated: 
hello how can you have 16A with 51.1v?

Those are battery-side amps, not PV amps. 16 A x 26.86 V = 430 W.

4 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Those are battery-side amps, not PV amps. 16 A x 26.86 V = 430 W.

Thanks Coulomb, I just saw the MPPT Volts and MPPT Amps, did not make the calc... I guess ICC should change that wording a bit, its confusing..