Easysolar AC out trips when AC in is enabled and ESS malfunctioning

[Mr T.]

Good day.

1) My Multiplus inverters in my EasySolar systems supplies the load correctly when drawing power from the solar panels and battery bank. However, when attempting to activate AC input from the grid, the 63 A RCD output breaker trips after about 30 seconds. I have measured the voltage between earth and neutral at the grid input side and there is a 0.440 v reading. This should be 0 v if I am correct. Could this be tripping the RCD and if so, can I bypass this RCD and go straight to the circuit breaker after it, which is part of the EasySolar system?

2) My ESS setup brings the low voltage light on and prevents the inverter from inverting. I have set the parameters up correctly as suggested on a previous post but still have problems.

Please help as this setup is giving me endless problems. Thank you and kind regards,

[___]

2 hours ago, Mr T. said:

0.440 v reading

That's acceptable. What you can also do is measure it under no load conditions (all loads in the house off). Sometimes there is a bit of a voltage drop caused by the loads, and when you measure downstream from the bonding point you will see it, but only while loads are running.

2 hours ago, Mr T. said:

can I bypass this RCD

The inverter input does not have to be RCD protected, but you must have overcurrent protection and you must be able to isolate the inverter completely. All sockets fed from the inverter output must have its own RCD.

2 hours ago, Mr T. said:

low voltage light

It is normal for a pre-alarm to show up prematurely when running with LFP batteries (due to the flat voltage curve). So the flashing red light is not in itself a problem. If the voltage drops low enough the inverter will go into sustain mode and wait for it to rise again. It will also charge at a low current (around 5A) if there is grid available. This is to prevent battery damage.

When running ESS, the dynamic cut-off curve that you configure into the assistant determines what the low voltage point is. You did not say what batteries you run, but if you run pylontechs I would advise sloping the dynamic cut-off curve between 42V and 45V, maaaaybe 47V for the 0.005C (aka no-load) point. If you set this low enough the pre-alarm will also go away.

[Mr T.]

34 minutes ago, plonkster said:

When running ESS, the dynamic cut-off curve that you configure into the assistant determines what the low voltage point is. You did not say what batteries you run, but if you run pylontechs I would advise sloping the dynamic cut-off curve between 42V and 45V, maaaaybe 47V for the 0.005C (aka no-load) point. If you set this low enough the pre-alarm will also go away.

Hi plonkster

I am running Pylontech US3000 batteries.

Hi does the following dynamic cut-off curve look ?

0.005C = 47V

0.25C = 45V

0.7C = 44V

2C = 42V

[Jaco De Jongh]

4 hours ago, Mr T. said:

Please help as this setup is giving me endless problems. Thank you and kind regards,

Hi MrT

Victron is not suppose to give problems, Can you please post and accurate schematic of how things are currently connected. Something just dont add up. 

[___]

13 hours ago, Mr T. said:

0.005C = 47V

0.25C = 45V

0.7C = 44V

2C = 42V

That should be fine. The battery should not drop below this during normal operation, and the BMS in the battery will in any case disconnect the battery if you overdo it.

Also make sure you don't set the Sustain voltage too high (I've had cases where people set this to the same as the charge voltage... causing the Multi to NEVER leave sustain mode). The restart offset should also not be too high. If your sustain voltage is set to 48V for example (a good value, that's 3.2V per cell), and the restart offset is set to 1.2V (the default), the inverter only comes out of sustain mode a 49.2V.

Finally, when the grid is out, the inverter shuts down at the DC input low shut-down voltage (on the Inverter tab). So again, since your battery is 15s, you have to take care to set this a bit lower. The battery is technically only empty at 42V (2.8V per cell), but 45V is a good cut-off (3V per cell). And again, the BMS has the final say... it will disconnect if you overdo it.

Edited October 2, 2019 by plonkster

[Mr T.]

Thanks plonkster.

You should change your name to prostar. You are certainly not a plonkster. Tongue in cheek username used by you I would think though.

You are a star!

 

regards,

Mr. T

[___]

29 minutes ago, Mr T. said:

Tongue in cheek username

Yup. Dates back 20 years to one day when I needed a nickname for IRC. IRC being a rather trollish place full of plonkers (do people still use that term today?)... it was a humourous self-deprecating name and I just stuck with it.

[Mr T.]

I know all about IRC. I am also in that age bracket (oh to be in my 20's again). Remember the User boards and all of that good stuff. Using DOS instead of Windows 3.1. I could go on but I think I will bore many people. How about 45 rpm and 33 rpm vinyl music records (making a comeback I believe!).

[Gerlach]

11 minutes ago, Mr T. said:

How about 45 rpm and 33 rpm vinyl music records (making a comeback I believe!)

Big time!!!  Last month the record sales went past the CD sales in EU side. There some regular record/vinyl faire's going on cape town side, actually one this upcoming Sunday. I own two record players and my record stack is getting bigger.

 

Ooooo yes, do you guys remember the 5fm group on IRC?     

Edited October 3, 2019 by Gerlach

[Mr T.]

Steady on Gerlach. Soon we will be chatting about the Carpenters, Bread, Thin Lizzy, Chicago, Bad Company etc, etc, but maybe we shouldn't. Could get kicked off the forum. Aren't we supposed to be talking about solar here ? 

[Gerlach]

7 minutes ago, Mr T. said:

Could get kicked off the forum

Hhahahahah!! I will hunt them down with my big black frisbees  

8 minutes ago, Mr T. said:

Carpenters, Bread, Thin Lizzy, Chicago, Bad Company

And way more, even all the new artist stuff gets press now, and you even get High End Audio records.  I'm part of a audio group and Audio SA forum. If you think solar stuff is expensive, then you still need to look in the black hall of audio equipment  

[Mr T.]

Will check it out. Keep well and regards.

[___]

50 minutes ago, Mr T. said:

How about 45 rpm and 33 rpm vinyl music records

I'm not THAT old. I'm more casette-era than vinyl-era Boom-box days. CD-players became affordable around the time I was in high school.