🛒 EG4 Chargeverter - GC | 48V 100A Battery Charger • Signature Solar:signaturesolar.com/eg4-charge... • Use Code: SOLARLAB25 for $25 Off 🛒 EG4 Batteries: • EG4 LifePower4 V2: signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepo... • EG4 LL-S: signaturesolar.com/eg4-ll-s-l... • Indoor WallMount: signaturesolar.com/eg4-wallmo... • PowerPro All Weather: signaturesolar.com/eg4-powerp... • Use Code: THESOLARLAB50 for $50 Off 🔔 Subscribe to our TH-cam Channel: @TheSolarLab 0:00 - Intro 1:47 - Spec Teardown 3:25 - What's The Point? 6:43 - What We Like 8:38 - What We Don't Like 10:32 - Summary In this video, we review the EG4 Chargeverter and explore how it protects your solar system when connected to a gas generator for backup power. Learn how the Chargeverter ensures solar gear safety by shielding against dirty power from generators and features automatic generator start/stop for maximum efficiency. Discover why the EG4 Chargeverter is essential for solar power protection and an ideal solution for anyone needing reliable solar backup with generator integration. ⚡ FOLLOW US: / thesolarlab / thesolarlab 👨🏼💻 The Solar Lab: www.thesolarlab.com We maintain an affiliate relationship with some of the products reviewed, which means we get a small percentage of a sale if you click our links, at no cost to our viewers.
Appreciate the review, but as others noted, you can have this running to just float a battery bank. It'll kick in at whatever voltage setpoint you have. Power only flows one direction, so: battery output > Chargeverter input, the discharge rate is just slower. Battery output < Charveverter input, batteries charge. he Chargeverter is just on the bus with the rest of your DC connections. I have two wired on to my busbar, one is direct AC charging, one is switchable between AC/grid and a generator input. Works like a champ. I will say, when you have it 'floating' a battery bank and it's putting out a full 100 amps DC, it's ... loud. :)
Wait, why couldn't you have the EG4 charging batteries at a lower amperage than the load? Of course you can. Why would that be a problem? It just means the batteries will continue to discharge slowly. The EG4 is a current-limited device, it shouldn't care what the load on the battery is. Of course this isn't going to be built into a power station. It's a 5kW battery charger. Power stations generally only have one inverter that's run either forwards or backwards, so you are either feeding the AC input to the AC output directly while the inverter is used in reverse to charge the power station's battery, or the AC input is turned off and the inverter in the power station is run forwards to generate the AC output from the batter (the power station can still charge from a DC source in this case, but not from an AC source). It can't do both at the same time. So if you wanted to build something like this into a power station you would basically need to build a completely separate 5kW battery charging circuit into the power station in addition to its internal inverter. That's gonna be a lot of bulk added to the power station. -Matt
@@junkerzn7312 Hi, these batteries are from Delong from China, there are (4) of them and they are in a cabinet. They have not been put in to service yet, I just wanted to keep them charged, one of them charged like it should, but the other 3 will not take a charge. So I have not hooked the batteries to an inverter, I have been receiving many rack style batteries from China over the past few years and never had any issues. Thanks
I believe you are correct. I used a small inverter generator with pure sign wave (checked with a scope) to supplement my solar system. It's connected to a heavy duty adjustable charger that I tune to put a 400 or so watt load on my 1600 watt running capacity genny. When everything is running the battery depletes but as loads randomly turn off and on ill see negative and positive flow to and from the battery. Had to test this out the old school way during power outage here in Florida after 2 hurricanes in 3 weeks. I have a huge genny but the fuel usage is insane 12-14 gallons a day which is what my friend was burning thru. This little guy burned 2 to 2 1/2 a day depending on how much sun I would get. Ran it mostly at night.
A lot of issues with smaller gas portables is they are single cylinder and running on the ragged edge at higher loads. That creates a lot of distortions in output. Spending all kinds of money on an inverter gen to run it under high load is stupid. The whole point of an inverter gen is variable speed. If you are running it at full load the engine is definitely on the pin working hard. Zero benefit other then a nice since wave. This is a great solution especially since it has 120 and 240 input.
Yea, he keeps saying generator, not inverter and when you go to buy one, they are ether referred to as a generator or an inverter. The inverters tend to be more enclosed to reduce noise, We don't have any solar stuff, just cost too much to get into and takes years to pay it off, at least here in Tucson. But we did buy a Predator 5000 a short time back to deal with outages because they are getting more common and lasting longer as weather gets more extreame and does more damage. Only thing I don't like about it is it is 120v out instead of 240 which makes it more complicated to connect up. It has enough power to run most everything in the house, but like most, we have 240 split for AC and dryer. While it wouldn't handle the dryer, it would handle the AC if it was 240. We looked at 240 inverters but they are ether bigger (and more costly) then we need or they are not as common and so don't have the track record of a mass sold Harbor Freight unit.
I agree with everyone on the variable output voltage. I need one of these that will do 24v and....here is the kicker... AGM Batteries. My understanding is that these only support LiFePo batteries.
I run my 9kw at 7200w, but I turn off anything with a surge load, the mini fridge can surge 1400w, loads the gen drops the freq, gen catches up surges back for over freq, turn off the surge makes charging smoother. I will wait for a 200amp version.
You want these as stand alone, so you can stack multiples, to charge huge battery banks. The guy who runs Current Connected has a setup with like 12 of these chargeverters
I'm thinking of using this with an Anker Solix F3800 system so I could use a gas generator as a source for extended power outages. Can you adjust the wattage where it would meet the requirements of the two XT60 ports on the F3800? Appreciate any thoughts. Thanks.
Cool video. They only thing I don't like about mine is that I will eventually have to upgrade to a 240v generator to get full power out of it. Since there are 2 dc converter modules in this, you would think the chargeverter would be able to input 120v 3000 watts to each module.
Why? Cost I'd assume. Less opportunity to make additional add on sale. My suggestion for the cold would be to wire a plug indoors near the inverter. Use a generator extension to get it into the heated structure and then plug it in from there.
Basically, if inverter for your gen size is >$500 than non inverter, you can get the non-inverter and a chsegeverter to save a little money. Supposing you have an ESS set up already, and that's your one use case.
I was hoping to use this as a workaround to DC charge the Anker F3800 as it doesn't properly support AC pass-through charging, but I'm not sure I can stomach that 300W idle power. That's a good fraction of the load I have on the F3800 (a server rack with tons of IT gear I need to run for an extended period of time). Can you clarify with EG4 whether that 300W idle power is normal?
@@nludwick1 Inverter generator will give you much cleaner power, they also tend to be quieter. Downside is cost as you scale up on the portable side. Whole house generator systems are inverter generators (at least any that I've seen). Portable generators are generally cheap, spend more on an inverter generator, they will save you money to damage on things like electronics. Now, if you are using it at a worksite to power equipment, that might be overkill. I bought 2 Predator 9500 units, they work great and the power is clean. In this video he is referring to non-inverter generators (cheap & portable).
@@hcdata4289pretty sure you can get a portable and cheap 2kw inverter generator now days for about $400 and a 5kw less portable but still manageable inverter generator for about $900. Which is why this video’s premise doesn’t hold water. I would consider deleting this video and starting over…
Inverter generators basically already do what the chargeverter does, putting an inverter between the generator's power output and the load. Adding another inverter would be pretty pointless. For the cost difference between a shitty, noisy, generator, and a chargerverter, you could just spend a little extra on your generator and get an inverter generator to start with. If you're gonna buy an old military surplus generator to run a cabin, or something like that, chargeverters on your battery bank would make sense. But if you're just going to use a portable generator to run your RV, just put that $400-$500 extra toward buying an inverter generator, and enjoy the other benefits (like having a much quieter generator).
Correct. Its a high-amperage 48V battery charger (aka LiFePO4 so it can handle 56.8VDC targets). The output voltage range is 43VDC to 57VCDC. Amperage is programmable. Apparently has a beefy front-end that can handle dirty AC power inputs... not sure how meaningful that is since any battery charger is just going to rectify the AC input into a buffer capacitor anyway.
Love your videos! You mentioned seperating the batteries to charge. I have a rack of 6 batteries attached to busbars. I attach the Chargeverter to the busbar and only run the generator at night or when solar won't work like right after the hurricanes we had in FL. The unit can both supply power to the inverter and charge the batteries when the inverter consumption was lower than the power coming in from the chargeverter. I ran my whole house at 125 amps with 1 main air conditioner and 3 minisplits. I would run a 40 gallon propane tank on a generator and whake up in the morning with my batteries at 92%.
I think this is best in stand alone systems to charge 8 batteries that have a stand alone inverter. Probably in situations without solar. Calling this chargers main use as a power conditioner is misguided. I am disappointed with the lack or voltage variation.
Yes, that would be an "online UPS". "Online" UPSs run the AC input through a rectifier and into their inverter to decouple the AC input from the AC output, resulting in clean power. Often found in commercial UPS gear. Most consumer UPSs (as well as the UPS mode that most power stations have) are called "offline" UPS's... those directly connect AC input to AC output and only switch to the built-in inverter if the AC input goes too far out of spec. So dirty power will transmit through to the output. So you would want an "online" UPS. Good ones aren't cheap, though, and they are not necessarily able to push vast amounts of power. The idea of connecting one into a sub-panel is probably a no-go. Once you get to these sorts of power levels it is better to go with a chargeverter-style battery charger into a real battery bank and run the loads from a dedicated inverter. -Matt
You meant sine wave, not sound wave. But you make a good point and I believe you are correct. I do think that the content provider should have made this clear.
Is a gas generator extremely harmful or just not great? Four years ago, I lost power for 3 days. At 5AM, after not sleeping, I pulled out my $200 generator (3300W continuous Duromax/Durostar) that had been sitting for three years. Ran my fridge. Ran my freezer. Ran my TV. Ran some lights. Ran my Roku. Charged my laptop. Ran a USB charger to charge phones and other such stuff. A bunch of basics to make life tolerable. It all worked just fine. Here I am three years later and everything but the TV is still working today. The TV would probably still be, but I replaced it because it was 12 years old and had some annoying burn-in. While my next generator will likely be a inverter, I'm not convinced my current generator is "extremely harmful".
I'd call them "just not great". Generally not harmful unless you are trying to run large inductive loads with the generator concurrent with sensitive electronics. Then the output might do a number on the sensitive electronics. Would a fridge or freezer compressor start cause problems? Maybe. Maybe not. I wouldn't trust it myself... keep anything with a compressor separate if you can. Microwave as well... separate.
He said computers but 99% of their power supplies doesn't care what kind of power it got. Most of the electronics nowadays can run from 95 to 250V without any issues. Once one of my phases got dropped to 115V (Europe... we usually got 235V) and my TV, my pc, my laptops, my monitors - everything worked without even noticing. The way I got there's something wrong is my alarm system complained my power is down. I guess he hasn't done a proper research on how some of the devices work. All my computers will run fine, my ductless ac does quite the same. I just have few devices that won't work properly and one of them is my cheap UPS without double conversion and no adjustment for the sensitivity of the 'dirty' power.
For pure emergency backup it's probably not going to matter, every hour of use might be the equivalent wear of six hours. If you plug them in for a couple days, shouldn't be a big deal. For offgrid setups where a generator might get used every day during winter, it's a much bigger problem.
Hard to say. The EcoFlow Delta Pro Ultra has a custom proprietary "battery port" that requires comms to operate (its one of its biggest down-sides), so you probably can't just plug the EG4's output directly into it.
Yes, you could just plug it into its DC input port. The DC input on a Power Station isn't just for solar panels or car charging, you can plug anything whatsoever that creates DC power into it, as long as you don't exceed what it's voltage limit is.
@@andrewr05 Not exactly. The MPPT input for a power station is seriously current-limited. As long as the voltage range is compatible (the power station has to be able to accept up to around 58VDC), then it can accept power that way. But it will be limited to either 8A or 15A depending on the power station. 8A @ 51.2V = 409W, and 15A @ 51.2V = 767W. Not even remotely close to the 5000W output capability of the chargeverter. So large power stations will be able to accept severely limited amounts of power, and small power stations won't be able to handle the voltage at all. Most actual LiFePO4 batteries can directly handle far more current. A 50Ah @ 51.2V LiFePO4 battery can charge at 50A and a 100Ah battery can charge at 100A... the full 5000W, without batting an eyelash. Any sort of real battery bank with multiple batteries in parallel can handle even more. -Matt
@@junkerzn7312 I've never had a problem with this. I've ran batteries directly into a Bluetti AC200L, AC200Max, and EcoFlow Delta Mini and Delta 2 power stations before for multiple months, up to a year. Edit: Sorry, I reread what you were saying. I thought you were saying that you couldn't do it because it would damage them. I now realize you were saying that you wouldn't get the full wattage out of it due to their current limitations. That's true, you will only get what they say you'll get on the specification sheet.
It's a battery charger, it outputs DC, so it cannot directly drive AC plugs without additional components (battery/batteries + inverter, or a beffy power station). Handling surges on main house wiring can be done with a whole-house surge suppressor. However, these devices have limited capabilities and too-large a surge will blow their internal fuses, so for real protection you need a whole-house surge suppressor which also has a bulit-in AC breaker (usually a 15A breaker) which it will trip if a surge occurs. That way the appliances hanging off of that particular breaker will be protected even if the surge is larger than the surge suppressor can handle on its own. Handling surges by going through a DC conversion, battery, and inverter (or power station) also works well because the AC input is not directly connected to the AC output. As long as you are willing to accept the efficiency losses and the greater expense. Here the EG4 chargeverter would work quite well when combined with a battery bank + inverter, or when combined with a compatible power station. -Matt
I am fairly sure that the 18kpv passes the AC input directly through to the AC output while charging the battery that way, so it is not going to clean-up dirty AC power and it won't work if the generator is undersized. It can handle more power in that mode because it is repurposing its massive 12kW inverter to charge the battery in that mode. Also, its a $5000 piece of equipment designed to handle a great deal of power. So the chargeverter still has a use-case here as it can be programmed to match the generator's capabilities even if the inverter load is far higher than the generator can produce, and the loads can be run from the inverter (thus "clean" AC power) simultaneously with the charging operation. -Matt
I'd rather never buy a filthy fossil fuel generator in the first place, using the money I saved by not having to buy the Chargeverter for extra batteries and/or panels.
Ignoring the chargeverter for the moment, preparing for an extended emergency (say, a hurricane... or two) really needs both a small generator AND a fairly beefy power station. Otherwise you will be constantly scrounging for fuel. The bigger the generator, the more fuel gets wasted. A small generator is more practical because it sips fuel. With a power station involved the generator's fuel consumption is cut in half yet again, the generator only has to run 1-3 hours a day, and it can remain off the rest of the time (including remain off overnight). The power station runs the loads 24x7 whether the generator is on or not. A vast, vast improvement over just having a generator. THAT is why having at least some battery storage is important. A few panels in addition to all of that reduces fuel use even further. The chargeverter is just a battery charger, and more serious battery systems are for more serious circumstances. Say you have 4 chest freezers with 500lbs of deer meat, for example, a family of 7, and a hurricane rolls through, blocks all the roads, and cutting power for two weeks. That's when having a more serious battery system can become really important. So it really comes down to the type of emergency you want to prepare for. -Matt
9:20 Please put some conversion for celsius on the screen for normal people so we don't need to go to a new tab just to see what is 10 deg freedom to celsius.
@@Josh_K01 Straw man much? No one said anything about output or cost. He just ignores them completely. That being said, 5-10,000 watt inverter generators are common in 2024. They're reasonably priced now as well.
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0:00 - Intro
1:47 - Spec Teardown
3:25 - What's The Point?
6:43 - What We Like
8:38 - What We Don't Like
10:32 - Summary
In this video, we review the EG4 Chargeverter and explore how it protects your solar system when connected to a gas generator for backup power. Learn how the Chargeverter ensures solar gear safety by shielding against dirty power from generators and features automatic generator start/stop for maximum efficiency. Discover why the EG4 Chargeverter is essential for solar power protection and an ideal solution for anyone needing reliable solar backup with generator integration.
⚡ FOLLOW US:
/ thesolarlab
/ thesolarlab
👨🏼💻 The Solar Lab:
www.thesolarlab.com
We maintain an affiliate relationship with some of the products reviewed, which means we get a small percentage of a sale if you click our links, at no cost to our viewers.
Appreciate the review, but as others noted, you can have this running to just float a battery bank. It'll kick in at whatever voltage setpoint you have. Power only flows one direction, so: battery output > Chargeverter input, the discharge rate is just slower. Battery output < Charveverter input, batteries charge. he Chargeverter is just on the bus with the rest of your DC connections. I have two wired on to my busbar, one is direct AC charging, one is switchable between AC/grid and a generator input. Works like a champ.
I will say, when you have it 'floating' a battery bank and it's putting out a full 100 amps DC, it's ... loud. :)
We need as well:
Adjustable Charge Voltage: 12vdc to 57VDC (Default at 54VDC)
my issue is the voltage should be variable 12 to 48 for that price
I’m sure they’re working on that. And it will cost $1000 because rigged industry.
Wait, why couldn't you have the EG4 charging batteries at a lower amperage than the load? Of course you can. Why would that be a problem? It just means the batteries will continue to discharge slowly. The EG4 is a current-limited device, it shouldn't care what the load on the battery is.
Of course this isn't going to be built into a power station. It's a 5kW battery charger. Power stations generally only have one inverter that's run either forwards or backwards, so you are either feeding the AC input to the AC output directly while the inverter is used in reverse to charge the power station's battery, or the AC input is turned off and the inverter in the power station is run forwards to generate the AC output from the batter (the power station can still charge from a DC source in this case, but not from an AC source). It can't do both at the same time.
So if you wanted to build something like this into a power station you would basically need to build a completely separate 5kW battery charging circuit into the power station in addition to its internal inverter. That's gonna be a lot of bulk added to the power station.
-Matt
@@junkerzn7312 Hi, these batteries are from Delong from China, there are (4) of them and they are in a cabinet. They have not been put in to service yet, I just wanted to keep them charged, one of them charged like it should, but the other 3 will not take a charge. So I have not hooked the batteries to an inverter, I have been receiving many rack style batteries from China over the past few years and never had any issues. Thanks
@@garybrandemuhl3575should we be suprized that only 25% of the chineezium batteries work ? Not a put down but real question.
@ Hi, sorry that you think that way, but every prismatic lithium batteries are made in China, even eg4 batteries. Thanks
I believe you are correct. I used a small inverter generator with pure sign wave (checked with a scope) to supplement my solar system. It's connected to a heavy duty adjustable charger that I tune to put a 400 or so watt load on my 1600 watt running capacity genny. When everything is running the battery depletes but as loads randomly turn off and on ill see negative and positive flow to and from the battery. Had to test this out the old school way during power outage here in Florida after 2 hurricanes in 3 weeks. I have a huge genny but the fuel usage is insane 12-14 gallons a day which is what my friend was burning thru. This little guy burned 2 to 2 1/2 a day depending on how much sun I would get. Ran it mostly at night.
A lot of issues with smaller gas portables is they are single cylinder and running on the ragged edge at higher loads. That creates a lot of distortions in output.
Spending all kinds of money on an inverter gen to run it under high load is stupid. The whole point of an inverter gen is variable speed. If you are running it at full load the engine is definitely on the pin working hard. Zero benefit other then a nice since wave.
This is a great solution especially since it has 120 and 240 input.
Modern gas generators have built in inverters and supply cleaner power with lower THD than most utilities.
Yea, he keeps saying generator, not inverter and when you go to buy one, they are ether referred to as a generator or an inverter. The inverters tend to be more enclosed to reduce noise, We don't have any solar stuff, just cost too much to get into and takes years to pay it off, at least here in Tucson. But we did buy a Predator 5000 a short time back to deal with outages because they are getting more common and lasting longer as weather gets more extreame and does more damage. Only thing I don't like about it is it is 120v out instead of 240 which makes it more complicated to connect up. It has enough power to run most everything in the house, but like most, we have 240 split for AC and dryer. While it wouldn't handle the dryer, it would handle the AC if it was 240. We looked at 240 inverters but they are ether bigger (and more costly) then we need or they are not as common and so don't have the track record of a mass sold Harbor Freight unit.
Can you choose the output to be 24v or 48v nominal? And the battery type since they charge at different voltages?
I agree with everyone on the variable output voltage. I need one of these that will do 24v and....here is the kicker... AGM Batteries. My understanding is that these only support LiFePo batteries.
I run my 9kw at 7200w, but I turn off anything with a surge load, the mini fridge can surge 1400w, loads the gen drops the freq, gen catches up surges back for over freq, turn off the surge makes charging smoother. I will wait for a 200amp version.
Is my 18A EG4 charger providing clean power when driven by a generator??
Thanks for the review and $25 off. I bought one :)
How would u incorporate this if the 18 kw Eg4 has the ability to plug generator straight in
You want these as stand alone, so you can stack multiples, to charge huge battery banks. The guy who runs Current Connected has a setup with like 12 of these chargeverters
Couldnt you use just any power conditioner for this purpose, though? Maybe I'm confusing devices.
@@maine207greene this takes AC power from your generator and converts it to DC power to charge a battery.
So, can this plug into an inverter with a Gen input, like the 12kPV or 18kPV? Or does it need to be wired directly to the battery?
I'm thinking of using this with an Anker Solix F3800 system so I could use a gas generator as a source for extended power outages. Can you adjust the wattage where it would meet the requirements of the two XT60 ports on the F3800? Appreciate any thoughts. Thanks.
Cool video. They only thing I don't like about mine is that I will eventually have to upgrade to a 240v generator to get full power out of it. Since there are 2 dc converter modules in this, you would think the chargeverter would be able to input 120v 3000 watts to each module.
Why? Cost I'd assume. Less opportunity to make additional add on sale. My suggestion for the cold would be to wire a plug indoors near the inverter. Use a generator extension to get it into the heated structure and then plug it in from there.
Make sure your gas generator has a PURE SINEWAVE inverter! - always overspec the power and turn off eco mode!
With a chargverter you don't need one.
@ it won’t change winter in the UK so yes gas is needed!
Basically, if inverter for your gen size is >$500 than non inverter, you can get the non-inverter and a chsegeverter to save a little money. Supposing you have an ESS set up already, and that's your one use case.
If you have a Anker Solix F2000, do you still need one of these if charging from AC ?
Since this only comes with a 240v power cable, how to do you connect it to a 120v outlet?
How do I purchase the cables for 120 input and xt90 or xt60 output?
I was hoping to use this as a workaround to DC charge the Anker F3800 as it doesn't properly support AC pass-through charging, but I'm not sure I can stomach that 300W idle power. That's a good fraction of the load I have on the F3800 (a server rack with tons of IT gear I need to run for an extended period of time). Can you clarify with EG4 whether that 300W idle power is normal?
Are you calling gas inverter generators dirty throughout their rpm range? Or is this video referring to non inverter gas generators. Please clarify.
Why?
@@nludwick1 Inverter generator will give you much cleaner power, they also tend to be quieter. Downside is cost as you scale up on the portable side. Whole house generator systems are inverter generators (at least any that I've seen). Portable generators are generally cheap, spend more on an inverter generator, they will save you money to damage on things like electronics. Now, if you are using it at a worksite to power equipment, that might be overkill. I bought 2 Predator 9500 units, they work great and the power is clean. In this video he is referring to non-inverter generators (cheap & portable).
@@hcdata4289pretty sure you can get a portable and cheap 2kw inverter generator now days for about $400 and a 5kw less portable but still manageable inverter generator for about $900. Which is why this video’s premise doesn’t hold water. I would consider deleting this video and starting over…
Inverter generators basically already do what the chargeverter does, putting an inverter between the generator's power output and the load. Adding another inverter would be pretty pointless.
For the cost difference between a shitty, noisy, generator, and a chargerverter, you could just spend a little extra on your generator and get an inverter generator to start with.
If you're gonna buy an old military surplus generator to run a cabin, or something like that, chargeverters on your battery bank would make sense. But if you're just going to use a portable generator to run your RV, just put that $400-$500 extra toward buying an inverter generator, and enjoy the other benefits (like having a much quieter generator).
@@Wrenchmonkey1it would be nice if he stated that in the video…I myself only run inverter generators. 1800watts to my 9500watt units.
Also, the batteries are in the range of 46 to 47 voltage
So its only good for a 48 volt setup?
Correct. Its a high-amperage 48V battery charger (aka LiFePO4 so it can handle 56.8VDC targets). The output voltage range is 43VDC to 57VCDC. Amperage is programmable. Apparently has a beefy front-end that can handle dirty AC power inputs... not sure how meaningful that is since any battery charger is just going to rectify the AC input into a buffer capacitor anyway.
Love your videos! You mentioned seperating the batteries to charge. I have a rack of 6 batteries attached to busbars. I attach the Chargeverter to the busbar and only run the generator at night or when solar won't work like right after the hurricanes we had in FL. The unit can both supply power to the inverter and charge the batteries when the inverter consumption was lower than the power coming in from the chargeverter. I ran my whole house at 125 amps with 1 main air conditioner and 3 minisplits. I would run a 40 gallon propane tank on a generator and whake up in the morning with my batteries at 92%.
I think this is best in stand alone systems to charge 8 batteries that have a stand alone inverter. Probably in situations without solar. Calling this chargers main use as a power conditioner is misguided. I am disappointed with the lack or voltage variation.
does the same exist to output AC power instead of DC ? just clean the AC power and put it into a subpanel directly.
Yes, that would be an "online UPS". "Online" UPSs run the AC input through a rectifier and into their inverter to decouple the AC input from the AC output, resulting in clean power. Often found in commercial UPS gear.
Most consumer UPSs (as well as the UPS mode that most power stations have) are called "offline" UPS's... those directly connect AC input to AC output and only switch to the built-in inverter if the AC input goes too far out of spec. So dirty power will transmit through to the output.
So you would want an "online" UPS. Good ones aren't cheap, though, and they are not necessarily able to push vast amounts of power. The idea of connecting one into a sub-panel is probably a no-go.
Once you get to these sorts of power levels it is better to go with a chargeverter-style battery charger into a real battery bank and run the loads from a dedicated inverter.
-Matt
if you buy a pure sound wave generator you don't need this charger
You meant sine wave, not sound wave.
But you make a good point and I believe you are correct. I do think that the content provider should have made this clear.
Gens don’t charge bats chargers do😂 inverter/charger will charge with gen but 3x gen needed.He covered all this.
Is a gas generator extremely harmful or just not great? Four years ago, I lost power for 3 days. At 5AM, after not sleeping, I pulled out my $200 generator (3300W continuous Duromax/Durostar) that had been sitting for three years. Ran my fridge. Ran my freezer. Ran my TV. Ran some lights. Ran my Roku. Charged my laptop. Ran a USB charger to charge phones and other such stuff. A bunch of basics to make life tolerable. It all worked just fine. Here I am three years later and everything but the TV is still working today. The TV would probably still be, but I replaced it because it was 12 years old and had some annoying burn-in.
While my next generator will likely be a inverter, I'm not convinced my current generator is "extremely harmful".
I'd call them "just not great". Generally not harmful unless you are trying to run large inductive loads with the generator concurrent with sensitive electronics. Then the output might do a number on the sensitive electronics. Would a fridge or freezer compressor start cause problems? Maybe. Maybe not. I wouldn't trust it myself... keep anything with a compressor separate if you can. Microwave as well... separate.
He said computers but 99% of their power supplies doesn't care what kind of power it got. Most of the electronics nowadays can run from 95 to 250V without any issues. Once one of my phases got dropped to 115V (Europe... we usually got 235V) and my TV, my pc, my laptops, my monitors - everything worked without even noticing. The way I got there's something wrong is my alarm system complained my power is down. I guess he hasn't done a proper research on how some of the devices work. All my computers will run fine, my ductless ac does quite the same. I just have few devices that won't work properly and one of them is my cheap UPS without double conversion and no adjustment for the sensitivity of the 'dirty' power.
For pure emergency backup it's probably not going to matter, every hour of use might be the equivalent wear of six hours. If you plug them in for a couple days, shouldn't be a big deal. For offgrid setups where a generator might get used every day during winter, it's a much bigger problem.
Hi, I trying to charge my rack style batteries, using the charge inverter(eg4). They show an alarm on the battery and my charger will not turn on.
It's probably best to give Signature Solar or wherever you bought it a quick call!
Out of Curiosity, could that be used to charge the Ecoflow Delta Pro Ultra somehow?
Hard to say. The EcoFlow Delta Pro Ultra has a custom proprietary "battery port" that requires comms to operate (its one of its biggest down-sides), so you probably can't just plug the EG4's output directly into it.
Yes, you could just plug it into its DC input port.
The DC input on a Power Station isn't just for solar panels or car charging, you can plug anything whatsoever that creates DC power into it, as long as you don't exceed what it's voltage limit is.
@@andrewr05 Not exactly. The MPPT input for a power station is seriously current-limited. As long as the voltage range is compatible (the power station has to be able to accept up to around 58VDC), then it can accept power that way. But it will be limited to either 8A or 15A depending on the power station.
8A @ 51.2V = 409W, and 15A @ 51.2V = 767W. Not even remotely close to the 5000W output capability of the chargeverter.
So large power stations will be able to accept severely limited amounts of power, and small power stations won't be able to handle the voltage at all.
Most actual LiFePO4 batteries can directly handle far more current. A 50Ah @ 51.2V LiFePO4 battery can charge at 50A and a 100Ah battery can charge at 100A... the full 5000W, without batting an eyelash. Any sort of real battery bank with multiple batteries in parallel can handle even more.
-Matt
@@junkerzn7312
I've never had a problem with this.
I've ran batteries directly into a Bluetti AC200L, AC200Max, and EcoFlow Delta Mini and Delta 2 power stations before for multiple months, up to a year.
Edit:
Sorry, I reread what you were saying.
I thought you were saying that you couldn't do it because it would damage them.
I now realize you were saying that you wouldn't get the full wattage out of it due to their current limitations.
That's true, you will only get what they say you'll get on the specification sheet.
Can this protect my electronics in a house with jacked up electricity to my plugs? Is it a fancy surge suppressor? What am I missing?
It's a battery charger, it outputs DC, so it cannot directly drive AC plugs without additional components (battery/batteries + inverter, or a beffy power station).
Handling surges on main house wiring can be done with a whole-house surge suppressor. However, these devices have limited capabilities and too-large a surge will blow their internal fuses, so for real protection you need a whole-house surge suppressor which also has a bulit-in AC breaker (usually a 15A breaker) which it will trip if a surge occurs. That way the appliances hanging off of that particular breaker will be protected even if the surge is larger than the surge suppressor can handle on its own.
Handling surges by going through a DC conversion, battery, and inverter (or power station) also works well because the AC input is not directly connected to the AC output. As long as you are willing to accept the efficiency losses and the greater expense. Here the EG4 chargeverter would work quite well when combined with a battery bank + inverter, or when combined with a compatible power station.
-Matt
More like a line conditioner than a surge protector.
Charge faster? lol it’s only 5kw. That’s less than 1/2 the charge capability of the 18kpv built in charger.
I am fairly sure that the 18kpv passes the AC input directly through to the AC output while charging the battery that way, so it is not going to clean-up dirty AC power and it won't work if the generator is undersized. It can handle more power in that mode because it is repurposing its massive 12kW inverter to charge the battery in that mode. Also, its a $5000 piece of equipment designed to handle a great deal of power.
So the chargeverter still has a use-case here as it can be programmed to match the generator's capabilities even if the inverter load is far higher than the generator can produce, and the loads can be run from the inverter (thus "clean" AC power) simultaneously with the charging operation.
-Matt
No we don’t need Signature Solar’s monopolized overpriced gadget to solve a problem that the PS designers created.
I'd rather never buy a filthy fossil fuel generator in the first place, using the money I saved by not having to buy the Chargeverter for extra batteries and/or panels.
Ignoring the chargeverter for the moment, preparing for an extended emergency (say, a hurricane... or two) really needs both a small generator AND a fairly beefy power station. Otherwise you will be constantly scrounging for fuel. The bigger the generator, the more fuel gets wasted. A small generator is more practical because it sips fuel.
With a power station involved the generator's fuel consumption is cut in half yet again, the generator only has to run 1-3 hours a day, and it can remain off the rest of the time (including remain off overnight). The power station runs the loads 24x7 whether the generator is on or not. A vast, vast improvement over just having a generator. THAT is why having at least some battery storage is important.
A few panels in addition to all of that reduces fuel use even further.
The chargeverter is just a battery charger, and more serious battery systems are for more serious circumstances. Say you have 4 chest freezers with 500lbs of deer meat, for example, a family of 7, and a hurricane rolls through, blocks all the roads, and cutting power for two weeks. That's when having a more serious battery system can become really important.
So it really comes down to the type of emergency you want to prepare for.
-Matt
Idiot comment
I seen that you can charge F3800 while using the Anker power wall with a gen www.youtube.com/@Jasonoid
Interesting! Thanks for sharing
@@TheSolarLab INTERESTING indeed... you saw my video a week BEFORE you released this one 🎣🎣🎣
9:20 Please put some conversion for celsius on the screen for normal people so we don't need to go to a new tab just to see what is 10 deg freedom to celsius.
You literally ignored an entire class of popular generators (inverter type) so you could make this video. You have no credibility.
High horse much? Inverter generators typically are lower wattage than non inverter generators.
@@Josh_K01 Straw man much? No one said anything about output or cost. He just ignores them completely. That being said, 5-10,000 watt inverter generators are common in 2024. They're reasonably priced now as well.
We wanna know Tiny Baby's handle...