Growatt LVM 3000 watt Inverter Overview
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2020
- This is my review/overview of my Growatt SPF 3000 LVM 48 volt inverters. I am running them in split phase for 6000 watts of 240 volt split phase power or 3000 watts on each of the two phases. I purchased them from diysolarinverters on Ebay from Ian back in March of this year. I paid for these myself and I'm using them to power the majority of my home needs and I had no discounts for this review. I've waited a few months of using them before doing this review as they are pretty new and I wanted to make sure they did their job.
Link to his ebay listing www.ebay.com/itm/48V-3000W-12...
I had a good experience with him. If you are going to use the Growatt Shine USB module for monitoring them, remember you will need one for each inverter.
This is a link to the product page on Growatt's website for info on the 24 and 48 volt versions of these inverters. www.ginverter.com/Off-Grid-St...
Link to the vid where I cover the Growatt Dashboard and complete my review
• Growatt WIFI Dashboard... - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I'm a newbie and I had no idea they were this versatile! Automatically switching from battery to grid was just the solution I was looking for. THANKS!
The best video for this out there. Manual very confusing when choosing between SOL & SbU. I wondered why my batteries weren't being used. Thanks, great video.
Hey Andy, you the man! I have the 24v setup on back order and after watching your videos my setup anxiety has been greatly assuaged. Your videos are being downloaded so that they will be front and center when I receive my units and will act as my guide. After watching almost everything that I could find on Growatt there is nothing to compare with the completeness and understanding I received from your videos.
Thanks so much, Michael
Really nice review. Watched a lot on the grow watt, yours IS the best review. Thanks.
Hello Andy, reporting back. It worked for me. Connected the two panels in series and got about 80v from the PV. My battery is at 48.4v and it’s charging. Thank you man .
Excellent! Good to hear, congratulations.
So awesome to find a video that answers all my questions ! Thank you
Andy, this a really excellent video, extremely helpful, thank you for taking the time to share this information.
Thanks I appreciate that. My goal was to cover these in depth as I hadn't seen anyone really do a deep dive on these yet, and I really like how they've performed.
My system is single phase. 900 watts solar at 36 volts. 4000 watt inverter and 10 kWh lithium batteries at 24 volt. I'm here (a year late 😁) because I'm looking at going to split phase. Excellent video and it's going on my solar watch list. I see we share a talent for cable routing. The reason electricians never go bowling is because they keep getting their bowling balls tangled up. 😁
Really helpful details. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
I don't have words to appreciate you, for this informative video Top Line
Thank you. Very nice overview and example of custom settings.
Hey you did a great job on simple verbal communication looks like it works pretty well I'm impressed I'm sure it'll look better once you tidy up your wires
Thanks for doing this video, most inclusive info on these units in one video. Easy to follow also.
Really appreciate the information in this video. Thank you it can in crucial.
Also thank you Andy great video.
Fantastic! Thank you, Sir!
Hi. I have the previous version of this inverter. Documentation and tech support is terrible, but the product is very good when you work everything out yourself. Good video!
I emailed them initially and got back a reply pretty quickly, though it was just a couple general questions before I bought it. Not had to use them for tech support. The manual was okay for these units but could have been a bit better. What they don't cover well at all is the Shine USB modules, that I had to figure out myself.
Thanks for the compliments, just trying to help others out!
Awesome tutorial! Thank you!
Thank you for that excellent rundown, I will be purchasing the 24v model for a fully offgrid 120v setup using a generator only when needed.
Hi, I am considering getting one of these but confused on if it can run a 120v system as it is a 24v inverter
@@daniellamatarazzo4455 I ended up going with the 48v model, same thing but uses 48v batteries.
@@daniellamatarazzo4455 yes these change 12v, 24v, or 48v batteries & solar DC into 120v AC power (or you can use 2 & run split phase 240v with 120v leads)
@@jtr82369 do you know if a DC-DC Converter is necessary for 12v appliances if using 24v batteries & solar DC or does it just do that automatically
@@daniellamatarazzo4455 Yes you would need a step-down convertor connected from the battery to the fridge, it will state a voltage range like 18-60v input with a 12.6v output.
Good part is you won't have much loss converting like that and it won't affect your Growatt.
You answered one of my questions. 48v system.
Very comprehensive review of these Growatt units which have also had a favorable review from Will P . The value of your video is the excellent menu detail you provide. I did not see how many watts you have in your solar array and what type, voltage and DC they provide total and to each individual Growatt.
I have 2 strings, one feeding each inverter. First string is twelve 250 watt panels, 2 panels in series and the six sets in parallel in the combiner box that feds the first inverter for 3kw total. They are 72 cell panels so 74-78 volts on average in that setup. The second inverter has sets of panels feeding it, two more sets of the 250 watt panels 2 per set, and then 3 sets of 300 watt 60 cell panels. Since the 300 watt 60 cell panels are closer to 30 volts a panel instead of 40 volts per panel those three sets are 3 panels in series each, with all five sets going into the combiner box. You lose a bit of capacity with the mix matched sets, but not much, 3.7kw for that string. In use I typically see about 2.4kw peak out of the first string, about 3kw out of the second string feeding the second inverter.
I have two smaller 1.2kw arrays as well feeding Victron charge controllers that directly feed the batteries and those arrays are setup to get the sun early in the day to help boost the batteries in the morning. On a sunny summer day they add about 7-9kwh to the batteries, with the main arrays producing about 24kwh a day. If I had more storage I could produce more. Still expanding the battery bank as funds allow.
@@andycanfixit Thank you Andy. answered by questions. .Nice job. You tube can be full of poorly done efforts. Relief to see first rate efforts such as yours.
Hi Andy, after doing a little research regarding the programing 10 ( Batt No. 4) that refers to the voltage configuration: (Batt No.2 = 24V - Batt No. 4 = 48V), switching between modes will set your inverter to the desire voltage operation, but keep in mind that you need to verify the fuse rating internally ( above the positive terminal ). Hope this helps.
Someone has made the change to 48v?
Looking at these. Thanks.
HOWdy A-P,
Thanks for the WALK-THRU
COOP
...
Thank you, it’s very interesting demonstration. I like to see, how you connect your batterie bank and how many power you use. I’m wondering if we can use 2 batteries for each system,
Looking good
hi nice job- I'm a little sketchy on the sub feed from the main panel to the sub feed box...would happen to have an overall pic of that set up, thanks
Would you be able to do a video of how you wire the system up please.
Hi Andy thank you for the reply. It beeps when ever a a button is pushed. Received the Growatt WiFi this morning hopefully the software will allow me to kill the beeping. Option 17 had no effect.
Got you, that is weird because in mine once I set 15 to off the beep stops. Now you do have to set it on each inverter when you have 2 inverters for split phase, as that setting only applies each inverter, it's not a global setting for both. You might also try doing it while the inverter is shutdown. Hit the power switch on the bottom to turn it off then enter the menu setting to set it on each, then exit the menu and cut them back on. Only other thing I can think of that might work.
Andy. Great video!! Thank you. Been hard to find any good detailed explanation on these settings. Question...I just finally got mine attached to my PV today. Just 1 controller. No ac in or out connected yet. Batteries charged up great! However, after the sun set, the entire controller would briefly shut off, then turn back on. Would stay on for about 1 minute, then same thing would keep happening. As if the batteries were not continuously powering the controller. If I turned the inverter on, it would stay on and be fine. Does the inverter need to be kept on in order for the batteries to power the controller?
I believe it has to be on to stay on, otherwise once the batteries are full and there is no solar it'll shut itself off so it doesn't use any power, the cycling on and off is most likely how it checks to see if there is any solar coming in. Also make sure you don't have it in eco mode. In that mode it basically checks to see if there is a load, if there is it stays on, if not it'll shut itself off. I've never used that mode but if your in that mode that would be the issue if the inverter is on, if it's off it shouldn't matter. It's under Option 4, SDS is eco disabled, SEN is enabled. Power draw is about 40ish watts from the unit when its on, so as long as your battery bank is plenty to keep things on overnight you could leave it on. Just shut it down and disconnect the battery and solar before you start hooking up AC. I have battery cutoff switches on both of my battery packs.
Remember to always disconnect the solar before you disconnect the battery or you'll at a minimum throw a fault code. It's safeties should protect it but I try never to take that risk.
Starting it, I turn on the battery, then solar, then the AC input breaker, then turn on the power switch. Just seems like the safest order, though you could easily reverse the solar and AC order, but battery first.
thanks for the informative video, its all Great stuff if you can get support from Growatt, South Africa we get absolutely no support, Please make certain just before warranty runs out that there is still support from your Local guys.
I have been looking for reviews of this unit, and thanks for the great video.
May I ask how have them been performing in the winter?
Very well, the MPPT tracker seems to be pretty responsive. I'm averaging about 12-15kwh lately with a lot of overcast days and temps ranging from 28F to 50F.
Good video. What wire grade did you use going out of the growatt to the batteries?
I'm using 250 amp bus bars for my 48 volt batteries, nominal fully charge voltage is 56 volts and drops to about 51 volts at low disconnect. When I first hooked them up I used 4 gauge THHN wire from the inverters to the bus bars, I later replaced that with 1 gauge wire. Each inverter has the same length wire from it to the bus bars. Then I'm using 4 gauge wire from the bus bar to each of my two 100ah batteries and I'm using 1 gauge wire to my 230ah battery. I've never come close to maxing out the amperage in charging or discharging the batteries. Each inverter can put out 3kw of power or surge to 6kw but that surge is only for a few seconds. 4 gauge THHN wire will handle 95 amps which at 56 volts which is 5.3kw, well above what either inverter will pull. 1 gauge handles 8,000 watts. It's pretty rare that I'm pulling more then 4,000 watts at any given time. Each battery has a fuse sized for it's wire so the fuse will fail before wire does.
A ac surge protector is important on input from grid
Excellent video for those looking for the added confidence when DIY'ing like myself. I'm hoping you can confirm what you and the Manual mention during wiring of Split phase in parallel (2 units). The Nuetral wire from AC Out is shared coming from both inverters you mentioned, my question is how or where you're connecting the Nuetral wire and if you're sharing that connection with a ground from the same location? Thanks, any help is much appreciated as Ground wiring is a bit vague in all resources.
Neutral and ground come from the main breaker panel each is it's on separate wire. Bring the neutral to the inverters and then split it and feeds both inverters from that same neutral. Same with the ground. So from the breaker panel you have four wires, two hots, one neutral and one ground. Red, black, white and green typically.. Output to the sub panel you feed from this is the same way. Both panels ground and neutral are shared with each having its own hot.
It's the one area the manual could be a lot clearer on.
Very clear and very much appreciated sir, I plan to publish a video myself once up and running. Helping to illustrate as you're doing yourself for the community.Thanks again.
Nice video but I have a question on your grid input. Are you running 240v into the unit or 120v? I'm wanting bigger units and multiples. Looking at like 4 of the 6000 watt units to run the whole house. Not understanding you talking about having some loads at 240 and others at 120 on separate units. Why don't you just have a subpanel where you have 1 leg of 120v and and another leg of 120v. If you want 240 then slap in a double pole breaker? I don't know anything about these units so confused in what I'm seeing. Do they have a Hot/N/Hot AC out to power a subpanel? If you have just a Ground/Hot/neutral AC in isn't that just 120v coming in?
How would all that work when you have 4 of them?
Each unit only takes 120 in and puts out 120 volts. Two of them combined will produce 240 volts by supplying both phases. Power is supplies to mine from a double pole breaker from my main panel with one hot to one inverter and the other hot to the other inverter and the neutral is split just before the units to feed both as is the ground. So they share a common neutral back to the main panel and a common ground back to the main panel. Out of the inverters one inverters hot feeds one side of the sub panel with the other inverters hot feeding the other side of the sub panel with the neutral share with both inverters as is the ground. So in the sub panel a single pole breaker will supply 120 volts to loads from one of the two inverters depending on which leg of the sub panel it's on and a dual pole breaker will supply 240 volts to loads from both inverters as each inverter supplies a hot for each 120 volt phase making 240 volts.
If you need more than 6 kw combined you can add more inverters in parallel. So 2 inverters feed one phase and 2 feed the other phase for 12kw combined and 3 and 3 gives you 18kw. I would have to check the manual but I think the limit is either 3 or 4 in parallel. This particular one only comes in 3kw sizes the 6 kw units are the low frequency inverters and those can't be paralleled for higher capacity. You have to buy the size you need though they come in units up to 18kw I seem to recall. Hope this helps.
Can you turn off the inverter portion on the growatt inverters to save power and still have the solar charge controller charge the batteries off of solar? I am trying to see if this would work in a travel trailer and go off-grid once a week. Having the battery charge back up over the course of a few days with the solar would be perfect.
I think it will charge the battery when off but I've not tried it, however you could put it in eco mode as well and so long as all the loads are turned off it won't power up the inverter portion unless a large enough load is present to start it.
Since mine are at home, they run 24/7. I don't have a use case to test that function.
Hi Andy. Great video! It would be nice to see your solar panel and battery setups as well. I’m considering setting up a system as well. Question? Is the system code compliant and setup to prevent back feed to the utility during utility power outages?
I do not know if the system is UL Listed, I do not believe it is. If that is an issue for where your at due to code compliance then these probably aren't for you. The same generally applies to the MPP Solar inverters as well. These will not feed any power back to the grid during outage, they have no ability to operate like a grid tied inverter. These inverters either pass the grid to your loads, or when there is sufficient solar and battery it disconnects the grid and feeds your loads from the batteries and solar. In an outage, if your loads were pulling power from the grid, it would immediately switch your loads to your battery storage until the battery hit its low voltage limit that you set. Once grid is restored, if your below the limits you set to switch back to the grid, it would switch back to the grid at that time.
Keep in mind the wiring for these is like this, a main breaker in your breaker panel feeds the inverters, and from the inverters you then feed a subpanel that has your loads on it that you want the inverters to handle. This do not feed into your main panel. It never sends any power to the grid, it simply pulls power from your main panel when its in bypass mode, or it pulls nothing from your main panel when it's running everything off of Solar and battery or just battery. The only thing the power company sees is your loads are reduced because it cannot back feed to the grid. If you had enough of the units in parallel you could go from the meter to a main panel that has breaker in it large enough to feed your inverters, then from the inverters go to a panel that has all your loads in it with nothing else in the main panel. It's still the same concept though. It either pulls from the grid or disconnects from the grid and supplies the loads itself. It cannot feed the loads from both the grid and solar/utility except for in one mode. If you have it set to charge from both the Utility and solar, it can charge the batteries from utility using whatever max amperage you set it for while also using solar to charge as well. But your basically converting utility power into DC to charge the batteries and your consuming that DC voltage to to turn back into AC for your loads. It's an odd mode to use, but it would allow both to supply the loads, while keeping the grid isolated from the AC production of the inverter.
Thanks Andy!!
Are there any major advantages of these LVM models compared to the SPF 6000t dvm model? Thanks for the great video
The SPF models appears to only do 50hz so they could not be used where you need 60hz power. Otherwise they look very similar.
Is there anyway I could reset the whole setup and start a fresh, because keep having the beeping sound
I've looked through my manual and I haven't found a reset option. I'll take a look at my inverters when I get home tonight and see if there is such an option on them.
Hi Andy
Grate video and explanation of the menus, I have got the SPF 3000TL LVM-48P setup for about a month now. Question I have is, when the unit Output is powered by battery or PV in battery mode and Battery is charging (both lights are flashing) I hear a very low buzzing sound when the room is quiet, this is apart from the fans blowing away. But when the units Output is powered by utility in Line mode and and Battery is charging, don't seem to hear such a buzzing sound. Want to check with you if you have noticed such low level buzzing sound or is it only me hearing this. Thanks and please keep up the knowledge sharing going.
If it's really quiet I can hear a bit of a buzzing sound, it's from the MPPT charge controller part of the unit. It's not very loud at all. Very faint. Still I would also make sure you go back and check the tightness on the wire inputs from you solar. Make sure it's not loose and possibly arcing. As that would also make a bit of a buzzing sound.
@@andycanfixit Appreciate your quick response and thank you for the advice, will check on the connections.
Andy wow your the man I’m looking at a 24v option I have 8 310v panels and 6 100ah batt bank saw that these have a 4500 solar limit or something? would I have to run 2 of them and split my array up? Was hoping I could just have one for my system
310 watt panels is what you mean I think correct? If so that's about 2.4kilowats, or 2400 watts. If you are looking at the 24 volt version it's limited to 2000 watts per inverter, vs 4500 watts per inverter for the 48 volt version. In reality you'll probably rarely ever hit your full 2400 watts, so you could wire all those panels to the one inverter, so long as you keep the voltage in the range specified and you'd just stay at 2000 watts for a longer period of time. Or you can get a second inverter and split the panels between them. What are the voltage specs of those panels, are they 60 cell panels or 72 cell panels? If 72 cell panels you can put a max of 2 in series and then the 4 in parallel with a combiner box. If they are 60 cell panels you can put a max of 3 in series though you'd want one more panel for 9 panels and then 3 in parallel with a combiner box. Take the output of the combiner box to the inverter and tada you've got power.
Here is a link to the spec sheet on the inverters. Personally unless you need to run 24 volts for some reason, running 48 volts is the better option, smaller cables for the batteries, more efficient, and you can handle 4500 watts of solar on an inverter instead of 2000 watts. You'd need 8 batteries instead of 6 though if those are 12 volt batteries.
Planning to install one of these in my travel trailer. Can you recommend or advise if the fans would be too loud during idle and/or under load in an RV?
The fans speed up and down based on load on the inverter or load on the charger. So if you have lots of solar coming up to charge with they will spin up to a higher speed. You wouldn't want that sound in an area you sleep in unless you are good with a lot of white noise. They are not a high pitch whine, but they do make noise, same under higher loads. I just installed a decibel meter app on my phone so I'll see if I can get a reading under load for you.
Did you ever take a measurement, Andy?
Can these be stacked/Paralleled together to accept a solar array max output of 5,400watts? Staying at the 24v?
Each inverter has it's own separate MPPT charge controller. So you have to split the strings into 2 strings, though at 24 volts, it's limited to 2kw per inverter, so with 2 inverters you can connect 2kw to each one with a max of 4kw, 3 inverters you would do 3 strings and break it apart to whatever makes the most sense. String voltage for the 24v is between 30-115 volts max, higher voltage has less losses.
The 48 volt version allows up to 4.5kw of solar on each inverter vs the 24 volt version.
Thanks for this really helpful informative video Andy! This is exactly the type of info I need.
I am considering buying the 240v version Growatt 2-phase -- not the European 1-phase.
What I am trying to figure out is: can I set it to charge my batteries when they hit a very low threshold voltage (say 10-15% SoC) and then stop charging them when they hit an medium threshold (say 40-45% SoC)? That way if they are (occasionally) running really low during the night time, grid will be called upon to grab some refill until morning when solar will top everything off.
Unfortunately there isn't a way to set it to do that, however if you set them to solar first for option one it will run on solar and battery all day so long as there is solar and battery capacity available, or you can set it to SBU so it will run on solar and battery as long as your above your set voltage and transfer voltage and then if you choose the CSO under option fourteen, it will charge from the grid under CSO once there is no solar available and your battery is not full. Under option 11 you can set how much current the utility charger will deliver, so if you set it to just enough amps to keep things from going flat, say you average 700 watts draw overnight, you could set the utility charger to say 6 amps at 120 volts, or in 240 three amps, with my two inverters you set each one to 3 amps for 6 amps total, you would be putting just about what you draw back into the battery. To stay on the battery overnight you have to be in the SBU mode, SOL switches you back to the grid as soon as the sun goes down. SBU doesn't switch you back as long as your above the low transfer voltage setting for switching back to the grid that you set in option 12, the max voltage you can set is 51.2 and the lowest is 44, default is 46. So the setting I would choose is SBU mode in option 1, under option 11, set the utility charger amperage to just barely enough for your overnight loads and your transfer back to the grid voltage at a voltage a voltage equal to say 20-30% remaining. Set it to CSO so it starts charging from utility once the sun goes down but at a very low rate to keep things topped off. That should leave your batteries close to the transfer back to the grid voltage but still on battery overnight. And leave most of the capacity to be available for solar to charge them up come daytime. You'll probably have to tinker with it a bit to find the values that work best for you, but it should work.
The goal being to maximize the amount of power you draw from solar either charging your batteries or running your loads. You can always go back and increase the utility charger amperage before a storm to keep the batteries topped off and then set it back to the lower value later. The booklet for my inverters lists 10-40 amps range for the utility charger, but when I set it to 3 amps it worked just fine. It would be nice if they had a timer section that you could specify to use the grid for charging if the voltage drops below a certain point but as of right now that's not in there. Might email them and see if they can add it either via a firmware update or as a feature in future versions. It would be a nice option.
@@andycanfixit That sounds like a good solution! Thanks for the additional detail.
Only one other thing to figure out before I make up my mind. I want a solution that allows my batteries to actually be in a golf cart (initially at least; I would likely buy additional "hard wired" storage later on down the line). That way I can disconnect and drive it around our lake community for fishing trips, beach runs, etc.
So that leaves me with 2 additional questions before I come up with a final design:
1.) Is there some setting that disables the batteries, so that I can easily disconnect them and drive away?
2.) If the inverter is connected to grid/solar, would the "battery" capacitors lose their charge thereby causing a "surge" refill/spark when I get back home and do the reconnect?
I am thinking that might be a pipe dream in that my wants might be a few years ahead of where things are in terms of industry evolution... at least in regards to "reasonable costs to build"?! :-)
@@hungrywizard No, you risk damaging the inverters if you try to run them without battery storage. I do believe there is an MPP Solar inverter that can be ran either with or without batteries but the Growatts I have and the one you are looking at if the model is what I think it is requires batteries to operate. You would have to shut down the inverters and the solar input each time you went to remove the batteries.
I think this is the unit you would be looking for, www.mppsolar.com/v3/catalogs/PIP-MS_MG.pdf
I don't know much about it I just remember coming across it when looking at various models. I would think it switches back to grid when the battery is not there and solar dips below what your equipment needs though I don't know how well that works. It's also 230 volt only. It does list if you parallel units to increase the capacity that you must use a battery then. As much as the solar can fluctuate during a day I would think it would have to be able to switch back and forth from grid to solar very rapidly or else the devices connected to it would cycle on and off throughout the day.
if you purchase the 5000 es inverter from signature solar and set up the battery to inverter communication? you can do that. I have my batteries going down to 25% soc then connect to grid. T hen at 35% state of charge they will connect back to solar input. Make sure you get the 5000 es from signature solar they are different from the other 5000 es from other suppliers. some say just remove the screw but that isn't accurate. don't run your lithium below 20% soc..
Hi Andy, thanks for the great video. I bought one of these invertor 6 months ago and am just now trying to hook it up. I want to feed the output to a sub-panel to run a 120v washer and dryer during peak hours and charge the batteries during the off-peak hour. So if I wanted 2 phrases, 120 L1 and a second 120 L2, I need to buy one more of this inverter, I think. Do I need an auto transformer to create the neutral or simply connect both neutral outputs to the neutral bar on sub-panel?
Yes you will need two inverters and yes you connect both inverters neutral to the neutral bus bar of the sub-panel. No auto-tranformer required. You set each inverter for a different phase and make sure the communication cables are connected. Set the settings on the inverters before hooking them up to grid power or your sub panel.
On the grid ac input does it have to be on both growatts?? or can you just run it to one growatt slave or master?
Nice to here i been looking at some i have gree 1800 btu i like to run
I am currently running a 12,000 btu and 18,000 btu mini split systems on mine along with a 6,000 btu window unit. No problem running them all with plenty of power left over for lights, computers, washer and gas dryer and I can run either the 1200 watt microwave or toaster oven too. Highest load I have seen on either inverter is about 85% capacity. Average during summer is about 50%
@@andycanfixit that,s cool i do have a pip that,s 5000 i thank it will run my ac but i have to use a st 5000 it takes at no load just to be on 50 watts my high efficient sk cotek inverter it,s nice but it dont run 220 Growatt may be grate option
Hello Andy, how is your Growatt system coming on after a year? I want you to help me out again. Installed a 5000Kva inverter but the MPPT is not charging. We connected 3 panels in series with VOC (Open Voltage Circuit) of 43.8, that means we have a total voltage of about 129v. Am guessing we have exceeded the maximum VOC, as I see from the instructional manual it should be 60-115V. What do you think? I appreciate your input
With panels that high of voltage I would do two in series rather than three. It will put your voltage somewhere in the 80ish range and should make the MPPT charger happy. For the 72 cell panels I have I run them in pairs and it's worked well. Depending on how many strings you are combining and the distance you might have to go to a larger gauge wire however due to the higher amperage at a lower voltage.
Have you had any issues using the #12. for ac input? I'm getting ready to install the first 3k stackable and the manual says to have on a 40amp breaker with #8 for the AC input?
It comes down to what type of wire you are using, Romex is NM-B so 12 gauge in that is limited to 20 amps, vs 8 is good for 40 amps. Switch to THHN and you can push 30 amps on 12, 40 on 10 and 55 on 8 gauge but you'll need to place in it conduit. Your breaker should be sized so that it doesn't exceed your wire rating.
I'm running 10 gauge THHN on mine now, so it'll handle 40 amps which is 4800 watts. You can't push that level of output though for more than a few seconds before the inverter will shut off, so your ability to overheat the wire by pushing more than it's rated is low. I personally wouldn't run them on 12 gauge wire unless you plan to only run light loads on them and then size the breaker to match that.
@@andycanfixit Thank you for the response. just realized your using a 48v system, mine will be a 24v system. I thought they could handle 80 amp on the norm and that was the reason they have the #6 listed.
That brings me to think the requirement on the PV input could also be adjusted on the amps as well, correct? I'm going to be running 3x320w/40.8 vock/ 7.8amps in series 2p. With that I'm under 20amps from the PV and at 122.4v. I see no reason for me to run #6 on that as they say either do you?
right now I have a 100' run to my barn shed for a 30amp 120v sub panel using #10 THHN and never had any issues.
@@2olvets443 that would be about 1300 watts max at only about 16 amps, so you won't need 6 gauge to the panels for that. Plus since you have the 24 volt version, your MPPT charger is limited to about 2000 watts, so you could easily run 10 gauge for that and still have headroom for another set of three panels, only reason to run larger gauge wires would be if you have an excessive run length. I have about 2500 watts of solar going into each of my 2 inverters, but at lower voltage so higher amps, and I'm feeding that in via 8 gauge THHN wire with a run of about 150 feet. Peak amperage is about 32 amps at around 78 volts. Well under the wire max rating.
As to the 80 amps, remember that's the peak rating, but only for a short period of time. Each inverter is max sustained and 3000 watts, but can surge to 6000 watts for a few seconds. 3000 watts at 120 is 25 amps, 6000 watts is 50 amps. 40 amps is 4800 watts. 2 inverters supplying split phase gives you 6000 watts of 240 volt or 3000 watts on each of the two 120 legs. Of you can parallel them to just provide 120 volts, which would be 50 amps of 120 volts on a single phase.
They can put out 150% of the rated output for 10 seconds or 200% for 5 seconds. So you ideally want to keep your loads under the inverter rating of 3000 watts each.
@@andycanfixit Thank you very much for that information. That is what I was thinking as well and with everything I've been absorbing my brain was overloading lol. Will most likely add to the system as I'm able but will be slow going. Retired now so all the big money with OT is long gone :).
BTW I was commo in the military and work it for years in the private sector. I've been out of it for coming up on 20 years but I was Lucent and Nortel certified and a few others. Did plenty of wiring with Cat 5 and 5e as well as fiber. I watched another of your videos and saw where you are in communications as well.
Do you know if I can charge the batteries from the grid while I am pulling from the inverter? (as opposed to the unit switching to the grid power and the inverter shutting off)
I know that seems inefficient, but I intend to use a generator to charge the batteries and when I run my place off just the generator, my lights constantly dim/flicker.
If you are in the SNU mode under option 14, and your battery level is high enough to stay on inverter, you can charge it using utililty and solar or utility aka your generator if that's all that is available. However if your battery voltage falls below your setpoint to switch back to grid, it would switch your loads to the generator until the batteries are high enough that it can switch back to battery. So you'd need to have your setback point low enough to keep you on battery while supplying the loads. You can choose under the utility charging section how many amps it will pull from utility to charge the batteries so you can stay under the load limits of your generator.
If this is a frequent issue, you might want to install a stand alone inverter just for your lighting, like a Victron Phoenix that runs directly off the batteries, then the lighting wouldn't flicker while on generator as it charges the batteries. I installed a 375VA Victron Phoenix 48 volt inverter that's tied directly to the batteries that way I'd still have lights even if I needed to shut the inverters off for maintenance. With the bluetooth dongle you can even go in an set a low voltage cutoff that will shut the inverter off at a set point to prevent it from ever drawing your batteries too low. That inverter was large enough to power 2 ceiling fans, and five overhead lights that have a combined 12 LED bulbs, most of which are 8.5 watt LEDs with 4 being 16 watt LED's. With all of them on and the fans on high I still have about 20% capacity left on that inverter and it was $140ish with the dongle. It has a toroidal transformer in it and puts out very clean power with very little standby load.
@@andycanfixit Thank you so much, great idea on for the lights.
I figured if I couldn't get everything to work correctly, I could also have a 120v MPPT charger hooked up direct to the batteries. But my hope is to minimize the setup to just the all-in-one unit. I will adapt where needed for sure.
So correct me if I'm wrong I will need to 3000 w. Inverters if I want to power a single phase 120 240 panel assuming I am using two pole breakers on some of my utilities. I was under the impression the split panel provided two 120 legs with the neutral giving me 240 from L1 and L2 and 120 from L1 to neutral L2 to neutral
Each inverter can only produce one 120 volt phase, so you can use a single one for 120 volts at 3000 watts, or if your load needs more than 3000 watts you can parallel them on the same phase, allowing each additional one to add another 3000 watts, so 2 inverters could provide 6000 watts of 120 volt power and there would only be a hot, a neutral and a ground.
Alternately if you need to supply 240 volt split phase power to some loads and 120 volt single phase power to others you need to have at least 2 inverters, with each inverter supply one of the two phases. In that setup 1 inverter supplies 120 volt on one phase, the second supplies it on the other phase and you can then run up to 3000 watt 120 volt loads on either phase, or you can run a 240 volt split phase device off both phases using up to 6000 watts. In that setup each inverter supplies a separate hot wire, and they both use the same neutral wire, so to hots and one neutral go to the split phase panel. Single pole breakers are on one or the other phase at 120 volts, dual pole breakers are on both phases at 240 volts.
@@andycanfixit thank you
Mine hasn't shipped yet (USA version, 24 Volt@ 3000Watts). I ordered the Wifi as I see on yours. How does the WiFi work and what can you do with it???
The wifi allows you to monitor it when your not there as well as log historical data on production, consumption etc. You can do some remote config with it but I've never bothered too.
So, can I hook these up in SOL mode if my solar array is 3KW but on avg I use 9KW/day? I guess what I am wondering is can the grid stay on but still take whatever amount of solar I am making or is it either solar or grid? My solar power would never be used if this was case
In SOL mode it'll run your stuff off solar/battery so long as the sun is out and the solar is generating any power. Once it's not generating any more power it switches back to grid in that mode. In SBU mode however it will run off solar/battery until your battery falls to the low voltage setting you program it for to switch back to grid, so if your running 48 volt battery bank your low voltage cutover might be at 48v while your fully charged setting might be 54-56v depending on your battery type. If you are using 9kwh a day and say 3-4kwh are used when the sun is down, provided you have enough battery storage to support that, it should stay on solar/battery indefinitely. If it ever falls below your battery storage limit due to say a couple rainy days generating little if any solar, then it'll switch to grid. What it will not do is send power back to the grid or run on both the grid and the solar at the same time.
@@andycanfixit thanks Andy
How do I hook up a generator to my growatt to charge the batteries? I only have one inverter.
Are you connecting it to grid as well or just a generator? If you are only connecting it to a generator then you run a power line from the generator to the AC input, 120 volts in and make sure it's set to match the frequency, be 50 or 60 hertz depending on where you are and what type of generator you have. Don't mismatch the frequency. Single inverter will only take 120 volts in.
If you are using it with grid power supplied than you need a transfer switch. Something like the GO-Power TS-30 automatic transfer switch, where the grid feeds in one side and the generator feeds in on the other with the output connected to the input of the inverter. Power goes out, as soon as you start the generator it will switch over. It will pause for 30 seconds once power is restored and switch back. That transfer switch would limit you to 3600 watts max, so you'll want to keep your surge limits below that. More than that and you'd need a bigger transfer switch. I'm using one of those on a single inverter from my generator as the generator I have is 120 volts only, but it was also basically free and being fuel injected very reliable.
The inverter however can't start the generator however as it doesn't have an autostart option.
Just watched your video again on your set up. Great video. Just wondering what is the specs on your battery bank ?
Current setup is 2 100ah 48v packs built from A123 cells and 1 pack built with 2 BYD 24 volt packs, the BYD pack is about to be retired though as it's not in very good shape, lots of cell imbalance issues due to its age. A number of us took the gamble on those cells a couple years back, proved to be a poor investment though, but I'm only about about $600. I just ordered 16 230ah EVE cells and will be building a new pack using those to replace the BYD pack. The BYD when first installed was around 170ah, due to its imbalance issues now its closer to 100ah useable. So the new pack will a bit more than double the storage of my setup when it's in service. I plan to do a build video of the new pack once the cells arrive. Should be close to 24 kilowatt hours of storage at that point with the new cells.
@@andycanfixit thank you again. You have alot of great info. :-)
Can you share a ;picture of how these are wired into your AC panel?
I should be able to, though it is pretty straight forward. Are you doing split phase or single phase?
I’ve done everything by the Manuel plus help from tech. I still get error in #13. Any ideas on what I’m doing wrong? I have 800 w coming from panels
What panels do you have and how are they wired together? Your panels should have a voltage no higher than 115 volts, if it's higher than that you'll get the error message, and too high you might damage the inverter. For example if each of your panels puts out 30-35 volts you can connect 3 of them together in series and if you had say 6 panels you'd do two strings of three in series and then combine the two together in parallel. If the panels are 40 or more volts you would only put 2 in series and with six panels you'd then three sets of 2 in parallel. If you are dealing with 100 watt panels designed for 12 volt setups, those panels are usually around 17-18 volts each or 22volts open circuit. For those you could put 5 or 6 in series max. More than that and your voltage will be too high. Hope this helps.
@@andycanfixit wow thanks. Tech finally called back and told me the same thing. I have 4 Newpowa 100 w batteries that are 1 year old. They r rated at 16.7v and 17v. Each from a different country. The new ones are 18.15. They are sold as new and improved. So now I have to string The old ones in parallel, loosing .3v. Each string maxing at 115 on my 24v growatt Am I correct ?
Can you please explain the host and slave system when using 2inverters for 2 separate phases.. Thank u
You can only set it when the inverter is off, you turn off the inverter with the switch on the bottom and then go into the menu setting 23. You cannot access this when the unit is online and inverting. Once in the menu you choose 2P0 for one unit and 2p1 for the second unit. This sets the first unit for one half of the phase and the second unit for the other half of the phase.
Wiring after that is both units share the same neutral wire from the grid and the same neutral to your sub-panel. Each inverter then supplies a separate hot wire to the sub-panel. 120 volt breakers will use only one phase and depending on the position will be on one or the other inverter. Dual pole 240 breakers will split their loads across both phases and use power from both inverters at the same time. Hope this helps.
Hi Nice video I am looking to get the same set up as yours. great video. one question for you, to maximize my current 3000 watt 24v set up, whats the max panels combination I can have for 12v 100 watts each panel? 5s and 4p?
Max Power Output(W): 100W
Voltage MPP Vmp(V): 16.77V
Current MPP Imp(A): 6.26A
Voltage Open Circuit Voc(V): 19.83V
Short Circuit Current Isc(A): 6.56A
5s4p with those panels would give you 2kw which is the max the 24 volt version of the inverter can support via it's mppt charger. Voltage wise you should be fine. The question will be if it has much headroom wattage wise especially on a cold sunny day. You will be right on the edge. However if the panels never make full wattage you should be fine.
quick question. I am trying to change my bulk and float charge values. When I hold enter to try and make a change it jumps from 19 to 20 or 20 to 21 and I am not able to change bulk or float charges. Do you know what I may be doing wrong? Thanks
What sort of batteries are you running? In order to change all three you have to choose USE setting. AGM and FLD settings have pre-determined settings, and the LI setting only works with certain batteries that it can communicate with. For custom settings be it an AGM or a lithium based battery, change it to USE and then you can configured all three settings.
@@andycanfixit Thanks
What’s the standby power consumption? I know the MPP was pretty high and was hoping better from the Growatts.
Average is about 44 watts per inverter, 88 watts for the pair. Can dip as low as 25 watts each. Never seen it higher that 44 watts per inverter.
@@andycanfixit That's good to hear. I'm waiting for my 3k LVM-ES to come to Nicaragua and had heard of power consumption as high as 60w and was considering a Victron Phoenix 48/1200 to run most of the house while only using 12-15w. Great video. I'll use it to set mine up.
Thank you for this.
Hi Andy, I installed my Growatt 3Kva24V system as a utility back up without PV, but as soon as the Utility is connected the battery SOC drops from 100% to 50% and the charger runs constantly. I have 2 12V 200ah batteries connected in series to the system...
What do you have your voltage ranges set to for bulk charging etc? Two of those batteries in series should be above 24 volts, for the charging settings you can either choose a preset for lead acid or you can choose custom and set the bulk and absorption voltage range. Once it hits that it should stop charging them. However if the range is too high it'll keep charging them which could kill the batteries. Are they flooded, or AGM or some variety of lithium? If they are lithium do the batteries have a BMS in them, if so you'll want to set the inverter voltages at slightly less than the peak bms voltages so it stops charging and discharging before the batteries hit full or the battery bms will cut off the batteries and possibly cause issue with the inverter since it will suddenly not have a battery at that point.
@@andycanfixit Hi Andy. Thanks for the response. They are flooded (gel) batteries, but I had it on the preset flooded setting, but changed to custom and set the volts down to specified. Did work and stoped charging. Now only on float.
Thanks again for the response!
I just read you were planning to buy Nissan leaf Batteries next year, have you considered the 280 ah LiFePo4 cells? They are a good price, and leaf cells tend to be expensive, I have as some I wish I didn't buy, haven't even used them, unless you getting a little eal deal, I think the 280 ah cells are about $350 delivered for 4cells, maybe cheaper for more, and cheaper still by next year! I have about 1200ah of 7s liion, and possibly looking into one of these inverters, I saw average Joe's seems nice, I only need 3kw, with 6kw for future possible needs, I don't have much use for 220v, I have a gas water heater, and everything is either wood, or gas, or 12/24v or 120v, having 220v as a option would be nice, you said peak standby is 44w each, what is the solar input specs? I have a dozen 270w panels, and a 1200watt array, the 270 watt panels are in 3strings with 72vmp each , 2series, 2parallel, about 84voc, I'm off grid with no grid at all! I do have a couple generators, and working in a DC generator to charge the batteries directly! At up to 300amps, but mostly around 100amps, and only to about 85%. Awesome setup!!
I plan to get a set of the 280ah cells to replace my BYD pack, and since I have a Nissan Leaf, when I replace it's 24kwh pack with a larger pack I'll repurpose the old pack into storage. Keeping an eye out for a good deal on a 40 or 60kw pack to put in the Leaf, it's paid for, nothing wrong with so if I can swap the pack for $5 to $6k it'll be worth it.
As for the inverter, the MPPT charger in there can handle up to 4500 watts of solar, setup like the strings you have you can connect it to the inverters and you'll be fine. You don't want to exceed 115 volts dc on the strings as that's the max the tracking can handle, your setup fits that well. If you don't need 240 volt sources you can start with 1 inverter, and later add a second one in parallel with the inlcuded parallel kit and it'll produce 6kw of 120 volts on that single phase, this can be handy if you have a high draw 120 volt load that exceeds the 3kw or causes it to trip due to startup surge. If you don't you can add the second inverter in split phase instead and you would then be able to power 240 volt 6kw loads using both, or up to 3kw loads on each of the 2 phases. If your generator is only 120 volts you can hook it up to the one inverter to power it and the built in charger if needed, if it's 240 volts you'd need both inverters to supply the split phase. So you have a number of options.
Happy to help.
thanks for the video. the power number, is this the power usage for the device in your house? such as fridge ? etc... i am still confused thanks :)
Are you talking about the load screen? If you scroll through till you get to load, it gives you both a percentage used, or the next click shows you how many watts you are currently drawing with all your loads on that inverter. Each inverter has it's own load percentage. I'm currently powering 3 mini split AC units, a couple portable dehumidifiers as its quite humid in the south where I live, my washer, dryer which is gas so it is only using electric to spin it, 3 chest freezers, my fridge, most of my lighting, and I have my microwave and toaster oven on the circuit but only use one or the other at a time as well as 3 different computers, and my home theater and internet all being powered by the 2 inverters. Most of the time they are rarely above 50% load, with one occasionally getting to 80% load if I use the microwave or toaster oven.
Very nice video thank you. I bought one does it charge the batteries if the switch is off?
I've had that question asked a few times, but I honestly don't know for sure if it does or not as I've never tried it since mine are on 24/7. Test it out and let me know what you find.
yes, I believe it does charge if the inverter is off
Hi Andy I'm going to be running 2 growatt spf3000's in split phase do you have to connect 120 volts (grid) to both slave and master or can it be on just one growatt? As far as for charging from the grid? Thanks for your time!!
Yes you will need both connected to split phase power from the grid or they will give you an error message and will not startup. So neutral to both, with 1 phase hot to one and a the opposite phase hot to the other, from a dual pole breaker in your grid panel as well as ground from that panel to both. The output of both units will then go to your sub panel that you will run your loads from.
Ok what if I only have a single phase for charging for instance a Honda eu2000 generator will this work ?? I do have a transformer that takes 120 volts and turns it to 220 volts duel phase.
@@kingasapj3160 If you have an autotransformer to convert the 120 to 240 split phase so you can feed both inverters it will work, but if you only have 120 single phase with out a converter it'll give you an error feeding only one of the two inverters, and you can't feed both since the phase will be the same.
In my setup I have 3 of these inverters, 2 are in split phase fed from a dual pole breaker from the grid. The third inverter is on a separate single pole breaker and a transfer switch to be fed from my generator that can only do 120 volt output. Generator can supply 3.5kw so I can use that inverter to charge the battery bank if there is little solar and an extended power outage. Only had to use it twice but it worked well. The other approach is to simply buy one of the EG4 48volt chargers that can take 120 or 240 volt input and charge the battery bank, it'll also help smooth out the power. Check out Signature Solar under batteries there is a charger category. It's about $400 but that's the best solution for your generator to supply power.
Ok I do have the auto transformer so I'll go that route. I'm so thankful you helped me out on this! Gees growatt isn't very clear on different secerneros of operation!
Andy, starting at 12:50 you say for setting #13..."it's the point where it switches off of 'grid' charge and starts drawing from the battery." Question: if it is instead in 'solar' charging mode at that point instead of 'grid' charge mode, will it switch back to battery draw as well?
It will if the solar does not have enough watts to fully handle the loads. Basically once it switches back to battery/solar at that point it will pull power from solar and battery to handle the loads, if the solar is enough to handle all the loads than any excess solar is used to charge the batteries, if it's not enough to handle the loads it pulls the power from the batteries and whatever solar can provide, all of it happens instantly so your loads don't see any difference. What you'll see is in full sun with an array large enough to handle all your loads and then some, you'll see your loads are pulling their wattage and the leftover solar is being used to charge your batteries, then a cloud passes over and your solar drops off to less than your loads, it supplies whatever amount of solar you have to your loads and pulls the rest from the battery and as soon as the cloud passes it switches back to charging the batteries and supplying the loads from the solar.
@@andycanfixit Thx, great info, and I understand those concepts, but I was specifically wondering about the batt voltage limit set at setting 13...does it affect a return to battery mode only while charging from Utility or does it also limit charging while the battery is charged from Solar? The manual is not clear on this distinction.
Reason is I would like to limit grid charging of batt up to a lower point than how much solar would charge it. Perhaps this is not possible.
For now, I just limit the utility current to lowest setting of 10A in setting 11.
Another question is, if setting 13 is say...54v (default) and setting 19 is 56.4v (default), how would the battery charge ever get back up to the bulk level set at #19 after it had been down to the level set at #12?
@@AGhostInTheMachine So setting 13 only tells it when to switch off grid source to battery and solar. Once the battery charge hits what you set it too, it it will switch to battery and solar if your are in SOL or SBU mode for setting 1. In SOL mode there has to be sunlight present and the battery has to hit the voltage setting you choose in 13. In SBU mode the battery just needs to hit the voltage setting you choose in 13. Setting 12 is the low voltage limit that tells it to switch back to grid if you are in SOL or SBU. For instance I have setting 13 set to 53 volts, and I have setting 12 set to 51.2. I am in SBU mode, and in setting 14 I have the charge source priority set to OSO so it only charges from solar, it never charges from grid. If there is a major storm coming through I will switch it to SNU so it charges the battery from both, but otherwise I leave it in OSO so it never charges from the grid.
Unfortunately other than limiting the utility charging current there isn't a way to say only charge the battery to this voltage from utility and charge the rest from solar. You can actually choose a value lower than 10 amps as well, the lowest value it will accept is 2 or 3 amps.
As to your second question, as long as you have enough solar coming in to power your loads and left over solar to charge your batteries, it will charge up to your bulk voltage as setting 13 doesn't stop it from charging beyond what 13 is set at, it's just a set point on when to start pulling power from solar and batteries. I charge my battery bank up to 54.3 volts under setting 19, and float at 54.1. In the morning before the sun comes up it'll typically be around 50.8 to 51 volts, so it's supply my loads from the grid. Solar starts charging the batteries, and once the batteries hit 53 volts, it switches off grid and supplies my loads with solar and battery as needed, charging the batteries with any excess. On a sunny day by noon to 2pm depending on loads, it'll hit the 54.3 volts and switch to float, still using solar to supply all the loads, as the day goes on and the solar drops toward sunset, the battery supplies more of the loads and at some point it drops below 51.2 and it switches back to grid. On an overcast day however it might not be till noon till it hits 53 volts and switches to solar/battery, and when it does it probably still doesn't have enough solar to supply all the loads, so it draws from the battery till they drop below 51.2 and switches back to grid, meanwhile any solar coming in goes directly to charging the batteries. You might never hit your bulk charging voltage at this point but you are still charging the batteries and able to use the power every time you go about your set limit in setting 13.
The reason I set 12 at 51.2 is this leaves about 20-25% of the capacity in the batteries, that way if the grid goes down, you still have some capacity left before you hit your low voltage disconnect voltage that you set in 21. This is the voltage that it turns off the inverters to prevent over discharge of the battery, basically what you consider zero for your batteries and it's a good idea to set this voltage at a higher voltage than your BMS low voltage disconnect is, so that the inverter shuts down before your battery shuts down preventing the inverter from being damaged.
@@andycanfixit Thanks Andy for an awesome reply.
In there I believe I have the answer I was looking for. It's too bad the manual doesn't provide more explanation into the nuances. I always wonder why the manufacturers from China don't get someone skilled in technical writing to either write the manual clearly, or at least review their gibberish before printing it LOL.
Thanks! I'm going to do a couple experiments now based on your info. Your sharing has been very helpful.
BTW...I did not know you can go below 10A on setting #11 because the manual indicates it cannot.
I'm a little confused about wiring, are the ac input & output lines going to 2 different "240" breakers in your breaker box? Does each inverter have it's own "array" feeding it or do they share the full pv input somehow? If so how? Do you have breakers between the array & inverters & the inverters & battery bank? If so what type and size are they, the instructions are confusing? Thank You!!!
There is one 240 volt breaker in the main panel that feeds inverters. A 240 volt breaker has 2 hot wires attached to it, one on each leg, with neutral attached to your neutral bar and ground attached to your ground bar. So you have 4 wires come from the breaker panel back to the inverters. 1 hot wire goes to each inverter, the ground wire is split to feed both inverters and the neutral wire is split to feed both inverters from the single wire. 1 inverter becomes one phase of the 120 volts and the other inverter becomes the other phase of the 120 volts. You then feed a subpanel from the inverters the same way, the neutrals of both inverters are tied together to a single line to your subpanel, the grounds are tied together to a single wire and fed to the subpanel and then each inverters hot feeds each of the two phases in the subpanel.
Each inverter has it's own pv array feeding it, you can't split an array between them. I have two combiner boxes, one for each array that feeds each inverter, each combiner box can take up to 6 strings and combine them, each string being fused. The box has a 60 amp breaker in it and lightning protection. It's rated for 60 amps max but I'm pushing at most 35 to 40 amps max in each one. You can run it with only one of the two inverters having a pv array attached.
My battery banks each have a fuse, size depending on the size of each battery bank along with a disconnect switch and I have a second set of breakers and lightning arrestors at the house as well, so that I can cut the power from the arrays at the house without having to walk all the way out to the arrays. Hope that helps.
@@andycanfixit Thank you! That helps a lot. How many watts do you have in each array? I have 3.8k total, I'm trying to decide if I should have one or 2 inverters... I would end up w/ just 1.9k per inverter if I go for 2 inverters. (I've ordered one and thought I'd test it to see how it produces compared to my on-grid SB 4000us. Then order a second one if there is a big difference.) I'm installing the Growatt(s) to charge batteries, and have electric when the grid is down. I like the idea that ONE will run w/o batteries when the sun is shining in case of extreme emergency. I bought the "SPF 3000TL LVM-ES", that takes higher pv volts than the "24" or "48" models.
@@bonniefrench9595 I have 3kw feeding one inverter and almost 4kw feeding the other inverter. The MPPT seems to track very quickly and perform well.
@@andycanfixit Great, then one should work perfect for me! Thanks! (I'm eliminating my 240 loads.) And thanks very much for your quick response!
Andy...can you help me...I bought the same mppt set up with 2 12v sok lithium batteries and 2 300 watt solar panels. I wired correctly and it won't turn on Nada !!!! Any ideas? Thanks
I assume you have the 24 volt inverter? Batteries in series for 24 volts and the two panels in series for around 60 to 70 volts? Definitely want to check the voltage of each and make sure all of them have somewhere near those voltages.
So...thank you very much. What would be the primary reason for my new growwatt mppt 3000 watt 24 volt system with 2 12 volt sok batteries.. I have 2 300 watt flexible solar panels. Pretty easy In theory unless you are in the middle of nowhere and without cell coverage....lol. can I send you a few pics. Happy to pay for help..lol
@@texaspepperfarm First things first, check all the voltages with a voltage meter, then check and make sure the wires are actually securely attached to everything. It can be easy to get a wire behind a connector on the inverter and think it's connected but then find out it's loose. give them each a light tug and make sure they don't come out. You want to connect the batteries to the inverter first. So negative wire to battery negative terminal, then positive of the first battery to the second battery negative terminal, then positive of the second battery to the inverter. Multimeter should show 24 to 26 volts on the inverter. Next same with the solar panels, negative from the inverter to the negative of the first solar panel, positive of that panel to negative of the second panel, then positive of the second panel back to the inverter. Check the voltage and make sure you are around 60 volts if they are standard 60 cell panels. If you look at the label on the back of the panels it will tell you the voltage of those panels. There will be a VOC and a VMP voltage. VOC is the voltage of the panel with no load on it. VMP is the voltage of the panel under load at it's max. 12 volt panels are around 18 to 20 volts for VMP, 60 cell panels are around 30ish volts, and 72 cell panels are around 40ish volts. If the panels you have are 12 volt panels then 2 in series might not be quite enough for the charger to kick on depending on the panels and battery voltage. Any of the higher volt panels and 2 should be plenty.
But start by making sure you have good connections and good voltage and your polarities are correct aka positive to positive and negative to negative. And make sure the inverter power switch is off before connecting things, and make sure the battery is connected before you connect the solar panels. If you connect the solar panels first with no battery you can damage things.
Good day Sir Need to know how you set the parallel set up I'm having trouble setting up parallel setting. Sfp 5000tl-hvm-p 5kva each any demo got iszue on the software
I'm not familiar with that model as it's a 230 volt model not meant for the US market. I did look at the manual on Growatts website and starting on page 16 through page 23 it covers the parallel operation. You can parallel 2 or more inverters for single phase 230v or you need at least 3 inverters for 3 phase mode. Are you trying to do just single phase or are you trying to do 3 phase? If just single phase its very simple especially if you are only doing 2 inverters.
Hi Andy, new to your channel, nice setup and good video, very detailed. can you post the exact measurement of the inverters? I'm kind of confuse with the info on Ian's website and the manual.
Thanks for your input.
From top to bottom 18 inches, side to side 13.5 inches, and from the wall to the front 5.5 inches. Don't forget if you have two of them you need to space them apart side by side a few inches. I have mine closer than recommended but there is also really good airflow in the room they are in.
@@andycanfixit Thanks so much Andy.
How to combine AC output 240V from 2 Inverter ? Is Each inverter output 120 Or 240 V ?
Each inverter puts out 120 volts, if you need 240 volts, you have to set them up as split phase where 1 inverter supplies 1 phase of the 240 volt and the other provides the opposite phase, giving you both 120 and 240 volts from them. These do not provide 240 volts individually.
What’s your battery and solar setup? Great video thanks.
I have three 48 volt battery banks of lifepo4 batteries. All are used batteries I bought from Batteryhookup. Two are 100ah and one is about 150 ah. I have two solar arrays feeding my inverters, one on each. The one array is 3kw and the second array is about 3.5kw. I then also have two smaller arrays 1.1kw each that feed separate Victron charge controllers that charge the battery banks directly. This way if I have to power off the inverters for any reason I still have charge going into the batteries. I also have a 375va Victron Phoenix inverter that powers most of my overhead lights powered directly from the batteries so I still have lights if I have to shut off the inverters. The nice part is that inverter has the ability to set a low voltage cutoff as well so you can make sure it won't discharge the batteries lower than you want. My solar combiners all have lightning protection as well.
Please help:
I have a growatt 3000 and it doesn’t recognize my PV input at all.
My panels are in series. 8X370 watt panels. I have a pv shut off switch hooked up. Any thoughts?
What are the voltage specs of the panels, how many do you have in series and what version of the inverter do you have, the 24 or 48 volt version? If those are 60 cell panels you can put a max of three in series, or if they are 72 cell panels you can put a max of 2 in series. You need to be above the voltage needed to charge your batteries but below the max voltage the mppt charger accepts. With 8 panels depending on the voltage you would do 2 panels in series and then four sets in parallel. Make sure your battery is connected first.
@@andycanfixit 48v growatt spf3000tl
Panel says Rated voltage 39.7
Right now I have all 8 hooked up in series. At first I was getting over voltage errors. Now it doesn’t read they are even there.
The panels are 72 cell.
Thank you so much for your help.
@@system-4210 Dude.. with all 8 in series you were at over 300 volts for an MPPT that accepts a max voltage of 145 volts and wants your normal range under 115. Try just two panels in series and connect them and see if it sees anything, if not unfortunately you may have killed the charge controller. Good luck!
@@andycanfixit you appear to be correct. At least I know. Thank you Andy.
Is the inverter programmable to output 12v power? or did you need to install step down converters to the sub panel?
12 volts as in 12 volt DC? If so no. A single inverter can only put out 120 volts and two in split phase can put out 240 in split phase or 120 volts on each phase. No options for anything else. Only other option is for either 50 or 60 hertz.
@@andycanfixit I guess I am confused about the output from the inverters are 24 volt (to charge batteries) but does the output to appliances need to be step down to 12 Volt? or does the sub panel take care of the voltage to outlets that you run? I hope I make sense.
@@MrGrandwazzoo45 So if you have the 24 volt model the MPPT charger will either charge the batteries at 24 volts or pull 24 volts from the batteries to supply the inverter that then supplies 120 volts to your sub panel. There is no sections of the inverters that will supply DC voltage to anything other than your batteries and it will only supply either 24 volts if you have the 24 volt model or 48 volts if you have the 48 volt model to those batteries.
If you need 12 volts to run things you would have to connect a step down transformer off the battery bank, or you'd have to have a power converter that takes in 120 volts and puts out 12 volt DC that you would then run those devices with. I hope that helps explain it. What are you trying to run? I'm guessing 12 volt dc appliances in like an RV or something?
Hey Andy, I have my setting 5 set to user defined but when I try and change setting 21 (Low DC cut Off) from 42 to say 48 it does not accept the change and switches back to 42. Do you have any insight on this?
No, as long as you are in user defined then 19,20 and 21 should all be able to be changed. Are 19 and 20 adjustable or do they not change either? Try setting it to 47.5 as well and see if that takes.
I assume you are using a 48 volt battery bank and the inverter you got was the 48 volt version correct and not the 24 volt version?
for reference, 19 is bulk charging and can be set from 48 to 58.4, I run mine at 54.3 since the are used cells to preserve the life left in them.
20 is the float charge and has the same range, i set it to 54.1 for my bank and 21 is the cutoff for low voltage. I have mine set at 47.5.
I also have it set to switch from battery to grid under setting 12 at 51.2 so that it has a decent bit left in the batteries in case of a power outage, and under setting 13 it switches back to solar and battery when the battery voltage hits 53 volts, this way the inverter isn't switching back and forth constantly and I'm not running the battery bank extremely low. It gives up a bit of useable capacity but allows the batteries to last a lot longer.
Hope this helps.
@@andycanfixit 19 and 20 changed fine. I tried on a 24 volt unit too. Does the inverter need to be on or in standby or something?
@@GrowingUpGoudie I think the unit does need to be on. So even choosing 47.5 doesn't work?
The 24 volt version has different voltage ranges, 20-24 volts is the only range you can set it too.
@@andycanfixit Thanks Andy. I got it to work.
How did you get 21 to change,,i have the 24 volt and no matter what i do it changes back to 21.0 volt,,,,
It is easy/ convenient to turn these units off to save on standby power? I mean turn off the inverter portion and leave the MPPT charger Stil running. For example , just as you’ve used a small auxiliary inverter for some lights, there’s no need to run these inverters full time.
Sure is. Plus charging batteries from grid is pointless, you incur ac-dc-ac conversion losses
It’s nice that you can set when it pulls power from the grid to keep the battery at an acceptable minimum. Can it also fire up a propane generator when the battery gets low? 🤞🤓💜
On this particular model the programable contactor only works to enable an external neutral bond grounding. It doesn't appear to have a remote generator start function, though I suspect that if they did an update to the firmware they could enable that contactor to be used for that instead.
There are other models from them, mainly the low frequency versions they make that do have a gen start function but this one does not. You would need an external device that is triggered by your batteries being below a certain level and there being no grid input to trigger it. You could likely rig up something with an Arduino and some voltage sensors to do this.
@@andycanfixit good to know, thanks. Great video! 💜🤓👍
Nice Video. Have you experience lights flickering when Fridge and Freezers are running at the same time?
I did notice it would cause cheaper LED bulbs to flicker and the incandescent bulb in my fridge to flicker a bit, usually when the batteries are close to full.
For my setup I resolved it by installing a Victron Phoenix 350va inverter powered directly off my battery bank that only my overhead lights and fans are on, this also allows the lights to work even when shutdown the inverters if I need to work on them for any reason, and using the bluetooth adapter for the Victron you can configure a low voltage shutdown so it won't drop your battery voltage too low. It eliminated the flickering of the lights. The victron inverter and bluetooth adapter was about $160 for both, plus a $15 breaker box for a single breaker for the lights circuit.
@@andycanfixit Thanks for your quick response. I have replaced most of my light bulbs with led but still have a few incandescent ones. Both flicker, not always and not too bad. I have read that other people are having the same issue. Some say that it could be the ground/neutral bond. Not sure. I also going to add a second small inverter to isolate the freezer and hopefully resolve the flickering. Would be nice if you can do a video on the electric panel that the growatts are feeding. People like to see what others are doing. Thanks.
Hi again Andy have an issue where the growatt in not reading the voltage of your battery correctly? I have a 24v unit that reads 21v for a second causing (04) fault and then it jumps to 27 and then back down again. No load and the battery is sitting at 25.8. Shot in the dark but thought I'd reach out.
Not seen anything like that, how large are the batteries? Do you have an amp clamp meter to measure load, and I assume the battery wires have been checked to make sure nothing is loose?
If so it sounds like something is wrong in the unit. Though I am not sure what.
@@andycanfixit Yes checked it all. all readings are correct right to the lugs on the inverter. No AC loads and it is bouncing all over the place. Have you ever done a firm ware update to yours?
@@GrowingUpGoudie No, never have. Did you buy it direct from Growatt or did you get it from one of the US sellers? If you got it from a US seller I'd contact them for support or repairs, otherwise you'd need to contact Growatt themselves. I don't have any contacts for them though I'm just an end user as well.
@@andycanfixit Via alibuba so I may have regrets. Thanks for your quick responses.
I have problem on mode 15 and 17. Even I set it off, inverter still has beep beep sound.
Not had that issue. I do know if you power them off it reverts back to on when you turn them back on so you have to go in and set them back to off again.
Me too
How many amps out put to home for both? And How many amps for one? I'm looking for around 50 amps to home.. I know nothing about solar and trying to learn. Hope you don't mind my questions. 12v 24v or 48v. Thank you
Each unit can output 3000 watts max or about 25 amps per phase. 25 amps at 120 volts per unit or combined 25 amps at 240 volts. If you are looking for 50 amps at 240 you would need 4 of them. 2 on each phase for 12,000 watts total at 240 volts. 6000 watts on each phase at 120.
@@andycanfixit Thank you for your very quick reply !!!!!!!! 4 will be costly, Thank you for your wisdom.....
Just curious, what happens if you exceed 3kw on the load? Does the inverter just cutoff or will it supplement the need from AC? Ie 4kw load, 3k from inverter and 1k from grid?
It can provide double it's rating for about 30 seconds and then it will shut down to protect itself. It can't split the load between grid and itself.
@@andycanfixit thanks! Appreciate it. I have some spikes in usage up to 4kw (once or twice in winter) so was thinking if I should get the 5kw model.
@@DavidShao14 if you will need at least 4kw for more than a few seconds then yes you will want the larger version. Are you using 120 volt or 230/240 volt power? I think the 5kw version only does 230/240 volt.
Is your neutral output and ground input bonded at the panel? As in they connect to each other at the panel/sub panel.
Neutral and grounds are only bonded at my main panel from the utility which feeds the input of the inverters for the utility connection. The subpanel is not bonded since it can be fed from the inverters running on battery or the main panel utility source when the inverters are passing it through. As far as I can tell by code I believe that is the correct wiring. If the subpanel was bonded you could have a possible alternate path for current through the ground wire that should only be on the neutral wire.
I did however recently see some posts on a forum where the MPP LV5048 were not passing the neutral bond when they switched to battery mode and they were jumpering the input and output neutral wires together as a fix. I can honestly say I was not aware of this, and I don't know if its the case on the Growatts I have, however it is something I plan to test tomorrow, been meaning too, just kept forgetting about it. Should be easy to tell via continuity testing as well as to see if there is any current present on the ground wire. Since it's 2am right now I'm on utility pass through, and continuity test is good, and the ground has no current on it. In the morning when it switches to battery I'll see if the continuity between the neutral and ground is still present and if there is current on the ground wire. Depending on how they did the relay's will determine if it's breaking the neutral bonding when it switches to battery and disconnects utility. If that's the case that jumper might be needed.
So I tested it just a moment ago and it would appear that while in utility pass through the ground and neutral remains bonded back to the main panel. However when it switches to battery and disconnects the utility it breaks the neutral bonding. No current showed up on the ground wires from any of the loads, however the continuity between the neutral and ground wire went from about 100 ohms, which makes sense given the wire lengths, to 5 mega ohms. So it would appear that the relay that switches it between the two sources is breaking the neutral bonding when it does so. Even if it breaks it back to the main panel, it should be bonding it internally and the inverter essentially becoming the main panel at that point.
Now the jumper approach the folks with the LV5048's were using I'm curious if that doesn't create a different problem. Because if your now bonding your neutral back to your main panel, but the main panel isn't the source of power when your on battery but rather the inverter is, will any current end up on that neutral back to the main panel that's actually originating from the inverter itself. If so you'll have more current on your main panel neutral than what your pulling from the grid, and I'm not sure if that will register on the utility meter. If it does, that could be a problem, especially if you don't have a net metering agreement since normally no current is ever sent to the grid from these inverters. Secondly it presents an issue where even if it doesn't register on the meter, if it is sending any current on the main panel neutral wire then you potentially pose a risk to any utility workers working with that neutral when the utility is disconnected but the inverter is running.
I think I would need to install the jumper and then meter the neutral wire to the main panel and see if there is any current detected on that neutral line to the main panel when its running on battery and utility is disconnected.
I'd also be curious if this happens on say David Poz's Sunny Island inverters. And if not how they are handling it. I would think you'd need a relay that switches between main panel bonding to bonding at the inverter in the inverter.
Okay, so I did some further sleuthing on this and I found a section in the manual for my inverter around page ten talking about the dry contact signal connections. It states that if its set to enable, it can trigger a grounding box to bond the ground and neutral together when in battery mode. This would also be the dry contact that could start a generator or trigger a low voltage alarm etc.
In this case you'd use it to close a relay that would bond the ground and neutral together before the subpanel when in battery mode, and would open up in utility mode to pass the bond back to the main panel. This would also eliminate any risk of having the neutral carrying current back to the main panel when in battery mode using the jumper method the other folks used. Probably would work on those LV5048's too. To wire it you'd run your coil trigger through the dry contact, and your ground on one side of the relay, neutral on the other with the relay acting as the bridge between the two. When it goes to battery mode, the contact closes, and triggers the relay bonding the ground and neutral. I haven't looked at your manual but I suspect that's the solution for yours too.
@@andycanfixit In the 1st response - you say your sub panel is not bonded back to main panel? Wouldnt that leave you without a ground on that sub panel? Reason I ask is I havent hooked mine up yet and want to be SURE LOL before I connect input and output wires. So my house was wired back in the 50s with 2 sub panels directly from the utility. One sub panel is considered the "main panel" (neutral and ground bond here) and 2nd sub panel was used for other things (separated neutral and ground which bonds back to other "main" panel). My plan was to back feed the main panel through double pole breaker (main circuit breaker will be off with interlock kit) and then use the other sub panel to supply AC to the inverter. Which leaves me with the sub panel that supplies power to inverter is still bonded! Reason for back feeding the panel is just incase I would need to do system maintenance I could switch back to grid. Im pretty sure that is the correct way or am I missing something. I thought the ground wire is basically bonding all metal objects just in case there was a short. I for sure dont want to create another path for current to flow.
As for your other test, I guess Ill have to test mine in those modes before back feeding.
@@AveRage_Joe So in my case my main panel is bonded. The sub panel is bonded at the main panel, it's internal bond is not connected since it uses the main panel bond, however since it's south of the inverters, what I have discovered is when the inverter is passing utility power to the inverters on through to the subpanel, the bonding back to the main panel is maintained. The problem is when it switches to battery mode, it's disconnecting the path to the main panel, which basically makes the inverter and the subpanel its own main panel, but since they are not internally bonded since they are sub panels, you now lack the bonding you need in those panels. And the inverter doesn't switch to an internal bond, it needs an external bonding relay it can trigger. Apparently some inverters do this, these however do not. So for my setup, I have my main panel bonded, it feeds into my inverters, and the inverters feed a sub panel that I have all the loads that my inverters run. I have 6000 watts of split phase, which is not enough to run all my loads on, so instead it handles my lights, pcs, air conditioners, appliances excluding the stove. The rest of my loads are only on the main panel and are not fed by my solar system/batteries and lose power if there is a power outage. I would need closer to 18 kilowatts if I wanted to run all my house on the inverters since my EV charger can pull 6.6kw and my oven can pull 6kw. You however are powering your entire house though correct?
The fix for this is to install a relay after the inverter that closes when it switches to battery mode using the dry contacts, and bonds the neutral and ground together, since the bonded path back to the main panel is disconnected. I didn't even know this was an issue until you mentioned it and I started digging into it and found posts about the issue with the LV5048's and then earlier today found that section in the manual that hadn't made sense before but now I see why its listed and important.
Since your setup is backfeeding however you would maintain your bond at the main panel, it would just be at the opposite end. So if have it right, your supplying power into your inverter via the subpanel, but only when your connected to the grid and your output from the inverter is disconnected? When your inverter is supplying the loads, your grid supply is disconnected from the main panel with your inverter supplying the power to the subpanel? And your using a double pole breaker in that sub panel that allows you to either feed the input of the inverter or the output of the inverter from that panel, and I assume that it'll trigger a grid disconnect when its thrown to the output of the inverter? Otherwise you'd run the risk of the inverter output back feeding to the meter if you forget to turn off the grid source before you throw the double pole breaker.
The main disadvantage to this approach is, if your battery level runs low, you have to switch back to the grid and disconnect the inverter from feeding the panel, which would cause a momentary loss of power inside your house unless you use some high speed relays like the inverter uses to make that switch seamless, something that can switch in 20-30 milliseconds. You also wouldn't be able to do it through the inverter unless you can control both relays with the single dry contact on the inverter, you'd have to use an external dry contact probably controlled by your BMS that would throw both the grid breaker and the double pole at the same time since you have multiple contacts on the bms. It will certainly work, but it's more complex because of the extra switching needed and without the speed to do it fast you'll have brief dropouts in power.
To fix my issue I'm going to add a relay triggered by the contact on the inverter that will create the bond at the subpanel when the bond path back to the main panel is broken in battery mode, and it'll open when its back in utility mode. For that, it doesn't have to be high speed, any properly rated contacter or relay should do so long as the coil amperage is low enough to be handled by the dry contacts. Hope this makes sense. Nice setup with the UPS rack by the way. Before I installed my inverters I powered my critical loads, pc, fridge and freezers from a APC Smart UPS 3000 with a very large external battery bank that was only used when the power was out. I had about 6kwh of battery bank feeding it.
I have a 24 V growatt inverter. I actually have 2 of them and option. 10 has changed to 4 to make the inverter to 48 V. How do I change option ten back to 2
I'm not familiar with Verwa, unless that is a typo, on the Growatts I don't think you can switch them from 24v to 48v or vice versa, they are set at the factory, if it is possible to change it at all, it would be similar to setting the the split phase option, you have flip the power switch on the inverter off, then go in the menu before the inverter times out and then change the setting from 4 to 2.
If it works let me know. I really have never tried it as all my battery banks are 48 volt.
@@andycanfixit th-cam.com/video/e8DgyQyjV88/w-d-xo.htmlsi=lYvMtKTQ8jL5_HV7
Did you have to use the auto ground with these growatts
Yes, I have a video on the process to use it. Though I just saw a comment from someone stating they couldn't find the option on a new 24v version they bought so I'm not sure if that is just the inverter he bought or a recent change. It uses option 24 and an external relay to handle the neutral to ground bonding.
Would you recommend this setup for completely off grid? I'd like to build an underground house that's energy efficient but far from grid power. Would these sustain 20+ years of use?
I've had mine in service for a year and a half, would I trust them for 20 years, not sure. I'd want some spare fans and some spare parts on hand if I needed them to last that long. 10 is probably more realistic. Given the number of capacitors inside them I doubt they'd 20 years without replacing all the capacitors after at least every seven to ten years depending on load. But then that's also why they are $800ish a piece vs several thousand Sol-Arks and even those only have a 10 year warranty. For the price difference you can literally buy a couple spares to set on the shelf if you ever need them and still be ahead cost wise. $3000-$3500 gets you 12,000 watts of power with four of these and 18,000 watts of solar capacity with 4 separate strings. 12k Sol-Ark gets you 13kw of solar capacity and 12kw of power for $6500 to $8500 depending on options, all in one box that if it fails everything goes down.
Growatt has a good rep in Australia where they've been around for awhile, but I think 20 years is probably a bit much to ask from these.
@@andycanfixit thanks for the reply. I really can't imagine an efficient house going over 3000 watts per pole or 6k on 220. Speaking of that, I'll never figure out why people buy generacs rated at 22.5kw. I couldn't use that much power if I tried. Anyways, your correct on having 2 backups on a shelf. That makes it sustainable for the price. I'm a long ways from this but these are good ideas. Thanks again.
@@TheSaltblock Yeah I have 3 minisplits ac units, most of my lighting, my fridge, 3 chest freezers, computers and home theater and my washer and dryer, dryer is gas, running off 2 of these units along with a smaller 375va Victron inverter for lights as well that runs straight off the battery so I still have lighting if I need to shut these down for maintenance and a 7.5kw Onan generator I got for free and put about $600 into to fix it's issues. It's fuel injected and very quiet so no carburetor issues to deal with.
I'm on grid so my electric oven is the only high draw electric item that is not on these inverters as it pulls about 5.5kw on high. Electric ovens, heaters or toasters are really the only thing that will pull lots of power or really large central air systems. The minisplits provide 48,000 btus of cooling and heating combined and do it using about half the inverters capacity, far more efficient than a central ac system. With the generator as backup the power can go out and between solar and the generator I can go about things like normal other than the oven. Outdoor wood fired oven however solves that problem too and my wood stove provides plenty of heat to save power in the winter.
@@andycanfixit I'm on track with you. I burn wood and run mini splits right now. Those examples are good to hear. I'll look you up when the time comes.
None available for sale now in the uk
Hi Andy, I'm looking at setting up the same inverters. How large is your arrays. Are there inverters limited to 2000 pv watts each inverter. Curious to your panel size and manufacturer. I was looking at using Canadian Solar 325 watt and North Star carbon lead batteries. Great video and VERY informative. Have researched GroWatt and your video has helped me to make a decision to get these inverters. Would love your input on the rest of your system. Do you have your system EMP protected? I'm looking forward to your reply. This was a great video 👍 and helped me greatly. Would like to see the your complete system.
Thanks Bob
If you use the 24 volt units they are limited to a max of 2000 watts per inverter, I have the 48 volt model and they can take 4500 watts per inverter. I have 2 strings of solar panels feeding these, one string on each inverter. The first string is made of six pairs of 250 watt Sunpower panels, those are 72 cell panels with 2 panels in series, and the 6 pairs connected to to a combiner box for a total of 3000 watts peak output. It's average working voltage is about 80-85 volts when the MPPT finds it's peak point. Typically on a good clear sunny day I have seen peak output of 2500-2600 watts out of that array.
My second array is 2 more pairs of 250 Sunpower panels, and then 3 sets of three Canadian Solar 300 watt panels. Since the Sunpower panels are 72 cell panels with a VMP of 42.8 volts, and the Canadian Solar panels are 60 cell panels with a VMP of 32 volts, three of the Canadian Solar panels in series ends up with a working voltage a bit higher than the 2 Sunpower panels. When you combine them at the combiner box higher voltage panels will end up reduced to the same voltage as the lower voltage panels but you get the full amperage of the panels. This allows you to get full power out of the Sunpowers and most of the power out of the Canadian solar panels. Since I got the Canadian solar panels for about $23 each, losing a tiny bit of wattage off of each string of three isn't a big deal. Peak output of the 5 sets combined is about 2900 watts on a good clear day, occasionally going a bit over 3kw. I get about 800 watts peak out of the three 300 watt panels in series due to the bit of voltage mismatch. Averaging working voltage is around 85-90 volts.
Separately I have 2 Victron 100/20 charge controllers that charge the batteries directly. Each of those has 2 pairs of 300 watt Canadian Solar panels feeding each for a bit over 2 kilowatts being fed into the batteries directly with each charge controller typically putting out a peak of 960ish watts on a good clear day and typically generate as much as 14 kilowatts of power for the two controllers on a excellent day, average is 8-9kw out of the sets. These panels are positioned to get the early morning sun so they are aimed east, peaking at around noon and falling off later in the day but even by 2pm they still average about half their peak output.
My main array that has 8 sets of the the Sunpower panels, and next to it a set of 3 Canadian Solar panels faces south. Due to tree lines on either side of my yard it starts getting sun around 9am and is mostly unobstructed till about 3-4pm depending on time of year. Then starting in around then it starts getting shade left to right, so you start losing a few pairs bit by bit. The combiner boxes are under the main array with one box having all six strings of the sunpowers feeding it, and the other box having the last 2 strings of sunpowers and the 3 strings of Canadian solar panels feeding it.
Off to the other side of my yard is two sets of 3 panels of the Canadian Solar panels. These panels face west, they start getting sun around 10am and stay in full sun till nearly an hour before sundown. It's a good use of the panels I got so cheaply and keeps the power flowing into the system throughout the day, maximizing what I get out of it and keeping my batteries topped off for the majority of the peak solar hours. Those east facing arrays help charge the bank up early in the morning allowing the system to switch off grid sooner. I'll try to shoot a vid of the setup I have shortly.
I do not have my system EMP protected, to do so would require very expensive inverters like the Sol-Ark and I can't justify the cost, however since I was able to get a number of solar panels so cheaply I do have a few spare panels, a charge controller, a spare bms and a spare inverter tucked away. It won't make the power of my full system, but it would make enough to handle lighting, charging things etc. Keep in mind in an EMP most of your household electronics are going to be dead anyway, so even if you had full power from your arrays, most of your items that are hooked into it will need to be replaced. Unless you have spares for everything, you're going to have a lot more things to worry about than just your solar arrays.
I do have lighting protection on everything however. There are lighting arrestors in the combiner boxes, grounding at each array, and then lightning arrestors under my house where I have the second set of breakers before they go into inverters. I use those as a disconnect by the house until I put in a separate disconnect box on the outside of the house. Hope this helps.
Thanks Andy, I was going to purchase the 48 volt inverters also. I guess I missed that on the specs sheet. Not much information on these inverters hear in the states. Used widely in other countries
@@witness1449 Yeah I think I was actually one of the first people to get them. I went with then vs the MPP solar 5kw unit because for just a bit more you get 6kw, and with two units in the unlikely event there is a failure it's unlikely both units would fail, plus the data logging is so much better. I have no complaints.
I have researched inverters for 6 months. Since I'm not wanting to tie into the grid this setup is the best bang for your buck 👍. Would go with the Sol-Ark 8kw for my top pick but $6,000 is out of my price range. The MMP 5kw doesn't handle high surge's well. I always keep leaning towards the GroWatt 3kw x 2 for the 6kw / 240 split phase. Like you said if one fails you still have some backup power. Again thanks for the video and your insight.
Good luck with your system and stay safe 👍
A fantastic and very informative video, thank you! One question....Can this system to used when on utility power to also sell power back to the power company? I've always been unsure if it's just as simple as hooking to AC and the power just transfers or if there is more hardware involved. I'm considering a single 24v version of this unit for a grid tied cabin and it may be perfect if I can sell back power with it.
No this unit can't sell power back. It either let's the power from the grid pass through or it disconnects the grid and powers everything from solar and battery. The upside is it means you don't have to talk to the power company and get a permit for it since it doesn't impact their grid but you can't sell back to them. You would need a hybrid inverter to sell back to grid and only certain units are certified for that. You would have to talk to your power company. It will only makes sense if your power company has a good net metering plan where they will pay you close to resale rate for the power you send back vs wholesale rate and they don't put you on a more costly time of use plan that raises your costs. Really varies a lot state by state. One thing to keep in mind for the 24 volt unit is it's max solar is half what the 48 volt one can handle.
@@andycanfixit I appreciate the info Andy. I may be overthinking the power sellback a bit and might look to copy your setup on a smaller scale.
Hi, if I’m on SOL and the battery is fully charged at mid day, why does the SOL disconnect ? and inverter runs from the battery again?
If your battery is full, it'll disconnect solar from charging them, but it should still be consuming it for your loads, and the full voltage is determined by your bulk and float values. If it's not check the voltage of the solar coming in from your panels and make sure it's not lower than what your batteries voltage is. For instance if your battery is charged to 56 volts but the PV voltage input is only at 55 or less, it won't be able to continue charging them and will disconnect. If that's the case your string voltage might be too low and you may need an additional panel in series on your strings to raise the voltage higher while staying under the max limit. So if 2 panels have a voltage of 53, adding a third should put it over 70 and it should stay connected.
You can also use a dc amp clamp meter to see if power is being consumed from your solar, you should see amperage reading, if it's disconnected it should be zero, if not you should see amperage displayed.
@@andycanfixit I have 2 strings of 375w x3 Canadian pv, they feed into a 2 in 1 out combiner box to the inverter (Growatt TL 5000).
Average voltage during the day is 95-118
@@williamseptember640 Sounds like the voltage is fine, when it cuts off what is the voltage at then?
@@andycanfixit I think the same
How does this setup handle surges? Can you run units at full load? Or just 80 percent of advertising.
They are high frequency inverters so their surge capacity is limited to double it's output for about 5 seconds. I don't have any real surge loads on mine though, as to loading in the peak of summer they will get up to 2.2 to 2.5kw per inverter, occasionally as high as 2.8 kw for a couple hours with no issue. I have never had high enough loads to run them at the full 3kw for any length of time, but 2.8 seems to be no issue. At that level I have 3 mini split ac units running, a 18,000 btu, a 12,000 btu and a 9,000 btu, and a 6,000 btu window unit, along with three chest freezers, a full size fridge, washer, gas dryer, and all my lights, TV and computers on a 100 degree day, keeping around 2000 square feet at 74. And that usually leaves about 1000 watts or more of headroom out of 6000 watts combined.
Thanks
Andy, I got BYD battery bank 48V with BMS running now, but as well Build a Nissan Leaf G2 packs at 48V with there BMS with a busbar can still running on Parallel or had to run it separate since one BMS works with 130 Amp and the other with 60 Amp thx to show us the functionality of the units
You can parallel those battery banks at your bus bar, just keep your voltage settings on the inverters to a range that makes both battery banks and their bms happy. If the BYD bank is larger than the Leaf bank you'll probably want to optimize your settings for that bank as the smaller bank will hit full charge first, if it's the opposite reverse that. My guess is the BYD bank if it's anything like mine probably has the more out of balance per cells, and if that's the case you'll probably need to set your max charging voltage to favor whatever makes the BYD bank happy.
I plan to repurpose my BYD batteries to a 24 volt setup for my workshop and replace them with a new 48 volt bank as the cell balancing issue with the two batteries in series for 48 volts is just not very good.
Amperage setting for the charging you'll want to set it so you don't exceed the max of your BMS should one of the two batteries reach full charge before the other and then it can only put the charge into the single bms. Hopefully your largest battery has the ability to take the most charge. What you do not want to do is hook one bank to one inverter and the other to the other one because then if one bank goes into fault one of your two inverters will shut off and any split phase loads would lose one half of the phase. Hope this helps make sense of it.
@@andycanfixit thx to reply Andy got 4 BYD at 65% bought it used at Battery hook up so don’t push them that much sitting at 26.6v each and set same as yours 53.2V build them with tech direct BMS as well the Nissan bank, I run split phase but don’t understand the part to set up the 23 - setup where you choose each leg, maybe since now run them separate so if I hook up in parallel the unit will recognize and had to set up like a power ID but how it works had to take the load off and the PV, how could set up when the units should be shut off ? Again Thx for your help you rock dude
@@andycanfixit Thx for the data I spoke with Ian and he tells me the same, wonder at 60% state on the BYD what is the AH I believe when there New is 200AH maybe now 130AH and the Nissan Leaf are at 132AH so will match well I hope take care and appreciate the input
@@jvf6257 That's a pretty good balance between the two packs. My guess would be the Leaf cells will probably have lower resistance and take more of the charge at the beginning of the charge. Easy way to tell is to put a clamp meter around the wire going into each pack during charging and see if one pack is drawing more amps than the other. My A123 cells pull in more current at the beginning of the charge curve than the BYD packs do, by about 25% charged it's even current between the two packs till they are full. I'm getting about 160ah out of the BYD pack after adding some smaller cells to balance out the weak cells in the pack.
@@andycanfixit thx to share your knowledge, got a Klein clamp meter definitely will do that, dame you open the sides of the BYD and measure the weak cell and add it the A123 that’s a brilliant idea, was thinking if some of them getting to weak, just open them and take those bad cells and build small packs press them with wood and straps but will try the A123 input
Could you run a water well pump with the 240v leg?
Depends on surge load the pump draws. They can deliver a max of 6kw of power together and surge to 12kw for 5 seconds max.
What's the amperage specs for the pump? And does the pump have specs for its startup surge? If not you might need to get a ac clamp meter that can record what sort of surge the pump draws when it starts.
Is there any option to get direct DC output from inverter
No, only DC sections are on the MPPT and charge controller. The inverter is strictly AC only.
Can they be used in both American and European grids?
While it can do 50 or 60hz each inverter can only produce a max of 120volts and can only do 240 via split phase. This line of inverters would be more what you'd want for the EU grid, www.ginverter.com/Off-Grid-Storage-Inverters/44-593.html Those can do 230v 50hz in a single inverter, and in pairs or more can provide more watts at 230 volts or with three can supply 3 phase power. You have to use the 4kw or 5kw to parallel them or run them in multiphase mode.
Any info on the battery bank you are using and how many?
I have 1 battery bank made from A123 lifepo4 cells from used packs I got from Battery Hookup, they were 36 volt packs used in medical equipment, I took 10 of those and then broke apart 4 other packs to turn them form 12s4p to 16s4p packs so each was a 48 volt pack, then paralleled the cells so that it's a 16s40p pack. This makes a 48 volt pack with about 100 amp hours of capacity. My second pack is 2 of the BYD 8 cell packs combined together, this is about 250 amp hours. Total depending on where you set your voltage limit is 13-15 kilowatt hours of capacity. I keep my peak charging voltage to 54 volts, so I'm using about 80-85% of the pack capacity, and this prevents the cells from having large cell to cell voltage swings as they near capacity. The A123 cells are very consistent, the BYD packs had a lot more variance cell to cell. One of the two cell packs for the BYD was very healthy, the second had several cells that were much weaker than the cells in the first. They ended up refunding me a good bit of money because of that and I used that to parallel some headway cells on those cells to help balance out the pack. At peak sun I may be putting anywhere from 1500-2000 watts back into each of the two batteries while the rest is being used to run whatever loads I'm running. The BMS I have on each battery allows a max of 50 amps charging into each pack or 2700 watts. It's worked pretty well. I'll try to do a vid this weekend of the A123 pack I built.
I'm planning on replacing my battery in my Nissan Leaf next year, at which point I will repurpose the old battery into additional battery banks. It being a chemistry that is flammable unlike my lifepo4 battery banks it'll be in a metal container and not inside my house. My current batteries are in my office because the fire risk is basically non-existent with lifepo4 chemistry.
I have a completely separate 12v battery bank, for 12v lighting, and security system, 12v led lights inside and out, if my main battery dies, I'll not be in the dark, with about 400ah of lifepo4, a few led lights should last for months if needed, I have two 18 watt lights outside, and a few inside, with 3watt led lamps, lights up things well, along with the 120v lights if needed, besides a emergency 12v well pump, about 30amps total, from a 400-ah battery, I'm thinking about getting a little 12v inverter, to run the fridge, and microwave if needed... Keeping things going in a emergency, there can be a week or more with no sun here, so backups for backups!!..
That's a good setup. I have access to the grid and my generator for longer outages with limited sun. In addition to my Growatts I have a couple Victron inverters, 375 watt that runs most of my lights and ceiling fans and a 1200 watt that can run my fridge and freezers direct from the batteries, and I have a couple Victron chargers as well that can charge things too so even if my Growatts failed I could still power a number of my loads for awhile. I also have a 48 volt battery charger that I can power via the generator to charge things. My Growatts are set to switch back to the grid when my batteries have about 40% remaining giving me a good reserve for power outages and i can fire up my generator for a couple hours to top off the bank if needed. Obviously I want to run the generator as little as possible though. My BYD packs are going to be moved to my shop and turned into a 24 volt pack at about 300ah hours with a separate inverter for it, I don't spend a lot of time there so it'll be another backup source. Most years we only lose power for a day here or there, maybe 3-4 times a year, but we had a flood a few years back where we had no power for week, made do with my generator then but with solar now other then my monthly test runs of the generator, I never need to start for an outage unless it's been cloudy for days before hand. It's nice not having to worry about power.
I have inverter SPH 5000. Whay use AC 2pk inverter indikator lcd overload.
And lamp indikator blink green if inverter in position off grid,
What wrong,
Please help me
I am not really familiar with the unit you have, but if your AC is causing it to overload it is probably because the ac unit has a compressor with a very large startup surge. Depending on the model you can add a soft start capacitor to the ac compressor circuit that will reduce the surge at startup and might fix your issue. I run mini split ac units on mine and those have variable drive compressors that do not have a large surge at startup.
@@andycanfixit what do you know if in mode off grid light indikator blink green, and view in inverter picture caution.?
Ron, I have a few questions if you might be able to answer them I have pretty much does exact same set up dammit and somehow my batteries got down below 48 V in my system shut off what would be the proper way to get my batteries charged back up above 48 so the system will restart this is the first time it’s happened. I’ve had this for a year now and not sure why let itself get down below 48 V there at like 44.6 right now and the system won’t turn back on.
If you have solar coming in it should start charging them and once back above the low voltage point you should be able to restart them. Alternatively if you have a generator or grid source connected you can start them from that and use that source to charge them.
Even if they don’t turn on the solar
Will charge them?
@@josephbowles4995 yes the Mppt charger will run even with the inverter side off. Once there is solar you should see the display light up and show them charging. Also if you have a grid connection make sure the breaker for that source hasn't tripped.
@@josephbowles4995 Any luck?