[RE-wrenches] Outback GTFX errors

[Jon Haeme]

William,

Thanks for your input. The actual grid voltage I measured never went  
above 132VAC in the sell mode. It also has the same error even when  
not in the sell mode. I noticed the Mate showed a higher voltage than  
my Fluke meter so I tried to calibrate the Mate but it kept flashing  
between 260 - 130 V like it thought was stacked with another  
inverter. This lead me to check other grid settings but did not turn  
up any thing irregular.  Still the grid voltage has never been  
anywhere near the AC high V limit of 140V.

The frustrating thing about the Outback tech support was when the  
homeowner called and he described the situation and asked that they  
talk to me the installer. I got on the phone and started to describe  
the problem but I was constantly interrupted by the tech support  
person, who clearly did not want to talk to me, and they asked that  
the homeowner be put back on the phone.  Then they went through an  
explanation that it won't hurt anything to run the inverter and the  
the grid just might be running hot. My impression was that this  
person was just following a script and when things did not follow the  
script they did not know what to do. I don't understand why tech  
support would not want to talk with the installer who is doing the  
trouble shooting !

Normally I call tech support directly myself but this homeowner wants  
to be involved in understanding his system and I encourage that.  
Outback menus are not very user friendly and it can be difficult for  
homeowners to navigate.  I need to go back and do some more  
investigating .

Any other insights would be appreciated.

Jon


On Apr 10, 2009, at 1:39 AM, William Miller wrote:

> Jon:
>
> 1. Outback inverters are notorious for reporting errors  
> incorrectly.  Often the errors are a clue, but not the actual  
> error. As an example, a shorted AC output might report a "Low  
> Battery Voltage" error because when the output is shorted, the  
> battery draw is momentarily very high, reducing it's voltage.  Look  
> for a related symptom.
>
> Have you been able to monitor the AC voltage during inverter sell  
> operation?  High AC voltage in a grid-tie system can be caused by  
> actual, intermittent high grid voltage and/or inadequate feeder  
> size, allowing the inverter to push up the voltage at the inverter  
> end of the feeder.  I've seen a bad breaker cause this as well.  In  
> any of these described cases, the inverter error reporting would be  
> accurate.
>
> 2. Outback sends out a standard kit of three field-replaceable  
> boards.  You rarely need to replace all of the boards.  You need to  
> figure out which board(s) to replace or, ask tech support.  I guess  
> when in doubt, one could replace all three.  It appears you have  
> narrowed the problem down to not one of the three boards.
>
> Good luck.
>
> William Miller
>
>
>
>
> At 08:28 PM 4/9/2009, you wrote:
>> I have a customer with an Outback GTFX 3048 that has an"over voltage
>> AC in" warning but when I check the voltage with my Fluke meter it
>> shows a normal range 122 - 126 V . In the Mate grid menu the AC high
>> Volts is set at 140 V . The customer called Outback support before I
>> could get to him and they told him he needed to have me change all 3
>> boards out. They sent the boards so I went ahead and changed them
>> out, but the same error occurred again. We called Outback support
>> again but did not get a satisfactory answer on how to fix it.
>>
>> Has anyone else run into this problem ? I suspect the Mate may be  
>> flaky.
>>
>> Jon
>>
>> Jon Haeme Innovations
>> Kempton, IL _______________________________________________
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