[RE-wrenches] Fwd: Outback Grid Problems

[Michael Welch]

Daryl (penobscotsolar at midmaine.com) writes:
>I saw the fault "high ac input voltage" at least three times. I changed out the boards in the inverter TWICE, both times freebies from OutBack. I checked battery spec. grav., programmed it and re-programmed it, talked ad nauseum on the phone with tech support....nothing. It was OutBack tech support who originally suggested grid problems. The utility sent out a tech and they put a data logger on for a week. When they took it back I never heard from them until I called and said that I was sure it was the transformer as I had eliminated, twice, every possible possibility. My transformer was from the early 70's. Even today, a rainy day, I made 6.2 kwh, just about what I use in a typical day.

Double check the VAC IN calibration for both inverters against your Fluke and make sure that what is being seen at the AC IN terminals when the inverters are SELLING is the same as is reported by the Mate.  I've seen installers calibrate the inverters when they are under little or no load.

The only issue with calibration is that the range is limited to +/- 2VAC, and if the sensors are off by more than that, you need to get OutBack to explain how to fix it, or send a set of boards that are more accurately calibrated.

The weird behavior with refusing to sell, even in the midst of floating the heck out of the batteries, sounds like the customer has an FN-DC installed and configured with too aggressive "Parameters Met" settings.  There is a feature (that all of my grid-tied clients are told to use) that disables "Sell" until the batteries reach a 100% full charge.  With the customer turning the system on and off and dropping and using the grid, a mis-configured FN-DC is going to make a mess of any selling that should
be happening.
--
Julie Haugh
Senior Design Engineer
greenHouse Computers, LLC // jfh at greenhousepc.com // greenHousePC on
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