[RE-wrenches] sol ark reliability question

Ray Walters ray at solarray.com
Fri Sep 30 09:02:12 PDT 2022


One thing I can say:  trouble shooting problems over the phone has its 
limitations.  I had a customer issue with a system we hadn't installed 
that was quite vexing.  Turned out to be a loose main DC connection to 
the inverter.  Bizarre behavior as the connection heated up and the 
resistance varied.

Ray Walters

On 9/30/2022 6:57 AM, Jay via RE-wrenches wrote:

> Hi all and thanks for the input.
>
> I guess he’s just been unlucky with the problems ( firmware upgrade 
> switching to 50hz) and possibly just some random bad hardware.
>
> In regards to your thoughts of a install issue, he has spent a lot of 
> time with sol ark reviewing everything. Loads, wiring, they have been 
> monitoring all the data, photos, video etc with everything coming up 
> correctly installed, wired, and loads.
>
> this system is an upgrade for an older XW ( 6kw units) system which 
> worked fine. The customer wanted better monitoring, more kw, expansion 
> capabilities and newer tech.
>
> Weird
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On Sep 29, 2022, at 9:50 PM, pieter offgridenterprises.org via 
>> RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>> We have dozens of Solark based installs and have had excellent 
>> results. All of our system have multiple parallel Solark inverters 
>> and have operated with out issues. On the rare occasion that we had 
>> commissioning questions our experience with Solark technical support 
>> has been outstanding, they have by far the best technical support in 
>> the industry. Although Solark helped design the system in question I 
>> suspect that there must be some finer points that were not shared 
>> with Solark, a load side wiring problem or perhaps an installation 
>> error that is causing the repeated failures. I suggest that your 
>> friend gets a fresh set of eyes on the system and look for that 
>> oversite we have all made and just can’t seem to see it on our own.
>>
>> Pieter Huebner
>>
>> Off Grid Enterprises
>>
>> *From:* RE-wrenches <re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org> *On 
>> Behalf Of *Jerry Shafer via RE-wrenches
>> *Sent:* Thursday, September 29, 2022 10:25 AM
>> *To:* RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
>> *Cc:* Jerry Shafer <jerrysgarage01 at gmail.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [RE-wrenches] sol ark reliability question
>>
>> Wrenches
>>
>> Solark issues, I have them living off grid, 3 phase and grid tied 
>> back up, both AC and DC coupled with only one intermittent comms 
>> issue, does not seem to have any more issues than OB and less 
>> than Schnieder, all are connected to Fortress 18.5's or Blue Planet 
>> BMS interface seems hardy,
>>
>> Would be good to know what issues he is having to accurately help
>>
>> Jerry
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 7:01 AM jay via RE-wrenches 
>> <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>>
>>     Hi All,
>>
>>     I’ve got a question about how many folks are having issues with
>>     sol-ark products?
>>
>>     the reason i ask is that i’ve got a friend, a good competent
>>     installer ( well versed in OB, Schneider, magnum)  who’s had
>>     continuing nightmares with them.
>>
>>     he’s got 2 systems each on is a stacked pair of 12kw units, both
>>     offgrid.
>>
>>     each system was designed by sol-ark, meaning the design was
>>     approved by them for the loads/solar etc.
>>
>>     He’s been through 7 MCU swaps.
>>     He’s been through a field call required because the over the air
>>     firmware update caused the inverters to go into 50hz and for some
>>     reason that isn’t fixable via the web.
>>     He had an inverter that didn’t work correctly out of the box. 
>>     They charged him $2500 deposit for a replacement.
>>
>>     Then they charged him $1500 to fix the inverter he sent back
>>     under warranty.  Thats right $1500 to fix a warranty which they
>>     agreed was a warranty issue.
>>     Hes not going to pay but this $1500 has been going on a while.
>>
>>     The inverter they sent to replace the broken one had a older MCU
>>     firmware so wouldn’t stack and it took tech support way to long
>>     to figure that out then they had to send him a new MCU…...
>>
>>     And the list goes on.
>>
>>     But Im asking, is this poor guy just an anomaly or will anyone
>>     else chime in about issues?,
>>
>>     Because at this point I have no desire to install one given his
>>     experiences
>>
>>     Jay
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