[RE-wrenches] All-In-Ones / Sol-Ark fail

Mon Oct 14 23:08:08 PDT 2024

William,
This is exactly the approach I've used in the off grid aio install I just
completed, specifically for reliability in the event of a system failure
with no one present.  It works perfectly. Since there is no Bullitt in
bypass switch, this is a standard item in all my battery based systems,
whether on or off grid, now. I let my client decide whether they want to
spring for the automatic transfer switch or stick with a less expensive
manual transfer.  But one or the other is standard or else the backed up
loads become captive to a system failure.
Howie

On Tue, Oct 15, 2024, 1:08 AM William Miller via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

> Jason:
>
>
>
> Thanks for the follow-up.  Two thoughts:
>
>
>
> 1.   I agree that a PV problem should not cause a system shutdown.  I
> seem to recall Sol-Arc said they can’t do anything to correct the issue due
> to listing/testing issues.  This alone would prevent me from choosing
> Sol-Arc.  There is a lot of design history that goes against the all-in-one
> approach.  For example, I remember as a teenager I got interested in stereo
> equipment.  The logic was developing that rather than having a console
> stereo, separate components offered more flexibility and reliability:  More
> flexible because you weren’t stuck with a given collection of components
> and more reliable because if one component failed, you had less to repair
> or replace.  The same logic also applies to the one big inverter versus
> several small inverters discussion.
>
> 2.   You mentioned you had bypass capabilities but no person to activate
> it.  I’ve had this idea for a while:  If one has a generator as part of a
> battery/inverter system, and reliability is critical--why not add an
> Automatic Transfer switch right before the loads with the inverter as the
> normal input and the generator as the emergency input?  The generator still
> feeds the inverter system for normal operation, but if the inverter system
> errors out, the ATS can start the generator and activate the bypass-- all
> unattended.
>
> William
>
>
>
> Miller Solar
>
> 17395 Oak Road, Atascadero, CA 93422
>
> 805-438-5600
>
> www.millersolar.com
>
> CA Lic. 773985
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches
> *Sent:* Monday, October 14, 2024 8:19 PM
> *To:* Maverick Brown
> *Cc:* Jason Szumlanski; RE-wrenches
> *Subject:* Re: [RE-wrenches] All-In-Ones / Sol-Ark fail
>
>
>
> Diagnosis: No broken panels. Two different issues. We found a broken MC4
> connector, possibly due to flying debris. We also found a melted Polaris
> tap that got wet (long story, our fault).
>
>
>
> These two issues happened at seeming the exact same time during the
> hurricane, but were completely different events. The next morning it caused
> faults on two of four inverters when the sun came up, and the other two
> inverters faulted out as "parallel faults." That's a behavior that seems
> unacceptable. Neither of the initially faulted inverters were the master,
> either.
>
>
>
> One bad PV string on one out of four inverters should not cause a total
> system failure to operate.
>
>
>
> Jason
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 3:59 PM Jason Szumlanski <
> jason at floridasolardesigngroup.com> wrote:
>
> That is the exact error! But I don't think that explains how I have one
> string over the expected voltage and one string under. It's definitely
> worth checking, nonetheless. This array is 12 feet in the air and pitched
> at 5 degrees, so you can't see the glass from the ground.
>
>
>
> It is conceivable that I have two issues. The voltage issue could be a
> wiring issue and the inverters may have faulted out due to broken modules.
> There were tropical force winds there at the time.
>
>
> Jason Szumlanski
>
> Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
> NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
> Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956
>
> Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 3:49 PM Maverick Brown <maverick at mavericksolar.com>
> wrote:
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> Which fault are you getting?
>
>
>
> This spring I was getting F23-Tz_GFCLO randomly on an upper roof array.
>
>
>
> After further investigation, I found several modules with broken glass.
> After replacing the mods, all is well.
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
>
>
> Maverick
>
>
>
> Maverick Brown
> Off-Grid Solar Commander since 2006
> Maverick Solar Enterprises, Inc.
>  • Solar Commander Remote Power
>  • SunFlow Systems Cathodic Protection
> maverick at mavericksolar.com
> 512-460-9825
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 11, 2024, at 1:39 PM, Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
> 
>
> By shutting off the PV disconnects on the two affected inverters we were
> able to make the system work successfully today. As I mentioned, we will
> dig into the actual faults on Monday. From the historical data, I found
> that this issue has actually been going on for a week before the faults
> started happening in the inverters. I'm not sure why the faults took so
> long to cause a shutdown of the inverters. Maybe it just "got worse" and
> finally triggered a fault. The first faults would have been  during the
> early band of rain from Hurricane Milton, so possibly water or wind put the
> issue over the top.
>
>
>
> Before the shutdown, each of the two affected inverters had one MPPT with
> voltages out of the expected range for the last week.
>
>
>
> All MPPT strings are 14 modules with 7 in series, 2 in parallel. Each
> string Voc is 342V and Vmp is 297V.
>
>
>
> On the first affected inverter, I was able to observe the bad string
> operating consistently around 370V to 400V+, which is obviously well above
> the Voc (and it's hot here in Florida). The good string on this inverter
> operated around 260-270V during the same time, which is the expected range.
>
>
>
> On the second affected inverter, I observed the bad string operating
> consistently around 100V to 130V+. The good string on this inverter
> operated around 260-270V during the same time, which again is the expected
> range.
>
>
>
> Graphs are attached for those of you who like that kind of stuff. These
> show a typical day after the issue started to occur, but before the
> inverter faults occurred.
>
>
>
> Incidentally, the average voltage of the two bad strings seems to be
> pretty close to the normal strings, so that is a good clue.
>
>
> Jason Szumlanski
>
> Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
> NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
> Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956
>
> Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208
>
>
>
>
> *Error! Filename not specified.*
>
> On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 6:55 AM Jason Szumlanski <
> jason at floridasolardesigngroup.com> wrote:
>
> More interesting information... When the sun went down last night, the
> fault cleared and the inverters started producing power again, drawing from
> the batteries, and restarting the generator. The master inverter
> "remembered" the generator was in it's charging cycle and hadn't reached
> full battery yet.
>
>
>
> It's good that the inverters started inverting again. That's a plus. I
> actually wish the generator hadn't started because it was unnecessary based
> on battery voltage, which was near full anyway.
>
>
>
> Which brings me to another annoying behavior of the Sol-Arks that I
> discovered in how the GEN Charge and GRID Charge parameters work with
> signaling the two-wire start. If the battery voltage is 50V and the charge
> parameter is set to 49V, the generator signal will not kick on of course –
> the generator start relay is open. However, if you change the charge
> parameter setpoint to, say 51V, the generator should start because the
> battery voltage is below the setpoint. But that does not happen. The
> battery voltage must "fall through" the parameter setting for the charging
> to be triggered and the relay to close. If you are in a situation where you
> need to get the generator on a charge cycle and then leave the site, the
> only way I have found to do this is to set it to something very close to
> the battery voltage, say 49.9V, put a heavy load on to drop the voltage
> below the setpoint, let the generator start, then change the setpoint to
> the desired 51V.
>
>
>
>
>
> Back to the original issue – I dug into the string voltage data history
> remotely and narrowed down the fault to two of the four inverters. I am
> sending someone to shut down the PV DC switches on these two inverters
> today in hopes that we can keep the power flowing during the day and
> through the weekend. I'm planning on a Monday boat ride out there to see
> what caused the fault(s). I will report back.
>
>
> Jason Szumlanski
>
> Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
> NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
> Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956
>
> Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 6:00 PM Lou Russo via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
> Aloha All,
>
>
>
> Thank you Jason. This is a huge and surprising issue. So much so that I
> dropped what I was doing and called Sol-Ark to confirm. Mind you this was
> level 1 support, but I was told this is what the Sol-Arks are supposed to
> do and it is a feature not a bug. Their take is if there is any fault on
> any one string, the Sol-Ark assumes the worst and shuts everything down.
>
>
>
> I wonder what solutions could be implemented on future installs to prevent
> this from happening?
>
>
> Aloha,
>
>
>
> Lou Russo
>
> Owner
>
> lou at spreesolarsystems.com
>
> Office - 808 345 6762
>
> Spree Solar Systems LLC
>
> CT-34322
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 11:45 AM Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
> I think it's more likely water in a J-box or possibly physical damage, but
> someone passed by the property and did not observe any physical damage to
> the array.
>
>
> Jason Szumlanski
>
> Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
> NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
> Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956
>
> Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 5:41 PM Jay <jay.peltz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jason
>
> What’s the possibllity it was a lighting strike?
>
>
>
> Jay
>
>
>
> On Oct 10, 2024, at 2:57 PM, Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
> 
>
> We have been talking a lot recently about all-in-ones. I just had a
> massive fail during Hurricane Milton with a quad Sol-Ark 15K off-grid
> system that deserves some discussion about whether AIO is a good idea if it
> can't build in some resilience to errors. I'm not sure if the new Midnite
> unit is better in this respect, but this is what happened to the Sol-Ark
> system...
>
>
>
> Four inverters, each with 4 strings of PV paralleled to 2 MPPT per
> inverter. One of the slave units developed some sort of PV DC fault during
> the storm. This caused the slave inverter to shut down and throw an error,
> which in turn caused a parallel fault across all four inverters. Power
> output ceases at that point. Apparently the system keeps resetting because
> I have a cell modem that uploads data to Sol-Ark, but that cell modem is
> powered by the inverter outputs, so it must be getting power at least
> intermittently. The rest of the loads are basically flatlined according to
> the Sol-Ark data. It's mostly air conditioners, so they probably can't turn
> on fast enough before the PV fault causes another shutdown.
>
>
>
> So, in essence, one of 16 strings of PV develops a fault, and that causes
> all four inverters to malfunction? What is the point of redundancy if a
> fault of one results in a fault of all?! If there is a true PV input fault,
> shouldn't that just shut down that MPPT, or perhaps all of the PV DC input
> to that inverter? And why can't this inverter continue to invert power from
> the batteries and charge from a generator when there is a DC input fault
> that could be programmatically isolated and ignored?
>
>
>
> This is a bad design in my opinion, and something I hadn't considered. If
> the faulted inverter can't function with a DC input fault, it should just
> take itself out of the game. (This is 120/240 split phase, BTW). Is this
> how all AIO inverters work? One inverter fault on the DC side kills all
> paralleled units' AC output? Not good.
>
>
>
> This is a completely off-grid system on a remote island with no vehicle
> access, so it's not exactly easy to do a "truck roll" on this one,
> especially post-hurricane. To make matters worse, the generator was running
> at the time of the fault, as it was being signaled to run because the
> battery had reached the assigned charge voltage. The fault also killed the
> 2-wire start signal from the master, so the system also stopped passing
> through generator power to the loads. The house is dark.
>
>
>
>
>
> Jason Szumlanski
>
> Florida Solar Design Group
>
>
>
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