How to remotely activate/ deactivate AC input for EG4 6500EX

How do you remotely activate and deactivate the AC input (120v) to an EG4 6500EX?


Currently I am using a wifi plug (Kasa) but that is limited to 15A. I wanted to use the grid to charge the 6 Lifepower4 batteries on low consecutive solar collection days. My understanding is that the 6500EX cannot assist with the house load. Instead it either supplies all the electricity or none. I plan on charging at night only.

Ideally, I wanted to remotely activate 60A to account for any potential high usage eg microwave, dishwasher, etc. I'll settle for less if needed.

The best that I could come up with is say using 3 wifi plugs connected to different breakers but located on the same 120v leg and activating them as a group (3 x 12awg for about 5400 watts max). I have no desire to run that much in the middle of the night. Plus this doesn't sound safe.

Thanks in advance

Dinobot248 said:

How do you remotely activate and deactivate the AC input (120v) to an EG4 6500EX?


Currently I am using a wifi plug (Kasa) but that is limited to 15A. I wanted to use the grid to charge the 6 Lifepower4 batteries on low consecutive solar collection days. My understanding is that the 6500EX cannot assist with the house load. Instead it either supplies all the electricity or none. I plan on charging at night only.

Ideally, I wanted to remotely activate 60A to account for any potential high usage eg microwave, dishwasher, etc. I'll settle for less if needed.

The best that I could come up with is say using 3 wifi plugs connected to different breakers but located on the same 120v leg and activating them as a group (3 x 12awg for about 5400 watts max). I have no desire to run that much in the middle of the night. Plus this doesn't sound safe.

Thanks in advance

Click to expand...

Check the manual for the inverter. I have the 6000ex and there are options to schedule charging at specific times. I'm not sure about the all or none aspect. I think there is an option for providing additional power from the grid if needed to support loads. On mine, option 1 in the settings determines order of priority for providing power. SBU = Solar Battery Utility SUB = Solar Utility Battery.

I sure wish someone would settle this issue one way or the other -- Can the 6500EX 'provide additional power from the grid if needed to support loads' or is it ALL or NOTHING. Repeated e-mails and web correspondence to SS provides no response. Maybe they think it is to trivial to address or that it has been answered too many time, but I have made repeated searches on the forum with no results. This is the only thing holding me back from pulling the trigger on an order. I am not interested in an inverter that throws away solar just because I need 3 and only have 2.

Dinobot248 said:

How do you remotely activate and deactivate the AC input (120v) to an EG4 6500EX?


Currently I am using a wifi plug (Kasa) but that is limited to 15A. I wanted to use the grid to charge the 6 Lifepower4 batteries on low consecutive solar collection days. My understanding is that the 6500EX cannot assist with the house load. Instead it either supplies all the electricity or none. I plan on charging at night only.

Ideally, I wanted to remotely activate 60A to account for any potential high usage eg microwave, dishwasher, etc. I'll settle for less if needed.

The best that I could come up with is say using 3 wifi plugs connected to different breakers but located on the same 120v leg and activating them as a group (3 x 12awg for about 5400 watts max). I have no desire to run that much in the middle of the night. Plus this doesn't sound safe.

Thanks in advance

Click to expand...

There isn't any native way to my knowledge to be able to do this. In order for your inverter to charge from the grid, you have to be in "grid-bypass" mode which then supplies all your power from the grid. The inverter cannot supply power to loads from both battery and grid at the same time.

It seems like it would just be easier for you to wire the AC in directly to your breaker panel so you can have access to the full 60a connection, then use the built in controls to have your inverter switch between battery and grid based on SOC (option 12/13). You can have grid charging disabled by default, but when you notice you're gonna need to charge your batteries, you then switch to "solar and utility" (or "solar first") charging (option 16).

You could also set up Solar Assistant so you can make these changes remotely or you could tempt fate and try to install Watchpower.

From the manual:

Adam De Lay said:

You could also set up Solar Assistant so you can make these changes remotely or

Click to expand...

OH NO!!! Signature Solar/EG4 will have a fit. No! No! No!

(Only kinda kidding.)

I have a similar issue but using a conversol axpert i-grid 5.6kw. I bought some 64 amp wifi breakers from aliexpress early on but have not set up as my (limited) understanding which may very well be wrong is that constant switching of the ac input can cause inrush/surges which quickly degrades components to failure. This does appear to be the case which I learned from costly experience switching the ac input breaker on/off during cheap rate.

"I think there is an option for providing additional power from the grid if needed to support loads"

Which option is it?

Thanks for the responses

I do have solar Assistant and haven't setup that automation piece. The way they word it, it is written wrong. The graph makes sense but not the instructions.


I wish I could do some more testing but I have one main setup that is powering the house and it cannot go down. I may have to get creative with removing a battery from the rack.


I will say that when you have the AC input connected or "grid" connected, the inverter will draw about 50 watts with a killawatt when you do not have enough solar. As you get more sun / solar, it gradually drops to about 2 watts. Some simple math, 50 x 12 hours without solar x 30 days x 0.25/kw = 18kw and $4.50 for the month.

It's not about the money. I dislike how the inverter cannot draw from the battery when SBU means battery takes priority over utility.

That is the long way of saying that I don't want to directly connect 6awg wire to AC input, at least not yet.



If I could undo some purchase, I would get an inverter that can have the Grid or AC input assist the battery on loads over so many watts. I think they call it grid assist, power assist or something.

Also would like to have SBU really mean solar, battery then utility. Don't want a small amount of utility sneaking in before solar or battery.

Honestly, I don't plan to activate or connect the grid often. My 30kw battery bank covers me most of the time just fine during the summer time.

Will have to see what happens during winter.

Dinobot248 said:

Also would like to have SBU really mean solar, battery then utility. Don't want a small amount of utility sneaking in before solar or battery.

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I have my 6000ex setup as SBU and it has only gone onto utility when the battery got down to 30% (which is where I have it set to come on.) The utility power charged the batteries and carried the load because it was too cloudy to generate enough power via the PV modules. It hasn't come on any other times.

Dinobot248 said:

Thanks for the responses

I do have solar Assistant and haven't setup that automation piece. The way they word it, it is written wrong. The graph makes sense but not the instructions.


I wish I could do some more testing but I have one main setup that is powering the house and it cannot go down. I may have to get creative with removing a battery from the rack.


I will say that when you have the AC input connected or "grid" connected, the inverter will draw about 50 watts with a killawatt when you do not have enough solar. As you get more sun / solar, it gradually drops to about 2 watts. Some simple math, 50 x 12 hours without solar x 30 days x 0.25/kw = 18kw and $4.50 for the month.

It's not about the money. I dislike how the inverter cannot draw from the battery when SBU means battery takes priority over utility.

Click to expand...

I don't recall seeing the 50W draw from the grid, but I have been told that as long as you have grid connected, there's a small trickle coming in so that the inverter can quickly change over to grid if it has to. Not really sure why it has to draw anything to be able to switch, but that's what I was told. It's not actually drawing power for the loads. Seems like it's an additional "idle consumption" when connected to the grid.

Output from SolarAssistant:

I recall reading somewhere that mpp/conversol use 1A no load. So 48W for 48V , 24W for 24V.

I pretty sure the parasitic 50w won't show up on the SA totals tab. I'll take a picture later on tonight. Right now with some solar, it's drawing 1.4w

Dinobot248 said:

I pretty sure the parasitic 50w won't show up on the SA totals tab. I'll take a picture later on tonight. Right now with some solar, it's drawing 1.4w

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Yeah, you would have to put a meter on the line to see it. I believe it's the same reason you're supposed to program in your idle draw into Solar Assistant.

ddmbr said:

I recall reading somewhere that mpp/conversol use 1A no load. So 48W for 48V , 24W for 24V.

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I don't mind the 50w, I just want it to be taken from my battery bank. There's some principal / pride in being self sufficient.

I put 70 in the Self Consumption Power settings dialogue box. I interpreted that as the idle power of the inverter.

Auto charging:
In November (my worst solar month) I set up auto charging as follows: during the day the solar collects what it can get, then at night I bring the batteries it up to 'full'.
1. set up inverter as Utility first, but put the utility supply on a HWT timer control - set the timer to come on late at night (when loads are very low) ie midnight until 7:00 AM - I have time of use rates that are lowest during this time, if you have TOU check the lowest price time period and program that into the HWT timer control. Wire your utility power supply to the Timer, then to the inverters AC in. Set the amperage limit in the inverter to match the HWT timer limit/AC supply circuit.

2. if you use solar assistant, from the tab called "Power" you can toggle on the Utility First to initiate charging, the toggle it back again when the batteries are showing charge.

3. Also in Solar Assitant, you can use the 'Maintain Battery State of Charge' this is also in the tab called "Power" below the inverter settings noted in item #2 . Set time of day and battery SOC points where you want the utility to charge up the battery. Typically you pick low SOC during expensive TOU part of the day, and higher SOC points for the lowest cost TOU part of the day. If the solar was good, the battery will be charged and the utility charging will not trigger that day.

4. EG4 chargeverter - use a Relay, or a HWT timer, or a manual switch to activate the chargeverter to recharge the batteries, independant of the inverter operations - this is one way to get battery charging while also powering loads with your inverters. The chargeverter is 5kW +/- 21 amps 240vAC

5. similar to the EG4 chargeverter option, but lower power, buy a simple 1500 W charger (of the correct voltage for your batteries) and put it on a 'smart plug' that you can control with your phone, anywhere you have wifi. Simple, but will take a lot more time to charge up a big battery system. Again this will allow charging the batteries at a low rate while they continue to supply the inverters independently.

60 amp 240v double pole "Contactor" with a 120v coil. 120v coil can be energized by a smart plug.

Edit to add 2 pole 60 amp are rare but 60 amp is common in 3 pole.

Again thanks for the responses.


This is getting complicated.

Thankfully I did buy a 48v charger from signature solar ($200).

If I understood correctly, I can add an independent charger and clamp it to the bus bars and use my wifi Kasa plug to activate when I need to. I prefer not to use a timer since I don't want to use the grid on a daily basis and I can check SA to see the SOC and decide on charging by activating my Kasa plug. The SS 48v charger draws about 1000w.