SunGoldPower-----Buyer Beware

Kenny_ said:

Yes, this is my experience as well. I spent a heck of a lot of money about $10k for this 'commercial' system and I expected it to work but given my experience so far I classify it as Not Ready for Prime Time.

I've gotten more and better help here on the forum than from Sungold and they seem to do everything they can to stonewall any returns/exchanges/refunds once the product ships (I have ordered and canceled a battery rack twice so there is that).

I have been having battery problems and they literally ignored my emails for almost a week and then responded with a bunch of questions and etc.

I can only imagine the grief they might give me if I were using non Sungold batteries...

Good Luck to All of Us!!

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SGP is on my Fool me once, shame on you list, along with Renogy. SGP sent me a defective inverter early last year. They were horrible to deal with. I sent it back and they kept screwing me around. I finally called the bank and got my card refunded. Jerks.

That was also a lesson about youtubers. Of course I knew some were just shills, but I didn't really know anything about the ones hawking stuff for RVs. For every Will Prowse there seem to be about ten shysters.

I do have solar assistant, just need to hook it up and see what I can see. One step in many.

marionw said:

I do have solar assistant, just need to hook it up and see what I can see. One step in many.

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Attached is some of what you can see.
Note that SA is aware of the voltages beings incorrect and have it on their list of items to fix. It has not been corrected as of the 12-12-23 beta.
I have successfully switched between input priorities, adjusted charging amperage and changed charge source priority through SA numerous times without issues.
MPPT 1 is currently powered off because work life and cold weather hasn't allowed me to finish swapping panels on my ground mount, SA does display data for both MPPTs. The swap will be completed before the weekend is over because I am sick and tired of seeing that red line and frustrated with how poorly by sub optimally angled roof arrays are performing. I've missed out on at lead 100Kwh this week ?.

Their is lots more info on the SRNE ASF in my thread.
For anyone else reading I would not recommend SGP if you expect any kind of support based on my prior experiences and forum members reports. Some have been taken care of, most have not. They do not manufacture their own equipment they are re-labeling mainly Voltronic and recently SRNE equipment.

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Just received an email from SGP:

Dear Mike,

Thanks for your reply.

We will check with our engineer about this issue and reply to you as soon as possible.

Please wait for a while.

marionw said:

Just received an email from SGP:

Dear Mike,

Thanks for your reply.

We will check with our engineer about this issue and reply to you as soon as possible.

Please wait for a while.

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they do not have their own engineer, they are like renogy buy some generic piece from a large factory slap your labels on it and go.

I can order 1500 units of an AIO from china (without using alibabba or aliexpress i might add) and have my company logo placed on it for free... less than that and I need to pay for the logo work. (anybody want to buy from a trustworthy Japanese company? (joke folks... joke) bet zi could sell a couple fo thousand before the market got tired of getting the same thing as SGP but at 10% less...

I have a friend who randomly orders single unit samples of various of AIO's online and some work OK some are flat out a PITA, but he gets them usually for under ¥15,000 per unit shipped via china post... less than 100 USD. he has went through about 4 in the last 6 years and does not care as he is using AGM batteries and only needs something that will charge an AGM... if the comms and what not do not work with other things like BMS's he does not care.

Received a response:
Sorry to keep you waiting so long.

1. What information makes you think that you cannot correctly read inverter parameters from the inverter?

2. Could you please use the password’123456“ to change inverter parameters? We advise changing all settings on the inverter, not on the computer, to avoid change is not success.

Feel free to contact us if you have any concerns.

Setting the password in the IPower software did not work but in any case it does not address the firmware issue of not being able to READ the correct values as manually set into the inverter or to read the correct values via modbus. Hoping for a response to my latest email.

Got Solar Assistant installed and hooked up. It is showing the same battery settings as the IPower software. All values are for a 12 volt battery.

Why would an inverter designed to use 48 volt batteries even report 12 volt values?

marionw said:

Got Solar Assistant installed and hooked up. It is showing the same battery settings as the IPower software. All values are for a 12 volt battery.

Why would an inverter designed to use 48 volt batteries even report 12 volt values?

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It's a bug in Solar Assistant.

Kenny_ said:

It's a bug in Solar Assistant.

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No its not a bug in SA. SA is reporting what the inverter is sending. Thats why the ipower app shows the same stuff.

SA seems to be planning on making it show the correct voltages later thru multiplication of what is actually being sent.

Oh great.. I just bought a sungoldpower 10K inverter.

Been waiting over a month for it to arrive to complete my solar setup and now I'm wondering if I should just return to sender immediately?

Kenny_ said:

It's a bug in Solar Assistant.

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Yup. SA is aware and plans to fix. I confirmed this via email a while back.

Wait, which model from SGP are we talking about?

stevenforti said:

Oh great.. I just bought a sungoldpower 10K inverter.

Been waiting over a month for it to arrive to complete my solar setup and now I'm wondering if I should just return to sender immediately?

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Why would you do that?
It's a solid inverter if you ordered the SRNE...

Thread '1Mwh SRNE ASF48100U200-H 10kw.' https://diysolarforum.com/threads/1mwh-srne-asf48100u200-h-10kw.67809/

stevenforti said:

Oh great.. I just bought a sungoldpower 10K inverter.

Been waiting over a month for it to arrive to complete my solar setup and now I'm wondering if I should just return to sender immediately?

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Theres only one person so far that I know of on here that had an issue with the 10k from sungold and they are sending him a new one. That's all they should do or even should be expected to do actually.

Oh? Maybe I miss read?

I feel better now

Reply I just got from SGP

Wish you the best day.

The IPower software can only show the battery parameter referred to as 12V. If you need to change the Battery floating charge voltage to 54v, could you please set 54/4=13.5V on the software for a try?

Battery float charging voltage Setting range: 48V~58.4V, the parameter cannot be set only after successful BMS communication.

Battery boost charge voltage Setting range:48V~58.4V, the parameter can be set only when the battery type is USER and L14/15/16, N13/14

Looking forward to hearing from you to move further.


Again, why have firmware dealing with 12 volts when the inverter is designed for 48 volts. Using a multiplier of 4 would solve my own software development as far as displaying values returned whe queried via RS485 Modbus (Same as Solar Assistant) but what is the software/firmware in the inverter really doing.

I will be loading down my inverter with no PV or grid power in order to take my six EG4 Lifepower4 batteries to around 50% SOC. I will have no loads on the inverter and with no PV input I will close the grid breaker and monitor the Bulk/Boost charge voltage from the grid to the batteries. The charge voltage should be what the EG4 Communications Hud tells the inverter to use when BMS communications is enabled and should be what I manually set into the inverter when BMS communications is disabled. We will see, and I will let you folks know.

Solar Assistant is seeing the same values on the RS485 modbus that I am seeing for the battery parameters, multiplying by 4 is just a bandaid when the firmware should be fixed.

So the consensus overall is that the 10K all in one inverter from SGP is a good unit?

stevenforti said:

So the consensus overall is that the 10K all in one inverter from SGP is a good unit?

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Yes. @Lighthouse Beacon had a failure but he was initially shipped a unit with a different display, I don't remember the exactly details as to why it was different.
If you have issues you'll likely have to initate a chargeback if it's defective, otherwise they will keep dragging you along or ship you parts to fix it yourself...

I have been using and a bit of abusing my SRNE ASF (SGP is relabeling if you haven't figured that out) since the beginning of Sept to run my house. I have 0 complaints. It handles my electric dryer and well pump inrush with ease while the rest of the house runs. I've been impressed, I had one random communication fault recently and got a reply from SRNE, quickly, with advice on a fix, reasoning, and new firmware after I asked about it.
I haven't flashed it since they advised if it's running fine since the fault they wouldn't.

I'll stop rambling, there's enough of that along with lots of other info in my build thread.

stevenforti said:

So the consensus overall is that the 10K all in one inverter from SGP is a good unit?

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My inverter has been great. Support is not so great.

Kenny_ said:

My inverter has been great. Support is not so great.

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Oh ok

that's pretty common nowadays. I work in IT and there are some very reputable companies with great products that have dismal support.

I was worried this was a fly by night rip off unit for a minute there

stevenforti said:

Oh ok

that's pretty common nowadays. I work in IT and there are some very reputable companies with great products that have dismal support.

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Honestly you'd be better off emailing SRNE support directly using the email address on their website. The support I got from "Sunny" was surprisingly helpful. I've read other users reports of also having great success with SRNE support.

stevenforti said:

I was worried this was a fly by night rip off unit for a minute there

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Haha nope, not yet anyways ?