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Hey @timselectric or any other electrician, I have a question for you. I'm in the process of switching my shed circuit from the service panel to the inverter sub panel. The circuit is 3x 12awg wires in a 1in PVC conduit. I'm going have to find a way to cut the conduit with the wires inside...

Was just visiting the weather channel and saw that over 1 million customers without power in the Houston area from severe thunderstorms, most of those (+800K ) are in Harris county alone, comes out to about 40% of customers are without power. The storms are moving into extreme SE Texas, and...

Hey all, We have a 3600W 30 gallon water heater which runs on 240VAC. I have a EG4 6500 single phase inverter and would like to run the water heater off of 120VAC during sunny days as a load dump for the solar after it's done charging up the batteries. If it is a sunny day, they're usually...

Hey all, I'm trying to get our taxes done, and am getting together the receipts for all the solar stuff I've installed. Got a few questions to ask: 1. I bought my inverter, panels and most of the infrastructure (wire, conduit, breaker panel, hardware, etc) in late 2022, and last year. My system...

Hey all, I have an EG4 6500 feeding a critical loads sub panel right now. I have the hot and neutral wires feeding the panel, the hot goes to a single pole of a 70A double pole breaker, the other pole is not connected. The neutral wire is connected to the neutral bar in the panel. Since this a...

Hey all, I have a question about the charging of the EG4 Lifepower4 battery. I have one that does a max charge of 50A via my EG4 6500EX. This isn't changeable by me, so I'm guessing the BMS is telling the inverter on how to charge it. At 95% SOC, it throttles back to 10A until it's topped off...

Hey all I was checking out 18650's website and saw that they're now selling LF 280K cells for $105. That's insanely cheap compared to just a year ago. They claim these cells are good thru 6K cycles. I have considered maybe doing a DIY battery build, but was wondering how folks who have already...

I was looking around on the Signature Solar site and noticed that they're no longer selling the EG4 6500EX. The page says that the product is being "sunsetted". They are selling refurbished 6500's, though. They have also stopped selling the Megarevo, oops, EG4 8KEXP-240 as well. So, the...

I'm thinking of getting a couple 5kwh lifepo4 server rack batts for my 6500EX. Considering the most current the inverter will draw is about 148ADC (7.1kW/48VDC), would a 200A fuse between the battery bank and inverter be sufficient? I'd also use a 200A DC Nader breaker, so maybe a fuse is...

Hey all, it was a cloudy day today, so I was outside checking out my array and saw something odd. On some of my panels, I'm noticing that what appears to be cells overheating, that is, they have almost a scorched look to them. See attached pics. These are Canadian Solar 445W bifacials, I...

For those of you who have the WatchPower related app Smart ESS for Voltronic type inverters (EG4, MPP, Sungoldpower, etc) there has been an update to the latter. It has improvements, i.e. when you look at the Analysis tab parameters like PV voltage, charging power, grid voltage, etc, it shows...

Hey all, have a question. About a month ago, we put on 8 Canadian Solar bifacial panels on the ground mount I built. Today I was inspecting the panels, and I've noticed some bowing of the frames, when you look down (or up) them in the long direction. They are fastened to the rails (unistruts)...

Hello all, I had posted a thread regarding ground mount grounding and posted a few pics of it. So, I wanted to start a new thread on here showing the progress of my system. We are situated in a rural location NE Kentucky, and wanted to have a supplemental/backup solar system in case of frequent...

Hey all, I just finished building a ground mount array with 8 445W bifacials. I used wood for the support structure and unistruts to place the panels on. The struts are galvanized steel and are joined together with a splint plate. There are 3 10ft unistruts joined by the splints, placed in...

Was on the Signature Solar site today and saw this new split phase inverter they're about to release. Based on its shape, the glands on the bottom and DC disconnect, it looks quite a bit like a copy of a Deye 8K inverter. It has a DC disconnect, CT's, and has several UL certifications. It has...

I have a question about solar panel(s) that sit out in the sun but aren't connected to a charge controller or inverter. Say I have an array of panels hooked together, but not yet connected to anything and not generating any power. Is there a potential danger of any of the panels being damaged...

Maybe someone here more knowledgeable of the subject could answer this riddle for me.. Why does a ~100lb Lifepo4 rack battery (box size 20x20x8 inches) cost me $325 to ship (from Texas) to me here in Kentucky, when 8 solar panels that are 3.5x7ft and 62lb each on an 8ft long by 4ft wide pallet...

I haven't seen any new threads regarding the new split phase 6kW inverter from Signature Solar, so I thought I would start one. I've been looking at getting a single EG4 6500 from them, but they're still on back order until early October. One of these split phase inverters wouldn't do much good...

Hey all, I posted a question regarding this in the 40+ page EG-4 6500 thread. I am planning on getting a single EG-4 6500 inverter to run a critical 120V loads sub panel. I asked in that thread about whether if I have to move the neutrals along with the hots from the main panel to the sub panel...

I'm in the process of getting my solar system set up. Been looking at various components and have an idea of what I need. Well, I made my first major purchase yesterday. Santan Solar had a very good deal on some Canadian Solar 445W bifacials, so I got eight of them for just under $1600 (not...

Hey all, I am still in the process of designing our DIY solar system. I was looking at installing one or two of Signature Solar's EG-4 48V Lifepower4 rack batteries to go with one of the EG-4 6500 inverters. I haven't been on here very long, maybe a month or so, but have seen several complaints...

Hey all, solar newbie here from Kentucky. I have 30 years experience in electronics, mostly power supplies, and server rack systems. Anyway, a few months ago we purchased a solar generator (Ecoflow River Pro), mostly to help out when we have frequent power outages during spring and summer...

Hello all, a noob here when it comes to solar technology, even though my training and experience has been in electronics for about 30 years, so I do have a decent electrical knowledge. I'm interested in perhaps doing a small system for our home to have in case of frequent outages we have here in...