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The Sol-Ark disconnects from the generator and connects to grid, but doesn't shut down the generator. We had this happen for one of our customers and he didn't particularly like that..... I can't really blame him either. Judging by the fact that Schneider XW inverters have had their grid and...

@Carlos_Sol-Ark read through this thread please..... This is what I was talking about when I mentioned a SEPARATE gen start menu in my PM to you! I have literally been bringing this issue up to the tech support guys for probably 4 years now..... What does it take to be heard on issues like...

One note regarding that overvoltage potential. The Classics do have Hypervoc, which allows a top voltage of max rated volts + battery volts. So for instance, if you had a CL200 on your 24V battery bank, you could have a max PV voltage of 200+24V=224V without the CL letting out the magic smoke...

Max VOC and total PV wattage you want to run on the controller are your deciding factors. I feel like usually the CL200 seems to end up being the nicest balance between the 2... Once in a while if you have an extra long distance to run from PV to controller, it make sense to run a little higher...

This one was one of my favorite pics from last night. It has the moon and my solar panels in it. ☺️

I noticed my Starlink internet was a bit come and go right before we got the lights. Matches up with that G4.

According to NOAA weather it should peak over the next 2 hours or so.

My phone camera does bring out the colors a little brighter than what the human eye perceived them at. But the colors were pretty darn near to the pictures! It was amazing! We started out with green in the north and that migrated all the way south until the whole sky had lights! Red/purple...

Northeast/ north central Ohio had some absolutely phenomena lights!

Rosie is High Frequency............... sorry lol.

If that is strictly an inverter "combiner" panel, then your 2x 60A breaker would really end up feeding the panel with 120A. So all good. 🙂 P.S. if you want a bypass, it is possible to use (2) QO2DTI breaker interlocks, with (3) breakers positioned inv1-backup-inv2. Definitely not a manufacturer...

Makes sense. Cool, I have been tempted to buy an electric cooktop and add solar to cut my gas consumption.... Not sure that my wife would be interested though, as we would likely need to keep the gas stove for winter months with less solar. LOL I have been tempted with one of these as well...

@Carlos_Sol-Ark you are very helpful, and I greatly appreciate that! I might try to DM you tomorrow sometime with some specific things we are running into to see if you have any ideas on solutions for me.

Double check the internal CT sensors on the grid input wires going from grid terminal blocks up into the Sol-Ark. I had one unit that showed no load or grid numbers whenever we pulled power from the Grid and it turned out those CTs didn't have the wires going through them. I'm NOT talking about...

Plug on neutral is so nice! Homeline series has this as well! It cleans up a panel nicely with regular breakers even, and then if you use plug on neutral gfci and afci breakers, you don't have all the curly wires cluttering the gutter where you want to run the next wire down through!

Nope, doesn't take more than 2.0 hands. Lol That goes for both QO and Homeline! I would almost say the Homeline breakers are a hair less "saggy" than the QO ones, to be honest.

I have seen Homeline breaker panels that were probably 20+ years old with no issues. We (company I work for) have installed them for nearly 15 years with only one ever failing that I can remember, and that was because there was a "leak" where water ran into the basement through a crack where the...

Yes, all Magnum RD series are modified. MS series are pure sine. ME series I believ are modified as well. I have seen RD inverters in use for quite a few years and seem pretty rock solid all-in-all if you have a use for modified sine wave. Just remember to go easy on the transfer relay, just...

A few things to keep in mind when looking at the whole 200A vs 100A passthrough subject: The goal is usually to have a flicker free transfer to inverter when grid goes down. If this happens you won't find out grid is down, and therefore you won't manually manage peak loads! For a DIY install...

Electric stove and electric water heater together will likely nearly max out 12kW of inverter. That's without anything else running. Heat pump dryer and washer, plus will pump will soon add around 2kW yet. Grundfos well pump alone will be between 600-1500w depending on which specific model you...

You are right. I phrased that wrong. But gen limit goes a long way! And works a lot better than no limit option!

That is correct! And I think this option would be 10x better than what we have now! That "old" way at least allowed gen shave to happen, if grid shave wasn't needed. The "new" way today, pretty well all gen functionality of the gen port is out the door.

Correct. That's my whole point. Fix the gen port issues. Use gen port for the gen. Add logic to shut down the gen when grid comes back on, on the grid port. Maybe you didn't catch the whole conversation around gen limit not working. It's literally "no longer supported" since the last firmware...

Here is a screenshot of a Kohler transfer switch spec sheet. Looks like 100ms. I am fairly certain the Sol-Ark would catch that. Though it's still something to keep in consideration. Schneider XWs will shut down gen that is feeding into gen input, when grid comes back on. When gen terminal...

That's my concern, though I'm thinking Sol-Ark is probably quick enough to catch the power glitch in transfer between grid and gen. I don't think that is how the Sol-Ark is set up. I believe it simply has a dpst contactor for each leg, and simply syncs and connects up. So transfer from grid to...

I was specifically referring to the Sol-Ark "catching" the transfer... that would depend on how slow the transfer is. I would assume the Sol-Ark would catch it, but it's not a guarantee. No, that's not true. The operation of the Sol-Ark auto start is like this: no grid available/operating on...

Clean cut vs. brownout also makes a difference on the speed of transfer. Brownout ends up being a much cleaner and faster transfer because the Sol-ark "sees" it coming, where a clean cut such as breaker flipping causes a longer transfer time. Friend of mine tested this with oscilliscope...

Yes, it "should" do this. I agree. But nobody knows 100% for sure until it's tested. And how would the Sol-Ark know that it's not just seeing gen power yet? There is really no way for it to tell the difference between gen and grid if it's a good stable gen. And from personal experience in...

Yes, I have heard that before from the Sol-Ark techs. Let me explain why using an ATS on grid terminals is not a viable solution.... Let's say there is an ATS on grid side that picks grid or gen, now grid goes down. SA runs on battery until the low batteries get to the gen start point. Gen...

No, Sol-Arks don't connect to 120V only.

And having Midnite behind it goes a long way too! Another plus will be that the included CT sensors will be able to measure at least what the passthrough rating is.... I haven't heard any bigger promises, but that is more that what the Sol-Ark 15K does.... (15K Sol-Ark with 200A transfer relay...

@Carlos_Sol-Ark just curious on this whole gen input issue. (I call it an issue for various reasons.) I have looked at the circuit board in a 12K and it looked to me like there is only a CT sensor for one leg of the gen input. Am I correct on that? The reason I ask is because that would make a...

When I said AC coupling, I was actually referring to a string inverter such as a Fronius. For instance, at home I am AC coupled using a Fronius 7.6. I have 2 strings of (6) 450w panels. This brings a voltage of ~264VDC to the Fronius, where it is then converted to AC and backfed (AC coupled) to...

I agree. I was simply stating that when a person uses less than 50% or so of their PV directly as it's produced, and is charging/discharging batteries with the rest of the PV, then it is more efficient to stick with a charge controller and inverter charger, rather than either AC coupled OR...

Actually, if your batteries support more than 160A you need to do this. That DC breaker is 200A and with derating to 80%, that limits you to 160A. Ask me how I know... :fp2 Suffice it to say that charging at more than 160A results in the DC breakers tripping and causing power outages!