Been waiting for this video to come out after this individual kinda bashed Schneider for glitchy software at one of his customers house. This XW Pro really seems like a beast. Fort those that have Schneider equipment in this forum, if you had to re-do your setup would you choose Schneider again?
Schneider XW vs Sol-Ark
- Thread starter ChrisG
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Koldsimer
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Absolutely, 100% yes. Beast is the best description for this inverter. I run a 6848 xw pro. It's handled everything i have thrown at it without fail. Regularly starts our 420ft deep well pump while running every other load in the house. No lights flickering or other weird issues. No leg balance issues. Nice and quiet as well. Designed here in the US by guys who weren't interested in cutting corners.
Biggest issue was getting it mounted to the wall. Had to build stilts to walk it over into position. With the midnite e-box, two classic 150 cc's and the backing plate, it was a heavy mother.
One complaint that pops up often is that their customer service is lacking. I have found them to be excellent and i believe most of these complaints are before they re-vamped their residential customer service team. They also have some great, informative videos available.
Don't get me wrong, the sol-ark is a fine inverter imo, but the cost and lack of years of proven service in the field steered me to Schneider.
Biggest issue was getting it mounted to the wall. Had to build stilts to walk it over into position. With the midnite e-box, two classic 150 cc's and the backing plate, it was a heavy mother.
One complaint that pops up often is that their customer service is lacking. I have found them to be excellent and i believe most of these complaints are before they re-vamped their residential customer service team. They also have some great, informative videos available.
Don't get me wrong, the sol-ark is a fine inverter imo, but the cost and lack of years of proven service in the field steered me to Schneider.
timthrifty
New Member
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We have a 6848 xw pro. Have had it running for 3 years or so. My one complaint is related to grid support. Over the years I have spent many tens of hours on the phone with Schneider (Who has VERY knowledgeable support) trying to diagnose the issue, and while it has gotten better, we've never fully resolved it. Basically, in grid support mode, we had frequent faults (Grid voltage too high, grid voltage too low, grid frequency too high, grid frequency too low) that would cause the inverter to enter pass-thru mode. 95% of the time, it would go back into Grid Support as soon as the fault was corrected, but sometimes (At least once a week) it would enter a fault and not exit, leaving the system in pass-thru mode, with the only correction being to fully restart the system. Aside from that, it was a beast, and a heavy piece of equipment. Comparing it to something like the EG4 6500 is laughable (Weight-wise). I know because when I received our EG4s, I couldn't believe how light they were. Just my Schneider MPPT weighs more than the EG4 6500 all in one. It's nuts how overbuilt the Schneider equipment is.
One of the videos I saw and had comments about the 15k said that an imbalance of a few hundred watts was shutting them down. Not sure how true that is
400bird
Solar Wizard
Yes, I would still go with Schneider. I would not AC couple my PV, I'd use a charge controller. But, I'd still have the 6848.
Definitely not true with mine
I have a Sol Ark 12K. I would do it again for my particular situation. I think the Schneider is more capable inverter overall, but it has a lot of separate components that need to be configured by someone who knows what they are doing, and as a rank amateur diyer, I was concerned it would be too hard to commission. I know I could have eventually gotten it to work but, it’s definitely oriented toward a trained installer. My Sol Ark handles my 500 ft deep well pump just fine. Never even seen it flicker. I’m totally off grid. I think having a large enough battery bank is important too to handle surges. I literally hooked mine up in two hours and it was the first “real” inverter I’ve ever installed. It’s run perfectly since then.
For someone who wants the best and is a tinkerer/perfectionist, the XW is the way to go. If you want an easy, trouble-free install, I’d suggest the Sol Ark series.
If I was paying an installer, I’d definitely have gotten an xw, however, hehe
For someone who wants the best and is a tinkerer/perfectionist, the XW is the way to go. If you want an easy, trouble-free install, I’d suggest the Sol Ark series.
If I was paying an installer, I’d definitely have gotten an xw, however, hehe
I’m still waiting to see evidence of 9-10kw of surge power while it is running normal loads. If it can deal with that surge (well pump in my case), Sol-ark may be worthy.
robby
Photon Vampire
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I have run mine at about 9.5W with the Grid turned off. So long as your not running very old firmware then it's not an issue.
Ben had an older Indoor model 12K inverter and he never stated if it was updated but I did no not remember seeing a WiFi module on it, so probably not. Plus some of the early Indoor models had the Green board issue that caused tripping, it was soon changed with the Blue board.
Anyway I don't even see the point of this argument. The complete Schneider system that contains everything the Sol-Ark 15K contains would be nearly $10,000 in price and very expensive to hookup due to it's complicate nature. The Sol-Ark 15K would cost about $8500 and offer you the more Surge power than the Schneider and it's normal running power would be 15KW versus the 6.8KW of the Schneider. Plus you would have a 275 Amp SCC vs the Schneider's 100 Amp. You can keep adding more SCC on the Schneider but thats going to cost you $1,100. a pop.
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chess-equality
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- May 21, 2022
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I would like to see a shoot-out of the latest and greatest between Schneider, Sol-Ark, Victron, and SMA in the same testbench.
I posted my testing in one of the sol-ark 15k threads. TLDR: In off-grid mode, it had no trouble starting my 3Hp well pump (60+ starting amps) with my car already charging at 32A (240V), a 1500W space heater running on one leg, and 3 large chest freezers running.
Well crap. Not sure how I missed that. That is amazing. Can you post the link to that thread?
chess-equality
Solar Enthusiast
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In bigger systems such as solar power plants or conventional military submarines what do they use? Or are there bigger industrial inverters for these use cases?
It's in this thread: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/sol-ark-15k-all-in-one-inverter-released.38118/page-19#post-540894
One thing to keep in mind is that the output voltage drops quite a bit below 240V at those output levels if you don't have a grid input. I can't think of any modern appliances that can't handle that though. I'm guessing it might affect some light dimmers but I didn't test that.
Jack Rabbit Off Grid
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same inverter? This guy owns a shop a few towns over from me.
Yes that’s the same inverter. He had some test conditions wrong but overall Schneider can take a beating and keep going.
So in a grid failure situation, can it still run those loads? I’d be looking to use it for well pump, few led light circuits and internet? When/If everything hits the fan, goal is to get out of the city and to our cabin as quick as possible. Battery conservation will be a must and be able to have the well provide water.
Nobodybusiness
Collecting the leftovers of the Great Sky Reactor.
Cherry picker. Yup. If I could have got one in my building I might have tried that.
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